Nav and PFL's

Seems I've forgotten to write on this for yet another week - Oh well!!! - I've spent the week doing navigation stuffs including a short trip upta trim and then back to Enfield and Kilcock. After that I was allowed to do it all on my own. The nav part was pretty easy tho as I passed Kilcock on the way out had a close encounter with a robin (other aircraft not the brother) which kinda scared the living daylights outta me and left me wondering about it halfway to trim. At which point I suddenly remembered I was supposed to be finding my way to trim and back. In the end I made it found my way to each town and back home again too!! Also did a trip to Tullamore - Athlone - Abbeysharule - Kilcock. Bout an hour and a halves worth of flying and lotsa fun so I think the plan is to repeat it as a solo flight sometime soon. The other thing i've been playing with this week is Practice Forced Landings where we're simulating an engine failure and so have to pick a field and line up to land in it all gliding. Little tricky to get it jus rite on the height side of things, tho strangely enough I seem to be too high more often then too low. Practice makes perfect tho!!!!

Solo Circuits galore

Looks like i've been slack again - but i'll blame that on the silly exams i have to do on friday - who wuda thought multiple choice questions could be so scary.... Anyways most of the weeks been spent solo-ing away in the circuit, today spent about 2 hrs up there, which brought me upto the five minimum I have to have done. So while I was heading down the downwind i took a couple of sneaky pics ( shows you jus how confident i was feeling) The first is looking forward towards Dublin, the second is over the field with the runway threshold under the wing strut and the last is proof that I brought the plane back in one piece (with a nice parking job)

The only other things i've done during the week was a nav excercise from kilcock to castlepollard to virginia last Wednesday (i think) and some advanced turning (45 degrees bank angle) on monday for an hour or so

More ticked off the list - and i think were on about 36 hrs now!!!

More Solo Time

Spent more time today flying around on my own!! In total got about 55 mins worth of circuits done on a fairly quiet day. But there were a few fun moments like when somebody turned up a little close infront and I had to try slow it down as much as possible to give me some decent space between us so that I could get down. In the end I had to go around because she was on a full stop landing and so wasted plenty of time tootling down the runway infront of me and I was told to go around. But it didn't phase me too much and I handled it without anybody else to hold my hand.

As for the actual flying it seemed good enough. Some circuits were better then others but I guess thats always gonna be the way. Some a little high on approach and some a little low. Then again there were also some that were pretty darn good. The actual touch downs were also variable but the last few when the slight cross wind calmed were pretty good too

My only slight worry is the fact that I got 10 landings done in the space of 55 mins which seems quite a few...... That may suggest I was travelling a little on the fast side, but then if it didnt cause me any probs i guess it can't be too bad. Just something to bear in mind i guess !!!!

My First Solo

Thursday and I got my first solo under my belt. Was sooo cool!!! Just one circuit but it was all me on my own and I must admit I think I managed it quite well!!! Very strange to be up there on my own in the aircraft.

Everybody had said the plane climbed far quicker without the 10 stone or whatever of instructor sitting beside ya. In fairness I didn't really notice it too much but I think that was largely due to the crosswind. Tho I did find myself leaning over towards the middle of the plane for some reason.

Felt far more confident in the plane on my own and had no hassles controlling the whole thing, Radio-wise and control-wise. Defs looking forward to the next one.....can't wait!!!

Navigation Excercise 1

Today we went playing with navigation. So before heading to the airfield this afternoon, i had to plan a route from the airfield down to Tullamore and then up to Navan before heading back to Weston again, taking account of the wind directions and speeds. It was pretty cool to get away from all the normal practice stuff and actually fly from point to point. Now my plan was pretty good, as was the actual heading holding stuffs, so that we ended up pretty much on target at most of the points.... All good so :)

I'm Flying Round in Circles

Mondays weather was a little on the rubbish side again so no flying then, Tuesday was better and did about a hlf hours worth of circuits, flying the other way down the runway.... basically meant every thing jus looked a little different, but all good all the same. Then we took a break for a while before heading out west for a while jus to fly without the hassels of the circuit. We then came back into Weston and did 3 more circuits before landing for good. Because of the longer run in on the other runway, it gave the chance to play with some pinpoint landings trying to get them as close to the piano keys at the start of the runway as possible!!! something else to aim for :)

Ups and Downs

(Sorry - this is a long one)

So after having such a good day on Monday - the rest of the week hasn't been so great. First off the weather hasn't been great originally we wanted high clouds to do more recovery from stalling and incipient (almost) spins which just wasn't becoming and so Tuesday and Wednesday were scratched from the flying point of view.

When I got out to the airfield on Thursday I learnt that I was going on a check ride with another instructor which would consist of 3 circuits, a normal flapped, a flapless, and a glide approach. If I proved that I could manage these i'd be allowed up solo into the circuit. But I messed it up.

I spose I wasn't really comfortable with what I was doing, the normal flapped was fine enough I've done enough of these to be happy with what i'm doing but in fairness the other two I've had less practice with and so just not completely certain about speeds and turning points.

The major thing I was picked up on was speed control on finals (jus before landing). Generally the idea is to keep the speed constant at a certain speed all the way down the glide path and then slowing slightly by raising the nose to touch down. To make this easier trim is used to take away most of the force needed on the control stick. So the idea is you get it trimmed and then you've got far less work to keep it constant. I think my biggest hassel was I forgot about trimming it and so was working far harder to keep it on, and failing miserably. Too much speed isnt great but handleable but too little speed brings you closer to stalling, which, when being close to the ground........IS NOT GOOD

- In truth I wouldn't have given it to me so I understand why he didn't

So since then I've been up in the circuit for nearly 3 hrs now and I think its all certainly helped. My speed control on finals is now far better, still don't think its perfect, but its certainly far better then before. Also since i've been concentrating on glide and flapless approaches im now far happier about the processes of the two. So
we'll see little more practice on Monday maybe and then hopefully I can nail the checkride, not to mention scare myself silly and head off on my own for my first solo flight :-)