Week 60: PPL Flight School Week 29 - The Final Flight

Monday
I started off the week with a flight scheduled with an instructor that is known to be the best in the school. I am so looking forward to this day and I wasn't disappointed. Flight was at 1415hrs with pretty gusty strong winds blowing in a relatively headwind direction on the runway.

Not knowing which IF route he wants me to plan, I've planned three different routes and asked him to choose. Surprisingly, he's so nice he actually asked me which one I'd prefer to do. This is the first time an instructor is so flexible to my planning! And so, I chose the one which I will get to try out the real VOR, which coincidentally is also the longest route, fitting my need to clock more hours.

After some amendments to my flight plan, we set off in cloudy conditions, with the occasional sun ray peeking through the clouds. The flight to the destination was long, about 1.3hrs to be exact. Along the way, he taught me how to handle both IFR and VFR traffic radio calls as well as the usual chart briefs and WQADCAPS checks. I had to make inbound radio calls to notify VFR traffic in the vicinity, which was something new to me.

Upon reaching the VOR station, I had a try with it for the first time in real life. There was so much work to do when wind factor is present unlike in the sims. My sector entry and holding pattern was fine, but on descend and turning into final approach, I busted the minimum turn upon turn and was told that it's not the right way to do it.

On missed approached, I tracked back to base in a very long way back, cutting through Melbourne controlled airspace which I had to request for clearance. It was already starting to get dark by now, and there were patches of heavy rain along the way where I was flying through rainy clouds. At the meantime, my instructor was talking to me about the areas I was flying through. The interesting facts as well as the histories.

It was a very enjoyable flight back even though it was a long long way. By the time I was doing a RNAV approach to base, it was so dark that I had to switch on my nav lights. The runway had also lit up and it was wet with an earlier downpour.

My RNAV approach was so spot on that he commented that I was like the auto-pilot. Haha, well I guess the conditions were so good that it was easy to have a neat descend right to the runway. By the time I was tying down the aircraft, it was already nightfall and temperatures have started dropping to below 10'C.

It was a superb flight with an amazingly good instructor.

Night fell by the time everything ended

Tuesday
The weather for the day didn't look good with an approaching cold front. Flight was scheduled at 1400hrs and the ILS wasn't available at the airport that I usually go to. Therefore, I planned a VFR route but flying in an IFR way.

In terms of the route, there was nothing dramatic as I didn't get to try any VOR or ILS or RNAV. However in terms of experience, it was amazingly great. With the impending bad weather coming in, there were lots of broken cumulus clouds in the sky at the altitude I was flying. Other than the clouds, there was actually much sunshine.

For the first time in all my flights so far, I barged through thick cumulus clouds, splashing water droplets onto my windscreen and creating so much turbulence that it gave my altitude and heading maintaining a big test. I was told to lower the IAS to below 105kts as that's the stated maneuver speed right on the plane's firewall.

With the airspeed reduce, I could better control the aircraft within the clouds. That was a unbelievable ride as I even went through thick grey clouds, giving my guts a test as well. Even my instructor was commenting that I was very lucky to get such "good yet bad" weather conditions to test my flying in IFR.

On return, it was the usual RNAV approach and we ended the sortie with a nice short-field landing from me.

Wednesday
Flight was scheduled at 1200hrs but the weather looked terrible since daybreak. The fog simply refused to clear and I had to delay my departure in order to wait it out. Eventually, the weather cleared enough for us to head into the skies.

To make this flight interesting, my instructor took another instructor as pax in the backseat. It was quite an experience with an added weight at the back, making the handling a little bit different. The climbing performance and balance wasn't what I was used to.

It was a short flight due to the delay, and all I did was a quick ILS approach and immediately headed back to base. My instructor was by now very satisfied with my radio calls, though the occasional mistakes were still present. I'm pretty satisfied with my own performance and that greatly boosted my confidence which was in tatters during the first few IF flights.

Thursday
It was my forth consecutive flight in four days, pushing me really hard to clock those hours. Flight was scheduled right at the start of the day at 0830hrs, which means I had to report about two hours earlier. Once again, it was an interesting flight as the aircraft assigned to me comes with autopilot function! And for the first time again, I get to try out this feature while I focused on other factors of flight.

I have to say, AP is such a saving grace when the workload piles up. I could do my radio calls, chart briefs and various checklists without having to worry about my heading and altitude. Everything seemed way easier. However, the AP got disengaged when I was doing an ILS approach, which was quite a challenged when there was a 40kts+ crosswind!! My aircraft literally approached the runway sideways.

It was fun to have tried out the AP function, something which I will be very used to in my A320 simulator training next. The end of this flight also meant that I'm left with my final sortie which will be scheduled for this Sunday.

So you thought my day has ended after an early flight. But no. I had a 2hr sim session in the noon. I was barely refreshed walking into the simulator training room. At certain point of the sim flying, I was close to falling asleep. Though the sim session was rather boring, my instructor sort of tested me on all the things I've learnt so far, as well as teaching me about SID/STAR and arching flying. A good 2hr spent learning new things, and I returned home exhausted.

Great looking weather at 0800hrs

The heavy crosswind became crazy headwind on my return leg

1730hrs, when the birds are all back

Friday
After a hectic Thursday, my Friday was an easy 1hr sim session. Did some VOR sector entry and approach, plus some ILS landing, and that's about it.

The night came and there was a mini send-off celebration for my batch as two of us were ready to return to Singapore the next day. Had some drinks, food and chats. The night ended late, with some snacks as supper in a carpark.

With the instructors at the celebration

Saturday
Another early day for me, a struggle to wake up after the celebrations of the previous night. 8am sim session for three hours. By now, flying the sims was pretty redundant as there's simply nothing much to learn. Having my flight plan keyed into the G1000 system, I set AP on and let it fly itself while I monitor everything. Did some VOR holding and approach and that's it. Spent the rest of my day recuperating and preparing for my final flight the next day.

Fog at 8am

Boring sims with the AP on

Sunday
The day was finally here; my final training flight in Ballarat. I was scheduled with a notoriously fierce instructor which I've never flown before. I was intimidated by him and had to be very careful with my every move.

Surprisingly, he turned out very nice and didn't lose any patience and temper at me. We did a very normal flight, just like any other IF sortie I've done. Sad to say, my radio calls were still not to perfection. He commented on it, but added that radio calls will get better with experience. He also corrected some of my misconceptions about ILS landing with regards to the minima and visual distance. All in all, I really learnt a lot from him.

We returned to base with still quite some time to burn, and so we started doing circuits. He demonstrated a landing on a grass runway, a thing which I never had a chance to do until now! He handed me the controls for the next landing which got me very excited. I had a try at it, but landed way too long and had to go-around instead. That was my only crack at it, a chance gifted by him on my last flight here.

The remaining time were expended with more circuit flying, watching the sun setting in the horizon with every round of circuit I flew. It was a beautiful way to end it all and I landed for one final time at close to 1700hrs. The circuit was very peaceful with me the only one flying.

I admit it was somehow an emotional flight, especially when I cut off the engine in the apron. I'm not sure if I'll ever fly a C172 again or if I'll ever fly solo again. When I closed down the aircraft with the sunset as the backdrop, I could sense a tinge of sadness in my heart. Minute by minute and hour by hour, I've at last completed the full 86hrs required of my training here.

Nice backdrop for my final flight

Last final approach into the sunset

ByeBye, I will miss you.

Craziest week I've had here, which at least one activity per day this whole week. Had this started way earlier, I would have completed my training long ago. That being said, I'm just glad that all my flight training has been done and dusted, and I completed it safely without any mishap. Right now, I'm just left with 3.5hrs of sim which will be completed tomorrow. I can see home, at last.