Quick update for today: no flying until Wednesday but I’m currently clutching my Class 2 medical certificate, meaning the only thing standing between me and solo flying is… y’know… actual piloting skill.
As an aside, if anyone’s looking for an AME within shouting distance of Blackbushe I’d recommend Sam Ward at Aldershot.
As mentioned last week, I’d opted to take a break from lessons this week whilst my instructor was away so I could knuckle down and prep for the first three theory exams that are required by my school before I can fly solo: Air Law, Operational Procedures and Human Performance & Limitations.
Air Law: 100% or 16/16. I’ve shared on this forum that the sheer weight of information in Air Law (and the proportion of which was of, IMHO, questionable usefulness that I had to fight my brain to retain) had me a little worried on this one, and I spent nearly double the time on this subject versus the others so feel as though I earned that perfect score. Definitely still need to work on airspace classification regarding separation and traffic information in the C, D & E range, but I can do that at my leisure and I understood enough to answer the relevant questions when they came up.
Operational Procedures: 92% or 11/12, so one question incorrect on 070.04.01.04: Smoke in the cockpit. The question related to the cabin filling with smoke with an acrid smell, indicating an electrical fire. There were two similar answers I was prevaricating between, with one adding “open the window and discharge fire extinguisher in the direction of the smoke”, and while I was fairly certain discharging a fire extinguisher for smoke was a bad idea I couldn’t believe that the right answer wouldn’t include opening the window. Turns out the answer was the other one and I should have trusted my firefighting instincts.
Human Performance & Limitations: 83% or 10/12, with 040.02.01.02 Vision and 040.04.01.02 Perception highlighted as deficiencies. Looking at the syllabus and cross referencing with Easy PPL and the Pooley’s book I really can’t think of a vision-related question that came up so…. shrug. The Perception one was almost certainly about approaching a runway, feeling the nose was high and no perceptible loss of speed followed by a hard landing. The option I picked on the cause of the hard landing was the downsloping runway (which was explicitly mentioned in the scenario given) but I now suspect they wanted me to say that it was caused by a high roundout (i.e. error) rather than the thing that triggered the error.
So, that’s the first 3 exams out of the way, and that plus my Class 2 medical on Monday hopefully clears me for my solo when I’m ready. Other than the mysterious vision question, I’m comfortable that I know enough about these subjects that I can take a theory break to focus on the flying, and I can save stressing about the next three until I’m nearing digging into the practical side of navigation.
Given the heat, I’m going to celebrate with an icecream and (later) an ice-cold cider or two! 🐷 I’ve cancelled my flight for Sunday as it’s smack bang in the hottest part of the day and I have an aversion to melting, so next lesson is Wednesday next week.
I ended up cancelling my first lesson back after vacation as I was completely cream crackered, but I had a lesson booked a few days later so managed to get up in the air today for another enjoyable and (mostly) successful lesson.
With stalls on the menu I’d been keeping a close eye on the cloud levels today and was almost certain we were going to end up with a wx cancellation (or some early circuit practice) but after a quick chat with my instructor we decided to give it a go. It did mean that we had to pick our way around the lower-level clouds to find pockets of space just about big enough for me to get in a HASELL check (with clouds looming ever larger), do a 180 and enter and recover the stall, which I found quite thrilling but definitely not something I’d do without an instructor in the right hand seat.
We’d covered stall recovery without power in the previous lesson, so went straight into Standard Stall Recovery practice in power-idle clean, approach and landing configurations. Aside from needing to voice “roll wings level” even if that step isn’t necessary for a particular situation, my instructor seemed happy and I was able to recover with only a ~50ft height loss for each, so went into power-on stalls with high (-ly misplaced) confidence.
It might have been the cloud (in the manoeuvre we were climbing towards the cloud ceiling with low-level clouds around us, which was a bit disorientating) or it might have been the lingering fatigue from yesterday, but I didn’t find this one as straightforward as recovering from the power-idle stalls. On my first attempt we came pretty close to entering a spin as I was late on recovery and also forgot to take power all the way off before releasing the backpressure, but somehow I instinctively saved it with some opposite rudder and eventually getting the power off. Second attempt was much better and my instructor chalked it up as successful, but I think I’ll ask to revisit these as I can definitely tighten up the recovery.
Since I’d nearly spun the aircraft, and since spin recovery is the topic for next lesson, we ended with my instructor demonstrating a fully-developed spin and recovery. Honestly, this tied my stomach in knots. Remind me not to eat… well… anything before my next lesson :)
Other notable points for today were:
Another 55m of dual flight time logged today, or a running total of 6h22m.
No lesson next week as my instructor is away, but I have booked my Air Law, Operational Procedures and Human Performance exams for next Friday. Revision via a combination of the Pooley’s books and Easy PPL has been going well and in the mocks I’m at ~90% across all three so hopefully a bit of additional revision between now and then will see me right.
Last lesson before vacation, and the subject of today was slow flight.
This week has been really busy at work and I felt relatively underprepared going into this lesson. I partly blame the busy workload, but the heat earlier this week really wasn’t conducive to doing anything remotely taxing. I’d normally have read through the exercise in APM#1, made some notes, checked out some Youtube videos on relevant techniques and chair flown (occasionally with MSFS) some of the things to work on or consolidate from last time but had done essentially none of that.
Thankfully it didn’t seem to matter, and may have done me some good not to spend every spare moment thinking about flying. I actually really enjoyed the more technique-focussed side of trying to hang the plane off the prop with full flaps at 40kts straight and level, and we got through the full range of manouvres - entry, recovery, climbing, descending and turning - in slow flight with a happy instructor, and ended the lesson with a little look ahead at fully developed stalls.
Back at Blackbushe I handled the full circuit again, including filing in behind a PA28 on a very long downwind, and down onto the runway. It turns out I’d overlooked applying drag flaps, but I was bang on the glide slope all the way down, remembered to get the throttle off so we didn’t float, and landed gently just right of center.
A shorter session today due to a late returning experience flight tying up my ride, but another 47m for a total of 5h09m.
Next up, after a 10-day break, is a full session on stalling, and apparently I’m alright enough on the ground and with RT that I’ll be taxying for fuel solo 😲 Being the only person in a moving airplane is going to be properly weird.
Oh, and I’ve had enough of revision and booked myself in for my Air Law, Operational Procedures and Human Performance and Limitations exams on August 12th while my instructor is away.
Things to remember for next time:
…plus a brief cameo by the Red Arrows
I managed to snag a lesson first thing this morning before the temperature started getting all melty (as I write, some parts of the UK in excess of hitting 37°C).
We briefed the lesson based on only covering medium turns, and I enjoyed the freedom of visual reference point turns and the more technical side of turns onto a heading. On the latter, for some reason - maybe this is common? - I had a tendency to overshoot the heading when turning left and undershoot when turning right. Only by 5 degrees or so, but with impressive consistency. Something to work on.
Somewhere around this time Farnborough alerted us to keep a lookout for the Red Arrows, who were overflying the Farnborough Airshow. Looking at their planned route, they would have flown down the East and then around the South / West side of our practice area, and I wish I could say I saw them but - resisting the temptation to keep an overly vigilant lookout - we cracked into climbing and descending turns. If they passed us I didn’t see them.1
The climbing and descending turns themselves were great fun, and much more accurate on headings with the lower target angle of bank.
Having duly followed the turning instructions I was given we (not coincidentally, I’m sure) found ourselves back over Greenham Common, so I use the disused runway (and my newfound ability to go around corners) to fly a full mock circuit and practice go around before heading back to Blackbushe for landing.
I’m pleased to say that I handled the full circuit at Blackbushe all the way back to terra firma, this time with a little less prompting from my instructor. I did have a little float before landing this time as I’d left a smidgen of throttle in when I’d meant to go idle as we came over the fence, but I got it down in one piece relatively gently on the centreline and slowed in time to take the penultimate taxiway so I’m not going to beat myself up too much.
Considering I couldn’t land a plane two lessons ago, being at the point where my instructor only took over to demonstrate an exercise is pretty weird.
Managed a full 1h02m in the air today - must be getting quicker at the walk-around checks - which takes me to 4h22m dual time logged.
I also handled a few of the radio calls with Farnborough, which I thought was brave of my instructor given the Air Tattoo was in full flow at the time. My only brain fade came after I radioed for take-off clearance and, pen at the ready, expected to be given runway / circuit instructions and “take-off at your discretion”. I got something totally unexpected; my instructor told me it was an ask if we could take-off quickly as there was another aircraft just turning onto base leg, but I heard none of that and instead looked at my instructor with yet another “I got nothin’” look on my face. All was well, though, and I’d already booked myself on an RT workshop this weekend to hopefully help me feel more comfortable talking to strangers over the radio.
As mentioned this was my third lesson in 6 days, which is maybe a bit much but I’m away next week so wanted to make as much progress as I could before I take the inevitable backward slide that’ll come with 10+ days off. I’ve got one more lesson before then on Thursday afternoon to start Slow Flight and Stalling. Hopefully the temperatures then are more conducive to human survival when awaiting take-off clearance.
Things to remember for next time:
By the time I’m in my dotage that story might well have grown into “did I tell you about the time I flew with the Red Arrows?” :op ↩︎
I normally write these… diary entries, I suppose you’d call them, in chronological order, but today’s lesson culminated in my first unassisted landing! More later, but just know that I’m writing with a borderline maniacal grin on my face.
After take-off we went straight into Vy climbing and descending with different stages of flaps to see the impact on VSI. Good news is that I seemed to pick up the new skills relatively quickly despite all the thermals and sinks that were doing their best to disguise the true VSI impact, and I’m please to report that I managed to fix the main issue I had last time with not getting the power on quickly enough in the descent to arrive at a target altitude. Unfortunately I took a backward step on carb heat: I just kept forgetting to turn it off after applying power to level out from a descent as I was so focussed on nailing the target attitude. I can confirm that cockpit overload is a real thing.
From there we moved to approach configuration and go-around practice, but far from simulating that thousands of feet above the hard grey stuff as I expected my instructor used the disused runway at Greenham Common to give me something to aim at.
I got a couple of very loose but successfully-executed circuits with go-arounds in, realising after the first attempt that I’d adopted the student favourite “death grip” technique. I did manage a slightly pinker shade of white knuckle for the second attempt. All good thus far.
We then threaded our way back to Blackbushe between the two AWE sites - Burghfield and Aldermaston - to do it all again on a real live active runway. Gulp!
My one big error coming back into the circuit at Blackbushe was getting too low and slow on the crosswind. In my defence I was very conscious of the hard ceiling of 800ft AGL for Blackbushe circuits while the Farnborough Display RA(T) is in effect. I compounded this by only applying a few hundred extra RPM to try to stop us sinking further when it really needed a lot more oomph low on the drag curve!
I managed a stabilised approach - well, as far as I can muster with my single digit hours of experience - and initiated the planned go-around when instructed exactly as we’d practised earlier. Then… well, then it happened.
For our full stop landing I thought it was going to be like the end of every other lesson: my instructor taking control at double-digit feet from the runway for the round-out and landing.
What actually happened was that I flew the approach, and as we got to the point where he normally took over he said “okay, now just pull back gently… a bit more… that’s it, hold it there and let it fly down onto the runway”. I didn’t really have time to register what was happening and then all of a sudden we’d landed: maybe a little hard if I’m being critical, but we didn’t float or balloon and we didn’t bounce, everyone walked away and we didn’t need to note any broken bits in the techlog, so I’m calling that a success.
In terms of actual milestones on the PPL journey the first one most people get excited about is Exercise 14: First Solo Circuit. I’ve got a bit to do before I get there, but the sense of achievement that landing the plane fully under my own control has given me has taken me by surprise. The only flying I didn’t do unassisted today were the turns, which we haven’t covered at all yet but is the focus of the next lesson.
Other than the flying skills, I’d done the bulk of the RT with Blackbushe without fluffing the readback calls, though was happy to let my instructor handle the landing calls (as noted above, I was more than a little occupied) and chatting with Farnborough who were super busy managing pretty much all local traffic as part of these temporary restrictions.
One last learning from today is that I’ve gotten sloppy with timing on the FREDA checks. Must find a way to tighten that up.
For the record, today’s 56 minute session puts me at 3h20m of dual flight time logged. Next up is turning so I can stop flying in straight(ish) lines.
Things to remember for next time:
On arrival I was dispatched to the plane on my own for the first time to complete the walkaround checks. I definitely took my sweet time to make sure I got everything covered.
I found the school-made manual fuel depth gauge a little tricky to read; it’s basically a sheet of metal with holes drilled in it, and I’m looking to see which ones have small bubbles in them when I withdraw them to get the fuel level. Any recommendations on a better gauge greatly received.
I did spot a small nick in the prop that wasn’t ultimately an issue but no-one else had pointed it out and it proved I’d done a passable job on at least some of the checks.
We were held on the ground for what felt like an age in the blistering heat. Farnborough International Airshow and the temporary restrictions in place as a result has apparently been causing some chaos in the tower, and seems to have caused a big uptick in the amount of bizjet traffic using Blackbushe so we had to wait a while for clearance to taxi.
A small note that in the very cosy cockpit of the C152, even my A5 kneeboard got in the way of full and free movement of the yoke so almost immediately it got ripped off thrown in the back to keep the fire extinguisher company. Might try it higher on the leg next time before conceding that my instructor’s A6 kneeboard is a more sensible choice.
I got to handle full taxy to the runway and ground comms again, but my instructor took over at about 500ft after take-off to make sure we didn’t bust the temporary 1,500ft ceiling and to handle the request for basic service from Farnborough Radar rather than the usual listening squawk.
Once we were in the practice area, climbing and indeed descending commenced and I’m happy to report that all good and straightforward, though I busted below the target altitude once or twice on descent, largely due to letting the nose dip too early and by the time the descent was stable I was at the point where I should have been increasing power to level off again. That said, I < abbr title=“Power, Attitude, Trim” text=“PAT” >ed and < abbr title=“Attitude, Power, Trim” text=“APT” >ed in all the right places, managed decent rudder control throughout, didn’t miss a beat with the carb heat, and also remembered to do my lookout checks whilst climbing.
I handled the return to Blackbushe and also the straights in the circuit - we’ve not officially got to turning yet, which I understand is recommended practice but also slightly bizarre - and also BUMFFICHH(LP) checks and once again the descent to the runway on final. That final approach felt much, much more stable this time - I kept in mind the need to use small adjustments - and we were single digit feet from the runway when my instructor took over. I’m itching to cover the rest of the techniques required for landing so I can do my first unassisted landing. Must. Be. Patient.
Due to the earlier delays we were late back so had the briefest of debriefs, but I didn’t have any questions and we mostly focussed on stuff to read up on for the more complex halves of climbing and descending and go-around practice. Next lesson is on Friday so hopefully will find enough time to do that.
Things to remember for next time:
