After the last minute flight I had the day before, I get scheduled for my third solo nav flight today. I have kind of ran out of places to fly to. Or rather, interesting places that are worth the time. So, I chose two airfields have never been to, one of which is at the edge of my map.
Along the way, I got to fly past the Grampians mountain range. Having been there before on ground, it was quite a sight to view it from 4500ft in the air, and it took way faster to get there by air. It was a pretty good day with fairly blue skies, making the view out of my cockpit even better.
Flying to the edge of my map did give me some sort of special feel in which that any further ahead I go, I will be lost. What's there beyond the map? What are the beautiful features that I will not have the chance to explore? Questions lingered in my mind as I circled overhead the airfield and made a u-turn back to base. It was a fulfilling flight as I got to go where I wanted to and I'm left with 2.5hrs of solo nav time to have my last chance of exploration.
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| The airfield on the edge of my map |
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| Grampians |
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| Some mountains I was flying over |
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| Clear blue sky |
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| 30 degrees AoB |
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| Back on the ground safely with the sun setting |
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| Moon in the evening twilight |
Tuesday
One hour of sim session in the middle of the day. My instructor was a very experienced and knowledgeable pilot in instruments flying and I was very eager to learn from him. After deciding on flying instrument approach, he briefed me very patiently on how it is done firstly on paper, then proceeding on to a demonstration on the sims.
Put the plane on autopilot, he set everything up and ran through every aspect of the approach with me. from holding to timing to height to descending. This was probably the most enriching sim session I've had. I'm glad that I was able to understand and absorb whatever he taught me, asking him as many questions as I could. Hopefully I'll get to fly the real thing with him when the time comes.
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| Simulator |
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| Fog at 0645hrs on Wednesday |
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| Can barely find my plane. Tough luck, flight cancelled. |
Thursday
The prelude to D-Day is here. I was planned for my Pre-PPL Test assurance flight at 1300hrs. This sortie is one which will test how good you are at whatever you've learnt so far, excluding the navigation part. It consists of circuit flying and area flying.
I started the flight with circuit flying. Taking off with the short-field take-off technique, I applied full power with brakes depressed and released them upon hitting full engine RPM. Applying some slight back pressure on my yoke, I let the aircraft lift off about 50kts, climbing at 62kts for 200ft before adopting 74kts and retracting my flaps at 300ft AGL.
That wasn't so tough, the tougher part came with the short-field landing. I had to be around 62kts when over the threshold, which wasn't an easy speed to maintain especially when I had slight crosswind hitting me. With the lower speed means I lose more control over my plane and it's way tougher to land in crosswind conditions. Nevertheless, I did alright and had a safe landing. Next was flapless landing which wasn't as tough. Then came the normal landing with crosswind technique, which wasn't so beautiful, but we headed for the training area anyway.
Climbing to 5000ft and heading west, I ran through the things that needed to be done. First, I had to do steep turns at 45 degrees angle of bank while maintaining my height within +/- 100ft. Perhaps the weather conditions were good that day, I managed to keep to the tolerance.
Next came the stalling - clean and incipient. Had to do the HASELL checks first before I commenced with the practice. With clean stall, I put the engine to idle and try to maintain my height by applying back pressure. Slowly the stall warning horn came on. After such a long time of not doing it, I had forgotten the great amount of force needed to stall the plane. Ended up my stalls weren't that great. With incipient stall, I set up the plane in approach configuration at 75kts with 20degrees flaps. Once I heard the stall warning come on, I pitch down the aircraft.
Next on was IF practice which I had to fly under the hood. Did a climbing turn as well as a normal Rate-1 turn. It wasn't that tough, managed to get through it without any issues. Finally came the PFL, a thing which I always can't get it done efficiently. My first PFL wasn't good as I selected a field with sheeps and I was way too high to land on it. Upon seeing my mistake of not flying a usual circuit width with regards to the field I've selected, my instructor pointed it out and asked me to try again. This time round, I heeded his advice and managed to do a better PFL.
With that, we headed back to base and did more circuit flying to further sharpen my landings. Eventually, I landed and my instructor was satisfied with my flying and graded me ready for the PPL test, to be held next week with my flight school's principal. I guess I'd have lots of revise and prepare these few days before the D-Day arrives.
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| Before I got into the plane |
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| Am I ready?? |
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