Michael’s Flight Training Diary

Time flown today: (tbd)

Total time flown: (tbd)

Following last week’s successful circuits session on runway 24 in very benign winds, the instructor in the group said he’d like me to get some practice on the 06 circuit, because the noise abatement demands are very specific, and also some crosswind practice. Well, fortunately, on the very next booking the winds favoured 06, and although there was perhaps less crosswind than I would have liked, it seemed to satisfy the instructor. So off we went.

First of all, an overhead join, which at Wycombe are rather unconventional. We departed north up the Bledlow ridge to the edge of the Chilterns, then turned left to fly south along the edge, past Chinnor, watching out closely for gliders soaring over the escarpment. We turned left along the M40 at the Stokenchurch mast, taking care to keep clear of the Lewknor parachuting site which was active, crossed over to the right-hand side of the motorway since we were following a line feature, and followed the motorway south-east at 2000ft QNH until it brought us into the vicinity of the circuit, with the airfield in sight. The trick is to look for the motorway bridge just north of the two villages of Lane End and Frieth, then fly straight ahead between the two villages at that point, diverging from the motorway and following the 06 noise abatement circuit pattern but at 1500 QFE, 500ft above the circuit height. On reaching the extended runway centreline, turn left onto it (the same track as final approach), and descend to be 1200ft QFE at the runway threshold. It’s important to stay no lower than 1500ft QFE until well onto the runway centreline (final approach track), to ensure separation from circuit traffic that may have wandered a little too high. Fly along the final approach track and runway, and half-way along the runway (need to look for other references around the airfield, because you can’t see the runway from directly above it at 1200ft!), turn 90 degrees left towards the downwind leg. This track avoids noise-sensitive villages, and descend to circuit height at 1000ft QFE to intercept downwind.

On the downwind leg, look for the water tower in the woods north-west of Lane End - that’s the cue to turn downwind, between Lane End and Frieth. with the wind blowing from the north, you have to get the flaps out and power back quickly: I’d normally go for 1400rpm from the start of base, but 1200rpm works better here if I’m to avoid being too high on final. I got this wrong the first few times, ending up high and having to lose height on final: the instructor introduced the technique of diving it off. Put out full flap, and point the nose at the ground: with the barn-door-like flaps out, the speed won’t get above 90kts, while the height just reels off, quickly getting down onto the PAPI-indicated glide slope.

The same things apply as last time for the landing: bring the speed back to 60kts over the fence, and the flare works just nicely. There was a bit of crosswind - not much, but enough for me to demonstrate rudimentary ability on the rudder. Once down on the runway, there’s not as much margin on Wycombe’s runway for a touch-and-go as there is on Oxford’s. If the landing is more than slightly long, the right call is to hit the brakes and stop, as I had to once: fortunately, at Wycombe the taxyway is parallel to the runway, so you’re quickly taking off again after stopping. After the takeoff, on reaching the end of the runway, take a substantial turn left to 020 degrees for noise abatement - then on reaching 600ft QFE (which comes up very quickly), turn left again to due north, towards the Golden Ball, look out for circuit altitude… and it’s back onto downwind.

Reporting downwind, there were a number of times when Tower informed us of conflicting traffic joining base from the north. This traffic was surprisingly easy to spot, but if you see it’s going to end up too close to you in the circuit, what do you do? Well, you can either deviate slightly north of the circuit, but if that’s still going to bring you in too close behind to be confident of having a clear runway to land on, the alternative is to extend the circuit beyond Frieth, flying the 24 circuit in reverse. This is straightforward, and gives you a nice easy-going 2.5 mile final approach to get everything lined-up and stable.

In all, I did about six circuits, one of which was a go-around because I got too close to a Cessna in front of me, tootling along at barely 60 knots. The last landing was on grass, which I flared a bit late for, but fortunately my speed was right at the time (about 60 knots) and I pulled back hard enough to get the nose into the right position, so the touch-down was no more than a positive but moderate thump. Otherwise, it all worked pretty well. Although the crosswind wasn’t severe, my rudder co-ordination was adequate to put the plane down straight every time, just about every touch-down had the stall warner blaring (good), and some were quite smooth. Not bad.

And best of all, at the end of it the instructor said that now, the thing for me to do was to practice on my own! All that remains is for me to pick up the keys - and wait for WM to return from its annual - and I’ll finally have access to the plane on my own terms.

Flown today: 1h 0m

Total time to date: 72h 05m

Having done general handling, and an introduction to the 24 circuit but without much success at landing due to the hefty crosswind, my next session of familiarisation in WM was focussed on learning how to land it properly. This time, I was with a different group member who’s also an instructor, and with just a few knots of wind close to the runway heading, it was going to be a good opportunity to get to grips with landing it. I had my newly-prepared checklist to hand, which made life much easier, and I slowly and thoroughly worked my way through it, noting a few improvements and additions suggested by the instructor. Apart from the obvious problem that pressing the annunciator test button doesn’t help much before you’ve started the engine, a couple of interesting things to note were: check that both radios can receive and transmit before departing: so tune one for ground or tower and use that to request taxy, and check reception on the other by listening to something like London Volmet on 128.6. Then, at the power checks, switch to the other box and use that for requesting departure: this ensures that both boxes work. The other useful tip was to switch fuel tanks during the power checks, not before: this ensures not only that both tanks are working, but that they’ll deliver proper fuel flow at high power.

Anyway, we were ready for departure on 24, so ran through the final pre-takeoff checks, onto the runway, and we were off. The noise-abatement turn on reaching the end of the runway was shown to be more like 30 degrees than 10, turning back onto the runway heading on passing the little cottage on the edge of the woods that is the subject of the noise abatement manouevre. The circuit height of 1000ft QFE comes up quickly, and the crosswind turn soon after that to head directly towards Fingest, tucked behind a hill. Turn downwind just before Fingest onto the reciprocal heading of 060 degrees, and the Golden Ball should be visible in the distance about three miles away. Fly straight for the Golden Ball, heading just to the right of it, and with a good looking for traffic joining base, turn base and start descent, heading for the middle of the Cressex business estate. Aim to be 500ft QFE at turning final, two stages of flap and 75kts. Call final, and concentrate on the approach. At about 250ft and half a mile, final stage of flap and 65 kts, bring it back to 60 over the fence, carb heat off, and from that point the landing is really very easy indeed when it’s not blowing 15 knots perpendicular to the runway. All of my six landings were pretty respectable, and one or two were beautifully smooth. One of them, I pitched up a little too much when starting to flare, but I had twenty feet or so of height so the quick correction didn’t cause a problem beyond appearing a little cack-handed. On the penultimate circuit, the instructor suggested flapless: 80kts approach, 70kts touch-down, and that worked just fine. For the last circuit, the instructor suggested going round at cruise speed (2400 RPM), instead of the 2100 RPM/90 kts slow circuit I’d been doing to fit in with other circuit traffic. At 110kts, the plane feels really good to fly: more responsive, and the ground slides by noticeably more swiftly when it’s only 1000ft below. Feels like a going-places kind of aeroplane!

The way that the Wordpress default theme was squashing all Laura’s lovely photos of the flights in New Zealand was annoying me, so I set about trying to “fix” it… big mistake, cos I’m not a php geek. So I’m sorry the site doesn’t quite look right at the moment, but I’ll have it sorted shortly. Still, at least the photos now look nice and big!

Time flown today: 1h 35m

Total time flown: 71h 05m

Saturday was my first flight as P1 in WM, with Alan, a CRI-rated group member - and knowledgeable and pleasant chap. I’d brought the checklists from the PoH, from which the A-check was pretty straightforward, but on getting in and preparing to start, I realised that they omitted quite a lot of useful and necessary items that I’m used to in the AFE checklists. Must get a proper one: maybe I should make my own. Taxi and power-check were OK, except that Alan had to prompt me for the full-and-free movement check before departing! Not good.

Takeoff was straightforward, although WM does require quite a heave to lift it off at 65 kts. Climb is 76 kts, very much like a Cherokee 140, and departing from runway 24 it’s necessary to turn about 10 degrees left to avoid upsetting local residents. Alan pointed out the local features of the circuit, and the turn crosswind is down the valley towards the windmill at Turville, circuit height 1000ft QFE. We continued climbing and proceeded north-west, passing just north of Stokenchurch mast to keep clear of the Lewknor gliding site, and headed past Thame towards the disused airfield at Westcott, which we used as a navigational “anchor” while doing general handling. Westcott is a convenient landmark, being distinctive and visible whilst avoiding built-up areas, but being an NDB there’s also a hell of a lot of other aircraft in the area, either en route or doing handling too. We had to look out like hawks, and at times it felt like using the middle of the M25 to practice reverse parking!

The aircraft basically handles in a nice, balanced, predictable and benign way. At cruise power (110kts level), it requires a fair bit more rudder turning right than left, though in the cruise the rudder trim would help there. At first, the aircraft was getting away from me a bit, trying to trim it for straight and level while following Alan’s instructions, so we slowed it down to 90 kts (2100rpm) and I got it back under control. I then brought it back to slow flight, and fairly soon had it stable and trimmed at 70 kts. It needed quite a bit of right rudder, but wasn’t unduly mushy or unresponsive. With that done, time for stalls. I had some confusion about the HASELL check, since I was feeling the workload a bit: height, airframe, security, engine, location, lookout! Brought the speed back, pulled back to maintain altitude… stall warned blares out, and recover! Which was all well and good, except that the stall warner sounding does not a stall make! I must have been at least five knots above the stall. Alan took control, and demonstrated: stall warner goes off, slight buffet and wobble… “and now we’re stalled”, he said. Really? There was almost no change in attitude - you’d never know we were stalled, except that we were descending at nearly 1000ft/min with indicated airspeed about 40 kts. Very benign. Full throttle, release of back pressure, and we were recovered. Easier than in the Cherokee 140, if anything.

Now for approach configurations. 75 kts, 1400rpm, second stage of flap - pretty straightforward. It’s usual to put in full flap on short final: Alan’s short-final procedure is clearance received, reds (mixture rich) blues (prop fine, he’s used to wobbly ones) greens (he’s used to retractable gear, too), full flap, carb heat off (ready for go-around). The go-around procedure is full throttle, pitch up for level flight, retract full flap one stage if full flap deployed, and look for a positive rate of climb before putting more flap away. I was a bit overloaded with the workload and making silly mistakes, but in retrospect it’s all pretty simple stuff.

Alan showed me a simple way to find my way home to Wycombe. Find Westcott, and from there, follow the railway south-west. After a couple of miles it joins the main line heading south-east, and follow that, keeping well to the right of the railway to avoid infringing the winch-launch gliding site at Haddenham. The railway line continues south-east to Princes Risborough, and from there a pair of parallel valleys are seen leading on south-east towards High Wycombe. Call the field inbound over Princes Risborough, and if it’s runway 24 you’ll probably be given a right-base join. So select the right-hand valley, and aim to be 1000ft QFE by the “golden ball” building at the far end of the ridge between the valleys. Do the downwind checks, and at this point High Wycombe and the Cressex Business Park are visible in front, with the airfield off in the 1-2 o’clock position: it’s right base. Look out carefully for any conflicting traffic in the circuit coming downwind, then established on base, slow down, put out flap and start descent soon after the golden ball, keeping eyes open for the turn to final. Keep your nerve on final, not to be distracted by the M40 just before the threshold! And land. Which generally should be all well and good, but when you’ve got a 20-degree crab angle on final approach and a horizontal windsock at 90 degrees to the runway, it’s definitely more interesting!

The first approach, I got completely wrong, far too high, and threw it away at a couple of hundred feet. Which was an opportunity to do a full circuit. From the crosswind leg at 1000ft QFE, aiming for the Turville windmill, there’s a short side-valley on the right. Fly down that, aiming for the western edge ofHigh Wycombe, check position downwind relative to the runway, and call downwind. Pass just to the left of a small square industrial park, and that’s the base turn. Round we went again: a bit high again, swinging all over the place in the wind, and I got it down to about 50ft before deciding again that it wasn’t going to work - go around.

Next time, Alan decided to do one, to show me how it’s done and give me a break. He did a neat job of it too, with hefty control inputs in the flare as we bounced in the gusting wind, to bring it down positively. Around we went one more time… Alan said I was going to get it down the next time, which would be the last. I countered that if it was going wrong, I’d go around - but I knew what he was getting at. This time, he directed me to extend downwind, and set up for a final twice as long as before. The approach went much better this time, with more time to prepare and get it lined up. With the wind 90 degrees across the runway at about 15kts, I concentrated on trying to make sure I didn’t drift downwind. Cut power and flared, then focussed on straightening it, and giving it into-wind aileron to keep it level… I didn’t quite get it right, I think I didn’t flare enough, and Alan had to make a couple of timely inputs just before we bumped down onto the tarmac.

In retrospect, I think that what I got wrong was the simultaneous co-ordination of flare, straightening with rudder, and using aileron to compensate for the roll induced by the rudder input. In the absence of crosswind, there’s really only a one-axis dynamic sequence to get right (the flare), but in a crosswind, there are three largely-independent dynamic sequences on different axes to execute simultaneously (flare, straighten and counteract roll). I’m not sufficiently practiced to successfully co-ordinate these. The straightening manoeuvre may also be making me look in the wrong place: I have a feeling it’s making me look at the centreline of the runway fairly close-up, instead of further down the runway where I can better judge the flare.

Bottom line: I need more practice!

Time flown today: 1h 35m

Total time flown: 69h 30m

Write-up coming soon.

Time flown today: 2h 35m

Total time to date: 67h 55m

Someone had recommended that while in New Zealand, I should do some mountain flying with Air Wakatipu in Queenstown. So, we booked a plane and an instructor for a morning, and off we went. Here’s the flight on Google Earth:

Queenstown has a regional airport that has a few 737s and turboprop airliners a day, located in a fairly narrow valley by a lake between 2000m mountain ridges. The approach in the 737 a couple of days previously had been pretty impressive. So we met our instructor, checked out the Cessna 172, and set off. I wasn’t doing brilliantly, forgetting some checks, but I managed OK and we made an uneventful takeoff towards the east.

Looking south, shortly after lift-off:

Looking west up the lake, just after turning left after departure:

Looking back down the Shotover Valley at the back of Queenstown:

And north, up the famous Shotover Valley: (wish I’d gone rafting down there while I was in town!)

We climbed north then west, around the back of Queenstown, at max rate of climb to gain about 7000ft to clear the major ridge between the central and northern arms of Lake Wakatipu. Fairly soon, we’d got about 1000ft spare beneath us and the ridge, and we passed over it heading north-west.

My first mountain ridge crossing!

Suddenly, we’re in the high alps. It’s seriously big and rugged country here.

We crossed the ridge, and continued west to cross the northern arm of Lake Wakatipu.

North of the lake, the valley is wide with a glacial moraine:

Flying up the valley towards the next ridge, the ground got much higher - the peaks are well over 10,000ft and glaciated. This would be a bad place for an engine failure. We were clearing the ridges by less than 1000ft. The instructor showed me the technique: approach the ridge at an angle of 45 degrees, from the right-hand side if it’s a pass at the head of a valley. As you approach the ridge, watch what any visible terrain beyond does relative to the ridgeline: if it’s moving upwards, that means you’re above the ridge, and (downdraughts, rotor, etc. notwithstanding) you’re going to clear it. If the terrain beyond appears to be moving downwards relative to the ridge, get the hell out of there now. This you can do, because you’re approaching the ridgeline at 45 degrees, so by banking into a steep-ish turn to the left, you’ve got space to do a U-turn and fly away to fly another day.

The most nerve-wracking and exciting part of it is flying narrow cols. You need to cross the top of the col at 45 degrees, in order to leave yourself an escape route if you get to the brink and realise it’s not doable (solid cloud beyond, rising ground beyond, etc.). But you’re flying up a narrow valley, and at the head of the valley, on either side of the col, are walls and pinnacles extending thousands of feet above the col. So, you fly up the side of the valley, and approaching the top, fly at the wall to the right of the col. Keep flying at it. The 2000-ft-high wall of rock looms bigger, and bigger, in the windshield. Keep going, wrench your eyes from the wall of rock you’re apparently about to crash into, and watch the col, the target, check the terrain beyond is doing the right thing, check for any rotor cloud indicating trouble, wait until the angle is right… the wall fills the windshield… then wrench the plane over into a rapid 45-degree bank, wings back level, slip over the col, the rocks and boulders seemingly close enough to touch… and breathe again… as a whole new vista opens in front of you, and the ground falls away again.

The glaciers on the mountains just north of Milford Sound are spectacular.

And so we caught our first glimpse of Milford Sound, descending over the hills to the north out to sea to lose height from 9000ft down to 3000ft.

We descended, and flew across the mouth of the Sound.

We flew up the sound at 3000ft. To be honest, it’s not quite as spectacular from 3000ft as it is from near sea level - this is one place you should definitely visit in a boat. But it’s still pretty awesome from 3000ft.

This place is big. Really, really big. The building complex is a large cruise terminal, with row upon row of tour buses parked behind it.

Soon, we passed over the end of Milford Sound, and followed the valley as it curves around south. This is the view up the valley east of Milford, where the road descends.

We climbed up towards the head of the valley, climbing back into the high alps.

Over the top, and into the next fiord.

Fiord, valley, ridge, valley, fiord… our progress south continued, and soon enough we came to the poorer weather lying across the far south of the country. Had I been by myself, I’d never have continued into cloudy weather like this, but I was accompanied by an extremely experienced mountain flying instructor. Mountain pilots don’t get to be “extremely experienced” (20 years, in this case) if they have a tendency to take poorly-judged risks… so I figured I’d be safe. And I figured it would be an interesting experience! So we went for it…

The country is pretty rugged. How far away are those jagged rocky edges?

This next picture is particularly deceptive. How far away is the rock face: 2m, 200m, 2km? You just have no sense of scale, and that can be really tricky. As it happens, this rock face was moving in an exceedingly leisurely manner, as we cruised at a steady 95 kts. It was very, very big.

And so we arrived at the great, serpentine waters of Doubtful Sound. The clouds are looking pretty dodgy - but wonderfully atmospheric. Really gave a sense of scale. The instructor reckons they make the mountains look their best.

So we proceeded up the sound, hoping to make it over the pass at the far eastern end and drop down into Te Anau to exit the Fiordlands area. It was looking murkier and murkier ahead as we ploughed through the rain, carefully observing whether the skies were becoming darker or lighter in front as we proceeded.

It was getting really murky as we approached the pass, peering over it to see if it was clear beyond. Unfortunately, there was nothing but solid cloud visible over the brim of the pass… so we we turned tail and retraced our path down the sound, to try a more northerly crossing east.

We made our way up the next valley north, climbing higher and hoping the pass would be clear at the top.

The top of the pass is visible at the right-hand side of the photo below. There was about 500ft clear between the pass and the cloudbase - so, approach from an angle with a get-out route if it’s not clear, and go for it!

We made it over the pass, and the views opened up to the north-east, down towards a far western arm of Lake Te Anau.

The Te Anau plains soon opened up in front of us, and soon enough the neat little town came into view.

We crossed the lake, and proceeded north-east back towards Queenstown.

Between Te Anau and Queenstown, the country becomes very arid.

Soon enough, we emerged over the northern arm of Lake Wakatipu. The island is what we flew over on the way out, just a few miles few miles north.

We flew up the southern side of the middle section of Lake Wakatipu, and Queenstown came into view on the northern shore.

Pulled into a tight downwind for the short south-facing grass runway, nestled up against a hillside on downwind. It was a tighter and more geographically-constrained circuit than I’m used to at Oxford!

Turned base, and we were down! Didn’t make a brilliant job of the landing: I needed to get more practice in with flaring 172s. But I was buzzing. What a flight!

Time flown today: 1h 20m

Total time flown: 65h 20m

In New Zealand, on holiday: what better place to go flying? We started off spending a few days with friends in Auckland, so I contacted North Shore aerodrome just north of Auckland, to go on a trial lesson-cum-sightseeing flight, with an instructor to do all the hard work (negotiate busy and unfamiliar aerospace) and let me fly. I’d booked a Cessna 172, which is a bit different to the PA28s I usually fly, but it crucially gives Laura a clear view for nice photos, from the back seat.

We departed from North Shore towards the north-east, coming round east to get to the coast.

There’s a big chunk of military Class D airspace between North Shore airfield and Auckland city that covers the entire width of the North Island isthmus at that point, so we have to use the VFR lane that follows the east coast, below 1000ft. So to the east coast, and turn right. As we follow the coast south, the terrain gets more and more built-up in the northern suburbs of Auckland. Apparently, Auckland has a larger built-up area than London, even though it’s got a small fraction of the population. Kiwis are, like Americans, accustomed to big floor-plans when it comes to houses.

Soon enough, the city came into sight in the distance.

We flew down the east coast, around the Devonport headland into Waitemata Harbour, and up the harbour right in front of the city centre waterfront. What a way to approach the city.

We flew up the harbour, over the spectacular harbour bridge, and towards the line of hills marching over the narrow isthmus.

Climbed up through the bumpy thermally air over the wooded hills, then dropped down the valley the other side to the beautiful west-coast beach at Piha.

Turned south at Piha, and followed the beautiful and rugged west coast south from Piha.

We approached the mouth of Manukau Harbour, and turned into it, taking great care to keep clear of the international airport’s Class D - we could see the big jets on final approach just a few km south of us.

We set course north-east back towards the city centre, overflying our friends’ house where we were staying in Kelston en route:

And back past the city centre on the other side, overflying our friend in his office as he watched us from the ground, following an excited text message exchange with Laura.

From the city centre, we headed out into the Hauraki Gulf towards the volcanic Rangitoto Island, giving the hikers assembled at the viewing point on the summit something new to look at as we flew past at low level. Hmm, I was PUT to the instructor, it wasn’t on my license, guv…

So we flew back out over the Hauraki Gulf, heading north-west towards the North Shore coast - and limited to 1000ft by the Class C airspace above, hoping the engine didn’t make any worrying noises as we did…

We crossed over the Whangaparaoa peninsula, rejoined the east coast shoreline, and proceeded back north…

Yet more beautiful coastline, just a few km from the bustling metropolis of Auckland.

Over the hot springs resort and pools complex at Waiwera, just a few km from North Shore aerodrome. Their spring water is particularly delicious.

And so back to base. Didn’t quite have the knack of landing a 172 at first attempt: made a reasonable hack of the approach, and I was pretty concerned about the narrowness of the runway which resembled a piece of country lane (it was actually perfectly respectable, it’s just that I’m used to the bizjet-friendly new expanse of Oxford’s main runway). But having got it perfectly lined up on the runway, I didn’t really flare, requiring a timely input from the instructor. Misjudged the height, really. But never mind: we were safely down. Big thanks to Jol Joynes, the instructor, for making the whole flight perfectly easy and pleasurable. I can heartily recommend you pay North Shore aero club a visit if you’re in the Auckland area.

Time flown today: 2h 20m

Total time to date: 64h

Another weekend, time to get airborne again! Plan was to head out to Wales for a land-away, ideally Caenarvon - but having realised my booking at PFT was shorter than I’d thought, and there was dubious weather coming in from the north-west, we decided to shoot for Welshpool instead. The weather at Oxford was beautiful, so we took off and departed westward over the Cotswolds. We could see big cumulus on the far western horizon, and started to encounter clouds around Malvern, but the base was a good 2000ft higher than the hilltops, so we continued. Going towards the murkier weather, we could always just turn around and go home if things got trickier.

Shobdon Radio was pretty busy, as we ducked under cloud to turn in their overhead, watching like hawks for any traffic that might be joining overhead at the same time. Pressed on north to Welshpool, the clouds getting darker but still leaving a respectable height clear above the hills. It was getting pretty turbulent under the clouds, too. Took a look at the time, considered when we had to have the plane back on the ground at Oxford, and decided we didn’t have time to land at Welshpool. But we’d taken off with full tanks, so put a quick call to Welshpool from about ten miles away that we wouldn’t be landing, and turned around.

We had time on our hands. Where to now? Well, I fancied seeing one of my favourite parts of the country from the air: the Black Mountains. Quick look at the map, quick look at the DI, quick look at the lay of the land… I think it’s *that* way, pointing south over the lines of hills lit by bright sunlight behind the low dark clouds. It looked pretty epic.

Had to dodge around one particularly black cloud underbelly that appeared to be dropping prodigious quantities of hail! Got a few splatters of rain on the windscreen, gave it a bit of carb heat for good measure and kept plenty of sky between us and the ground…

And soon enough, we’d reached Hay-on-Wye.

It’s stunning countryside around here: south-west along the escarpment of the Black Mountains, one of the most spectacular pieces of upland scenery in the southern UK IMO:

And north-west over the Wye Valley, towards the rugged hills of mid-Wales:

A favourite spot of mine on the eastern-most ridge of the Black Mountains, which also happens to be the line of Offa’s Dyke marking the border between England and Wales - we’d been walking and picnicing at this very spot a few weeks earlier:

We flew over the eastern-most ridge, crossing back into England, and skirted around the Pontrilas danger area before a quick detour to the little village of Much Dewchurch, to see my mother’s house from the air:

And with time pressing on, time to hotfoot it back to Oxford! With the wind on our tail, we were making over 120kts groundspeed, back over Gloucester and the Cotswolds.

Time flown today: 1h 30m

Total time: 61h 40m

A beautiful winter’s day - a weak cold front cleared enough of a gap in the anticyclonic gloom that’s hung over the country for the last three weeks, to fly on the privileges of the new license that’s been burning a hole in my pocket for the last couple of weeks…

It was the first time out with my shiny new AV8OR GPS, but I sketched out the route on the map as a backup and to help situational awareness. From Oxford, out west north-west to Eastnor, the site of Big Chill festival, just on the south-west edge of the Malverns. Then south-east, over Gloucester to Painswick, a beautiful village north of Stroud for some photos. From there, overhead Kemble, thread through the Fairford MATZ gap between the Lyneham and Brize zones; over the White Horse at Uffington for some more photos, and back over Oxford city.

Outbound, approaching the Malverns:

Eastnor deer park, looking beautiful and very different to when I was last on the ground there in early August…

Got to concentrate…

AV8OR in action, half-way from Eastnor to Painswick…

Hillsides still frosty at 3pm…

Painswick:

The big house with the Rococo Gardens:

My girlfriend has a great macro lens:

White Horse at Uffington: maybe would be better viewed in the summer, since it’s north facing and in permanent shadow in winter…

Didcot power station…

And back to Oxford, from the south-west.

Over Oxford at circuit height, city looking beautiful in the last minutes before sunset…

North Oxford…

The A34 stretches north, as we approach left-hand downwind to 19 at Oxford…

Sheep somewhere under downwind…

And so we landed.

Flown today: 1.0

Polish circuits. Must do pre-takeoff checks in exactly the order specified in the book.

Crosswind takeoff: into-wind aileron, then on reaching rotate speed, neutralise aileron before lifting off. Go straight to climb attitude, don’t level out too much to “gain speed”. Alter heading into the crosswind to maintain a straight track. For a 01 circuit, turn immediately after passing the chimney.

Normal approaches are generally good. For flapless approach, keep speed 5kts higher on approach and fly a shallower approach, using PAPIs if available, to ensure you’re not too high on short final. For glide approach, fly circuit pattern remaining at circuit height until sure the middle of the runway can be made, then ask the instructor to cut the throttle and adjust speed. Once established in the descent and certain it can be made, add flaps as required.

Failing to flare properly on landing. Once the flare has started, continue pulling back until flying level, by which time there should be no power on. Look to the end of the runway, judge the height changes in peripheral vision, and for each bit of height loss, pull back further until gentle touchdown is achieved.

For the crosswind, resist the temptation to apply out-of-wind aileron to straighten the aircraft, or bring it back to the centreline since it’s probably drifted upwind during the flare due to windshear. Any movements to bring it downwind must be achieved using rudder, so that a constant into-wind aileron can be held.