Michael’s Flight Training Diary

Time flown today: 1h 10m

Time flown to date: 38h 15m

A combination of a quiet, appointment-free day in the office, and the only good weather forecast all week, led to an inevitable conclusion: get in the sky, and worry about making up the working hours later! Following the traumas of my first Wellesbourne trip last Sunday, and my lengthy ponderings on the errors I’d made, I was keen to do the sortie again solo while the memories were fresh. So I turned up on a fresh and sunny morning, and set about planning the route. I chose remote departure points of Charlbury (off runway 19 at Oxford) and the car testing facility at Gaydon (off runway 18 at Wellesbourne), and the nav planning was otherwise simple. Picked up the plane from the pumps, taxyed it over to the north apron for a few minutes while I called Wellesbourne for PPR, then set off. All seemed easy and relaxed, a far cry from the last time I prepared for a trip to Wellesbourne.

Made a straightforward departure, turning west along the railway towards Charlbury. Dialled up Brize: for once they seemed perfectly clear, and I had no problem understanding them. Maybe it’s a problem with the radio in Golf Oscar. Despite being warned that Brize might be unhelpful since they’re busy and short-staffed, the ATCO was extremely helpful, providing a FIS even though my transponder seemed to be unserviceable! In retrospect though, I once again failed to use the callsign prefix “student” on a solo. I really must sort that.

Turned at Charlbury onto the first nav leg, and things were really getting quite bumpy at 2500 ft. Cumulus was bubbling up as busily as an August afternoon, with the bases just above me, and no sooner had I trimmed and set the throttle for a steady 2500ft, than I’d suddenly be wafted three hundred feet skywards on a thermal, then suddenly dumped downwards again as I flew out from underneath the cloud. Maintaining a steady heading and altitude was hard work, but the excellent visibility made the navigation simplicity itself. I tried to get into a pattern of lookout that was recommended in a book I read recently: scan behind and left, look at instruments, scan along left wing, look at instruments, scan along right wing, instruments, scan right rear… and so on. I found it particularly difficult to maintain the discipline, though: I kept on instinctively focussing my lookout directly in front. I’m not sure whether it’s necessary to do that (if there’s more chance of collision risks appearing in front), or whether it’s a sub-conscious thing from driving.

The white warehouses of Wellesbourne appeared on the nose more than ten miles out, and abeam Shipston-on-Stour I left Brize and changed to Wellesbourne information, introducing myself and getting arrival information before thinking long and carefully about planning my arrival in the circuit. An overhead join from the south for 18 with a right-hand circuit implies keeping the airfield on the right at joining height, which also implies keeping a good distance out from the airfield to prevent is disappearing underneath the aeroplane when you’re sat in the left seat! This I managed (for once!) to do quite successfully. The circuit wasn’t too busy, although there were a couple more aircraft about to join too, and three aircraft joining overhead at the same time sounded like a situation I didn’t want to be in. Fortunately, I was well into my dead-side descent before they called overhead, and I saw them turning well above me in the overhead as I passed over the upwind threshold at circuit height.

After the sliproad-like antics of joining the stream of downwind traffic last Sunday, I was watching like a hawk as I approached downwind. But having convinced myself that I really couldn’t see any other aircraft there, I turned right and established myself in the circuit. Things were bumpy and fast-moving, but I had clear visibility and good situational awareness, and my confidence was further boosted as the FISO acknowledged my downwind position report with a note that there was no traffic ahead of me! I made a fairly normal turn onto base, and although things were a bit of a handful with the bumpy air and unfamiliar visual references, I got the aeroplane reconfigured for landing and in a reasonable position on final.

At this point, the crosswind really started to make itself known. I had to put a substantial crab angle on, and with all the bouncing around it started to get quite tricky. I managed to get the speed roughly correct, but then I was too high… and then I drifted off the centreline. I managed to recover it, but the runway was getting awfully close… ok, better think about flaring shortly… whoa, drifting towards the downwind edge of the runway, hmm, I wonder if I can bring it back with a touch of aileron and rudder… I hauled the aeroplane back towards the centreline just in time to hold off, float slightly high, and drop down onto the runway… a bounce and I’m fractionally airborne again… then back on the ground with a sideways squeak.

That was pretty crap, but no time to worry now: have I got enough room to touch and go? Carb heat off, flaps up, full power, as the plane rattles alarmingly noisily down the rough runway surface… OK, despite floating for a while the end of the runway is still comfortingly distant… 65 knots, ease back, and with a yawing lurch as the plane weathercocks into the crosswind, I’m back in the sky. Phew.

I should have thrown the landing away and gone around. Using aileron that close to the ground to try to correct a marginal position on the runway is dangerous. I flared too high and didn’t take off the power fully, which is why I bounced and floated (although at least I didn’t bang the plane down too hard). It was a poor landing with numerous basic errors (albeit in quite challenging conditions), and it was looking poor from 100 feet up when I realised I hadn’t properly stabilised into the crosswind. Admittedly, a stable approach is hard when the air is so bumpy… but even so, if I’d gone around, I would have got an extra few minutes of flying, an extra go at the new and challenging part of this sortie - it’s all good practice and would have been a lot safer. A lesson learned.

Back in the sky, with 25 miles of nav in clear skies ahead of me, I’m back in more of a comfort zone. I reach 1000 ft, and turn east towards the great long tarmac strip of Gaydon visible a few miles away, informing Wellesbourne that I’m getting out of their way. I planned to call Wellesbourne to say goodbye on reaching Gaydon, but they didn’t acknowledge: perhaps I was out of range, although that’s a bit odd since I could hear them perfectly from eight miles to the south. Anyway, with a nice lingering teardrop turn to look at the fascinating car proving grounds beneath me, I got back on track to head towards Oxford, got in touch with Oxford Approach for a FIS, and saw the comfortingly familiar sight of Banbury appear ahead. Splendid.

It was still taking more of my brain than usual to hold constant altitude and heading, being constantly bounced around in the thermals. It certainly kept me busy, although I was able to get into a reasonable habit of the scanning lookout. The nav was more by eye and local knowledge than by map, now: the Met had drastically underestimated the wind, and I needed more than ten degrees of correction to hold track. I reckon it was nearer 30 knots at 2500ft than the 15 knots forecast. Shortly after being warned by Oxford, a Seneca burst through the clouds ahead of me, turning and descending dramatically towards Oxford. All fine, as it descended beneath me and to my left for the ILS, while the airfield came into view about seven miles ahead.

As I approached the airfield from the north for a standard overhead join to runway 19 left-hand circuit, I decided to fly all around the airfield and do the full dead-side descent properly, instead of an abbreviated descent directly from the dead-side. Gives me some more flying minutes, and gives me some practice of accurately circling an airfield in a chunky crosswind. To fly an accurate circle in a crosswind, one actually has to fly a kind of irregular elliptical turn through the air, and this is trickier than I thought. But I managed to combine precise flying of the airfield perimeter, keeping the runway in sight at all times, with the scanning look-out, and in retrospect that was pretty good. I made a very precise descent, re-joined the circuit, and did probably the best approach that I’ve done for some time. Again with the 10-knot crosswind, the landing was a little wonky, and I didn’t quite get the crab-angle-straightening manouevre correct, but it was pretty passable. 8/10.

Time flown today: 1h 15m

Total time to date: 37h 05m

Sunday dawned grey and hazy, with a cold front bearing down from the north-west and due mid-afternoon. But despite the greying skies, it looked flyable for a dual lesson, and perhaps a good test of my navigational skills. So I was to do the long-awaited first landaway, to Wellesbourne.

The day’s first problem - the first of many - became apparent on the walkaround. “Hmm, the wing seems a bit low” I thought, as I walked around the starboard wing. Peered underneath at the undercarriage - “aha!”. The oleo on the starboard suspension was only showing an inch, rather than the usual 6-8 inches of clear shock-absorbing travel. The rest of the walkaround was OK, and walking back to the office for the briefing, I met the imposing figure of my new instructor. He said he’s have a look at it, and I should phone Wellesbourne, get “MATE - Met, Air Traffic, ETA”, and then we’d be off quickly because we were in a hurry. So much for the briefing. All of this was new to me. The time was quarter past, and the flying time on the PLOG 15 minutes, so I decided to give an ETA of 45 minutes past. First mistake - we didn’t get moving until 45 minutes past! Secondly, I didn’t think to tell them that the lesson we were planning would just be a touch-and-go at Wellesbourne. Seems obvious looking back - but when you’re confronted with a totally unfamiliar situation - with no briefing, I had no idea of the conventions for booking in to an airfield - sometimes one fails to see the supposedly obvious.

So I went back to the aeroplane, and asked the instructor what he made of the oleo. There followed a somewhat obtuse, lengthy and grandiose declaration involving bags of luck and bags of experience, and he had lots of one and less of the other, and I had it the other way around, or something. It made no sense, and it briefly sounded like a justification for arbitrarily risky behaviour, but I think he was trying to say that despite it looking horribly wonky (the aircraft was listing several degrees to the right), it was OK to fly. So, we got in. He declared he’s ex-military and was flying airliners last year. So it must be OK.

I climbed in, temporarily put my headset case and kneeboard on the floor so I could sit on the seat, and he berated me for putting items on the floor in case I forgot them, and they slid into the rudder pedals in flight. Fair point, I suppose, although there’s not much other space to temporarily put things while I strap myself in. He questioned me on the fuel status, and I said that both tanks were half full - he asked whether that would be adequate, and like an absolute fool, I replied “I’d assume that’s enough for a 50nm flight”. So started the diatribe about there being no assumptions in flying - but as a student, I’ve never been given access to the PoH, which he found most disturbing. He then questioned why I noted the fuel gauge readings - and so started the diatribe against the dangers of fuel gauges, which was only exacerbated when I asked whether he was suggesting that they should be disregarded under all conditions. He’s kind-of right on both points, of course. But diatribes are not an effective teaching method.

So I started going through the check list. Half way through, he asked me if it was normal to do it silently - well, of course not! I’m not sure why I wasn’t doing it out loud, but maybe it was a result of starting to feel quite stressed. I then realised I’d forgotten to get the ATIS, and the instructor informed me that the radio in Golf Oscar couldn’t tune the ATIS frequency - fortunately, he had it. We then examined the route, and he pointed out that one should always use remote starting points, to avoid cluttering the overhead of the departure airfield. Eventually, we managed to start and taxy out to the runway, while the instructor gave me a potted history of his aviation background. He has an admirably rigorous approach to flying, but he was challenging almost everything that I attempted to do, and directing different methods. Combined with his extremely assertive character, this rapidly led to a resigned feeling of being unable to do anything correctly.

Eventually, after he directed novel techniques for the run-up and turn onto the runway, we got airborne. Climbing through early downwind, he rightly questioned whether proceeding through the overhead at joining height would be wise, so I continued along the line of downwind, and started navigation once clear of the airfield. Of course, in the stress I forgot to note the overhead departure time for the navigation, then he questioned me on whether we were still in the ATZ and which air traffic controller we should be talking to. Eventually, I resolved the situation, and we settled into our navigation in the gathering murky gloom. Visibility was perhaps seven miles.

I performed pretty well on the navigation. I’m probably setting myself up for a fall by saying this, but my nav skills seem quite good now, and I’m comfortable with it. I managed to fly the first ten minutes or so highly accurately, which greatly pleased the instructor. We monitored progress, and about six miles out (should have been ten miles) I switched to Wellesbourne, to be greeted by radio pandaemonium. Eventually, I managed to slip a call in to the effect that I was approaching from the south, obtained circuit info (right-hand for runway 18) and QNH, and we started looking for the airfield. The large white warehouse buildings that had been visible for some time turned out to be adjacent to the airfield, and after some prompting, I dug out the approach plates and positively identified it. The instructor then enquired how I was going to make the approach, as we passed immediately north-east of the airfield, practically in the overhead. My mental computations and deliberations were interrupted by the instructor urgently directing a left turn, because we were about to fly into a great bank of stratus cloud! Seeing the urgency, I aimed for 30 degrees of bank, but the instructor seemed worried about bank angle so I moderated it to 15 degrees, as we lazily turned through the overhead.

What followed isn’t clear in my memory, but the instructor directed a series of turns to bring us into the correct position for the overhead join. There were six aircraft in the circuit, and we struggled to find them all. Joining the downwind leg from an overhead join when there are six aircraft in the circuit is a complex manoeuvre with major risk of mid-air collision, especially in the less-than-ideal visibility and flat grey light. We looked out like hawks, and the instructor managed to spot several aircraft downwind as we crossed the runway threshold at circuit height, to join downwind. We turned downwind about half a mile behind another aircraft, and followed it while I attempted to do the downwind checks. I’ve no idea whether I called downwind. The instructor explained a useful technique - where extending downwind is permissible - of delaying the turn to crosswind until the aircraft in front has turned final and is behind your wing (i.e. has passed your current downwind position, in the opposite direction). I didn’t take this in as he was saying it, as we flew more than two miles downwind, and turned crosswind before the other aircraft turned final. Combined with my failure to reconfigure the aircraft for landing at the crosswind turn, because I perceived that we’d flown a long way downwind, I inevitably found myself creeping up on the aircraft ahead. I finally managed to get approximately in shape for final approach at about one mile, called final and was told to report final approach - of course, I was already short final! So I called final, as the aircraft in front was still taxying on the runway. The FISO asked it to expedite vacating the runway, but there probably wasn’t much we could do as we bore down on the runway. The instructor questioned whether I should go around, and I didn’t make a timely decision, but it finally dawned on me at about a hundred feet that landing wasn’t going to work, so gave it full throttle, let the speed build to about 70 knots, called “going around” and went to pull the first stage of flap - but was rapidly arrested by the instructor, with the rhetorical question “you know what happens when you get rid of the flaps?” I was confused, because I recall being taught to get rid of full flap as quickly as possible on a go-around: but I didn’t have full flap, I only had second stage. So instead, I should have been looking for a positive rate of climb on two instruments (VSI and altimeter) and a good safe speed before putting flaps away. The poor go-around was also compounded by my failure to remove carb heat. So, the go-around procedure should be:

1. Full throttle
2. Pitch level (careful in case aircraft pitches-up with applying throttle)
3. Carb heat off
4. Reduce full flap to second stage, if deployed
5. Speed least 70 knots
6. Positive rate of climb on VSI and altimeter
7. Think about turning dead-side, remove more flap, call go-around, stabilise best rate of climb, etc.

So we departed from the go-around, and the instructor announced to the FISO that we were going back to Oxford. Which surprised the FISO, of course, because he thought we were landing for a visit, because I hadn’t told him we were only attempting a touch-and-go. I should have mentioned this on the phone, from downwind, and from final. I gave the instructor the heading for Oxford, and he took control to give me a much-needed break. To give credit where it’s due, he recognised that I was mentally somewhat burned-out.

The instructor called up Brize for a FIS. Listening to the ATCO, it confirmed my experiences of the previous week that I find them really difficult to understand. They sound really distorted, at least in Golf Oscar, and I understand barely 50% of their transmissions. He later upgraded it to a Radar Information Service, due to the rapidly deteriorating visibility. We discussed it, and on interrogating me on the legal minimum vis, I gave up: my brain wasn’t working and I couldn’t recall whether it was five miles or eight miles. We discussed what I’d done wrong on the approach to Wellesbourne - essentially, the correct procedure is to circle around the perimeter of the airfield when approaching and making the join, not fly through the overhead, because it’s easy to get disorientated when the airfield is invisible due to being directly underneath the aeroplane, and it increases the risk of collision.

At some point, he gave me control and I realised we were twenty degrees right of heading - he asked me to hold the new heading while he dialled an unfamiliar frequency (108.35) into the DME, and smirked. Soon enough, he pointed out a town and asked me what it was, and I was able to identify it as Charlbury quite easily. He took control, circled, and enquired how we’d find our position if uncertain. So I went through the list:

1. Ask Brize, since they’ve got radar and we’re already getting a Flight Information Service from them.
2. Get a VOR fix.
3. Use a GPS that was conveniently stowed in a flight bag (not permitted in exams!)
4. Call up D&D on 121.5 MHz and tell them you’re lost!

We went through the VOR fix process: with a co-located VOR/DME, it’s just a matter of identifying the radial and DME, and plotting it on the chart. The only significant gotcha is the procedure for testing the VOR, to make sure it isn’t giving false information:

1. Ident it, listening to the morse code by ear.
2. Twiddle the OBS carefully, until the needle is steady in the middle with the FROM flag active.
3. Twiddle the OBS ten degrees each way, and check that the needle goes to full deviation
4. Twiddle the OBS five degrees each way, and check that the needle goes to half deviation
5. Put the needle back in the centre - the OBS setting is the true radial

And with that, we flew back to Oxford. I flew possibly the best overhead join for some time, keeping well clear of the airfield and maintaining good visibility of the runway. We’d gone straight-in to the dead-side descent, not crossing the runway, so I was a little high approaching the upwind threshold, so the instructor demanded a side-slip. Of course, I’ve never done one before: procedure is hold the required aileron to maintain the turn, then gently but firmly feed in right rudder to skew the aircraft, while maintaining a watch on the airspeed and altitude. Circuit height came up soon enough, and I joined downwind and prepared for landing. After all that, my brain couldn’t quite cope with downwind checks, so the instructor suggested breaking it into chunks, with lookouts or radio calls in-between:

• Brakes/undercarriage/mixture
• Fuel pump, selector, gauges, Flaps
• Instruments: speed, height, direction
• Carb heat, hatch, harnesses

Settling into the landing configuration, with the instructor urging me not to let speed get one knot too low, I had difficulty trimming the aircraft accurately and made the messiest final approach (at Oxford) for many months. Too high, too low, too fast, too slow… ideas of aiming for the numbers went out the window, and I eventually plonked it down a hundred yards beyond, some way downwind of the centreline. When he asked me what I should do as soon as I’m on the runway, I hedged my bets with a “some instructors have told me to put the flaps away, and other instructors have said that I should not do other things until I’ve left the runway” - and of course, he asserted that flaps should always be put away on the runway, to remove excess lift. With one final declaration about his military and airliner past, he taxyed the plane back to its slot.

OK, boss. I feel like I’m beyond caring - but I shouldn’t be.

Hours flown today: 1h 05m

Total time to date: 35h 50m

Mid-February saw me arrive at the airfield on a beautiful blue-skied afternoon - but after eight straight days of stable cloudless skies, there was an ominous whitish-grey tint up to 20 degrees above the horizon in all directions. The QNH was 1042, the highest I ever recall seeing. Brize was reporting visibility as 10km+, but it can’t have been much more than that.

All this put paid to the plan of dual-to-solo sortie for the first ever land-away, so instead we went for doing a zone transit across the Brize Norton Control Zone. I quickly and (thankfully) accurately planned a route Didcot - Membury - Charlbury - Oxford, and given the precarious visibility I spent extra time checking the times and headings. We made a quick and accurately-flown departure into the circuit, then climbed out over Oxford and started to route south, switching to Oxford Approach for a Flight Information Service.

On reaching 1500ft AGL, the haze started making things predictably murky, especially flying south into the sun. Didcot power station, usually visible across the whole of Oxfordshire, was barely visible at five miles. But my navigation held good, and with great care and attention I turned on time over Didcot for Membury, making sure I was about the limit of the Harwell danger area. Gently climbing up through 3000ft, a strongly-defined horizontal line appeared across the sky, like a false horizon suspended in mid-air. The line became like the surface of a great silver sea, shining translucently in the sunlight: the top of the haze layer, bounded by an abrupt thermal inversion. Very pretty - but not much help for seeing what lay ahead on the murky grey-brown ground beneath it! Membury is a service station, an isolated collection of buildings and car parks on an otherwise featureless stretch of the M4 motorway. There’s also a radio tower, which we never managed to spot. Sunlight glinting off rapidly-moving vehicles on the motorway was the first clue that we were approaching the destination, and sure enough, buildings and car parks appeared right ahead. Bang on track, we turned over the services, attempting to positively identify it with the aid of VOR fixes, and we turned north for Charlbury, and the zone crossing.

Once established on our new track, time to call up Brize. The first call was nothing out of the ordinary, just our callsign and “request zone transit”. They asked us to pass our message, and I approximately fluffed my way through it. I should know by now the syntax:

1. Callsign: “Golf Bravo Tango Golf Oscar…
2. Type: “… is a PA28…”
3. Route: “… out of Oxford on a navex, routing Membury to Charlbury…”
4. Position: “… two miles north of Membury…”
5. Altitude: “… at 2600ft on QNH 1041… “
6. Conditions: “… VFR…”
7. ETA: “… ETA zone boundary at 54… “
8. Request: “… request zone transit.”

Sadly, it didn’t go quite as smoothly as that - the conditions and ETA were omitted and the rest was somewhat jumbled. I only managed to catch about half of the reply. I was wondering what the ATCO was talking about, something to do with “PMC”… my instructor helpfully pointed out that he’d request I “remain VMC”! So inevitably, I only read back half the instructions I was given, which the instructor pointed out wasn’t good form! The ATCO then had to repeat instructions, and it was all a bit messy. And there was no “clear to enter zone” message… so we just ploughed on towards the south edge of the zone, carefully taking keeping track of our position, and waiting for the permission.  Lesson learned: if there’s anything I don’t understand, I should request “say again”! And if I’m solo and use the “student” prefix, hopefully the ATCO will talk a little more slowly and clearly, too, rather than rattling it all out in a warp-speed distorted mumble.

I’d never seen this area from the air, but I know it well on the ground and it was easy to recognise the A420 winding south-west, and Faringdon off to the left. With about a mile to go before the zone, the magic words came:

“Golf Bravo Tango Golf Oscar is cleared to enter the zone, transit at 2600ft, remain VMC”

Wonderful. Now all I had to do was hold altitude and course with sufficient discipline to avoid being kicked out of it by the ATCO before I reached the other side! The altitude limit is +\- 200ft, and despite the bumpy air, I managed that reasonably well.

We emerged the other side satisfactorily, turned over Charlbury, and headed home for an unremarkable overhead join. The final approach was slightly messy, overshooting the centreline because I’d forgotten that there was a tailwind on crosswind. There was a pretty hefty crosswind on final, needing a good 15 degrees of crab, and it was pretty bouncy through the last three hundred feet over the trees - I was slightly overcontrolling, and felt tell-tale swing of a pilot-induced oscillation on the ailerons just start to build… a slight relaxation was all it took to restore control, ready for the flare. Realising I still had a hefty crab angle to the right, I gingerly started to push straight with the rudder as I flared, but I still found myself drifting well right of the centreline by the time I was at the hold-off. Looking back, it’s because there was a substantial reduction in crosswind close to the ground, and I should have started to straighten off the crab rather earlier. Still, it’s better to be inadvertently upwind of the centreline than downwind, and the resulting touch-down was beautifully smooth. Considering it was the first serious crosswind landing I’d done in ages, I’d give it 9/10.

30/30 - 100%

A bit less of a delay on this one, passing it on 19th February. Pretty straightforward, but attention to detail in the revision made all the difference between 85% and 100%. Both are pass marks though, so arguably there wasn’t any point other than the maintenance of my ego! Not much else to say, really. It’s not a difficult subject. It also doesn’t have much bearing on the linguistic skill of actually using the radio - which is a much trickier business, as I’m woefully reminded every time I attempt to communicate with Brize Radar…