David's Flight Adventures

Lesson 35 - 44 - 3rd August 2021 - 3rd Feb 2022 It is a long time since my last update, in fact it was July 2021 since I last wrote any update here.  To be honest with anyone who may be reading this (probably only me!), I decided that writing up each lesson was not that helpful.  I found that I was repeating the same things over and over and writing that up in a blog was not productive.  However, I have now completed 2 more important steps in my progress towards my NPPL(M) and it was worth writing up.  They are the Cross Country Navigation exercises, or Navex, and my Solo Consolidation. Solo Consolidation To complete the licence, you need to have completed a minimum of 25 hours instruction, of which 10 hours has to be solo.  Probably only about 1% or 2% of trainee pilots would complete their training in the minimum time, it is more likely to be 1 hour for each year of your age.  On this basis I should take about 60 hours in total, although I am currently at just over 48 hours so may ha

Lesson 34 - 20th July 2021 Continuing with the solo consolidation again today.  I was with Dave Slater today and we started by doing a few circuits.  Although it was a glorious day, it was a bit choppy and the wind was varying between runway 2 5 and runway 3 3.   My landings were not brilliant but were OK enough. Once Dave was happy, we went back to the clubhouse and plotted out a slightly different local route.  It was similar to the previous route, but going a little bit further and going clockwise this time.  I plotted it out on SkyDemon to see if I could follow that.  I had the route on the physical map, but most people tend to use moving map technology, also called an Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) on an iPad or the like.  They are the Sat Nav of the sky.  I use SkyDemon as that is the most common one used in the UK.  I have had a look at ForeFlight but I didn't find it as logical to use. As well as the exercise to navigate the route, another part of the exercise is the departure

 Lesson 32 - 30th June 2021 This was pretty much more of the same again as the last few weeks.  This time I was with Martin and we started with 2 touch and goes and then a full stop landing.  Martin got out and sent me on my own to do a double lap of the forest.  This is good as it is building up my solo hours (now standing at 4 hours 45 minutes).  Martin said I will need to do that again next time and then we can look at the proper cross country, probably to Popham. The forest circuit was OK but I was very inconsistent with my altitude.  I need to be more consistent.  I should have been at about 1700ft (on the QNH), based on the cloud base, but it varied from 1400ft to 2000ft when I wasn't paying attention.  It is something that you need to be watching all the time, like the speed in a car. At one point, Dave came over the radio to ask where I was as he was doing circuits with a new student.  I gave a very wishy washy response about going along the ridge heading towards the house!

 Lesson 31 - 17th June 2021 This lesson was more of the same.  I did a 20 minute session with Graham for him to see that I was OK in the circuit and to handle the aircraft and then I was sent off on my own to complete 2.5 circuits of the local NAVEX that I have done before. The only thing that I was concerned about was the rejoin and landing but that was OK.  The landing was a bit slow and I, as Graham commented, 'parachuted' in.  I forgot to look towards to end of the runway and keep flying the aircraft.  Fortunately, the C42 is a very forgiving aircraft and I got away with it.  Just another thing to remember for next time. Totals 75 minutes £168.75 Total Costs = £6418.86 Total Hours Icarus C42 = 33 hours 30 minutes

Lesson 30 - 8th June 2021 Today I was with the new instructor.  His name is David Rogerson, or Dave 2 as he is also known.  We were in the oldest of the 3 C42s, Charlie Oscar.  It may be the oldest, but there is something about it that I like, from a flying perspective.  It just seems to fly nicer than the other 2. Dave 2 decided we would start with a couple of circuits, just so he could assess me and then I could go on and complete the extended circuits again.  However, the weather was very thermic and after a couple of aborted landing son runway 2 5, I advised that I was not comfortable flying on my own today, which Dave 2 agreed was a good shout. We flew away from the airfield to do some general handling.  This included a couple of PFLs.  Interestingly, Dave 2 indicated that the PFL and the circuit re-join were 2 of the main items of the GST that are focussed on.  As usual, I talked my way through everything so Dave 2 was aware of my thinking process.  He commented that it was a goo

 Lesson 29 - 29th May 2021 First NAVEX (Navigation Exercise) away from the airfield. The session today was in 2 parts.  The first was for Martin to assess my general circuits and landings and then to take me round the extended circuit.  The second part was for me to fly solo away from eh airfield and repeat the extended circuit.   There are no extended descriptions in this entry as all I did was to fly  circuit.  I flew using 4 directions. 090, 360, 270 then 180 and then repeat for a second time.  So go East, go North, go West go South then finally back East. I just followed the directions given to me for the rejoin so more details will be added to the next entry as it was covered in more depth. 35 minutes Dual 50 minutes Solo Totals 1 hour 25 minutes £191.25 Total Costs = £6126.36 Total Hours Icarus C42 = 31 hours 20 minutes