Diary of a CPL student at Stapleford
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Diary of a CPL student at Stapleford
... Here we go again!
I'll be posting the whole diary on this one thread - from start to finish so just scroll through and see if the next days entry has been made!
10 days Before Start
I decided on Stapleford to do my CPL, IR & MCC training as a little while beforehand I'd done the whole visiting all the schools thing that we do.....
Stapleford was convienient for me as it was literally up the road from where I lived (no relocation costs - for the moment!), Their fleet looked pretty good - 152's warriors, arrows, senecas & diamonds and another big bonus is that maintainance was on site too - handy for minimal downtime!
I met with Lisa who I found fantastic, she gave me a tour of the airfield and its facilities, explained the courses and prices, and even introduced me to a couple of students for me to have a chat with
I had deliberately not called ahead - always better to find the school in a normal everyday mode than 'be nice and smile lots because prospective students will be in today' mode which I had found at some other schools
Right from the beginning I could see that Lisa was indeed trying to save me money (an ethos adopted by most in the school I found thankfully!) by advising me to do the CPL before the IR I would in fact save a few more hundred pounds....
She also keeps an eye on you and how you're progressing through your course - its quite comforting knowing that theres someone keeping an eye out for you and is there to talk to if you have any problems - thanks Lisa!
DAY 1
Obviously being a little nervous I met with my instructor (doesn't like glory or fame so will be called 'Bob') who pretty quickly put me at ease and showed me round all the facilities. After this we went to the Clubhouse - I was very surprised to see how good it was in there! Being on a stable diet of shoddy shacks with a burger grill at the end of it being called an airport restaurant/cafe I didnt expect anything less but what a surprise! Lovely decor (very contemporary) nice new furniture, really really good food and a wide selection of drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic).
Me and Bob sat down with a coffee to brief the first flight when one of Bob's students came running in and said "I've passed I've passed!" - always a good sign I thought!
My first flight was actually backseating another CPL student who was just getting ready for his 170a (a 'test' given by the CFI which you must pass in order to take the 'real' test). This was great as it showed me what was expected of me once test day came!
Luckily this didnt scare me off too much and I was itching to get into the aircraft myself and go flying!
First lesson & introduction to the PA28 warrior.......
Good old circuits to get me used to the Stapleford (V Interesting!) circuit pattern and the aircraft.
04R has a nice mast on final which you must cross at 750 amsl, some power lines on climb out - again at 750' along with the runway being half grass and half tarmac, and being on a downhill slope, and usually having a good crosswind, and trees bumping you about on short final makes for an interesting ride..... its nice having a challenge I say!
Seriously though, it sounds pretty intimidating but once you're used to it, if anything its made my circuits better and given me a lot of confidence too!
22L is also pretty good, altering heading at 300' amsl to avoid the aforementioned mast and some power lines on final....
(we enjoy 04R more obviously!)
DAY 2
More circuit training, however, I was introduced to all the checks that needed to be done on the ground whcih was a bit of a wake up call I must say!
At PPL stage its all well and good to do your power checks, have a good look and off you go..... not so easy in the CPL!
Even before you start the engine theres lots of intstument checks to be done (compass, turn co-ordinator, VSI1, OAT, ASI, Altimeters) and then after start a lot more! (ASI, AI, Turn co-ordinator, DI, Nav1, Nav2, Gyro, ADF, DME) I thought Bob was kidding when he said that it can take 45mins before you take off, I thought he was pulling my leg at first, then I realised he wasn't joking!
DAY 3
Started to get a little more exciting today as we left the pattern and headed to the local area for some general handling.
Firstly we practised flight at critically high airspeeds and then moving on to spiral descent recovery. Thankfully we did a fair bit of this in my IMC training so it wasn't too much of a problem.
Next we went on to low airspeed flight, spin avoidance (....I must not use ailerons, I must not use ailerons, I must not....
) and then stalls.
As I had only really experienced stalls in cessna's it was lovely to see how well the warrior behaved in a stall.... a bit of buffet, a slight nose drop and then time to recover - a bit of a difference from a massive wing drop and heading for the ground in a cessna!
DAY 4
Some more stalls practice, emergencies, fires and some more general handling.....
Fire drills were interesting, made a lot easier by 'chair flying' the night before and getting into school half an hour early, sitting in the aircraft, and going through the drills over and over again. Makes life a lot easier when you can reel them off automatically quickly and accurately, especially as you're trying to fly the aircraft at the same time, picking your field, talking to ATC - bit of a workload to deal with
DAY 5
Bit of a busy day....
Started of with a session in the sim, what a nice piece of equipment it is too!
I was on the same simulator Stapleford use for their MCC courses which are either a King Air or (by changing the throttle quadrant) a Citation C550 - Yummy!
We covered basic IF/VOR tracking - its surprising how quickly the stuff I learnt during my IMC came rushing back.....
.... and for all those that thought spending an extra few hundred pounds getting an IMC instead of just burning holes in the sky (which was obviously a little cheaper) was a waste of money, you couldn't be further from the truth! I saved a lot of time with the Instrument flying in the sim as I knew what I was looking for rather than having to be taught it from scratch - it seems the IMC is paying for itself already and I haven't even got to the IR yet!
In the afternoon it was back in the aircraft for some more general handling work......
OK bored you guys enough for one day.... will have the next thrilling installment of the next few days tomorrow (hopefully!)
I'll be posting the whole diary on this one thread - from start to finish so just scroll through and see if the next days entry has been made!
10 days Before Start
I decided on Stapleford to do my CPL, IR & MCC training as a little while beforehand I'd done the whole visiting all the schools thing that we do.....
Stapleford was convienient for me as it was literally up the road from where I lived (no relocation costs - for the moment!), Their fleet looked pretty good - 152's warriors, arrows, senecas & diamonds and another big bonus is that maintainance was on site too - handy for minimal downtime!
I met with Lisa who I found fantastic, she gave me a tour of the airfield and its facilities, explained the courses and prices, and even introduced me to a couple of students for me to have a chat with
I had deliberately not called ahead - always better to find the school in a normal everyday mode than 'be nice and smile lots because prospective students will be in today' mode which I had found at some other schools
Right from the beginning I could see that Lisa was indeed trying to save me money (an ethos adopted by most in the school I found thankfully!) by advising me to do the CPL before the IR I would in fact save a few more hundred pounds....
She also keeps an eye on you and how you're progressing through your course - its quite comforting knowing that theres someone keeping an eye out for you and is there to talk to if you have any problems - thanks Lisa!
DAY 1
Obviously being a little nervous I met with my instructor (doesn't like glory or fame so will be called 'Bob') who pretty quickly put me at ease and showed me round all the facilities. After this we went to the Clubhouse - I was very surprised to see how good it was in there! Being on a stable diet of shoddy shacks with a burger grill at the end of it being called an airport restaurant/cafe I didnt expect anything less but what a surprise! Lovely decor (very contemporary
) nice new furniture, really really good food and a wide selection of drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic).Me and Bob sat down with a coffee to brief the first flight when one of Bob's students came running in and said "I've passed I've passed!" - always a good sign I thought!
My first flight was actually backseating another CPL student who was just getting ready for his 170a (a 'test' given by the CFI which you must pass in order to take the 'real' test). This was great as it showed me what was expected of me once test day came!
Luckily this didnt scare me off too much
and I was itching to get into the aircraft myself and go flying!First lesson & introduction to the PA28 warrior.......
Good old circuits to get me used to the Stapleford (V Interesting!) circuit pattern and the aircraft.
04R has a nice mast on final which you must cross at 750 amsl, some power lines on climb out - again at 750' along with the runway being half grass and half tarmac, and being on a downhill slope, and usually having a good crosswind, and trees bumping you about on short final makes for an interesting ride..... its nice having a challenge I say!
Seriously though, it sounds pretty intimidating but once you're used to it, if anything its made my circuits better and given me a lot of confidence too!
22L is also pretty good, altering heading at 300' amsl to avoid the aforementioned mast and some power lines on final....
(we enjoy 04R more obviously!
)DAY 2
More circuit training, however, I was introduced to all the checks that needed to be done on the ground whcih was a bit of a wake up call I must say!
At PPL stage its all well and good to do your power checks, have a good look and off you go..... not so easy in the CPL!
Even before you start the engine theres lots of intstument checks to be done (compass, turn co-ordinator, VSI1, OAT, ASI, Altimeters) and then after start a lot more! (ASI, AI, Turn co-ordinator, DI, Nav1, Nav2, Gyro, ADF, DME) I thought Bob was kidding when he said that it can take 45mins before you take off, I thought he was pulling my leg at first, then I realised he wasn't joking!
DAY 3
Started to get a little more exciting today as we left the pattern and headed to the local area for some general handling.
Firstly we practised flight at critically high airspeeds and then moving on to spiral descent recovery. Thankfully we did a fair bit of this in my IMC training so it wasn't too much of a problem.
Next we went on to low airspeed flight, spin avoidance (....I must not use ailerons, I must not use ailerons, I must not....
) and then stalls.As I had only really experienced stalls in cessna's it was lovely to see how well the warrior behaved in a stall.... a bit of buffet, a slight nose drop and then time to recover - a bit of a difference from a massive wing drop and heading for the ground in a cessna!
DAY 4
Some more stalls practice, emergencies, fires and some more general handling.....
Fire drills were interesting, made a lot easier by 'chair flying' the night before and getting into school half an hour early, sitting in the aircraft, and going through the drills over and over again. Makes life a lot easier when you can reel them off automatically quickly and accurately, especially as you're trying to fly the aircraft at the same time, picking your field, talking to ATC - bit of a workload to deal with
DAY 5
Bit of a busy day....
Started of with a session in the sim, what a nice piece of equipment it is too!
I was on the same simulator Stapleford use for their MCC courses which are either a King Air or (by changing the throttle quadrant) a Citation C550 - Yummy!
We covered basic IF/VOR tracking - its surprising how quickly the stuff I learnt during my IMC came rushing back.....
.... and for all those that thought spending an extra few hundred pounds getting an IMC instead of just burning holes in the sky (which was obviously a little cheaper) was a waste of money, you couldn't be further from the truth! I saved a lot of time with the Instrument flying in the sim as I knew what I was looking for rather than having to be taught it from scratch - it seems the IMC is paying for itself already and I haven't even got to the IR yet!
In the afternoon it was back in the aircraft for some more general handling work......
OK bored you guys enough for one day.... will have the next thrilling installment of the next few days tomorrow (hopefully!)
Last edited by kangy; 14th Aug 2007 at 22:28. Reason: Typo's!
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DAY 6
Bit of an interesting one today....
All the procedures, manouevres etc up to now have all been pretty much similar to the PPL but with tolerances tightened up and sometimes slightly different approaches to recovery (stalls etc). Today I was introduced to a new one - yippee!!
Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce....
STEEP GLIDING TURNS
It does exactly what it says on the tin, ie a steep gliding turn!
Firstly you put yourself into an 80kt glide (for those of you that fly warriors/arrows - yes you ARE dropping like a brick!) turn into 30 degrees bank, allow speed to increase to 85kts, then bank to 45 degress, allow speed to increase to 90 kts. At this point Bob asked me to roll out on a particular heading and height....
So roll back to 30 degrees, allow speed to drop to 85 kts, then while rolling back to wings level (and allowing speed to decrease to 80 kts), you need to make sure you roll out onto the heading asked and to be at the level assigned as well!
Not one of the easiest manouvres I can tell you but damn it feels good when you get it right!
DAY 7
Back in the sim practising some VOR/ADF tracking, a couple of times Mike my instructor paused the flight.... a pretty odd feeling - one minute I was flying along intercepting & tracking and the next I was simply hovering.... is this how chopper jockeys feel all the time?
It was good to be able to pause the flight as Mike had time to explain some points which would help my flying and have my full attention - unlike in the aircraft where you're usually busy with flying the plane and only a little info goes in, or when your back on the ground debriefing where you've forgotten a lot about the flight as you're exhausted if its been a difficult flight!
We did a fair bit of ADF tracking and Mike taught me some pretty cool tricks...
Keep yourself (the plane) between the wind and the needle - helps with wind correction, and things like by how much and in which direction to take a cut at the needle to bring it to where you want, little pointers but worth their weight in gold to stop you 'chasing the needle'.
Right at the end of the session Mike asked me to turn right to track the 350 bearing from the beacon, considering I was already tracking the 000 bearing from the beacon this would have meant turning through a full 350 degrees.... with a confused look on my face I pointed this out to Mike who jumped up out of his seat (a pretty difficult thing for him especially as he's got his leg in a cast at the moment) and shouted "YES!" I was even more confused by his reaction and he said "I know you understand it now - that trick usually tells me whether you know what you're doing or not".
With a big smile on my face now, and time for lunch before my flight in the afternoon I was feelin pretty happy with my progress!
(For those interested, I decided on the Full english - eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, mushrooms, toast & a mug of tea from the clubhouse..... cooked to perfection, tasted lovely (thanks Donna) but I think Bob would have preffered it if I hadn't had the beans and eggs!!! )
In the afternoon we did a Nav excercise to Gt Oakley and an unknown diversion...
Nothing much to report apart from make sure you do your homework the night/hour before and PLAN PLAN PLAN! You're told with plenty of time where you're off to, so make sure you know/write down the frequencies you need, waypoints, wind, and most importantly.... if you haven't been to your destination before, make sure you know what kind of runway(s), which direction(s) etc etc, it doesnt look very good when you're looking around for an airfield and you dont really know what you're looking for!
The diversion took us back to Thurrock- again try to get as much planning done in the air, at the least draw a line, halfway point, work out distance, eta... I found the CPM 1 nav ruler most helpful with this part!!!
After reaching my diversion Bob got out the screens and we did some Instrument flying - brilliant timing I thought as we went back over a lot of the stuff I had done with Mike in the sim that morning.
I'd like to applaud the instructors for this what may seem like a minor point to most.... a lot of schools would just book you in to do (A) with sim instructor X, and on the same day for you to fly and practise (B) with flight instructor Y, neither lesson is relevant to the other but it fits in with the instructors timetables and is easy for them to do etc etc. At Stapleford I've found that the student is the priority, the instructors talk to each other, and lessons are planned between the sim & aircraft in such a way that you get to consolidate your knowledge either from the sim to aircraft or vice versa as soon as possible which helps you to learn far more effectively!
DAY 8
Two more Nav Ex's - first one to Lamberhurst, diversion to Eastchurch. Second one to Chilham village (VERY hard to spot - look for the castle!!!) and diversion to Brands Hatch.
Decided to get off my ar@# and fill my logbook out properly - something I was dreading until Sandra in reception gave me a convienient print out of all my hours! It had my hours, a/c type, times, registrations - everything I needed to fill out my log book correctly.... Ta Sandra and another gold star for you guys!
DAY 9
Instrument flying with the screens up in the morning which I enjoyed.....
Its great when the plane behaves, the wind is light, the thermals are non existent, the trim works perfectly and you can sit back and just watch it all happen nice and slowly...
HOWEVER - I fu@#ed up pretty spectacularly on the way back, instead of tracking to LAM VOR/DME with the needle centred with the TO flag showing, I decided to centre the needle with the FROM flag showing.... (this means you're tracking away from the beacon rather than to it... DOH!) I could see the distance increasing on the DME and it took me a few (LONG!) seconds to work out why the hell they were doing that when it dawned on me - lesson learnt, NEVER get too relaxed when instrument flying, one little mistake and you could end up heading off in the opposite direction!
Some more sim in the afternoon where we did some limited panel flying and the VOR approach into Stapleford.
DAY 10
Was looking forward to today as I was getting into the new Arrow... floppy prop, retractable gear, fuel injection, fairly new so a nice new modern interior, new cockpit controls and layout, Garmin GPS, electric trim & autopilot... mmmmmmm!
Unfortunately the plane I was booked into showed a noticeable oil leak when I was doing the A-check and therefore decided to tech the plane. The engineers came to take a look immediately and diagnosed a faulty sump plug which would be replaced immediately - hurrah for on site maintainance!
Whilst this was being done Bob suggested we not waste time as it was such a lovely day to fly, and jump into one of the spare Arrows and go and do some general handling (nothing much to report there, everything pretty standard although I was a lot better at steep gliding turns!)
On our return we saw that our original shiny new Arrow was back on the apron and ready to go - now you dont get that kind of service at Kwik-Fit!
After a spot of lunch (a simple cheese salad baguette, no eggs or beans obviously but some pretty strong onion breath for Bob to enjoy today....) we were due to do circuits, so we jumped into the plane, did all our instrument checks, power checks, taxi checks etc and was all ready and lined up at the end of the runway where I went through the usual crew take off brief... rotate at 70, climb at 80 then 90 etc etc etc. We then lined up ready for departure, held the Arrow on the brakes at 2000rpm, made sure all t's and p's were in the green and away we went!
As soon as we were rolling, I was checking the t's & p's, saw the Airspeed Indicator 'come alive' and watched it rise... 20kts... 30kts... 40kts... 40kts... 40kts... It wasnt rising and we were barrelling down the runway! As a gross error check the warrior usually rotates before the halfway mark on the runway and we were stiil (apparantly) at 40kts! Time to abort the take off so throttle closed, and bring the aircraft to a stop on the runway as quickly as possible! As we were taxying back to the hangers something came to light - none of the planes had pitot covers on them whilst parked! This might not have even been the problem but it rammed the message of safety into my head - if the AI was underreading due to something getting into the pitot while it was parked as there was no cover, this could have caused a pretty major problem for lets say a PPL first solo student who might have panicked.... the results could be pretty bad
So a pretty eventful day I would say!
In all fairness to Stapleford, planes do go tech - its the nature of the beast, and hats off to the engineers on site who fixed the original problem straightaway in order to get the flight schools' planes in the air again - not something that would happen at a lot of other flight schools due to there being no maintainance on site or engineers being too busy or needing too many tea breaks! But if the afternoons problem could have been averted by the use of some pitot covers, in the name of safety and avoiding a potentially very dangerous situation, maybe a job lot for all the planes wouldn't go amiss!
All in all, I'm still VERY happy with my choice of Stapleford, the staff are fab, the instructors are great, the reception staff are very helpful, the clubhouse is fantastic, the engineers pull out all the stops and the planes are very very good!
Bit of an interesting one today....
All the procedures, manouevres etc up to now have all been pretty much similar to the PPL but with tolerances tightened up and sometimes slightly different approaches to recovery (stalls etc). Today I was introduced to a new one - yippee!!
Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce....
STEEP GLIDING TURNS
It does exactly what it says on the tin, ie a steep gliding turn!
Firstly you put yourself into an 80kt glide (for those of you that fly warriors/arrows - yes you ARE dropping like a brick!) turn into 30 degrees bank, allow speed to increase to 85kts, then bank to 45 degress, allow speed to increase to 90 kts. At this point Bob asked me to roll out on a particular heading and height....
So roll back to 30 degrees, allow speed to drop to 85 kts, then while rolling back to wings level (and allowing speed to decrease to 80 kts), you need to make sure you roll out onto the heading asked and to be at the level assigned as well!
Not one of the easiest manouvres I can tell you
but damn it feels good when you get it right!DAY 7
Back in the sim practising some VOR/ADF tracking, a couple of times Mike my instructor paused the flight.... a pretty odd feeling - one minute I was flying along intercepting & tracking and the next I was simply hovering.... is this how chopper jockeys feel all the time?
It was good to be able to pause the flight as Mike had time to explain some points which would help my flying and have my full attention - unlike in the aircraft where you're usually busy with flying the plane and only a little info goes in, or when your back on the ground debriefing where you've forgotten a lot about the flight as you're exhausted if its been a difficult flight!
We did a fair bit of ADF tracking and Mike taught me some pretty cool tricks...
Keep yourself (the plane) between the wind and the needle - helps with wind correction, and things like by how much and in which direction to take a cut at the needle to bring it to where you want, little pointers but worth their weight in gold to stop you 'chasing the needle'.
Right at the end of the session Mike asked me to turn right to track the 350 bearing from the beacon, considering I was already tracking the 000 bearing from the beacon this would have meant turning through a full 350 degrees.... with a confused look on my face I pointed this out to Mike who jumped up out of his seat (a pretty difficult thing for him especially as he's got his leg in a cast at the moment) and shouted "YES!"
I was even more confused by his reaction and he said "I know you understand it now - that trick usually tells me whether you know what you're doing or not".With a big smile on my face now, and time for lunch before my flight in the afternoon I was feelin pretty happy with my progress!
(For those interested, I decided on the Full english - eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, mushrooms, toast & a mug of tea from the clubhouse..... cooked to perfection, tasted lovely (thanks Donna
) but I think Bob would have preffered it if I hadn't had the beans and eggs!!! )In the afternoon we did a Nav excercise to Gt Oakley and an unknown diversion...
Nothing much to report apart from make sure you do your homework the night/hour before and PLAN PLAN PLAN! You're told with plenty of time where you're off to, so make sure you know/write down the frequencies you need, waypoints, wind, and most importantly.... if you haven't been to your destination before, make sure you know what kind of runway(s), which direction(s) etc etc, it doesnt look very good when you're looking around for an airfield and you dont really know what you're looking for!
The diversion took us back to Thurrock- again try to get as much planning done in the air, at the least draw a line, halfway point, work out distance, eta... I found the CPM 1 nav ruler most helpful with this part!!!
After reaching my diversion Bob got out the screens and we did some Instrument flying - brilliant timing I thought as we went back over a lot of the stuff I had done with Mike in the sim that morning.
I'd like to applaud the instructors for this what may seem like a minor point to most.... a lot of schools would just book you in to do (A) with sim instructor X, and on the same day for you to fly and practise (B) with flight instructor Y, neither lesson is relevant to the other but it fits in with the instructors timetables and is easy for them to do etc etc. At Stapleford I've found that the student is the priority, the instructors talk to each other, and lessons are planned between the sim & aircraft in such a way that you get to consolidate your knowledge either from the sim to aircraft or vice versa as soon as possible which helps you to learn far more effectively!
DAY 8
Two more Nav Ex's - first one to Lamberhurst, diversion to Eastchurch. Second one to Chilham village (VERY hard to spot - look for the castle!!!) and diversion to Brands Hatch.
Decided to get off my ar@# and fill my logbook out properly - something I was dreading until Sandra in reception gave me a convienient print out of all my hours! It had my hours, a/c type, times, registrations - everything I needed to fill out my log book correctly.... Ta Sandra and another gold star for you guys!
DAY 9
Instrument flying with the screens up in the morning which I enjoyed.....
Its great when the plane behaves, the wind is light, the thermals are non existent, the trim works perfectly and you can sit back and just watch it all happen nice and slowly...
HOWEVER - I fu@#ed up pretty spectacularly on the way back, instead of tracking to LAM VOR/DME with the needle centred with the TO flag showing, I decided to centre the needle with the FROM flag showing.... (this means you're tracking away from the beacon rather than to it... DOH!) I could see the distance increasing on the DME and it took me a few (LONG!) seconds to work out why the hell they were doing that when it dawned on me - lesson learnt, NEVER get too relaxed when instrument flying, one little mistake and you could end up heading off in the opposite direction!
Some more sim in the afternoon where we did some limited panel flying and the VOR approach into Stapleford.
DAY 10
Was looking forward to today as I was getting into the new Arrow... floppy prop, retractable gear, fuel injection, fairly new so a nice new modern interior, new cockpit controls and layout, Garmin GPS, electric trim & autopilot... mmmmmmm!
Unfortunately the plane I was booked into showed a noticeable oil leak when I was doing the A-check and therefore decided to tech the plane. The engineers came to take a look immediately and diagnosed a faulty sump plug which would be replaced immediately - hurrah for on site maintainance!
Whilst this was being done Bob suggested we not waste time as it was such a lovely day to fly, and jump into one of the spare Arrows and go and do some general handling (nothing much to report there, everything pretty standard although I was a lot better at steep gliding turns!)
On our return we saw that our original shiny new Arrow was back on the apron and ready to go - now you dont get that kind of service at Kwik-Fit!
After a spot of lunch (a simple cheese salad baguette, no eggs or beans obviously but some pretty strong onion breath for Bob to enjoy today....) we were due to do circuits, so we jumped into the plane, did all our instrument checks, power checks, taxi checks etc and was all ready and lined up at the end of the runway where I went through the usual crew take off brief... rotate at 70, climb at 80 then 90 etc etc etc. We then lined up ready for departure, held the Arrow on the brakes at 2000rpm, made sure all t's and p's were in the green and away we went!
As soon as we were rolling, I was checking the t's & p's, saw the Airspeed Indicator 'come alive' and watched it rise... 20kts... 30kts... 40kts... 40kts... 40kts... It wasnt rising and we were barrelling down the runway! As a gross error check the warrior usually rotates before the halfway mark on the runway and we were stiil (apparantly) at 40kts! Time to abort the take off so throttle closed, and bring the aircraft to a stop on the runway as quickly as possible! As we were taxying back to the hangers something came to light - none of the planes had pitot covers on them whilst parked! This might not have even been the problem but it rammed the message of safety into my head - if the AI was underreading due to something getting into the pitot while it was parked as there was no cover, this could have caused a pretty major problem for lets say a PPL first solo student who might have panicked.... the results could be pretty bad
So a pretty eventful day I would say!
In all fairness to Stapleford, planes do go tech - its the nature of the beast, and hats off to the engineers on site who fixed the original problem straightaway in order to get the flight schools' planes in the air again
- not something that would happen at a lot of other flight schools due to there being no maintainance on site or engineers being too busy or needing too many tea breaks! But if the afternoons problem could have been averted by the use of some pitot covers, in the name of safety and avoiding a potentially very dangerous situation, maybe a job lot for all the planes wouldn't go amiss!All in all, I'm still VERY happy with my choice of Stapleford, the staff are fab, the instructors are great, the reception staff are very helpful, the clubhouse is fantastic, the engineers pull out all the stops and the planes are very very good!
Last edited by kangy; 10th Aug 2007 at 21:53. Reason: Typos!
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Thanks boogie!
Hope this is helpful for you Slayer (and all other CPL'ers!) & by all means keep posting guys, any other tips or stories?
ps will do my best to be posting day by day from monday!
Hope this is helpful for you Slayer (and all other CPL'ers!) & by all means keep posting guys, any other tips or stories?
ps will do my best to be posting day by day from monday!
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Good old Stapleford...
Brings back some memories:
If I didn't had the need to relocate I would have continued my training with them.
Sorry for hijacking your thread, at least those that don't know Staplefordd can have an idea of the airfield...
I'll add a few more later if ok or anyone is interested.
Brings back some memories:
If I didn't had the need to relocate I would have continued my training with them.
Sorry for hijacking your thread, at least those that don't know Staplefordd can have an idea of the airfield...
I'll add a few more later if ok or anyone is interested.
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(For those interested, I decided on the Full english - eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, mushrooms, toast & a mug of tea from the clubhouse..... cooked to perfection,
Join Date: Jan 2005
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I'm there at the moment doing my IR, having done my CPL and ME there earlier last month - it's a great place to fly. My instructors are top notch and they have all the right kit you need. Passed my CPL first time and my ME (just) so the results speak for themselves.
Glad your enjoying the CPL course Kangy!
Horgy
Glad your enjoying the CPL course Kangy!
Horgy
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Hi Kangy! Yes this is fantastic to hear its all going well for you! Have to admit I was starting to get a bit nervous about starting the CPL but having read your post I feel a lot more at ease! Sounds like I had better practice my diversions a bit more though
Keep it coming mate!
Keep it coming mate!
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Slayer,
You have nothing to worry about, when I think about your flying ability, the word skygod springs to mind.
Kangy, good luck with your CPL training and test, well worth it mate when you get there, even when you have to get up at 04:00am to report for duty
.
All the best chaps.
You have nothing to worry about, when I think about your flying ability, the word skygod springs to mind
.Kangy, good luck with your CPL training and test, well worth it mate when you get there, even when you have to get up at 04:00am to report for duty
.All the best chaps.
Last edited by CAT3C AUTOLAND; 12th Aug 2007 at 15:20.
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Thanks to all the wellwishers!
You'll have to point yourself out Horgy... I'll buy you a pint! (always good to have an inside view on courses - any tips?!)
Slayer - keep at it and dont be happy with 'good enough to pass'.... If you can get things near as perfect as you can in the PPL, you'll find it stands you in good stead for the CPL!
First Officer - great pics!
Wheres the burger from though? definately not one of Donna's - its a little too char-cremated!
You'll have to point yourself out Horgy... I'll buy you a pint! (always good to have an inside view on courses - any tips?!
)Slayer - keep at it and dont be happy with 'good enough to pass'.... If you can get things near as perfect as you can in the PPL, you'll find it stands you in good stead for the CPL!
First Officer - great pics!
Wheres the burger from though? definately not one of Donna's - its a little too char-cremated!
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CAT3 Thanks for your kind words, always nice to here words of encouragement, you are a true gent. Clearly you haven't been flying with me in a while though, you should have see my last semi-controlled collision with earth
Kangy, thanks for the advise, I do seem to learn something new every time I go flying however I'm now looking forward to learning through instruction and not my mistakes
Keep the Diary coming, lapping it up!
Kangy, thanks for the advise, I do seem to learn something new every time I go flying however I'm now looking forward to learning through instruction and not my mistakes
Keep the Diary coming, lapping it up!
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DAY 11
In the Arrow again today and practising circuits....
I'd forgotten that you had a fair bit to do on take off with a floppy prop and retractable undercarriage - take off, gear up, reduce power, reduce propellor rpm, (still flying the plane of course...) and before you know it you're in downwind completing more checks....
First couple Id rather erase from memory - the Arrow truly does sink like a brick!
Slowly but surely they got better one after the other, but still not up to my usual high standards!
Once we landed I aplogised to Bob for flying like such a spud and he wasn't too mad thankfully. Apparantly everyone has 1hr of flying in the CPL course where they fly like they've never been in a plane before... I think that was mine!
Looks like we'll be grounded for the next couple of days due to the weather but will be back as soon as I'm back in the air!
In the Arrow again today and practising circuits....
I'd forgotten that you had a fair bit to do on take off with a floppy prop and retractable undercarriage - take off, gear up, reduce power, reduce propellor rpm, (still flying the plane of course...) and before you know it you're in downwind completing more checks....
First couple Id rather erase from memory - the Arrow truly does sink like a brick!
Slowly but surely they got better one after the other, but still not up to my usual high standards!
Once we landed I aplogised to Bob for flying like such a spud and he wasn't too mad thankfully. Apparantly everyone has 1hr of flying in the CPL course where they fly like they've never been in a plane before... I think that was mine!
Looks like we'll be grounded for the next couple of days due to the weather but will be back as soon as I'm back in the air!
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No flying today - rain stops play!
Seems like the case for weds also....
Smith - I usually fly monday to friday weather permitting of course, leaves me a day to earn a little money and a day off.... what more could a man want
Seems like the case for weds also....
Smith - I usually fly monday to friday weather permitting of course, leaves me a day to earn a little money and a day off.... what more could a man want
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DAY 11
After much pondering about the weather today, it finally became good enough to do an hour of circuits in the Arrow, and after the previous pretty awful flight I was determined to make this a much more pleasant flight!
A couple of hours before the flight I read and went over my notes taken previously on what needs to be done, by when and where in the circuit - getting it pretty solid in my head (ie doing my homework!), I was quite amazed with the results......
Rotate at 70 kts, unusable runway left - gear up, once gear up light is out rpm to 2500, manifold pressure also back to 25, by now you're about to hit 500' so check flaps, engine t's & p's, landing light off and trim for 90....
once in downwind, get the checks done quickly, efficiently and make sure you trim - the plane becomes so much easier to fly once its trimmed properly!
Turning base, you're stable at the circuit height, properly trimmed, so reduce power, pitch for 80 kts and 2 stages of flaps.
Turn final, miss the mast at 750', call final, 3rd stage of flap, pitch for 75 kts, adjust power and whadda you know - she kissed the runway every time!
Trimming the plane is definately the answer!!!!
We also did a couple of glide approaches which were definately an eye opener..
When in late base, you pull the power to complete idle - no flap at this stage.
Its up to you to judge where you pull the power (before turning final) so you're able to make the runway - pretty hard to get right straightaway
I pulled the power to idle and firstly I thought I was too high.... then she started to sink like a brink! Keeping the speed at 80 kts was paramount as this was the best glide - no flap was used until short final to ensure you'd get in.... its better to be high (you can loose height) than low on a glide approach obviously!
...More tomorrow!
After much pondering about the weather today, it finally became good enough to do an hour of circuits in the Arrow, and after the previous pretty awful flight I was determined to make this a much more pleasant flight!
A couple of hours before the flight I read and went over my notes taken previously on what needs to be done, by when and where in the circuit - getting it pretty solid in my head (ie doing my homework!), I was quite amazed with the results......
Rotate at 70 kts, unusable runway left - gear up, once gear up light is out rpm to 2500, manifold pressure also back to 25, by now you're about to hit 500' so check flaps, engine t's & p's, landing light off and trim for 90....
once in downwind, get the checks done quickly, efficiently and make sure you trim - the plane becomes so much easier to fly once its trimmed properly!
Turning base, you're stable at the circuit height, properly trimmed, so reduce power, pitch for 80 kts and 2 stages of flaps.
Turn final, miss the mast at 750', call final, 3rd stage of flap, pitch for 75 kts, adjust power and whadda you know - she kissed the runway every time!
Trimming the plane is definately the answer!!!!
We also did a couple of glide approaches which were definately an eye opener..
When in late base, you pull the power to complete idle - no flap at this stage.
Its up to you to judge where you pull the power (before turning final) so you're able to make the runway - pretty hard to get right straightaway
I pulled the power to idle and firstly I thought I was too high.... then she started to sink like a brink! Keeping the speed at 80 kts was paramount as this was the best glide - no flap was used until short final to ensure you'd get in.... its better to be high (you can loose height) than low on a glide approach obviously!
...More tomorrow!
Last edited by kangy; 20th Aug 2007 at 20:49. Reason: typos!