General update: Passed my GFPT! (and some earlier lessons)

Date: 06/04/2011 to 13/04/2011

Hours flown	Dual	Command	Instruments
This flight	4.00	1.40	0.80
Total to date	32.54	4.60	2.00

OK, for regular blog readers (not that there’s many of you), I know it’s been quiet for over a week now. I’ve been crazy busy with flying plus life and family commitments. So I’m behind on my blogging, but with limited time, I’m going to try to do a quick catch-up just to keep the blog current and you all in the picture.

GFPT (General Flying Proficiency Test) passed!

That’s the big news. My GFPT was yesterday (13 April 2011), and I passed! I am now endorsed to fly single engine aircraft weighting less than 5700 kilograms, and to fly solo or carry passengers in the Bankstown training area. When I’m comfortable with my flying, I’ll take friends and family up. (Some conditions apply: I can’t fly more than 15 consecutive solo hours, or fly after an interval of more than 90 days between flights, before first having a dual checkride with an instructor. This condition is removed once I attain my full Private Pilots license.)

GFPT was with our CFI (Chief Flying Instructor). Ground quiz went OK, and apparently flight test too. Frankly I thought I’d failed, but he said I’d done pretty well for someone of my experience. I had this feedback indirectly via my instructor as well. So despite one pretty awful landing (out of 3) and a few other minor things, evidently I satisfied him.

It almost didn’t happen. Filling out the pre-test paperwork, turned out I was short 1/2 an hour of Instrument flying. For a minute there I thought I would not be able to do the test. Fortunately the CFI had time available and said if I wanted I could do the 1/2 hour with him before we switched into GFPT mode. As you can imagine, I said yes.

It was unusually turbulent, apparently a SIGMET was in force warning of moderate to severe turbulence below 5000 feet. We certainly caught some. I think the CFI factored this in to the way in which he judged my performance. As it was, we did not do any steep turns, and he decided against asking me to do a short-field landing (opting instead for 2 normal landings with 2 stages of flap, one touch-and-go and one full stop).

So – elated! My major goal for my 8 weeks full time flying achieved in 6.5 weeks. And still a bit of room to start the navs before I return to work full time and start to fly part time.

Preceding lessons

I won’t describe these in much detail, but preceding yesterday’s GFPT were:

• 6 April 2011 – a lesson on short-field take-offs and landings. This was an hour in the circuit practising specific short-field take-off and landing manoeuvres. I won’t go into detail about these. What I do remember is some moderate turbulence and crosswind, and a couple of idiots in the circuit with me which made it difficult to get much done as we had to do no fewer than 2 go-arounds due to some poor airmanship (not mine thank goodness) and also some poor traffic management from the tower. My instructor got a distinct fright on late base on one of the circuits when looking behind to see a recalcitrant Diamond way closer to us than it should have been. As he later described it to me, it was a decent short-fields lesson considering “Degree of difficulty: Dickheads In Circuit”!
• 7 April 2011 – my third area solo. I took an extended solo flight in the training area as I had to log a further 1.2 hours solo. So I did it all: stalls, steep turns, practise forced landings, precautionary search and landings, and some general tooling around the area. There was some wind out there which made it a bit bumpy below 2000 feet, and my landing was frankly appalling, fortunately my instructor wasn’t there to see it.
• 8 April 2011 – my final consolidation session out in the training area with my instructor to get me ready for the GFPT. Basically we ran through the GFPT so I got a chance to see where I needed work. As it turned out, afterwards John said that it was one of the better pre-GFPT checkrides he’s done. But could have fooled me. My flapless landing was 10 knots too fast (way fast, although ironically and as noted by John it was a very good landing!) And my short field landing nearly missed the runway threshold. Needless to say I boned up extensively on technique for these 2 operations in particular.

Today – Start of Cross-Country Navigation component

Today was an extensive ground briefing to introduce me to the science, art and discipline of good flight planning. All very cool and interesting stuff. Once I finish this blog I have a ton of work to do tonight to prepare for tomorrow.

Tomorrow (weather permitting) – first Cross-Country flight

If weather permits, tomorrow we will do a return cross-country flight either to Cessnock (north of Sydney) or to Goulburn (to the south-west). Both are about 90-minute return flights actual flying time. Will let you know how it turns out.

Day 19: Lessons 25/26– Forced Landings

Date: 30/03/2011

Hours flown	Dual	Command	Instruments
This flight	2.00	0.00	0.00
Total to date	24.64	1.40	0.70

Today was the nicest flying weather in pretty much the nearly 5 weeks I’ve flown. (Discounting, of course, the storm that hit the Sydney area around 3pm this afternoon!)

The ride was NFR (November Foxtrot Romeo), probably the aircraft I’ve spent the most time in now. I was expecting to do steep turns today, but that’s slated for tomorrow. Today – for both lessons – we did (practise) forced landings.

From a theory point of view, there’s an established body of knowledge and procedure around engine failure/forced landing situations. Some of this focuses around establishing “high key” and “low key” decision points at 2500 feet and 1500 feet AGL (above ground level). However, as John pointed out, in real forced landing situations – especially in the heat and stress of the moment – you won’t necessarily know the height of the ground below you and be able to calibrate the high key and low key decision points very accurately. More practically, John recommended that in forced landing situations I choose, preferably, a suitable landing place either to the left or right of the aircraft, that lies visually “under” the wing. In other words, a spot on the ground that you can be sure you can glide to. Failing suitable landing spots to the left or right, try a landing site ahead of the aircraft, or in the last option, behind the aircraft.

So, in real (and simulated) engine failure/forced landing situations, it’s the usual mantra of Aviate-Navigate-Communicate.

• Aviate – Convert airspeed into height until you reach optimum glide speed (around 75 KIAS in a Warrior). Reach and maintain optimum glide speed. Select your target landing area, taking (quickly) into account a range of factors including wind speed and direction, size of site, slope of site, surface of site, obstacles and obstructions etc. Plan your approach, including contingency plans (eg. what if I can’t make it? what if I come in too high? too low?) And, do a quick run-through of engine/fuel controls and system to see if the engine failure is fixable. (CMF – Carby heat on, Mixture full rich, Fuel pump on, switch fuel tanks).
• Navigate – Execute your forced landing approach as described above.
• Communicate – Squawk 7700 on your transponder, and make your Mayday call.

Then if time remains and circumstances permit, do a more comprehensive check of engine and fuel systems – CFMOST. Carby heat on. Fuel pump on. Mixture full rich, including cycling mixture control through full rich-lean range and back. Oil – how are my oil pressure and temperature? Magneto switches – try switching just to the left magneto, then to the right, to see if the engine can run on just the one. And Throttle – cycle through full open-closed range and back.

While this is all going on, of course, there may be passengers to take care of. Calm and reassure them (to the extent possible). Give them something to do – ask them to help by watching out for other air traffic. Instruct them to remove eyeglasses and pens/other objects from shirt pockets.

From a glide approach point of view, part of planning your forced landing (and changing your plans as circumstances dictate) is how you’re going to get there and get down. Do you have enough height for a full circuit? Can you perhaps do only a straight-in final approach, or can you do a base and perhaps even a downwind leg? Do you have enough height that you can even do an upwind leg as well? Do you have to extend your glide a bit to lose height before the landing? Or do you need to cut things short and head straight for your landing site? At all events, can you glide to about 1/3 down your intended landing site? (When, and only when, confident of this last point, is the point at which you can use flaps to slow yourself down).

In real situations, I think if you manage to do all of this, you’re doing well. Main priority, when all is said and done, is to get the aircraft down on the ground and walk away safely and without injury. If the aircraft is undamaged, that’s a bonus, but lives and personal safety are priority #1.

So, how did I do?

First, John demonstrated a forced landing approach to the little gravel strip out at St Mary’s. Easy as pie. Then back up to 3500 feet and it was my turn. I approached way too high and would have overshot the strip and not made it down. Next attempt from 2000 feet was better, I even pulled off a decent sideslip on my own (to lose height quickly) to get down and would have landed relatively safely.

Next attempt I selected a reasonable landing site but lost site of it and therefore had to select an alternative which was nowhere near as good. And in any case, I’d made a poor choice of site given options available – I went for a site on the right hand side of the aircraft, where obstacles and some hilly ground abounded. There was better, more clear and flatter ground off to my left.

Insight #25

Select your preferred forced landing site with care (within the constraints of circumstances and available time). A split-second decision like the one I made above (poorly) can mean the difference between a nearly “ideal” landing site and a much less ideal one.

My final practise forced landing was pretty reasonable. I changed my choice of site 3 times on the way down – once because my preferred landing site had a fence running lengthwise straight down it – but my final site was quite good and I would have got down OK. If anything it showed me that a decision you make at 3500 feet may have to change once you get lower and can see more features on the ground.

More Training Area experience

Apart from the focus on forced landings, I also got some much-needed training area experience, as I approach my Training Area solo. Stuff I’m now more solid on:

• Departure procedures from Bankstown – maintain 1000 feet (or 1500 depending on takeoff direction) until over the railway tracks. Then up to (say) 2300 feet (no higher than 2500 feet as that is lower boundary of surrounding Class C airspace). Then up to (say) 4000 feet once over a line intersecting Tadpole Lake to the north and 3 Lakes to the south (again, no higher than 4500 feet due lower limits of Class C airspace).
• Radio and transponder procedures. Once abeam of Prospect Reservoir, switch radio to 124.55 (Sydney Radar) and transponder to 1200.
• Inbound approach procedures (reporting in at Prospect or 2RN, and joining traffic pattern for landing at Bankstown).

What’s next

So, tomorrow (as usual, weather permitting) we will do our lesson on Steep Turns, with a little Incipient Spins drill thrown in. And in the afternoon I’ll do my pre-Training Area Solo theory exam.

Friday I’ve got a checkride scheduled with Ashley (from my First Solo checkride) so he can verify I’m ready for my Training Area solo. Then, perhaps Monday (or Sunday, if I schedule it?) my Training Area Solo, which I’m really looking forward to. The aircraft all to myself, just me, away from the airport for the first time! Very much looking forward to this.