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I spent this morning flying on the Slingsby in the circuit so I could go solo in it as I plan on taking it on my solo cross country qualifier, which is booked for 8th August. The trip was reasonably uneventful and I'm kind of looking forward to the trip which is Sandtoft to Teeside to Humberside and back to Sandtoft.
I also spent another three days at the Gamston ground school (True Air Speed) and managed to complete another two exams:
- Meteorology
- Flight Performance & Planning (including Mass & Balance)
Which leaves the following, which I'm going to self study for and hopefully book a single day to get them cracked off:- Aircraft (General) & Principles of Flight
- Radio-telephony Communications
I have also purchased a pocketpc off ebay with a gps unit and intend to use it to assist in my flying once I have passed my PPL. I don't want to rely on it as I kinda enjoy doing the nav the manual way, but if I get lost then it will certainly help. Once it arrives I'll let you know how it goes and what software I end up using.
I took today off as I had quite a bit of flying booked and it seemed a bit cheeky going into the office for three hours.
Today was hopefully going to be my first solo nav, and it was, twice.
I arrived at 10:00am this morning after driving over from Chester, a quick briefing from Christian and off to Sandtoft we went. Sandtoft was a little cross windy, but nothing major so over a can of coke I planned the route that he wanted me to fly.
The route was only a short one, Sandtoft to Scunthorpe, Scunthope to Gainsborough returning to Sandtoft. So after a quick plan off I went solo... It was only a short nav, first leg was only about 3 mins long, by the time I had managed to speak to Doncaster I was halfway towards the second leg. Doncaster was very busy this morning and the air traffic controller was very helpful and understanding, which really helped as I was understandably nervous. I turned at Gainsborough and headed back to Sandtoft. Joining the Circuit and landing without problem.
After a bite of lunch Christian sent me on a longer nav, Sandtoft to Market Weighton, Market Weighton to Snaith and then returning back to Sandtoft. The first lef didn't go too well, I was about 10' left of track, but I corrected and ended up on track arriving over Market Weighton. The Leg to Snaith went well, the leg to Sandtoft was also a little left of track. Once I had Sandtotf insight I did the radio call to change from Doncaster to Sandtoft, again it was the same Doncaster controller who was very helpful and patient.
Sandtoft tower informed me that runway 05 Lefthand was in use, so I set myself up and headed in, a couple of minutes later over the radio came "Attention all aircraft in the Sandtoft circuit, runway in use is 23 Righthand, so I though bugger, theres gonna be a cross wind... I descended deadside, joined the circuit and lined up for final... Cross wind would be an understatement, I didn't think I was going to make it, but a little extra power and a steeper approach got me back down safely.
Christian then jumped in and we headed back to Sheffield as I had a lesson booked in the Slinger (Slingsby T67M/Firefly) to try and get some circuits done at Sandtoft so I can be signed off to go solo in it. Due to the cross wind that was not going to happen so we decided to do a Nav Ex to Humderside as I would need to go there at some stage as its part of the Solo Cross Country Qualifier flight.
Phew, controlled Airfields seem to speak a completely different language, its alot more formal and it took sometime to get the hang off it, with lots of prompting from Christian and also him having to jump in once or twice.
Just for the record, the Slinger is an amazing aircraft to fly and if I buy an aircraft, its the one I'm going to get.
After a false start we left Humberside after a quick drink and headed home to Sheffield, about halfway back there were a pair of aircrafts in loose formation that were on an intercept course with ourselves so I descended to 1,000 ft to avoide them.... wow that slinger can't half move. We passed under them at the 1,000 mark doing 135 knots, that was without any extra power, just a gentle dive. We climbed back to 2,000 and headed into Sheffield.
I have decided to do the the Nav Qualifier in the Slinger, to me its the best aircraft for the job. Everything in it works, its strong, light, quick and the visibility out of the cockpit is stunning so I have another lesson booked in it to get cleared to go solo in it, plus a solo nav into Humberside to get me used to arriving there, then its dual cross country qualifier to go over the route and then its solo cross country.
I'm looking forward to it, but also nervous about it. Thankfully I've got ground school for the next couple of days to take my mind off it.
Till next time, stay lucky.
I've spent the last couple of days are the Ground School at Gamston and managed to complete another two exams, Human Performance & Limitations and Navigation & Radio Aids, that means I have four remaining:
- Meteorology
- Aircraft (General) & Principles of Flight
- Flight Performance & Planning (including Mass & Balance)
- Radio-telephony Communications
I made some school boy errors on the Nav paper, but still managed to pass. If you take the exam, its pretty straight forward, but make sure you read the questions, some might appear as trick, but they are not. The paper is based around a flight plan, spend time doing it and make sure it is correct, otherwise you may as well give up there and then.
The Human Performance and Limitations exam is very straight forward and I managed to get 100%, if you know any basic biology then you should have no real problems passing it.
I've got another lesson booked tomorrow night in the Slinger, which should be fun. Doing a Nav exercise, with some fun tagged on the end, I'm hopefully going to learn to do a wing over.
I'm aiming to have my license by early August, so have booked three lessons next week, two of which are Nav based and one for a little fun, Spinning in a Cessna. The following week I have three days off to complete the ground school and finish the remaining exams. Early the following week I should be taking the Radio Practical and then onto the skills test. Fingers crossed.
One thing that the tutor and the ground school was saying yesterday when we were havinga natter, he bought a plane a number of years ago and told his wife at the time that he doesn't take passengers and she would have to go and take a Radio License so she could legally operate the radio in his plane. I like the idea of that, so Sue, if you are reading this then....
I'd been having quite a bad week so far and things didn't seem to be getting any better until I received a phone call this morning. A Sheffield number came up on the mobile and I didn't recognise it so I sent it to the answer phone.
A little bit later in the morning I picked the message up and it was Steve, the owner of the flying school ringing to say that both the DA40s we out of service, but if I fancied I could fly the Slingsby that they had.
I'd never heard of the Slingsby or even thought I had a lesson that day so I rang back to query it and no, I did have a lesson booked for 16:00 and even though the weather was bad it should still be ok.
I rang the flying school at 15:30 as it was coming down in buckets over Sheffield to see if the lesson was still going ahead and yep it looked like it was going to happen so off I went. I arrived on time and met Christian who I was flying with today and its the first time that I have genuinely seen him excited to fly a plane. The DA40s don't really do it for him, hes ok with the PA28, but seems to have a thing about Cessnas. He had actually managed to get me to go flying in one earlier in the month and I can honestly say, he was right it was kind of fun and actually quite enjoyable.
We were grounded for a couple of hours due to the weather but things seemed to be getting better we got the plane fuelled and headed across the apron to it. It was lashing down, its an interesting plane to climb aboard and its the first time I have flown with a 5 point harness, but I managed to get strapped in.
While we were waiting for a break in the clouds Christian was telling me how quick they can climb, anything up to 1,000ft/min. The best climbing aircraft I had flown to date was the PA28-180 so I didn't think much about it. I taxied to the R28 and did the power checks with Christian, got clearance from the tower and lined up.
Usual start, feet on the brakes, full power, feet off the brakes and off we went. Christian said the take off speed was around the 75-80 knot mark so when we reached that speed I pulled back on the stick and....wow, she can climb, up we went like a rocket. We performed a normal climb out cruise and headed to the rother valley for some fun. By the time we had reached the VRP we had climbed to 1,500', without trying.
There was a break in the weather so I had a bit of a play to get the feel for the plane and she is really is a dream to fly. She is very easy to handle, picks up speed like there is no tomorrow and climbs like nothing else I have flown. Due to the huge glass canopy visibility is unreal.
We headed towards Toll Bar to see how bad the flooding was and I can honestly say I was shocked at how bad it still was, we were between 2,500 and 3,000' and from the height you could see how deep the water was and see the infividual hoses from the engines pumping out the village. I really do hope that the village gets sorted and that things get better for the people in that village.
We stayed local for a bit with Christian doing a few wing overs, the plane has a G meter in it and at one point we were pulling over 3 G's. During one of the wing overs the plane went into a spin, that pulled nearly 4 Gs, Christian recovered from the spin increadibly quickly, there was no drama no nothing. In fact it was over before I even really realised we were in trouble.
We returned to Sheffield and the weather had started to close in, which is a shame as the cockpit leaks slightly and I ended up sopping wet, but it was still one of the best flights I've had in a very long time. Can't wait to fly it again.
