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!
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!
posted by Simon Davidson @ 9:32 PM
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