Flight got cancelled on Tuesday due to thunderstorm in the area. As winter creeps in, the cold fronts are really a pain in the butt. Their arrival always render all flights planned as useless. Nobody gets to fly the whole day, or a few days.
So I started my week with a 2-hour sim session doing sector entry for holding pattern. It was quite a shocker to me as the mass brief was back in February and even then I had trouble grasping the whole concept of it. After a short recap with my instructor, I managed to understand the whole idea of it and went ahead with the flying in the sim.
It wasn't easy, flying and reading off the charts. Eveything happens very quickly and I found myself quite overwhelmed for the first few sector entries. By the end of the lesson, I was still a little unsure of how things are done, which made me kind of unhappy. I went back home and consulted some of my batch mates. With their patient teaching, I managed to clear up my doubts, which was quite a relief for me. Hopefully I can do better the next time round.
Thursday
Finally, a flight that went ahead after five days of not flying. The weather is getting really cold, even at 1400hrs which my flight was scheduled at. It was a normal IF flight with me under the hood while doing a simple navigation using the G1000 flight plan system.
I was be taught on how to set things up for an IF navigational flight, the things I need to check, what to look out for and how to do things correctly. Under the hood, I flew to two checkpoints using the navaids. At the final checkpoint before returning to base, I did some ADF interception Inbound and Outbound, as well as some holding.
ADF is way harder to gauage than VOR as the needle is constantly moving, at times confusing me on which is the correct direction to turn. I had to try a few times to do it correctly, and that drew out some comments from my instructor on my lack of preparation. It's not good to hear that.
The holdings were done in non-perfect conditions unlike in the sims. In real life, I had to counter winds to fly the holding pattern correctly. It wasn't easy, even if you know what to do. 1sec/kt increase or decrease per minute of holding. For tailwind, decrease the timing and for headwind, otherwise.
It was a good learning flight, and it is not as easy as the simulator I've been flying.
Saturday
My flight on Friday was cancelled again due to weather, my second one in the week. It's simply too frustrating to see my hours creeping so damn slowly after passing my PPL test. Flying once per week is just way too slow in progression.
Early morning at 0900hrs, I was schedule for a short 1-hour sim doing some ADF/VOR interception and tracking. It wasn't something new to me, but I guess I can always use the session to hone my skills on how accurately I can fly towards the navaids.
The one hour passed by fairly quickly and that summed up my week on a low note.
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| Sim session is useful in getting to know how to use the G1000 |
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| Praying for the weather to stay reasonable |
It's been 26 weeks, effectively marking my stay here at half a year mark. I believe it will be another six weeks before I can finish up my remaining hours.
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