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.
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.
posted by Simon Davidson @ 10:23 PM
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