Michael’s Flight Training Diary

Flying time today: 2h 10m

Total flying time: 45h 15m

After two and a half months on the ground (with the notable exception of a right-hand seat trip with Andy last month, which I obviously can’t log), and countless cancellations due to the relentless stream of unstable, wet, windy weather we’ve had all summer, I finally had good weather coincide with an empty work schedule on Friday afternoon. And so, time to see if I can remember how to fly… my last sortie before my Qualifying Cross-Country, and a half-rehearsal of that flight. The full route for the QXC was planned - Oxford, remote start from the Otmoor mast, direct to Peterborough Conington for a land-away, remote start from Oundle, direct to Gloucester for a second land-away, and back to Oxford.

After a quick trip to the pumps to fill up, it was time to depart. All went smoothly: Tower offered an immediate departure on reaching the hold for 19, which I was sufficiently switched-on to take, and so we rolled down the runway. There was a fairly hefty cross-wind from the west, but I managed to control things well as we lifted off, and it took some effort to keep us from drifting downwind towards Yarnton as we climbed out. From a rather-sideways crosswind leg, I set about picking out the Otmoor mast, which was much more difficult to spot from altitude than from the ground, when it’s visible in silhouette against the horizon. We came to it soon enough, and with a neat turn to the heading for the leg to Conington, I settled into the cruise at 2500ft. Which would have been fine, except that I failed to note the time! Whilst previous instructors have advocated the turning point actions of “Time, Turn, Talk, Task” (or some re-arrangement of that), this one advocated “HAT” - heading, altitude, time. It’s simpler, and an easier acronym, so maybe I’ll stick with it. I switched to Oxford Approach for a flight information service, and the instructor pointed out another thing: always get the next frequency required ready on standby as soon as I’ve selected one and established communication on it. Of course, the other two PA28-140s on the fleet don’t have radios with standby capability, which is probably why I haven’t got into the habit, but it’s a good point.

I settled into the cruise towards Milton Keynes, with landmarks appearing right where they were expected. It may have helped somewhat that the half-way point of Milton Keynes, about 25 miles distant, was visible pretty much as soon as I turned on heading: it was a superbly clear day, especially flying down-sun. On a day with more typical visibility it may not have been so easy: the instructor suggested that I select and mark waypoints on the chart for approximately every 10 minutes of flying time, with the expected leg time marked next to it. As a further saving of mental arithmetic, I should use a stop-watch instead of a wristwatch, re-setting the stop-watch at the start of each leg. It’s then a simple and foolproof task to compare the stop-watch time with the predicted leg time for each waypoint, to quickly identify if I’m going off-course, and also to determine if progress is faster or slower than expected, and extrapolate accordingly.

Passing the M1 just beyond Milton Keynes, right on schedule, I changed to Cranfield Approach and was pleased to make a concise and correct “pass your message” call. I had been a little concerned that my RT would be rusty after ten weeks, but it was just fine. The instructor pointed out that I hadn’t made any cruise checks - oops, better fix that quickly, especially since there was a 400rpm drop on initially applying carb heat, the first time I’ve encountered detectable carb icing! With reports of gliders and instrument traffic approaching Cranfield at 2500ft, I decided on prompting by the instructor to climb to 2900ft. With cumulus bubbling vigorously above my head at about 3500ft, the ride was getting pretty bumpy, wafting me a couple of hundred feet up or down before I’d hardly noticed. Altitude control was a real challenge. But heading control was good, and the expected landmarks came one after another. Abeam Grafham Water, I switched to Conington Radio and started scanning the horizon for signs of the little airfield.

With a little assistance from the instructor, and bearing in mind the pictures I’d been studying from Google Earth, we soon found it, and I plotted our arrival. I made the mistake of requesting a particular join from Conington Radio, to which they simply responded with that the circuit was active - well, duh! They can’t grant any request. The approach to the circuit was pretty mixed-up, because the instructor was giving me peculiar directions that contradicted my plan, and we got far too close-in on the dead-side of the airfield before the instructor twigged that she was trying to direct me for a downwind join on a right-hand circuit - as operates at weekends, which was her previous visit - instead of a left-hand circuit, which was currently active! We were barely a couple of hundred yards dead-side as I called “late downwind”, trying to skirt around the village without getting dangerously close to the runway - in the end, I think the residents may have got upset with me busting the noise-abatement zone. Oh dear. Finding myself with practically zero base-leg, and an aircraft on final, I elected to extend downwind by another mile or so to put enough distance between me and the leading aircraft, and as an exercise I decided to see if I could set up a decent approach from this highly unconventional circuit position. I cut power (carb heat on, natch), extended flap, and pulled into a tight-ish 180-degree turn with a close eye on the airspeed. I overshot the runway centreline, so turned back the other way to pull the approach back into shape… and it worked! I found myself nicely set up on a stable approach. Unfortunately, I hadn’t reckoned on needing more approach spacing to allow the aircraft in front to backtrack off the runway, so I had to go around - I may have left it a bit late as the instructor’s prompting was getting a little insistent, as I overflew the airfield at maybe 300ft and went back into the circuit. This time, I got the circuit right, got the approach just right, and put it down pretty nicely. I misjudged the flare height slightly and reached the ground slightly earlier than expected, not holding-off as long as I wanted, but I was descending so gradually that it was actually a gentle landing.

The instructor mentioned that I’d failed to make a single cruise check - better fix that! Otherwise, things were going well. After a quick stop to pay the landing fee and get a drink, it was time to depart from the tiny and congested apron. Everyone else had the same idea too, and with the need for landing aircraft to backtrack and somehow squeeze past us onto the apron, it took some time before we finally managed to get the runway to ourselves. Nevertheless, we finally made it, and took off towards the east, in search of Oundle, the remote departure point.

The instructor now revealed to me the diversion: instead of proceeding to Gloucester, we’d go to Westcott, a disused airfield north-west of Aylesbury. Arriving overhead Oundle, I sketched the diversion on the map, guesstimated the heading/distance/time, and set course for our new destination. As we set off along the new track, my estimates proved remarkably accurate: with a brief diversion around the restricted area over a prison on the western edge of Milton Keynes, we arrived right over Westcott only a couple of minutes out from the ETA. I’d also managed to keep a pretty good fix on our map position, without being so fixated by identifying every little ground feature that I was track-crawling. The instructor recommended that I should have a ground feature marked on the map with a leg time about once every five minutes. The other major recommendation was that I should use a stopwatch, to save myself the error-prone mental arithmetic of calculating ETA in-flight. It’s then a simple matter to match the leg time marked on the map of a ground reference against the reading on the stopwatch.

Having thoroughly identified Westcott, we switched to Oxford Approach and headed west to find the Otmoor mast again, which seemed a good point from which to approach Oxford without straying into the Weston-on-the-Green danger area. The mast was exceedingly difficult to see if too high for it to cross the horizon, but after a bit of wobbling about we saw it, and descended to circuit height to join downwind for 19 at Oxford. The approach was stable, and the landing similar to the one at Conington: I didn’t quite have a feel for the round-at height and so failed to hold-off as much as I wanted, but it was still a gentle landing.