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After much pressure I thought I should fill ya'll in on a catchup session!!!! I got my PPL at last (tho im pretty sure anyone who reads this probably already knows that!!) I started to get all worked up with a lack of progress due to the weather - I applied for my test on the 23rd of november and didn't get a decent day to do it on till the 28th of Jan - little bit my fault for being busy once or twice - more so the rubbishy wind and rain.
The test it self was a scary scary day - i was in pieces and really cudn't add 2+2 in the plane (shocking) but apparently it went pretty well - rite up until the point of getting back into the circuit - suddenly my head blew up and I messed it all up entirely, cud not put the plane on the ground. Now whether it was due to the wind, my lack of practice or just pressure building up i have no idea, but it was shocking.
So i got what was called a partial pass, as aengus put it " congratulations you've passed!!!! but the examiner would like to see you again soon" Basically i was gonna have to do the circuits again - pain in the ** but all the same far better then it cuda been.
2 hrs worth of circuit practice later (one horrible day and one pleasant day) and they reckoned i was ready to try again and all i needed was a letter to take to the iaa to say the same. So last Wednesday (6th) i went out to the airfield get the letter, but after many fonecalls and string pulling i was informed that i would be doing the circuits that day at 3 o'clock - EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!
Well not enough time to get completely freaked out about it, only half, but it all went pretty well. Examiner turned up we headed off out to kilcock, and back in. Standard overhead join and 3 circuits with a flapped, glide and unflapped landing.
This time things went far better and i was much happier with the landings myself. Parked up the aircraft and a shake of the hand later im told i passed ----- YES!!!! Peter Lindsay Private Pilot Licence with 80 hours and 7 minutes!!
SO now what
Hour building: im gonna need about another 70 hrs of flying before i can get onto the next stage of flight training so in a way thats 70 ppl I can take on 1hr trips - start booking now!!
ATPLS: gotta start studying for the 14 exams and hopefully get em outta the way so thats about 15 hrs a week to do - fun fun fun
(whoa this has been a long 1 :p)
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!!!!
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!!!
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 !!!!
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!!!
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 :)
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 :)
