No flight for today but I was scheduled for ground class for second half the day. The mass brief lasted for about four hours and covered quite a fair bit of navigational instrument flying in terms of chart and map reading. It's quite confusing initially trying to interpret the aerodrome charts but I guess we will get better as we practise more.
It isn't easy at all, with a lot of things to take note and flying in IFR conditions mean that you will not be able to see the traffic. Everyone will have to fly by the rules in order not to have any mishap. This is by far the most relevant mass brief I've had in terms of commercial flying. Flying the A320 in the days ahead will be quite similar to what we have to do in IFR flying here. I'm very much looking forward to practise this in flight.
Thursday
Scheduled for my second instrument flying lesson at 1330hrs. I was quite worried about the timing of the flight as it has always been hot and turbulent during this hour of the day. Luckily, the temperatures were quite low at around 16'C and turbulent conditions were non-existent after I climbed above 5000ft. CAVOK conditions also meant that I was able to go high altitudes without the threat of hitting the clouds.
I took off to a slight crosswind and headed for 6500ft in the training area, putting on the hood at 2500ft. It was bumpy in the initial part of the climb but got much smoother as I went higher. Upon reaching 6500ft, I did Rate-1 turns to the left and right for 360degrees. With such smooth conditions, I was able to fly very well in terms of altitude and Angle of Bank consistency.
Next came the climbing and descending, executing APT and PAT respectively to standards required. Lastly, climbing and descending turns which were also done according to standards. With these basics accomplished in the lesson, my instructor did a brief introductory to VOR intercepting. VOR intercepting needed some getting used to after it has been more than a month since I had that mass brief on it.
With the arrow pointing to the direction of the VOR station, I was on full deflection. My next step is to select an angle of interception to determine my heading. If the bar is deflected to the right, my heading will be to the right and vice versa. As I get nearer to the VOR line, the deflected bar will slowly align to the arrow and that is when I will change my heading to the direction of the VOR station and fly towards it with the bar now fully aligned with the arrow.
It was easy to do that in non-windy conditions. However that ideal condition rarely exists so I have to correct my heading in order to compensate for drift. so it wasn't easy to fly accurately towards the VOR. The lesson ended after a few tries of intercepting the VOR and I landed the plane with much satisfaction from the instructor. He commented that it was a great landing. Well that was partly due to favourable conditions with a full headwind of 14kts and nil crosswind.
Great flight no doubt, how I wish I could finish my circuit solo flying after I've finished with this lesson considering how good the conditions were. But I guess they won't allow me to do that. Current total hours: 38hrs.
 |
| Autumn is here |
 |
| Went to Bendigo to offer some joss sticks |
 |
| Kuan Yin Temple, the only one is whole of Aussie |
 |
| A car no longer seen in SG |
 |
| Visited the Bendigo Airport which I will fly to during navigation flights |
 |
| The road home from Bendigo is long |
 |
| This is how it looks like flying under the hood during instrument training |
 |
| Aerodrome charts which was covered in the mass brief |
 |
| One of those days with low clouds and no flying could be done |
 |
| Lunch 090314 |
 |
| Sad case |
I guess we all know that MAS' MH370 has been missing for more than 24hrs by now and nobody knows exactly what happened unless the aircraft has been found. I am an optimistic person and I hope all of them are still alive somewhere.
Aviation can be cool, beautiful and fun, but it can also be treacherously unpredictable. At the end of the day, you just want to be back on ground in one piece so that you can hold your loved ones again.
No comments:
Post a Comment