Good points Penguina.

Stress = screw ups is only too true, as is screw ups = stress.

A vicious circle until one takes positive individual action (informed decision) to break out of it.

I agree, but I also think that expereince will also help reduce stress when things do go slightly pear shaped.

I'll let you know when I get some, until then....... :uhoh:


:=

Mazzy keep up the writing !

I don't think I've met any honest pilot who hasn't had days like your last one.

It sounds like your doing the right thing - reflecting on your flight, working out what could have gone better, what you could have done differently to improve the outcome.

The advantage of being a student is that you have got some lattitude to make these mistakes now. Keep on thinking about the flight, mentally rehearsing whenever you've got a spare moment, and make sure your well rested prior to your next attempt. And remember how far you've got and what you've achieved so far.

Totally agree with the others. First navex can seem really tough.

I think you are probably right about changing to the PA28 for Nav.

I did all my training in the C150 and it's a fine little plane for getting about in, but cabin space ??

The Warrior has a nice little pocket for putting your pens in and it'll take a small kneeboard and checklist as well. You can chuck stuff on the back seat too if you need to.

My first Navex was absolutely dreadful (Cranfield, Sywell, Conninton, Cranfield how easy is that ??) The second was not a lot better etc. and yet I got through the QXC without getting lost, lousy landings yes, but I didn't get lost.

Keep plugging on and it should all come together.

Thank you all once again for the positive and kind words. I hear what you all say and it is very good advice.

I had more gschool yesterday in preperation for tomorrow. As it turns out, my first solo out the zone will only be Seaforth, Ormskirk, Kirkby............something which can be done visual, and something which I do feel more confident about as it has been the route on most of my flights. I should be doing that tomorrow, hopefully solo, weather depending :uhoh:

I probably wont need a flight plan with headings etc due to the fact that it is mostly visual, but I will do it anyway in the morning before, just for practice :cool:

Wish me luck, and I hope to be alive to come back and post (just kidding),

Bests as ever,

Lee

You'll be fine mate - and relish it: this was the best part of the whole PPL learning experience for me, and I think for many others.

Andy

Yes, it's also definitely more stable and perhaps slightly less workload to keep it S&L while doing other tasks? (Dunno, never flown one from the LHS.)

Yes, I'm sure that's true. It's worth making a conscious effort at being firm with yourself and doing a reality check if you find the stress levels rising.

Nav is incredibly satisfying when it all works out as planned - you'll love it!

Good luck tomorrow :ok: (wx looks dodgy, mind :( )

weathers looking like it might be ok tomorrow and over the weekend, hopefully will get some flying done!

Reading about your bad day mazzy reminded me of several bad days I've had with nav.
Took a map that was completely wrong once. One leg had duff heading, next had duff time etc. I'm not sure how nav is taught for PPLs because I've only done mil flying which is just heading times and the rest is worked out MDR in the cockpit, so this caused extreme embarrasment!

I found nav to be deathly boring until something goes wrong then it it takes some degree of skill and calmness to sort things out again as you have discovered. Nothing makes you develop that skill faster than getting lost every now and again.

I'm sure you'll get to grips with it very soon but don't get complacent once things start going well or you'll set yourself up for a fall. I found out the hard way on a GH flight with a short, two leg nav out to the GH area. Upon reaching the first turn point I realised the next turn was a completely duff heading. Couldn't beleive I made a mistake on what was probably the world's shortest navex.

Best of luck with the next trip, solo nav was a great confidence booster for me after a very shaky previous nav trip.

Well, after the last flight, all's I can say is that this time I got into the car with a smile on my face :O

I had planned Liverpool - Seaforth, to Kirkby, to Ormskirk and then back in. We went over my calculations, got rid of one or two minor errors and then went out to fly.

Upon takeoff, I had clear in my mind everything that I found difficult last time, and all of my mistakes. Sorry for the Hollywood sounding movie quote, but "I knew what I had to do" :E I had folded my map properly into more of a rectangular shape that covered the area better, then clipped it at the side with bulldog clips, and this has got to be the best thing I have done so far. The chart sat firmly on my knee in perfect position and didn’t move. My advice to anyone else in my position, PLEASE PLEASE fold your map as small as you need, then clip it in place at the sides to stop it form unfolding. It really did help and lightened the workload quite significantly. Ok, so we left via Seaforth and turned onto the calculated heading. At this point I felt a lot more confident because I could relate to the chart better and was using it quite a lot to pick out features (again, just folding it properly and clipping it helped enormously). We headed towards Ormskirk and upon reaching it, we decided on a small exercise. As we were to the right of Burscough Aerodrome, he said to me:

"Estimate a heading we would have to turn to be over the runway"

So I did, and got it reasonably correct. Here comes the interesting part (I will try and explain as best as possible). I then had to turn onto 190 to route to Kirkby, and that would entail a right turn, which is what I did, BUT because the wind was from the left, it meant that I had drifted over a mile, just turning onto Kirkby - which could have been overcome by a turn to the left, i.e. into the wind. This made so much sense and I have remembered this for the future. Ok, tune into ATIS, call approach and away we go - everything smooth so far, and we are both enjoying the flight. The weather was terrible actually, high winds, drizzle, low vis and a cloud base of around 25. Not solo weather, but still, I could pick out features, like I said, refer them to the map and it all made sense. So, on a clear day with nice weather, it should be even better :ok:

Ok onto the approach. We were told to join right base, so we set up. Now normally I am used to 70kts approach, but this time I was instructed for 80 - with no flaps. This threw me off course a little (mentally) but I got set up ok. The xwind component was 15kts - which is the limit on the Tommy, and it was such different approach. 300ft, carb off then line up with the rudder, aileron into the wind with left rudder. Now here my problems started - I must have been in driving mode and started using the wheel to line the nose up, instead of the rudder, however, unlike last time, instead of going up down up down up down, I held it there and let her sit down gently, even though it was rather bumpy on the approach (we were getting thrown around quite a bit). Very interesting indeed.

So to conclude, a very enjoyable and successful flight, and next time, it will be a solo on this route. Today was made easier probably by the fact that I didn't have to change frequency all the time to Warton/Woodvale etc. I aint sure, but what's the consolidation - do I turn up and do a few circuits or do I just turn up and fly solo? I think it is the latter, which will introduce a new angle into the way of thinking :{ :D

Sorry for the length, I just had a lot to say!!

Safe flying,

Lee

:ok:

You are all right about how things get easier, and once again, thak you for your kind words. I only hope the Northern route goes better than it did last time.

Hey well done

Glad you had a succesful trip.

I can curtainly relate to the importance of folding a map correctly!!!

Hope your next flight goes well and hope you go solo!!!!!

Best of luck

ADWJENK

Cool!

I would not have been allowed to land in a 15 knot crosswind during my training, I'm impressed!

Can't believe your instructor didn't make you do this the first time!! Did you have it completely unfolded flapping around the place? No wonder it was hard work! :ugh:

I've spent hours reading this thread, having just registered for the forum. To catch up on 33 pages is a "bridge too far"!, but from the pages that I have read I can see this will be a great forum to help me. I have just, at the age of 61, started on the long road to (hopefully) achieving my PPL, having just had my 5th hour at the East Midlands Flying School. I THINK these posts have given me some insight into the hard work ahead, but I did go in with my eyes wide open.

Being virtually retired, I have the time for two or three lessons per week, so continuity should be pretty good. A pal of mine flies "big 'uns" for BMI, and he's been suggesting I do this for a long while, and several mates have their own planes (Archers and a rather nice Malibu amongst them).

I've really enjoyed my time in the air so far, and having spent many, many hours on a Microsoft Flight Simulator at home, taking a real plane off myself for the first time was something else!! (I'm training on a PA28 Warrior - evidently at 15 stone and 6'2", I'm too big for the Cessna 152's)!! Charming........

Good flying to you all, and hopefully I'll get a lesson soon in smooth conditions!!

Chequeredflag: good luck mate - and welcome aboard!

You really can learn a lot here on PPRuNe: don't be afraid to start a thread and ask a question - there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers! Seriously, over the years I have had hundreds of questions answered and it really does help to be able to talk over things that may be confusing or worrying you along the way.

Make sure you let everyone know how you are progressing!

Andy :ok:

Thanks Andy - will do. I'm off to Spain tomorrow (testing race cars), back on Thursday, and have two lessons on Friday, and three per week thereafter! Busy, busy, busy.....and there's all that blooming reading/revising as well!!

My advice on the exams is:[list=1][*] do them ASAP to get them out of the way[*]start with Air Law as you'll be pleased to have this one behind you, then weather...[*]get the Confuser and/or use the online practice test service (will post URL later when I can remember it)[/list=1]
Have fun with the cars!

Andy

Yes, I was thinking of www.airquiz.com - excellent!

http://www.airquiz.com is the online PPL question bank, I found it very useful so far. also the PPL confuser is good too.

Good luck with your PPL, feel free to ask anything you want. We're here to help each other (and swap fun stories :D )

Chequeredflag

Welcome aboard and thanks for joining us. I will echo the above advice, the PPL confuser is a MUST have. Airquiz takes the strain out of marking your own questions and gives you an instant reply, which is relatively cheap. I actually have a database which I built, which works in a similar way to Airquiz - the only problem is, I dont have any questions, as they are copyrighted and I aint got the patience to write my own!

Best of luck,

Lee :ok:

Welcome Chequeredflag, there's plenty on here historically, but also plenty of us still working towards that ultimate goal. Whatever frustrations you experience during your training, you can bet one of us will have been there!

Maz, glad to hear you had a better nav detail. I can't wait to get on to that now!

HH

Hey guys, not posted for a cpl of days since I've been busy flying! Finally the weather up here has played ball and have flown lots :D

Had a flight on friday, this was a navex from edinburgh, up to leuchars for a matz penatration and then a full stop landing at dundee. Main point of this flight was so I could see dundee as I will be going there for my QXC. Weather was nice and clear but the wind was doin summit werid. In the leuchars overheard I was at full power and best climb speed and only managing to climb 50ft/min! The approach to dundee was possiblly the worst conditions I've landed in, being thrown about all over the shop, and with a near max cross wind. Once I was below 300ft tho it smoothed out and I decided it was ok to land and nailed it (cross-wind landings rock!) After paying the fees and having a quick cuppa we were off again. On the return leg to edinburgh I started doing unplanned diversions. I've been worrying about these as I wasn't quite sure how to go about doing them. It turns out that they ain't hard at all lol. Just gotta do a decent guess-timate for track, drift, distance, g/s and then just fly it. I had to adjust em slightly as my first guesses weren't quite on but I arrived at where I wanted within a minute of when I wanted. Not bad for a first attempt! My height holding wasn't that good, but I partly blame the turbulence, but its one of my weaker sides, really need to work on it!

Flight yesturday was to Prestwick! Now for those of you that don't know most of the airlines use prestwick for circuit training, and yesturday was no difference. Outbound leg was nice and simple, out of the edinburgh zone to the west and them change to glasgow to get a FIS, they were busy so couldn't give us a zone clearence so we had to go round the outside. Radio calls were all ok, if a little slow as I thought about what to say lol. Height holding was much better this time and so was very pleased with that. When we arrived at kilmarnock we had to hold for 20mins, which was slightly annoying! There was a easyjet 737 doing circuits there which was an interesting sight. However an even better sight was an Atlantic airways 747 arriving and also procedding to do circuits :D When clearence was finally given I gingerlly entered the zone approaching a right hand base leg for runway 31. This was the circuit of the 737 and so I had to join number two to him. The 747 was doing a left hand ciruit and just touched down as I enterd the circuit.

Apart from having to hold for 20mins Prestwick is a very friendly place. The flight back was uneventful. Good height holding, and glasgow were nice and let us transit their zone.

Today was an ok day, so went up to practice some VOR stuff, a brush up for stuff I did before and to do radio fixes. This was a good plan until we got 20mins outside of edinburgh to find out the VOR kit in the tommy is buggered lol. Got a vague idea about radio fixing so will practice that in MS FS2004 later (probably the only usful thing that can be done with it lol) after that did a PFL and then headed back to edinburgh, ending the day with a greaser of a landing :ok:

Hopefully off to glasgow tomorrow for a zone transit and a approach and go-around, then some more unplanned diversions.

Well done Blinkz - sounds like you've had a blast! Absolutely - this may give you trouble at some stage as you build up experience, but is definitely one of the best ways to put a smug smle on any pilot's face when getting it right! This doesn't seem to diminish with hrs (so far...!)

Prestwick sounds like great fun - I might have to fly up to take a look someitme!

Andy :ok:

Great stuff Blinkz - sounds like you had a good day and are still buzzing from it :8

With regards to the crosswind landings, I have had mostly good experiences, but unfortunatley have had a couple of bad ones, with crosswind right up to aircraft limit :{

Due to do my solo out the zone today (yet again :ugh:) so hopefully this occluded front wont give me too much hassle!

Keep up the flying honours,

Lee :ok:

Blinkz,

You might find the following usefull for unplaned diversions.
I was shown this method by by a very experienced CFI/examiner and found that it works well, it takes a little time to get it into your head but once in there it is virtually as accurate as your best calculation with the wizz wheel!

first, calculate headwind/groundspeed.

If the wind is between head on and 30 degrees off, use the full wind speed and subtract it from airspeed.

if the wind is between 30 and 60 degrees off, subtract 50% of the wind speed.

If the wind is 90 degrees off subtract nothing and use airspeed as groundspeed.

EG wind 60 deg off track @30 kts airspeed 100 kts = groundspeed 85kts (100kts minus 50% of 30 kts wind speed)

You can then interpolate between these figures EG
wind 45deg. off track @ 30kts. 45deg is half way between 30 and 60 so use 75% wind speed = 22kts

the same is used for tailwind but the wind is added on to airspeed (obviously)


Then calculate drift

for wind 10 degrees off track use 10 % of the wind speed as a correction in degrees IE wind 10 deg off track at 30 kts = 3deg correction into wind.

20 deg off track = 20%

30 deg = 30%

BUT 60 degrees off track = 50%

AND 90 degrees off track = 60%

EG wind is 60 degrees off track @30kts so 50% of 30kts = 15 degrees correction into wind.

Try a few comparisons using the above against the wizz wheel, its suprisingly accurate.

I used it on my test and found the diversion aerodrome dead on the time predicted and dead on the nose.

hope this helps.

Wow, that's good stuff there Yorks - I will try and digest that a few times I reckon ;)

Didnt fly solo, or out the zone for that matter on Wednesday. Weather (yet again) was terrible - dewpoint and temperature very close resulted in lots of mist and very low cloud (occluded front). We decided to go over some things in the syllabus, such as a glide approach and a flapless one. I must amdit, the glide approach was excellent, so high over the runway looking down on it like that was amazing :D

I have done these before, but it was good to refresh and I was just happy to fly. The landings hit the sweet spot real well, smooth touchdowns - lovely :cool:

Onwards and upwards, I will eventually have this solo out the zone!

Cheers,

Lee

Bad luck mazzy, but like you say its good to fly!

The weather up here is great at the moment so i feel bad posting about all my flights lol.

Today managed two flights. First this morning was across to glasgow and into the there zone for a low approach and go around. There have strange lanes and it was just to practice going into a strange zone. After that we left the zone to the north over loch lomond and then did some unplanned diversions back to edinburgh.
On the way back my instructor turns to me and says 'its a gorgeous day, fancy a solo?' :rolleyes: as if there is more then one answer to that question lol.

Got back to ed, nipped to the club house, had a pretty rush briefing. Basically to go out the zone to the north and fly about and practice abit of nav and diversion stuff. So off I went to the a/c. checks done and I'm off. About half way out of the zone I realise that I actually don't have any of the frequencies I need since they are all for glasgow :rolleyes: so I bug the edinburgh ATC for em and they kindly ablige. I decide to head out the east to crail, near to RAF leuchars. Give fife a quick call to let them know I'm about (RT calls all spot on :cool: ) After that I changed to Leuchars to get a fis, and for once I actaully understood them lol.
I then bumbled up to newborugh on the banks of the tay, I then planned to go up to crieff but I realised that if I did i would be about half an hour late on the rejoin time that I had given EDI when I left the zone. So instead I went down to Balado bridge (near to portmoak, where I used to glide so know the area well) Changed back to ED to get a fis off them and let them know that I'm alive. I wasn't quite ready to go home yet tho so I went up to Stirling to do some diversions, it was pretty rough near the hills I can tell you :yuk: Mushed about up there then decided to heard for home. Had to hold abit waiting to land but ATC give code red peopel (i.e solo students) quite a high priotity so I didn't have to wait long (unlike my instructor who was flying another a/c :E ) Did a steep approach to keep out the way of the vortexs from the airbus ahead of me, nice approach, flared nicely and then BLIND. Bloody sun right on the horizon and literally couldn't see anything. To make matters worse it turns out that I had flared slightly on the high side. Now in normal circumstances this ain't a problem, a quick adjustment of the flare and u can touch down nicely, however doing this with no refernece isn't going to happen. So there I was flared, blind, sinking....still no ground....hand on the throttle....just as I was about to push on the power for a go around...THUMP. The ground, probably my hardest landing yet in a powered plane.......so slightly annoyed about it.

Overall the solo flight was good, and also learnt a valuable lesson of PLANNING. No matter what you are doing go through first on the ground and make sure you have all u need. As such the solo flight felt sligltly scrappy, since I was trying to acheive something but not really managing it. I really enjoyed it tho and thats the main thing :ok:

Glad to be of service mazzy, anything to help.:ok:

It seems complicated but really is worth learning.

Hi All

Nice to see you are all still having fun.

Yorks ppl :

Interesting calculations,wish somebody had given me it years ago



Remember people,it's a learning curve, it steepens towards the end !!!

Fly safe and enjoy.

Regards All
ps There is a cd,it has no name but it is the confuser and easier to digest,pm for info.

York
Interesting post. I was taught navigation with reference to those rules, albeit slightly different. We weren't taught anything with whizz wheels but using max drift and mental dead reckoning you can achieve same results.

You might find this slighly alternate way of doing the nav intersting.

Drift

Work out Max Drift.

Max drift = windspeed/airspeed (miles per min)

eg IAS 120kts or 2nm/min; Wind 20kts Max Drift =20/2

Max drift = 10 degrees.

Then use a clock face analogy to apply it. Imagine a clockface divided into quaters between 0 - 14 mins, 15 - 29mins etc.
However instead of the clock face representing minutes imagine it representing the wind direction in terms of degrees off track.

i.e If you are flying a track of 180 and wind is from 190 then the wind is 10 degrees off your nose, therefore in the first quadrant of the clock face i.e within 0 - 14 degrees.

The quadrants are used to apply a proportion of max drift to your heading as follows:

Wind less than 15 deg from your heading make no correction.
At 15 deg off apply 1/4 max drift to your heading (1/4 past)
At 30 deg off apply 1/2 max drift to your heading (1/2 past)
At 45 deg off apply 3/4 max drift to your heading.
Between 60 and 90 apply all max drift to your heading.

Always apply max drift towards the wind!

E.G. Flying 120kts, Required track 090, wind 130/16.
Max drift = [windspeed/airspeed (nm/min)] 16/2 = 8 degrees

Wind is 40deg off which is between 30 - 44 degrees therefore 1/2 max drift is required. 1/2 max drift is 4 degrees

Therefore will fly Hdg 094.

Hope you find this interesting. I'm not sure how PPL nav is taught so I hope this isn't teaching you to suck eggs!
SR

p.s it works for ground speed as well but you orient the clock face with the wing tip and apply the same proportions of the windspeed as opposed to max drift.

Hi slow rider,
not seen that one before, dead on the dot though.
I can use it as a cross check now.

thanks.

Blimey
 

This is brilliant stuff, but I am afraid I will have to show a little ignorance, as I will look at this in a few weeks time, when I have experienced it for myself :{

Going flying tomorrow with the ex instructor for a jolly - probably down the west coats of Wales. Should be fantatsic. It is a glorious day here today, too bad I am hungover :sad:

Cheers,

Lee

Hey


Whether is looking good for tomorrow and it was amzing to day got one more solo circuit in today before it went dark :ok:

Yet 40 mins for 1 circuit is pushing it.....
Only 1 but got the experiance of being messed about by ATC.

Well have fun tomorrow!!!!

Cya

ADWJENK

Let's not talk about the weather shall we...!!!:{ :{ :{

Have just gotten off the phone to my instructor after cancelling that Canberra nav YET AGAIN due weather - that'll be 16 times in all since around October, and the third time this week!!!!

This is becoming intensly frustrating...:mad:

Ahh well, we try again tomorrow... reckon I have any chance??

:ugh:

OK we can talk about the weather now!!! For once it actually cooperated...
Finally, on the - wait for it - SEVENTEENTH attempt we got in the air and did that solo check nav to Canberra. This had been cancelled three times in the last week alone...
First leg down to Moruya (through the Nowra mil restricted zone) went really well (hard to get lost there - just keep Australia on your right!), we couldn't find the ALA at Braidwood so picked a likely-looking paddock for a prec search - then relatively low-level (1000'AGL) off to Canberra, shut down there for fuel. A diversion direct to Goulburn rather than via Gunning, then back to Wolly. We buggered around a little over various places (prec search at Braidwood, PFL at Goulburn, couple of circuits back at Wollongong due to a pretty poor approach) so it was a damn long flight - 3.9 hours in all. However - the flying was (just) to an acceptable standard for being signed off for my first solo nav - will hopefully occur Friday all going well.
So... very happy with that!
Adam

Woooooo! First solo navex in the bag :)

Gorgeous day up here in edinburgh, amazing viz and not a cloud in the sky (and silky smooth flying conditions)

Planned the route this time and got everything prepared before I went out to the a/c. Runway 30 was open so I got to take-off pretty quickly after power checks. First alarming thing I saw was that during the climb out the oil pressure was nearly in the red :\ Slightly worried to say the least. Problem is that LHS has a slantly view on the TandPs so not always proper reading. Once i leveled off to leave the zone it was in the green and it stayed there throughout the flight (I checked alot tho I can tell you :ok: )

Route took me out via polmont, once out of the zone I changed to scottish for a FIS, up to dunblane then on to crieff, route was then up to forfar, but perth airfield was near my track so I called em up to get traffic info, whilst concentrating on my RT I didn't notice a drift to the right of track. Was nearly 4nm off before i noticed :sad: adjusted to get back using SCA and i think I just about got back on just as I arrived at forfar. At forfar i turn towards balado, right into the sun, vis not good but ah well. Called up dundee for a FIS since I was going to be flying thro there ILS. They had a cpl of people doing some instrument training so i had to jink out the way of that, but then go back on track. once over the tay i changed back to EDI app for a FIS and zone clearance. Based very close to portmoak (my old gliding sight) saw a cpl of gliders on the hills, but the sun glare was bad so was really looking hard to see if there were any flying near me. Then back into the zone. Rw 30 was open so I could land there, which thankfully isn't into the sun, however with abit of a crosswind the trees near it and make some nasty turb which I got abit of. Wasn't abad landing, tho could have done with taking off all of the drift since i landed very slightly sideways, not a problem tho.

Good flight, really enjoyed it. Felt like it was pretty much there, altho I'd like to practice correcting headings abit more. I'll have lots of practice during my qxc tho lol.

Happy flying! :ok:

Blinkz, Good for you mate - sounds excellent! Sounds like you'ev done a lot more on your 1st solo navex than I did: I basically flew 30min each way to overhead M1 motorway services near Milton Keynes and back... your route sounds far more interesting!

You must be feeling very pleased with yourself - rightly so, this is where everything you've been taught to do "comes together" as it were... Onwards and upwards!

Andy :ok:

Well done mate - sounds like you done very well - I am extremely jealous as now I am getting seriously pi55ed off with the weather. It just so happens that every flight I have wach week is cancelled and it is a pain in the a55. As soon as I get a chance to do my navex I will post - so apologies for a rather dull last few posts!

Still brushing up on groundschool - getting more used to the whizz wheel now which is good.

Again, well done.

Lee :ok:

Blinkz: it was a FIS I get and not a RIS - my mistake sorry!

My first landing.....did it today at the end (luckily) of my 7th lesson returning to East Midlands airport. Having spent an hour on slow flying and stalling, my instructor asked if I fancied doing a landing. Didn't do too bad a job, flared a bit too soon and ballooned a little, but got it down relatively softly. Exited with a large grin on my face. Relatively easy with 8 knots more or less on the nose. Bet I REALLY screw up the next one!!

Back tomorrow for two more lessons - about to start the circuits. I'm really enjoying this guys!!

Chequeredflag,

Sounds like you're not far behind me. Done a couple of lessons of circuits so far. Last one was intro to crosswind technique and short field ops.

Good fun :ok:

V1R

What a day have I had!!!
2.0 hours first solo nav in the Warrior... YWOL-YSCN-YMIG-YGLB-YWOL... full stop at Goulburn. Was a bit bumpy near Mittagong and just before Goulburn (SIGMET for severe turb current... but I didn't get much more than mild chop).
Landing at GLB was something else... horrible, horrible, horrible :uhoh: . Landed on the grass strip, a bit sideways due to crosswind (not entirely happy with xwinds in the warrior as yet... ;) and overcorrected with rudder so I was sliding all over the shop... got it down but should have gone around and tried again...
The last little bit to Wolly was really nice, had a 14 or 15 knot tailwind component, it screamed home... landing at Wolly much nicer, one of the first in the Warrior that I have actually been happy with! All up a great learning experience, great fun as well.
One more dual nav to come, then another solo one then PPL flight test... almost there now!

Oh, and Mazzy:
You get used to it eventually!!:} :} I've just come off the back of a three-month run of bad wx... it's now broken and in fact this one tofday was the first nav I have EVER done the first time it's been scheduled!! :ok:

Adam

Started the circuits yesterday. After a morning of stalls/ spins etc, my instructer stated my pm lesson (my 9th) that we would commence my circuit work. Had a quick sandwich and set off. First circuit was an instructor's demo, which made it look very easy, then it was my turn.......

Using East Mids runway 27, wind at 220/10kts, took off, 500', clear of Castle Donington village, climbing right turn to North, level 0ff at 1000', cruise turn downwnind, call ATC "downwind for right hand 27 touch and go" - "cleared for 27 T & G", pre landing checks, allow for wind drift, turn onto base leg, revs to 1700, speed dropping, 1st flaps, 2nd flaps, turn onto finals, line up on centre line, steer into crosswind call ATC "on finals, 27 for T & G, "Cleared T & G, winds 220/10kts", maintain centre line as best as I can, keep two white/two red PAPIS, flare too soon (again), gently gently, my God what was that, a VERY gentle touch down!! Blimey, that was almost professional!

I'm suddenly aware of the fact that my side window is fogged up, and I'm sweating somewhat!! Bl@@dy hell, that was hard work - my brain is now hurting. Oh no, here we go again, second circuit underway......

Second landing will surely be as easy?? No way!!. Everything seems OK until finals - way too high, throttle down, four whites (for ever it seems), flared too soon (again!), port wing drops, recovered, DONK!, fairly heavy landing to the right of centre line. FULL REALITY CHECK, this is NOT the 'piece of piss' I thought it might be!

What? No time to think, we're off again, flaps up, full power, a lot of rudder to keep straight, rotate, pretty turbulant, I'm getting really warm now, the odd beads of sweat appearing....on downwind reporting, told by ATC to orbit to allow EasyJet Airbus to land, then called to finals. Landing not much better, if at all - will I get the hang of it? Suppose so......Taxied back to school, feeling mentally drained - head seems full of rocks. I'm tempted to blame it on the after effect of the 'flu virus I've just come out the other side of....no can't do that, must just accept that at 61 I've lost a good number of brain cells!!

Back for three more lessons (circuits again) next week - hope it gradually becomes as natural as my instructor tells me it will, 'cos right now it's blooming hard work.

Had a couple of whiskeys last night, and slept like a baby!! I just love it.....

Cheers all

Mike N