Michael’s Flight Training Diary

Dual time today: 0h 55m

Solo time today: 0h 55m

Total time to date: 34h 45m

After days and days of squally fronts with low cloud, gales and diluvian rain, Tuesday dawned with clear skies and gentle 6-knot winds. How perfect. And exactly as hoped, it was to be my first solo navigation exercise. Proper flying, for the first time: flying a serious distance cross-country, place to place, on my own.

The briefed route was Oxford - Charlbury (for remote start) - Moreton-in-Marsh - Banbury - Oxford, a total of about 43 miles over the beautiful Cotswolds. Being a short flight, it’s dual-to-solo in a single session. With pre-planned route log in hand, it just took a quick look at the NOTAMs with the instructor and we were off to the aircraft. Preparation of the aircraft was straightforward, although the viscous de-icing fluid is a bugger to remove from the windows and windshield: it took a great deal of wiping and polishing before we had any decent forward visibility. So we made an unremarkable takeoff on runway 01, and quick visual nav to Charlbury: left turn to skirt around the north side of Blenheim, intercept the railway and follow it north-west to the town, which was the starting point for the nav. I remembered to turn on the transponder, turn off the fuel pump, look out behind the nose on climb-out, and generally do everything properly.

One difference with the lesson today was getting a flight information service from Brize Radar, instead of Oxford Approach. The principle difference is that they didn’t have the flightplan (as Oxford Approach would do), so I had to give them the information as a standard “pass your message” call:

me: “Brize Radar, this is Golf Bravo Tango Golf Oscar, request Flight Information Service”

Brize: “Golf Golf Oscar, pass your message”

me: “Golf Golf Oscar is a PA28 out of Oxford for a navex Moreton - Banbury - Oxford, overhead Charlbury at 2500ft on QNH 1025, request Flight Information Service.”

Brize: “Golf Golf Oscar, roger, squawk 3717, Cotswold QNH 1021, Flight Information Service, report Moreton.”

me: “Squawk 3717, Cotswold QNH 1021, Flight Information Service, report Moreton, Golf Golf Oscar”

That was a lot of information to get down! Important to write it down, to prevent it slipping my memory. In actual fact, the call didn’t go quite as smoothly as that: I forgot the squawk code and had to ask for it again, but that’s no problem.

The navigation proceeded smoothly after that. It’s familiar ground and the visibility was good, so it was pretty simple really. Made the cruise checks at the right places. The DI didn’t wander too much. Made a neat turn at Moreton, reported the turn to Brize and proceeded on my way. Deviated slightly south of track on route towards Banbury, but only a mile or so and it was quickly corrected. Banbury was clearly visible from shortly after turning at Moreton, which made navigation trivial.

As we approached Banbury, the instructor pulled a minor surprise: instead of going Banbury - Oxford, we’d divert Banbury - Charlbury. Sketched the line on my map, and saw that it passed directly overhead Enstone. Took a guess at the track at 200 degrees. The wind was 230 degrees at 15 knots, equating to a Max Drift of about 10 degrees at 90 knots airspeed (60/90 x 15 = 10). The wind was therefore about 30 degrees westerly of our track…

but I was shaken from my mental calculations and map studies to notice that the horizon was about 15 degrees from level - oops! Quick aileron input to put it back level again… I have a sneaky suspicion that the instructor tweaked it while I had my head down…

So where was I? Right… The wind was about 30 degrees westerly of our track, so take half the Max Drift and add it to the track to get a heading of 205 degrees. Measured the distance with the map edge at about 11 miles, with a headwind of nearly 15 knots, so the time would be about 7-8 minutes - time now is 10:35, so ETA will be about 10:42. I’m ready!

Turned neatly over Banbury onto the new track, and all was well. Reported to Brize that I was diverting, and noted the traffic they reported. I realised that I was generally having a Good Trim Day: the aeroplane was generally staying right on the desired altitude, without me inadvertently wobbling it about the place. Climbed up to 3000 to transit Enstone’s overhead, keeping clear of any joining traffic, then descending back down towards Charlbury. The town seemed to have vanished, though: I was clearly in the right place, the distinctive loop of the railway visible, but there was just a dark shadow where the town should be… but it was just the angle of the sun that was obscuring it. Overhead Charlbury bang on time, requested a change back to Oxford, and made our way back south of Blenheim towards Oxford for the last challenge with the instructor: practice forced landing from the overhead.

It wasn’t as good as my last one. I fluffed the initial speed-setting, lowering the nose while still doing 85 knots. I should have hauled back and held back until 75 knots appeared, and only then lowered the nose to configure for the glide. Following the trend of my last few landings, I was also too high on the approach, and even with full flaps I didn’t touch down until about 500m down the runway. Still, I made it, the touchdown was good, and I even remembered the restart checks. The long touch-down could also be explained somewhat by about a six knot tailwind! Not too bad then, I suppose.

So successfully down on the ground, it was time for the instructor to hop out! Hooray. No nerves at all this time. Just all matter of fact. He did tell me to report my callsign as “Student <reg>” on initial radio contacts, though. Fair enough. He got out, and I was all alone… idling on the apron for ages, on a “standby” from Tower while I waited for a Seneca to get off the taxyway. The runway just changed direction as I waited, and eventually I was cleared to holding point Charlie for runway 19. I inadvertently started my “ready for departure” call to Tower while I was still at the run-up area, and hastily cancelled it half-way through the message - oops! Still, I got to the runway, called “ready for departure”, and was told to contact Tower. I thought I’d made an error by not contacting them sooner and apologised, but in retrospect, no apology was necessary, because I’d followed exactly the right procedure! Oh well. I’m sure they get worse from students.

Lined up, one last check of the dials… throttle forward and I’m off! It’s a great feeling. In retrospect, I should have given it a touch of into-wind aileron for the slight crosswind, but it was only about 4-5 knots. Made a smooth lift-off, trimmed for the climb, did look-out checks and everything correctly, turned right along the railway line towards Charlbury, and before I knew it I was approaching 2500ft. Changed to Brize, and did everything perfectly except I forgot to use the callsign prefix “Student”. Oh well.

So once more, I settled into the navigation cruise. The landscape now looked exceedingly familiar, and the DR and map-reading seemed almost superfluous. So I did a cruise check, held it straight on heading with the rudder, and alternated between lookout and admiring the view. And what a view it was: Malverns on one side, Didcot power station on the other, the epic wintery-brown spread of the Cotswolds beneath me. For the first time in my flying, I had time to relax and reflect. Shortly after leaving Charlbury, I made out Moreton in the distance and just flew towards it visually. In-between lookout scans, I even took a picture.

Moreton-in-Marsh shortly arrived underneath me, and I just repeated the procedure, turning onto the heading for Banbury, reporting to Brize, noting the time, and doing another cruise check. Everything was in order, and Banbury was visible. So I settled back into the cruise, alternating the lookout between looking for aircraft and admiring the view, contemplating how wonderful it is to fly, and keeping Banbury at the right place on the windshield. Noticing that I’d stopped actually thinking, I started considering what I’d do at Banbury. Turning to the new heading would be simple, but shortly afterward I’d want to change back to Oxford Approach and prepare for the join. That’s OK, then.

Banbury arrived, I turned, did a cruise check, made sure I was established on the correct new course, then called Brize to switch back to Oxford. Heading south from Banbury, I became briefly disorientated, but careful study of the map and my surroundings soon revealed Upper Heyford and Enstone airfields, and indicated that I was about a mile west of track. No big deal. For some reason, the DME didn’t work, but the airfield soon made itself clear from about six miles away, and I proceeded with the calls for an overhead join back onto 19. Careful thinking and double-checking was required to make sure I’d got the orientation of the join correct. The dead-side descent was a bit close to the runway and a bit messy - I still haven’t managed to do one well. But the vertical profile was neat, and I levelled out at circuit height in exactly the right place to join downwind. Quickly ran through the checks, and extended downwind a little to ensure clearance from an aircraft on an ILS short final. It turned out not to be necessary, since the headwind on base slowed me rather, and despite a slightly messy turn to final and a slightly high approach, the approach was nonetheless very stable and very consistent, the runway threshold barely moving at all from the turn to about two hundred feet. There was a slight crosswind, and I must have misjudged correcting for it in the hold-off because I ended up a bit left of centre with a slight bump and squeak, but it was otherwise a good landing. 8/10.

Hours flown today: 1h 10m

Total hours: 32h 55m

The forecast today was really dodgy, with a gusts of up to 35 knots and cumulonimbus forecast last night. Fortunately, it turned out slightly better: clear skies, a couple of isolated showers and wind 15 knots at about 40 degrees to the runway. Aloft, it was a rather interesting 40 knots forecast - so not really right for first solo nav, which I’d been expecting. So instead, we went out for a radio navigation jaunt, guided on our whole route by VORs and DME:

• Take off from runway 19, right turn out towards Charlbury.
• Intercept the 350 radial to Honiley, and track it until…
• Intercept the 060 radial to Daventry, and track it to the VOR.
• Overfly the Daventry VOR and continue to track the 060 radial outbound to 6DME
• Do a 180, and retrace our path back to the Daventry VOR
• Then follow the appropriate radial back to Oxford: turns out to be the 205 radial, but…
• At 6 miles DME from Daventry, need to do a diversion around Hinton-in-the-Hedges parachute zone en route back to Oxford, turning back onto the 205 radial at about 14 miles DME from Daventry.

We made a fairly unremarkable departure. I remembered to get a radio check at the initial call-up to taxi. At the power check point, we spent some time setting up both nav radios and the DME with the required frequencies, and the initial radial settings on the OBS. There was quite a crosswind at take-off, so had to remember to put ailerons into-wind, and apply a touch of forward pressure until the rotation speed was reached to prevent it lifting prematurely. With a bit of a lurch and wobble, we lifted into the air, weather-cocked into wind and gained height extremely rapidly relative to the ground. Great fun!

I remembered to wiggle the nose to maintain a lookout ahead as we climbed. Flipped the wrong radio after requesting change from Tower to Approach, and was politely informed by Tower that I hadn’t successfully changed frequency! Never mind. Got the Flight Information Service from Approach, did a FREDA check as I reached cruising altitude to 2500 ft, and settled to watch the VOR needle crawl closer to the centre as we approached the desired radial. The FREDA check took a lot longer than usual, having to check all the nav radio settings and ident them by ear, listening to the Morse bleeps. Must attempt to learn Morse code! And after all that, it’s always good to remember the Engine/Direction/Altimeter parts of the FREDA check, too!

Having intercepted the 350 radial to Honiley, and figured out by trial and error the required crab angle in the 40-knot crosswind, the navigation proceeded pretty simply. I has having a “bad trim day” though - altitude kept wobbling between 2300ft and 2700ft! I got it trimmed right at first, but I think I was inadvertently applying pressure on the yoke while concentrating on the lookout or radios. As I approached the Daventry VOR, I also realised how important it is to keep a hawk-like lookout when approaching VORs: any aircraft flying towards the VOR will by definition be on a potential collision course, and may not be moving much relative to the sky. Mustn’t fixate on the VOR needle.

So we flew over the VOR on the 060 radial to Daventry, and the flag on the dial flipped to indicate that we were now on the 060 radial from. At 6DME, we did a neat 180 turn over the suburbs of Northampton, and seeing the VOR needle indicating a modest deviation, I steered towards it… and discovered the one gotcha of VORs, as the needle stubbornly moved further away from me! My heading was now 240, but I’d dialled in the 060 radial, which was indicating FROM while I was travelling TO the VOR - so the whole thing was reversed. One simply must make sure that the TO/FROM flag accurately reflects one’s actual motion with respect to the VOR, to avoid this. Dialled in the 240 radial, and all was well again.

A couple of miles from the VOR, we saw another aircraft in our eleven o’clock near the station, slightly lower. Turning onto the 205 radial from Daventry towards Oxford, we realised it was on exactly our course but about 500 ft lower, and considerably slower. The solution: keep it in sight, maintain altitude, and give it full throttle to get maximum speed to overtake it. This strategy worked quite well, and at nearly 120 knots we quickly passed it, but I did fixate too much on the other plane, and omitted to look out properly when turning right to overtake and keep it in sight. Otherwise, it was a successful manoeuvre.

6 DME came up quickly: time to divert right around Hinton-in-the-Hedges and Croughton. A sixty-degree right turn, held for two minutes, then back onto the original heading parallel to the 205 radial, until 14 DME, at which point a sixty-degree left turn would bring us back to re-intercept the 205 radial. The first part of the manouevre went well, but having straightened-out back onto the parallel track, I could see that the crosswind was blowing us uncomfortably close to Hinton-in-the-Hedges. Must be careful about that. In principle, I could have used another radial as the diversion, to ensure that we didn’t encroach on the area to be avoided.

Once we were clear of Hinton-in-the-Hedges, we re-intercepted the original 205 radial, dialled in Oxford on the DME, and saw the airfield ahead of us. Called Approach for a standard overhead join at 8 DME, who asked us to report airfield in sight. We could see it, but waited until 6 DME to report it, at which point they transferred us to Tower, who cleared us for an overhead join and told us to report downwind. The overhead join went reasonably well: still got the dead-side descent too close to the runway, although this wasn’t helped by the 40 knot crosswind at join height. The circuit wasn’t very square, since my crosswind compensation wasn’t quite right, but it was otherwise precise. Neatly turned base, but turned slightly too much, resulting in a rather short final, and despite agonisingly slow progress over the ground into the teeth of the headwind, I still ended up a bit too high. I got it under control well though, flared over the numbers and made an exceedingly neat crosswind landing. I thought the instructor had tweaked the rudder at the last moment to straighten us, but in fact, the wind did the job for me! 8/10 I’d say.