Week 45: PPL Flight School Week 14

Tuesday
Not flown for 7 days so far, the feeling isn't very good with the slow progression. I was scheduled for a sim session today doing Emergency Handling & PFL. It was a very useful session as I get to experience "real" emergency situations like engine failure and abnormal aircraft behaviours. Such situations can't really be demonstrated in real flight. PFL was particularly hard as I had to choose my landing spot and take note of the wind direction while doing my emergency checklists. The session lasted for an hour and it was good that now I'll have my eyes more alert about whats happening with the engine parameters on the G1000 screen.

My lunch after the pretty intensive simulator session. A little wine to soothe the tension.

Friday
10 days on non-flying life was tough. It was officially the longest lay off I've had since I started flying. My flight was scheduled at 1800hrs, the timing that I love due to the usual calm, cool and traffic free condition. Touching the aircraft again after so long feels great, what's more that the aircraft I was assigned was newly serviced with a nice new propeller.

Firing up the engine, I felt alive again with the power control in my right hand. Getting back onto the runway, I made the engine roar and rotated at 55kts. I was airborne and climbing with pretty good wind conditions, mostly direct headwind of 16kts. Turning into crosswind leg, I had to crab a little to compensate for the strong wind which was blowing my side.

Downwind leg was done in a jiffy assisted by the strong tailwind. Then to base and finals, I had to use a higher engine power to overcome the winds. Landings were safe and without issues. During one of the touch&go, I had to make big adjustments to my position after lifting off due to some winds blowing me off track, so much so that my instructor said "Where are you going? Do you think you're in an airshow?". Ok that scared me off a little, but I really had to make that adjustment to stay on top of the runway.

Eventually, we made a full-stop and my instructor hopped off to let me proceed with my solo circuit flying, a full hour of it, my longest ever. It was about 1920hrs by the time I was on my own in the aircraft and the sun was setting. The circuit was quiet with no one except me, conditions were perfect with the plane able to fly itself without much input from me.

I was totally enjoying myself with the view and peace. That moment, I really fell in love with flying. Everything was perfect and beautiful. I lost count of the number of rounds I went but I hoped it was more. Ah, what a great feeling to have after 10 days of not flying.

The sight of the centre-line made me feel alive again

Sunset

Hopped onto a C172R to have a feel of what it's like to fly analog. Well I didn't fly it of course.

A little movie to end the week. Quite a good film.

Thank god for the successful fourth solo flight or else it would have been another agonizing week for me. One cancelled flight on Monday, a sim session on Tuesday and a great flight on Friday. I realised the winds these days can be quite crazy with speeds of up to 40kts and gusting. Such conditions are definitely not suitable for solo flights and it has caused quite a handful of our flights to be cancelled. Sigh...