A busy day over Scotland...where did you go today?
 

Just finished my day shift at Scottish Information (119.875).....great weather over Scotland and a flyin to Castle Kennedy meant the frequency was pretty non stop for most of the day.....sorry to those that could not get a word in..!!!....that said it would be nice to share YOUR experiances and tales for today :cool:

I went to Tesco, and bought chocolate biscuits among other things. I did try to go flying but I'd left it too late to book the aircraft, which are now busy all day today and tomorrow.

Glasgow-Balmaha-Glasgow
Glasgow-Balmaha-Glasgow
Glasgow-Balmaha-Glasgow
Glasgow-Balmaha-Glasgow
Glasgow-Balmaha-Glasgow

That was my day. At least 09019G25 made it a wee bit challenging;)

I nice spring breeze then :D

Where is that at?

Half way up loch lomond I think.

High road or low road?

9000ft several times this afternoon. :ok:

Floppy

I think its over next to Ben Lomond.


Crap tourist music I know but some good photo's

South east corner of Loch Lomond - it's as far as one can go on a 30-minute trial lesson.

Then again, being held 'cos "number 8 in traffic" can add to that a bit. Yes indeed, the Weedgieville Planeport was busy today. Number 8....:ugh:

Oh and to finish the day off i got zapped by some prat with a lasor.

Floppy
:mad:

Exeter - Oban - Collonsay

Beautiful day for it! Couldn't get a word in on Scottish info, so switched over to Scottish control (we were a little higher up anyway) and had the most friendly and helpful service I've encontered in my measly 120 hours.

We'll be returning to Exeter tomorrow, hope to get the chance to talk to you then FSB.

Exeter - Oban - Collonsay

Thats pretty ballsy with 120 hours, well done. I bet its beautiful flying around Oban today, talked to my dad he was going round Mull on the boat today, says its the best weather ever.

Shandwick beach. Sadly and happily no flying today! Off back to work now so I'll give it a bash next time I'm back when all the good weather has gone :)

Pb84 - thanks! To be honest, the distance isn't the issue (3 and a bit hours after spending some time sightseeing around mull), and the nav isn't particularly difficult (plan it on skydemon, fly a bunch of straight lines, and cross check map to ground to GPS).

However I agree with some of the posters on here that a PPL just doesn't prepare you for doing longer trips.:There's no way you can do this just by dead reckoning, PPL fuel planning (at least in practice) seems to involve checking that we'll have half a tank left and saying OK, and no one ever taught me to use the red lever as anything more than an on-off switch.

I've been lucky to fly with some excellent instructors, who have taught me a bit about how to deal with mountains, red levers, GPS and other such esoteric topics...

On a completely different topic, I encountered mountain wave for the first time today. 30kt winds over the welsh hills, there was at least a 500fpm rate of climb/descent. I was surprised that each wave seemed to last for about 10 miles - I'd always thought they were less than a mile wide.

Inverness -Oban via Aviemore, Loch Ericht and Loch Awe. Didn't speak to anyone between losing Inverness and calling Oban. Never heard anything clearly on 119.875. Returned as pax via Kyle of Lochalsh, working 127.275

Depends how parallel you were flying to them.

I guess so. The wind was quartering from behind (about 120 degrees off our track) - am I right in thinking the waves are always more or less perpendicular to the wind direction?

Gave me quite a shock on the first area of sink - was trying to figure out why the engine was losing power, then we hit the next bit of lift and it was immediately obvious.

To attempt a steer back on track...
Castle Kennedy in a stiff wind, fortunately pretty much down the runway, although it did make for some interesting approaches. Good spectator sport :E
Fine buffet and chat with our host, who is always a pleasure to meet, then depart back to Prestwick with speed up til v short final and a landing in a gusty crosswind with a B737 up my chuff :uhoh:
Thanks to Prestwick ATC for having faith in me not cocking it up, and also to the fine chaps working the FIR :D

Yes. This is an excellent short article without being over technical http://www.metlink.org/pdf/teachers/waves.pdf

Prestwick - Carlisle - Prestwick. Was hoping to also get to Castle Kennedy but it took me an extra hour getting to Prestwick due to roadworks. Glad I have a relaxed instructor!
Turbulence was bad on 07 into Carlisle, and someone called joining base when I was end of down wind. Apparently his idea of base was a 4 mile finals 500 feet above circuit height...
All good experience though!

Bit of thread drift here indeed Bigears...glad you had a nice trip....by the look of the weather today it looks like I may get a bashing again this afternoon although maybe pulling my lovely femail trainee's strings....safe flying to you all..:cool:

Spoke with your female trainee today, and very good she is too. On route Plockton today- truly beautiful

MAXRED...I was behind her working her strings :cool: glad you had a nice flight. :ok:

Not technically correct. Mountain wave is generally parallel to and downwind of the ridge or mountain range which triggers it, hence it may be at an angle to the wind direction and not necessarily directly behind (at 90 degrees) to the originating ridge. If there is visible cloud (lenticulars) then the quickest track out of the sink or lift is at 90 degrees to the line of the wave/cloud; in clear air it requires a bit of knowledge to work out which way to move.:cool:

Balmaha is where the Highland Boundary fault meets the east side of Loch Lomond. Look on Google Earth, get a slanting viewpoint and you can see it marching north-east to Stonehaven. You can also see the chain of islands running to the SW across the Loch marking where it is.

If you want to know where somewhere is, the two best resources I know are Google Earth and streetmap.co.uk.

Wavelength depends on wind strength, and whilst the lenticular cap may well be less than a mile wide, the wavelength - cap to cap - is usually a lot more. 10 miles is not at all unusual in Scotland, though the wind will be stronger than you experienced.

The lenticulars marking the crests can be seen clearly on some satellite pics.

Mountain Wave Soaring

thing, jgs84, cats_five - thank you! Interestingly we were going the other way about 20 miles west of the same track on Sunday, in only slightly lighter winds - and there was no sign of the waves at FL60.

On another topic entirely, we had filed a VFR flight plan from Collonsay for the way back, but Scottish Control on 127.275 didn't seem to have a copy to activate it (even though it was addressed to Prestwick FIR). Is there some other AFTN address we should use?

I "worked Scottish" on the way to Glenforsa from Lichfield on Saturday & again on the way back home yesterday and very good you were too :D
Reception was good for us but I heard a lot of people struggling to hear others... Cracking weekend thanks for your help.
ATB

PPL...To be honest the FPL would have been in the system but as VFR traffic is never put into our computer system the sector controller may not have received your strip. As Scottish Info on 127.275 is shared with at times a busy radar sector the controller probably never had time to go searching. My Scottish Info sector on 119.875 is a non control or radar sector so we would have time to chase up your plan and phone AFPEX to activate. :cool: