By the Beard of Zeus! Why won't this wind go away?

Well, I haven't been able to do much flying recently. As you may have noticed, it has been rather windy recently- gusting up to 40 knots. Not particularly useful as the next lesson is a solo nav ex and I can only fly in 10 knots solo. This is becoming a boring waiting game. Any way, in the last week or so I have managed to go flying a couple of times, mainly finishing off the last bits of nav including VORs ( a useful navigation aid to stop you getting lost) and a landing up in Gamston. It was definitely interesting to land in and see a different place, as well as speaking to someone else on the ground. Notable differences included having to do a right-hand circuit when joining ( backwards to what I'm used to), adhering to a different set of noise-abatement parameters (mainly a nearby mansion) and a circuit height of 1000ft. All went smoothly save for a couple of stupid radio calls- I asked for basic service from Gamston when they can't provide it, d'oh.
I've also been flying with the old man, Captain Law himself, which was rather entertaining. On approach, he's used to flaring much higher in his B777 than in a light aircraft and almost had to change his trousers after rounding out with the texture of the tarmac visible. Priceless. To accommodate 3 of us, we had to take a four-seater PA-28 which was brilliant. Not only was it fun to fly something much more docile and accommodating, but seeing a different cockpit and having to adapt was a fun challenge.
In my down time, I've been studying "The Aeroplane Technical" book from which I can take 2 exams. Those are coming on Saturday so I'm studying hard to get all the knowledge crammed in- it's like GCSE Mechanics all over again! Also, with consideration to the future, I've been exploring options for hours building. Current runners are a) going to America b) going to New Zealand c) buying an aircraft here and selling it after and d) flying out of Stapleford down South for £79/hour. All have their pluses and minuses with a convenience/price trade-off but right now New Zealand is looking pretty damn good. We'll see.
Next lesson is booked on Thursday; fingers crossed I can fly!

Requesting Fly-by.

It has been a couple of days since my last post even though I've been flying. The unfortunate installation of "The Sims 3" on my laptop has meant that Liv has been commandeering it at every opportunity, leaving next to no time for blogging. Where's that delete button?

Back on Monday, I'd gone for a low level navigation exercise at 1000 feet. We were pretty accurate on timings but the big challenge is finding landmarks when you're so close to the ground: you have to navigate based on things much closer to you (closer horizon) and they can subsequently whizz by whilst you're chucking bits of map around and checking engine temperatures.

Today was a bit more fun. We had to fly to Bardney (another of Britain's jewels I'm sure), but between us and Bardney lies military airspace... This particular exercise of passing through military airspace has been named the MATZ penetration. For those still with 13-year-old minds: no Thai lady-boys where harmed in the lesson. Though had I not made the correct radio calls, I still may have had a big red rocket of a different kind flying in my direction. 

Luckily, the Air Traffic Controller at RAF Waddington (possibly the hottest sounding woman in existence) made life very easy and somehow managed to understand my muddled and muffled transmissions without scrambling Maverick and Goose to come find me. 

On the way back we had a big headwind, only hitting about 60 knots (nautical miles per hour) or so on the ground. It took us about half an hour to get back to Nottingham and in that time I realized how absorbed you get in doing not very much at all- checking dials, chatting random crap with Jay etc... So much so in fact that I'm very good at missing calls made by ATC aimed at me and requiring a response. These can be seriously important like, "Uhhh Golf Golf Echo,THERES A MOTHER F*CKING SHOE BOMBER ON YO' PLANE" so it's usually best to pay attention. That's my lesson for today and I aim to listen a lot more actively in future (as well as check for bearded men and smoking shoes on board).

Lastly, been looking for a headset so that I don't have to use the cheapo one at the club. Pretty set on the David Clark H20-10 so far for their reported comfort and sound quality, but most of all, they're GREEN. Take a look:

Funky.

Great Success!

Well that was a good day! I'm glad to say, I passed the exam: Human Factors and Performance. Wasn't too difficult and luckily, I could get through a lot of it on old AS Level Biology knowledge. Never knew that would come in handy. Anyway, Liv (girlfriend) and I went for a beer this evening to celebrate before having to start on the new book, Radiotelephony, for the next exam. I'm trying to give myself a week to do each exam (4 left) as I'm hoping I can finish this license in around a month. Lets see if the weather wants to comply...

Also went on my second navigation exercise today to....... Sheffield. I actually managed to get the route plan right as well- making sure that I compensated for wind correctly by bugging 2 separate instructors to check! Not only was the plan good but with good weather and little turbulence, Jay (instructor) and I managed to keep well on the time schedule- within 10 seconds or so on the way back. Happy days. Was good to feel less nervous about the flight too: it gives you so much more thinking time to look for landmarks and generally make sure you're flying well. We had excellent views today on the way back- great sunset but didn't take any photos as I was- as you could imagine- rather preoccupied. I'll try and sneak a couple of shots tomorrow. On the landing front, much better. Thought about yesterday's  and definitely improved on that. A good landing always makes me feel better for the rest of the day so...

Smiles all round! :-D

So where are we? uhhh errrr....

Right! First real post. Today was my first navigation exercise- all the way to Sturgate from Nottingham and back. Sturgate doesn't sound like the most exciting place in the world, but it was for me today. It was a chance for me to show off my newly learnt nav skills- which I must say, I cocked up.

I got up this morning at 7am, bright and early and feeling smug doing my route plan first thing. I checked the TAFs, METARs and spot wind charts, wrote all the relevant information down correctly but all that doesn't really matter if you can't use the CRP correctly.

Having taken off and passed the runway overhead, we were clearly tracking waaaay too left to have a heading of 027. Sure enough, I'd compensated for wind in the wrong direction- all 40 knots of it. Naturally, that screwed up the heading, the ground speed estimates and finally the flight time with all the check points.   Now totally off course, any new off-the-cuff estimates are also wrong. Adding insult to injury, the planned altitude isn't available as the ever persistent cloud has decided to lower making everything totally wrong! I never knew you could genuinely not know where you are after 5 minutes. Welcome to real life flying I suppose.We made it there and back in one piece thankfully; estimates out of the window. Rubbish landing though- flared too high and approached to fast- sloppy after a flying drought late December. More circuits to come I think!

Moral of today's story: compensate for wind in the right direction when planning.

Now, on to revising Human Factors and Pilot Performance for tomorrow's exam.

Why Hello!

There comes a point in many boys' lives where they look into the sky at night and see lights tracking their way from left to right and think, "Wow, I want that job". I still do that and I'm 22, though slowly but surely I'm inching my way toward that distant goal. I want to be an airline pilot.

I've decided to write a blog about my experiences mainly for myself as a resource for revision and recall, but also as a source of inspiration for others who share my dream and find themselves at odds looking for where to start.

A little about me? My name's Henry, I'm 22 and currently live in Nottingham, UK. I'm an Economics graduate and had been an estate agent in London (ugh I know- rubbish economy!!!) for the last year. Lets just say I didn't really enjoy it. One morning, fag and coffee in hand outside the office, jumbo roaring overhead and surrounded by miserable people in suits on their commute, I had to get out. I had to go flying. Sooooo here I am! Mega debt, here we come!

I wish I'd started this blog at the beginning, but I'm currently about halfway through my Private Pilot's License (PPL) having done 23 or so hours. In that time, I've managed to fly solo, do a couple of the exams and begin navigation. All in all, I'm a lowly tenth of the way through! It's all good though as I'm thoroughly enjoying my time in the trusty Piper Tomahawk (regardless of its reputation for unrecoverable spins out of control!). What's more, I've got a cracking instructor who has great banter as well as being a good teacher.

If anyone is reading this(?) please feel free to comment/ask questions/share own experiences- I'd like to hear it all. Let's see where we are in 12 months eh?