California here I don't come

Yesterday I was due to do a cross country solo to Blythe, California. Unfortunately Blythe is just over an hour away, but I only had 1hr 45min to complete the entire flight, so I ended up turning back before getting there. It was a pleasant early morning flight, but also a bit of a waste of time. The route was a very simple one - depart Goodyear, turn west, keep going, then turn back and head back to Goodyear.
Ah well, it was nice to see some more of the amazing scenery if nothing else.
This morning I had an early morning dual flight with Gilbert - the last one before my first progress test. The flight went really well, I put in a good performance with steep turns, stalls, practise forced landings - and generally had a really good flight and a good chat with Gilbert.
I was hoping to get my PT1 done tomorrow, but due to a lack of available instructors I now have to wait until next Wednesday. I can continue with solo navigation flights, then do a couple of solo general handlings just before the test. I'm also planning on having a couple of days off, as I've had a flight or two every day for the last 10 days.
Had a nice lazy day today, spent mostly playing games with Georgia this afternoon while Clare caught up on some sleep. Also been looking on some places to go next week when my Dad comes out - trying to plan something involving the Grand Canyon and Vegas. Not too easy when you have a five hour drive with a two year old to plan for.
Apart from a dogfight with an F-16 which saw me gunned down in flames (yeah, cheers Gareth) - not much been happening. Maybe when I have a couple of days off we'll get out and about.
Time to go draw some more pictures of cats, methinks!
Bye for now
Simon

Crash at Oxford

From the BBC: Warrior crash at Oxford
Not much to say about this one as all I know about it is what the BBC have printed. Amazing that the Instructor and 2 students walked away from it...

Solo Cross Country

Today I carried out a rather long and incredibly hot and bumpy cross country solo. After a few problems upon arrival at Goodyear (namely the schedule being completely buggered, again) - I took the keys and tech book of N460X and headed out. Unfortunately N460X is one of the older warriors, and is therefore a complete piece of sh*t. This, coupled with 39 degrees and more thermals than you can shake an aileron at, made for a rather bumpy ride. It was nigh on impossible to get the aircraft trimmed for hands off flying, so it was quite difficult to do the navigation part of the flight. The lack of a timer in the aircraft also made things more difficult.
Not to worry, I pressed on and made it round all the airports I was supposed to, taking a few interesting photos along the way. Check out the giant hole in the ground near Casa Grande - taken from 4500 up it gives you an idea of how large it is.
I then passed over a set of fields that look like a set of giant targets for the Gods/Giants/Cloud people - not sure what the explanation behind these fields is, but I bet it's a good one.
I eventually made it back to Goodyear after 1 hour 45 mins - a little later back than I should have been, but a crappy old aircraft coupled with a very long climb to 6500 feet meant I didn't spend much time at the 100 kt cruise speed.
When I was taxiing back after landing I saw an F-16 having some work done on it - I had heard before I departed that an F-16 was due to arrive, but to taxi past it was pretty smart.
Overall - I fairly good flight and a really nice day. Tomorrow I am due another 2 hour cross country solo, but I have a feeling it will not go ahead, but we'll see...

Great flying, and huge shops.

It's Monday night here, about 21:30. I've just got back from the airport having gone down to do my last solo night flight - but unfortunately the stall horn on N157ND was inop, so flight cancelled.
I already flew today, so it's not really a big deal - but it is a shame to go down there and plan the flight, start the pre-flight checks then have to lock everything down again and come home.Last night I did the night navigation flight. We combined my lesson with Mal's, which meant I flew us from Goodyear to Glendale, then to Deer Valley, then Scottsdale, a transition through Phoenix Sky Harbor class B airspace (see pic), then down to Casa Grande for a full stop, via the holding pattern and ILS approach. We took on some fuel then Mal hopped in and flew us back to Goodyear, doing the route in reverse. It was a really nice flight - the scenery is simply amazing, and although it is still very warm (it was 37 degrees at midnight) - the ride is much much smoother than during the day.
It was Mal's first night flying though, and he really struggled with the landings. I guess a combination of first night flying, unfamiliar airports and flying at 01:00 doesn't help. I thought my part of the flight went really well, and when I checked my grades for the exercise today I saw that Gilbert seemed to agree, as he'd given me some really top scores. I got home at about 2am, struggled to get to sleep before 3am, then was rudely awoken by my alarm at 5:30 as I had a 7:00 navigation flight. I had to get up and plan the flight, work out headings etc etc. I'm happy to say that it went really well, we flew from Goodyear to Casa Grande, then back to Goodyear via Ak Chin. It was the first time I'd been down that way, so it was all unfamiliar scenery. I again thought the flight went really well, Gilbert was asking me various things such as 'what heading would you set if you had to divert to Falcon Field airport now, how far is it and how much fuel?' - and despite the lack of sleep I was on the ball with it and got everything spot on. Same goes when he asked what would I do if I lost all my electrics, and so on. When we got back to Goodyear he didn't really have a debrief for me, he just said it was the best flight I had ever done - and the scores again reflect that. Really pleased - it's a great feeling when you have a good flight and your instructor agrees. Nice to know it's all coming together.

After I got home this morning we decided to head up to Arrowhead Mall - picking Tony up from the airport on the way so he can relieve some of the cabin fever. I needed some new shoes as my leather soled Loakes have worn right through, so I decided to just get some plain black trainers, as they'll be comfier and lighter for flying. I bought myself some New Balance ones which were just the job, and a good price too - but in the process left my Ray Bans on the bench where I tried the shoes on....
What a complete muppet. I realised ten minutes later, but by then it was too late. I feel really bad about it, not so much that they were £100 sunglasses, but mainly because they were a present from Clare for my 30th birthday in May. Gutted gutted gutted.
I crawled back into bed later in the afternoon and grabbed an hours kip before heading to the airport for the night flight and subsequent disappointment. I guess it gives me time to write my blog and update the photo albums...
Tomorrow I have a solo navigation that takes me on quite a long trek round south east Phoenix area. It's scheduled for 12:30, so it's gonna be a hot one, but should be interesting as again it's all new territory for me. Just hope I can manage ok without my shades...
Seeing as my flight is later in the day I've decided to have a couple of drinks tonight - and have splashed out a fortune on a bottle of Port. $2.99 for a bottle of Port, complete with screw top - you know it's gonna be good stuff! The AVGAS we put in the aircraft smells better....


Ah, nearly forgot... Gilbert has asked me to help him build a PC, and he told me about a big electronics store in Phoenix. Yesterday we took a drive over, and he wasn't kidding - imagine all the PC World, Comet, Currys and Dixons in the UK rolled into one giant store, and you pretty much have Fry's Electronics. What an awesome place - so many great PC bits, TV's, cinema kit, you name it. And soooooo cheap too... Dad, you could get yourself some awesome PC bits when you come over - bring a spare suitcase!
I restrained myself to buying a headset for my PC, which Georgia has since commandeered for herself. Speech recognition ATC for flight sim has a problem understanding her though....
Which reminds me - Happy Birthday to my bestest bud Andrew. Hope you had a great 30th my friend. Looking forward to seeing you again when we get back to the UK.

Night flying

On Friday I had my first night flight - five days later than originally planned, but worth the wait. Unfortunately there were also a lot of other people having night flights, and the pattern was full of Oxford and Lufthansa students. There were about five aircraft all lined up at runway 21, waiting for clearance to take off - when a certain Nilay Patel decided to charge down the outside of everyone and cut in at the front... nice manoeuvre, but our instructor was less impressed...
While I was holding short at Alpha 1, Gilbert and I noticed that ATC were landing everyone instead of doing touch-and-go's - but unfortunately for Nilay he didn't pick up on this fact when ATC told him 'cleared to land' - and he went and did a touch and go. Big trouble... but no one was killed or maimed, so no harm done, lesson learned.
I asked Gilbert if there was anywhere else we could go, as the way things were going we would manage about 2 circuits in the hour fifteen we were allocated. So after take-off we turned off to the left and headed up to Glendale Airport - a nice 5 minute flight to the north. ATC was closed up there, so we had to just give position reports on the frequency and listen out for other traffic, but there was no-one else there. We turned the runway lights on remotely from the air (click the radio 7 times) - and settled in for some nice quiet pattern work. It was awesome - the view at night is fantastic, it's such a shame we don't get more night flying time.
Last night I had my first solo night flight, and as it was Saturday the pattern was very quiet - in fact only Nilay and myself were flying (he was doing his solo lesson again...)
I managed to get some videos of my circuit work, here's one of a standard approach and landing to runway 21:


Yesterday I also had my first solo navigation flight, which was pretty good. It was really hot, and the ride was pretty bumpy, but my headings were accurate enough so I didn't get lost. I'll be having a LOT more solo navigation flights now, and they'll be quite long too, so I'll get out and about and see more of the area. Just wish the planes weren't so damn slow...
I have no flight today except for a night navigation flight tonight. Mine is due at 21:30, and my flying buddy Mal has a flight at 23:00 - so we're going to head over to Phoenix Sky Harbor area. I'll fly us out there, we'll do a full stop landing somewhere and Mal can fly us back. Looking forward to that!
As for the rest of the day - nothing much planned. I'm sat on the couch playing games with Georgia as I write this (Dora the Explorer on her Leappad). I need to go out and buy some new shoes as my Loakes have worn right through the leather soles - gutted. Other than that - I think it'll be more time in the pool. It's a hard life.

Congratulations to Jeroen, Steve, Sander and Koen - who have all passed their resits and will be coming out to Phoenix next week. Be good to see you chumps again :-P

Ciao for now

Simon

Videos

Here's a couple of videos that can be played directly from my blog. One is of a solo landing from 11th August (an early morning flight on my wedding anniversary - a great way to start the day) and another of the storm from the other night. Hopefully by doing this the video files can stream and play rather than having to download them in their entirity first. Anyway, if people can let me know how this works out I would be grateful.

Cheers

Simon

P.S. Paul: Here's your chance to get your revenge and comment about that landing. My only defence is that I was in N268ND - before they sorted out the sticky yoke, you can hear the yoke creaking as I flare. ;-)


Storm at Goodyear, 21st August. View from our apartment.


Early morning solo landing at Goodyear Airport, runway 21.

Best laid plans of mice and men

A couple of disappointing setbacks the last couple of days. On Sunday I was supposed to have my first night flight, but as mentioned previously this was cancelled. Last night I was due again to fly, but the arrival of a bloody great storm put paid to that flight too. I was all geared up for it too, had been out during the day to buy a new torch and other stuff, had an early tea with Clare and Georgia then headed down to the airport. My buddy Mal was due to fly at 18:00, so I was going to back-seat his flight then do my night flight at 19:30. Upon arrival at the airport I was told Mal had cancelled his flight, so I then had to hang around for 90 mins until I was due to fly. After 45 mins Gilbert called from home asking me what the weather was like. It wasn't too bad at the airport, but the radar picture looked horrific - two very large storms moving down from the aouth. Five minutes later I was back in the car heading home, and five minutes after that I took the photo above.
Georgia was really sweet - not phased at all by the thunder and lightning, she just kept asking for more. I've a couple of videos that I'll put on my website soon. When I got up this morning it was raining outside, with more thunder and lightning - first time it hasn't been sunny during the day since we got here in June. It brightened up at about 10:00 though, and then it was business as usual. I've no flying scheduled for today or tomorrow, and we had planned a trip to Tucson but something cropped up which meant we have stayed local. We had a day at home today, venturing out briefly to buy Georgia some new swimming stuff, before heading down to the pool to try it out.
No flying tomorrow, so more chill out time with the family. It feels more special when it's a mid-week break for some reason, hopefully from here on in the days of boring 9-5 Monday-Friday jobs are gone.

Instrument flying, and that sneaky Gilbert

Had a busy weekend of more flying... doing some instrument flying on Saturday that went pretty well. Gilbert failed my attitude indicator and direction indicator, meaning I had to fly using the turn co-ordinator and compass only. I was a bit worried about this as I couldn't really remember the rules on compass undershoot and overshoot, but with the application of 'UNOS' (undershoot north, overshoot south) - I soon had it sussed. The practise I put in the other day on the sim was time well spent, I was holding altitude pretty well and doing nice precise rate one turns.
One of my other flights was a dual flight that we used to practise general handling - I went through steep turns, stalls and practise forced landings - and Gilbert commented that my solo sessions had obviously been put to good use. It made me feel pretty good, and I was actually surprised myself how well things went, but my last couple of solo flights had been midday, and were really bumpy and unpleasant.
Gilbert tried the 'pull the circuit breaker' trick on me on take off, but I noticed straight away that my T's and P's were dead, so no problem :-)
I was supposed to start night flying last night, but it was cancelled just beforehand, so I am due to fly tonight. Looking forward to that - I haven't seen Goodyear from the air at night yet. I did have a flight this morning at 7:30 - Navigation flight 3, over to Gila Compressor, Paloma, then back to Goodyear. This went reasonably well; I was off course a couple of times but corrected it OK I thought. I feel a bit more confident with the actual flying so I can concentrate on looking out for landmarks. I'm still not quite as creative as Gilbert, but then he does know the area a hell of a lot better than me. The main thing is I don't get us lost!

Family-wise everything is going well. Georgia and Clare are really happy - I still have a good portion of the day to spend with them, which is really nice. To anyone with a family or partner that is thinking on bringing them out to the states - do it. Ignore what ever OAT tell you about them getting in the way, it simply isn't true. Maybe in the later part of the training I'll be away for more of the day, but if you're used to working for 8 hours a day and being out of the home for 10 hours, this will all feel like a holiday.
Georgia has been really lovely lately - she is speaking more and more every day, but we do feel bad for her that she isn't getting to play with other children. I guess it's a small sacrifice, and hopefully it won't really make much of a difference - once we get back to Oxford she will hopefully go back to the play groups and friends there. I know I'd much rather have her spend time with me than with other kids, even if it is slightly selfish on my part. I do know I'd be absolutely gutted if I'd come out here on my own, and missed her growing up over these last few months.
The other day at Paradise Vally Mall I spotted a little summer dress in Macy's, and couldn't resist buying it for her. Here's a piccie of her posing in it:



That's enough rambling for now. Gonna try and have a lazy day by the pool today, then hopefully get that first night flight done later.

All the best

Simon

A good flight

My second navigation flight was a great success! The winds at 3000 ft were very light, and the headings I had computed turned out to be bang on the money. Every leg of the flight went perfectly, and the actual flying went really well too. It was a very early start and a hurried set of calculation and planning so I am really pleased with my performance. Half way round the route Gilbert went through the procedure for diversion to an alternate, and we effectively cut the flight short and diverted back to Goodyear. My landing was a flapless approach, and a really nice touchdown - gaining praise from Gilbert.
Mal was the next to fly, and he'd stayed up all night (in a strip club) and did his nav calcs at 3:30am. He wasn't as lucky with his headings as I was, so he was off by quite a bit on some of the legs. Half way round Gilbert again diverted us back to Goodyear, and very sneakily pulled the circuit breaker for the gauges while no-one was looking. When Mal did his top of descent checklist he didn't spot that the oil and fuel temps and pressures were zero, but made the call "T's and P's in the green" anyway.
"You sure?" asked Gilbert, innocently.
Busted!!!
All in all, it was a nice morning. The three of us had a few laughs while flying, and I really feel like things are loosening up now. It's a shame that in a few weeks we'll have a different instructor when we move onto the Seneca.
I was back at the airport in the afternoon for a general handling solo, which went pretty well despite the 40 degree heat, lack of engine performance and extreme bumpiness. Getting the hang of being thrown around the sky like a rag doll.

Today I was due a dual session in the FNPTII simulator at 12:00, so I decided to get there early and have a solo session in the FNPTI simulator. The pic below shows what a technological tour-de-force this machine is. Basic cockpit layout is all well and good, but being controlled by a 10 year old PC running windows 95.. omg...




Earlier on in the course I managed to acquire a copy of 'Pattern B' - the series of turns, climbs and descents that we have to do in the sim. Unfortunately Gilbert had my copy, but I did my best to recreate it from memory. In a previous post I mentioned how twitchy the FNPTII is, and the FNPTI is pretty much the same. I managed to get used to it after 15 mins though, I certainly felt more relaxed than I had been when doing a proper lesson. After flying what I thought was a close replica of Pattern B, I paused the sim and checked the pc - see below for a copy of the required pattern B, and a printout of what I flew. I'm really pleased with this - it doesn't really do justice here but it hopefully shows that I was making nice steady turns, and keeping the required heading. The extra turn from westbound back to north is because I couldn't remember whether I needed to do that or not.




Anyway, after a nice performance in the little sim, my lesson in the big sim was cancelled due to Gilbert's prior flight being delayed, so I put some more time in the solo sim then headed up to the crew room to plan for a proper solo flight I had at 13:00. This also went well, it was very hot again and the aircraft struggled to climb from 3000 to 4000 ft, but it wasn't a major problem. What was a slight problem was the stall horn not working in flight - it had worked ok when I checked it during my walk around (and worked again when I later checked it when I landed) - but in the air it didn't work. This meant that when I went to do some practise stalls it was only when the aircraft actually stalled and nose-dived for the ground that I knew to recover. Makes things a bit more interesting, especially on the 20 degree bank base-to-final stall turn.

Not sure what flights I'll have this weekend - I have a dual instrument flight tomorrow, and possibly a dual sim flight on Sunday, but that's not confirmed yet. Hopefully I'll find out tomorrow and then I can make plans for the rest of the weekend.

If hadn't been for them pesky winds...

My first navigation flight is now complete, and what a complete load of tosh it was too. I did all the right planning, scribbled all over my map, headings calculated to within an inch of their lives, and off we went. The flying part of the flight went really well, but as soon as I made the turn south towards Gila Bend I knew immediately I was going to be way off course. I stuck with the planned heading, and we followed the correct drills for looking out, identifying where we were, and coming up with a new heading. We even called Prescott Radio service and got them to verify the winds aloft data (if you ask me, I think Gilbert doubted my planning :-) ) but they confirmed the data I had. The winds given were 280/16, and as a result I had a heading turned into the wind to correct for drift. Trouble was, the wind seemed to be more like 190/16, and as a result we were flying off towards California.
We made it safe to Gila Bend airport where I attempted a touch-and-go. I say attempted, because although my approach, base turn and final were all very nice, the actual flare ... well, it didn't happen. Under the dictionary under 'hard landing' is a big picture of me in my not so shiny Warrior with smashed undercarriage. It wasn't *that* bad, but we did bounce a little bit. I blame the narrow runway, and had Derek in ground school not gone to the trouble of warning of the effect of small runways, I might blame him too - but he's off the hook :-)
The rest of the flight went really well I thought. Once we knew any planned headings were a better work of fiction than the bible, we got on with the business of actually flying and navigating for real, which was pretty good fun. We made it back to Goodyear nicely on time too, which is always good for keeping the guys and gals in dispatch happy.
Gilbert then said that he was off work on Wednesday, so he would put me in for two flights on Thursday and let me have a day off. Winner!
Back home for just after 9am, with the rest of the day and the whole following day free. I called Tony up and arranged to meet them up at Imagination Avenue, a nice little kiddy play area near Scottsdale. It's a really nice little place that's done up like a mini-town - with a fire station, school, shops, cinema, and a bouncy castle. The kids can trash around in mini cars, or dress up as firemen (or women), or just bounce around the place. It was great fun, and I am sure Georgia and Daisy had a great time.
Here's a few piccies of Georgia: cooking lunch, putting out the fire, then bouncing around!







When we got back home I headed round to Hertz, as they'd called earlier in the day to say they needed their car back. I got round there and paid the bill for the last month or so, and took the keys to another car. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a even higher spec model than before - still a Checy Impala, but one with even more toys. Unfortunately, it has heated leather seats - and when it's still over 100 degrees from 8am to 8pm, they are more of a hinderance than a help. The sunroof in this car adds to that 'fresh-baked thigh' feeling that you get when you jump in. It does still have the remote start feature, which means you can have the engine running and air con on max for 10 mins before you get near the car, but that leather still stays nuclear hot. Might have to go back to Hertz some time.... see if I can wangle another upgrade ;-)

Today (Wednesday) was my day off, and we decided to head over to Tempe Town Lake. This is an outdoor area for little ones to splash around, and stay cool under the baking sun. We all had a good time here, Georgia had a couple of falls and a couple of disagreements over ownership of toys, but it didn't dampen her spirits too much.





Here's a quick pic of her arming herself, and blasting anyone who came near!









Just before 1pm we decided to head into Tempe and look for somewhere for lunch. Clare had spotted a Greek Restaurant (called 'My Big Fat Greek Restaurant') on the map of Tempe we had, so we went there. I have to be honest and say it was one of the nicest meals I have ever had. We shared Zuccini cakes for a starter (Georgia scoffed nearly half of one all by herself) - and for main course Clare had Pita Falafel, and I had mixed Souvlaki - chicken and angus beef. It was fantastic, we will definitely go back there sometime. Gianni - if you're reading this, you will love it!
After our meal we had a brief wander around Tempe, taking in "Rula Bula" Irish Pub, "Corleone's" bar, and Hooters bar, before heading back home. It's been a really great couple of days - lots of fun things for Georgia to do, and some nice quality time for mummy and daddy too.
Time to go get some kip - have a flight at 5:30am tomorrow, then a solo flight at 13:00. One of the places I am supposed to fly to isn't on my map, so I'll have to wait until the morning to do my planning - setting alarm for just before 4am. It's just not natural!

If I don't get lost somewhere in Mexico, I'll update my blog with my progress...

Bye for now

Simon

Navigation, Charity, bumped head. Never a dull moment.

This morning at 7:00am I was due to do my first Navigation flight - a dual with Gilbert from Goodyear - Pierce - Gila Bend - Mobile - Goodyear. I made a note last night that my flying buddy Mal was also due to do the same flight but at 5:30am. I arrived at the airport for 5am, giving myself enough time to get the current winds aloft data so I could calculate my route, and then be able to back seat Mal on his flight. I met Gilbert in the crew room and when I told him about Mal having the same flight he was a bit worried, as he hadn't warned Mal about the Navigation and therefore didn't expect him to have anything prepared. Gilbert went off to Dispatch and cancelled Mal's flight... meanwhile Mal arrived with all his route pretty much planned out (with some help from Toddy). Gilbert came back and rather sheepishly told Mal he'd just cancelled his flight..... oops.
I decided to offer Mal my 7:00 flight - I was more than happy to back seat and soak up the scenery, so the two of us sorted out our route data then had a briefing from Gilbert on filing a flight plan. It was nice and relaxed, and at 7:00 we got the keys to N268ND and headed out to pre-flight together. Mal got us off the ground a little while later, and he got stuck into the flying really well. Gilbert was great as usual at pointing out things as we went along, and the three of us had a really pleasant time. After a hard touch and go at Gila Bend, we headed over to Mobile where I got a really nice shot over the wing of the runway below.

We then headed back into Goodyear for tea and medals, Gilbert tried to demonstrate how to do a proper landing despite our complaints about the sticky yoke in this aircarft.... unfortunately he wasn't quite on the numbers, but still impressive. Video clip HERE (84.7Mb). When we got back into Dispatch I noticed I had a solo General Handling planned for 4pm. Still feeling charitable, I offered this slot to Mal as he is quite a bit behind on solos now, whereas I only have three slots left before PT1 and I want to leave at least one for just before the test.
This obviously meant I didn't actually fly today, but I did get to spend the rest of the day with Clare and Georgia. We decided to head over to Tempe area to a childrens play place called Toy Town - only when we got over there (30 miles trip) the place was shut. Gutted. Fortunately Arizona Mills (huge shopping mall) was just up the road so we went up there. Not as great a place for Georgia, but we did our best to make it nice for her: treated her to chocolate Malt at Johnny Rockets, a ride on the carousel, and generally just letting her charge around a lot. We all had a great time - Clare treated herself to some new clothes, and I treated myself to some nice daddy-daughter time. Well, it was nice up the point where Georgia fell over her own big feet in a toy shop, giving herself a heck of a bump on her head. Poor little girl - cursed with big canoes for feet like her dad. I spotted some nice little Dora the Explorer toys, which helped distract her from the pain a little.



All in all it's been a really nice day. I'm scheduled to do my Navigation flight at 7:00 tomorrow, so I've been doing a little practise on Flight Sim this evening. Compare the fly-by at Mobile on flight sim to the real thing, it's not too shabby, especially considering I'm running it on my laptop.




Anyhoo, enough geekiness, I'm off to catch some shut eye so I can get up early and re-do my flight plan in the morning.
Ciao

Simon

A week has gone by...

I can't believe how fast the time is passing here. I only just noticed that it's been over a week since our last update.
We started the week with our planned trip to the Apache Trail. We didn't travel the whole trail, but we saw the museum at Apache Junction, the mining ghost town of Goldfield, a stop at Canyon Lake for a swim, then a trip to Tortilla Flat to sample some Prickly Pear Cactus flavour ice-cream!
I've added a photo album of the trip to my website if anyone wants to take a peek.

The rest of this week has been taken up with flying - I have flown at least once every day. Gilbert has been excellent at securing prime-time slots for me, and I think there is only Toddy in AP256 who has flown more than me. Pretty amazing considering I was one of the last to start flying.
I've done a lot of my general handling solos, and am definitely getting the hang of the things I need to do for my first test - steep turns, 3 types of stall, practise forced landings, 3 types of landing, and general control of the aircraft. I have also done some flying later in the day when the thermals get pretty bad, but that all went ok too.
This week I was also introduced to the FNPTII simulator. My initial impression of the sim isn't great I'm afraid - the controls and responses feel nothing like the real aircraft and are waaaaaaay too twitchy for my liking. I know it's something I'll get used to with practise, but it's very frustrating when you know you can fly pretty well in the real plane, to find yourself all over the place in the sim. Considering the sim costs $1 million, I can't say I'm all that impressed. This week I acquired a Piper Warrior add-on for flight sim 2004 and a scenery pack for Phoenix and surrounding area. Here's a few pictures of Warrior N357ND flying over Goodyear. Compare the pictures to the photos on my website, and you'll see the detail on the aircraft, airport and surrounding countryside are pretty impressive. I just wish I had my flight yoke and pedals with me (maybe my dad will find room in a suitcase when he comes to visit next month ;-) )







We stayed over one night at Tony and Claires this week, which was really nice. Tony had an evening flight so wasn't around while Claire made tea for us all, but he did come back at about 9pm I think. Claire and Daisy were supposed to be flying back to the UK this weekend, but with all the problems at Heathrow they postponed the return until next weekend. Hopefully we'll get chance to meet up again this week - Georgia has been saying 'more Daisy' a few times recently.

On Friday Clare and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. We didn't actually do anything special as I had two solo flights starting at 6am, but we did manage to go out for a meal last night at TGI Fridays. We were planning a trip to Tucson this weekend, as I should have had today and tomorrow off, but when I saw Gilbert in the sim yesterday he told me we would be doing our first Navigation flight on Monday. Fortunately we hadn't made any reservations, so maybe we'll go away next weekend.
Speaking of navigation flights, I guess I should go get some flight planning done - and see if I can remember how to use my CRP5....

Adios Amigos

SJD

Sin Bin

It's been a very busy week - I've had a flight every day, and actually had two flights on most days. Since going solo on Tuesday I've done 4 more solos (three pattern work and one general handling) and 3 duals. Yesterday while doing solo pattern work I got into a spot of bother with ATC...
It was 6am, and even at this early hour the pattern was very full. A few of the guys from AP256 were in the sky at the same time, which was pretty cool. ATC were doing a good job of keeping everyone apart, but things started to get a bit out of hand. After one of my touch and go's I was climbing crosswind at about 1800ft when ATC called me up and advised me of traffic above and to my left, and I thought I heard them say 'extend downwind'. I looked out and could clearly see another Warrior about 200ft above and slightly to my left, heading downwind at 90 degrees to me. Extending crosswind seemed sensible enough, so that's what I read back to ATC and proceeded to do - lowering the nose slightly to decrease my rate of climb. The next thing I know the woman controller is yelling 'Seven November Delta - WHAT ARE YOU DOING????'
'Extending crosswind to avoid traffic, as advised Maam' I replied
'I told you to turn downwind to avoid traffic. Head out to Luke Aux Six, seven november delta!' - she yelled.
Oh crap. Sin binned!
I headed west towards Luke Aux Six (a disused Military strip that we use for westerly arrival procedures) - and after a couple of minutes she called me up and told me to turn back and rejoin the pattern.
I put the incident down to poor comms on both our parts - I misheard her initial call, but then she didn't pick up what I said in my read back. The main thing was that I had the other aircraft in sight, so there was no real danger - but it was a definite Top Gun moment!
The really great thing was that every man and his dog heard what happened, which was nice for me when I got back into Dispatch. My instructor was great about it though when I explained my side of the story. No harm, no foul. Phew!

We've had a busy week socially this week too - we've seen Tony, Claire and Daisy a few times which has been really nice. We're planning to go over to their place next week and make a night of it - Claire and Daisy return to the UK next weekend :-(

I have a day off tomorrow, so we are planning on heading out to the Apache Trail over on the East side of Phoenix. Hopefully it'll all go really well, and maybe we'll find the lost Dutchman's Loot.

I've just updated my Website with a few more pictures and a video of one of my solo flights. The video is 126mb, so only attempt to view if you have a good connection!

We just heard this week that due to problems with aircraft we won't get flying time in the Arrow - we'll just get Warrior then Seneca. In order to help, Georgia and I have started to assemble our own fleet of aircraft... just need to iron out a few bugs...



Well, that's it for now. Time to go get my sat nav fired up ready for tomorrow...

Adios!

Solo!

Today I took to the skies on my own! I was up at 4am, at the airport at 5am, and taking off at 5:45 for an hour of circuit practise with Gilbert. After a few circuits we came in for a landing, Gilbert jumped out, and I headed back out on my own.
It was a great feeling to be at the controls with no-one else there looking over my shoulder, even though my first solo flight consisted of 5 minutes air time.
It still amazes me that after 11 lessons I've gone solo, but such is the pace Oxford set. Looking forward to tomorrow - another dual flight and hopefully another solo!

Sedona and Jerome

This weekend we decided to pack up the car and head up north, and take in the sights around Sedona and Jerome. We looked online and booked a room at Sedona Real Inn - a king size room complete with a large whirlpool bath in the living area. We got a good deal on this, and it turned out to be a really nice place.
Before we reached Sedona however, we headed off the beaten track to see Jerome - a very old American West mining town, very high up in the hills. Jerome is a remarkable place, it's almost like stepping back in time. We had a spot of lunch in the Red Rooster cafe, and had a chat with a couple of the locals. We then wandered the streets, taking in the old police station, the English Kitchen (oldest restaurant in Arizona), and a couple of the saloons.





We then headed back down the hill into Sedona, and checked into our room. The change in view as you head into Seonda is amazing, the rocks start getting bigger and bigger, and turn from yellow to deep red. Some of the rock formations have been given names - one looks like a coffee pot, one looks like Snoopy lying on his kennel!
That night when we went out for some food, Sedona was hit by a massive thunderstorm similar to what we had at Goodyear last week. When we left the restaurant to go back to the Inn, the roads were like red rivers - a huge amount of sediment had run off the hills.



Unfortunately all the heavy rain meant that the places we planned on going to were all closed, as was one of the main highways running north. We changed our plans and headed back south to Phoenix, stopping off at an outlet village on the way.
This worked out ok, as it meant I had time to go to Goodyear Airport to complete a pre-solo test that's needed before you can fly solo.

All in all, a very nice weekend - chilled out nicely in time for my first solo...