Down the Sydney coast with my father – an unforgettable flight

View flight photos here

Yesterday, Easter Monday, my father and I flew down the coast of Sydney to land at Wollongong, then returned to home base. It was a magnificent flight, for many reasons but most significantly for the sheer joy and pleasure that it clearly brought to my father. I’m blogging about this one because I don’t want to forget the sheer enjoyment of it.

Dad has flown with me before, just the once, not long after I attained my GFPT. (This, for those who may not know, is what used to be called your “restricted license” and in my case permitted me to fly within the environs of the Bankstown training area.) But that was about a year ago, and wasn’t a particularly memorable flight, marred slightly by some radio problems. And the opportunity to take Dad flying doesn’t come up much as he lives interstate from me. So an Easter visit from him offered the opportunity to finally show him what it’s all about.

Weather

Sunday was a bit questionable weather-wise and the evening brought some moderately severe storms, prompting some careful review of the aviation weather forecasts. However, both the aviation forecasts (AirServices Australia) and the general forecast (WeatherZone) offered reasonably encouraging news, so I was fairly confident we’d at least get a start. The possibility of isolated showers was out there and it was clearly a case of “see how things look in the morning”. I’ve learned from experience that crap weather the night before a flight is in itself no firm predictor of similar conditions on the following morning. Once or twice in the past I’ve cancelled a flight because the weather “looks bad” only to rue my decision when the day in question turns out fine – or at least, perfectly flyable.

And, I was right. Yesterday morning dawned cool and clear, with a light to moderate southwesterly breeze blowing. It was absolutely stunning.

Pre-Flight

I’d booked SFM, a club Cherokee that I’ve not yet flown. However a quick (and well advised) familiarisation check of the cabin, controls and instruments revealed that the seat belt retractable shoulder sash was firmly stuck at about 3/4 retracted and there was absolutely no budging it.

Faced with the choice of trying to get some assistance to get it fixed, or grabbing an older but perfectly serviceable aircraft (FTU), I chose the latter option.

Fuelled up and pre-flight checks done, we returned to the clubhouse to file the flight plan, check the latest weather and the ATIS. All continued to look lovely. We were started up and away only slightly behind schedule, which in my experience for a cross-country flight of any kind is not bad going.

Harbour Scenic

First main leg of the flight was (hopefully) to do a Harbour Scenic, what I consider to be the jewel in the crown of flights available to light GA aircraft in the Sydney Basin. However you can’t always get clearance to do this flight – depends on prevailing conditions and controller workload at Sydney Airport – so you never quite know until you get out there if it’s going to happen or not. Filing your flight plan early, as we did, helps – but it’s no guarantee.

Taking off to the west and tracking north over Parramatta, I radioed Sydney Radar approaching Pennant Hills from the south and made my initial clearance request. I was directed to track to Longreef, as per the standard procedure, and stand by. Sounded good.

Reaching Hornsby and turning right for the coast just over the railway sheds, I was pleased when Sydney Radar contacted me with the instruction to “squawk zero four six one and contact Sydney Departures on 123.0 when approaching Longreef for clearance”. Awesome! That looked as though they were going to let me in. So with 0461 on my transponder (and confirmation from Radar that they had me identified) I proceeded for the coast, descending to the required altitude of 1500 feet just by the time I overflew the Narrabeen Lakes. Turning south for Longreef over the golf course, I radioed for and received my clearance for Harbour Scenic One, and I was off headed straight for Sydney CBD and the Harbour Bridge. Conditions were CAVOK and visibility was crystal clear, I was able to head straight for the Bridge with a clear visual fix.

Once approaching the bridge I throttled back slightly and put out one stage of flap to slow us down a bit for a better look. We then executed the standard 2 left hand orbits (remaining east of the Bridge, north of the Opera House and west of Garden Island as required), Dad enthusiastically snapping away with the camera on my smart phone so that I could finally have a visual record of one of my Harbour Scenic flights.

Orbits done – and with yesterday’s flawless weather we got some truly magnificent views – I retracted the flap, throttled up and headed east over the harbour. I requested and received permission to track directly out through the Sydney Heads and descend directly into Victor One South, the low-level coastal route that runs from Longreef in the north to Seacliff Bridge in the south. Once Radar had us out off the heads and over the water, I was cleared to descend to 500 feet and switch to the Victor One radio frequency.

Victor One

It was just one of those rare, gorgeous days, not only due lovely flying weather but also because we seemed to have the sky all to ourselves. There simply was no one up there with us.

Dad enjoyed this bit in particular I think. It’s hard not to. Down low, you’re up close to the magnificent sandstone cliffs that mark nearly the entire southern coastline of Sydney. We could clearly see the heavier traffic in and out of Sydney Airport on our way past.

We coastal flew the beach at Cronulla, then passing south of Jibbon Point, I climbed to 1000 feet. I’m always happier with at least 1000 feet of air below me, preferably more (not that much of the Sydney coastline gives you any decent forced landing options). Past Marley Beach, then Wattamolla, my signal to climb higher as it marks the southern end of the 1500 feet control step. I climbed to 2000 feet and levelled out.

Notwithstanding a little mild turbulence due to the effects of the westerly wind blowing over the coastal ridges and peaks of the Royal National Park, it was a reasonably smooth ride down to Seacliff Bridge. I switched radio frequencies (back to the area frequency 124.55) and consulted my Visual Terminal Chart. This final part of the southwards leg to Wollongong was new to me: on previous flights in the area I’d approached only from the west.

Not much to my surprise, I didn’t need to work too hard to identify relevant ground features to determine where I was. Not far south of Stanwell Park and Seacliff, you’re already abeam the northern sprawl of the Wollongong area with districts and townships like Thirroul. And it’s pretty hard to miss the dark rusty red hues of the sprawling Port Kembla steelworks on the northern reaches of Lake Illawarra, let alone the massive chimney stack on the headland. At nearly 800 feet in height it’s definitely an attraction you do want to miss …

Once south of Port Kembla and and established at a circuit overfly altitude of 1500 feet, I headed southwest over Lake Illawarra in search of Wollongong airport. Again, fairly hard to miss as it’s located right on the southeastern reaches of the lake, not too far south of the easy-to-spot Dapto dog track. I picked the airport up visually about 5 or 6 nautical miles out. Having already checked the AWIS weather report and picked up some radio traffic indicating that the 16 (north to south) runway was in use, I decided to head slightly inland at overfly altitude and then descend to circuit height of 1000 feet on the “dead” side. This allowed me to join the circuit on the crosswind leg and get properly established in the circuit for approach and landing, also (hopefully, by virtue of my radio calls) fully alerting other traffic in the area to my presence and intentions.

(I could just as validly have joined the circuit on the downwind leg, or – less preferably – on the base or even a straight-in final approach, but from my own personal experience, recommendations from others and some of the safety reading I’ve done, I’m a reasonably big fan of doing the full circuit at CTAF aerodromes where possible.)

Ironically, the importance of staying alert and observant in and around the aerodrome area was reinforced to me by virtue of the fact that despite my crosswind, downwind and base radio calls, a light aircraft on the ground announced his intention to “enter and roll” just as I was turning on final and having to delay my radio call due to the broadcast of another aircraft departing the area. I quickly made my “on final” call with only the mildest tone of reroof, fully prepared and ready to go around if no response from the aircraft on the ground. However, he was quick to respond with a call of “holding”, leaving me free to execute a crosswind landing that to be frank was probably only a 5 out of 10. However, we made ground safely and taxied to the parking area next to the HARS (Historical Aviation Restoration Society) museum hangar for a stretch of legs.

We had a half hour of aviation geekdom, gawking in at the lovely aircraft on display in the hangar, especially the RAAF DC3 and the fully operational Lockheed Super Constellation, named (naturally) “Connie”. Dad loved this bit, which was rewarding for me too, as I’d envisioned and planned this as a fun part of the trip for him ever since my first visit to Wollongong back before my first cross-country solo.

Back home: north and inland to Bankstown

In striking contrast to the 94 nautical mile outwards leg of our trip, the inwards/home leg was only 45 miles – it’s a much more direct trip between Bankstown and Wollongong directly overland via the Royal National Park rather than going the coastal route. I expected that the trip would take us less than half an hour, and indeed with the moderate southwesterly behind us we achieved that easily. Having climbed up to 3500 feet to clear the escarpment and head north to Appin, we quickly picked up the Hume Highway and – by the simple device of keeping the highway just on our right – we stayed well clear of the Holsworthy Army Base restricted area and enjoyed an easy trip leading us straight to the junction of the M5 and M7 motorways, with the 2RN radio tower just beyond.

(I have long wanted to do another trip back in via 2RN, as I’ve never found it particularly easy to locate visually. It has a strobe nearby, which I’ve sometimes picked up but which isn’t always easy to spot on a bright and clear day. As things turned out, I dialled the 2RN frequency of 576 kHz into my Automatic Direction Finder and used the ADF needle to guide me in. With the knowledge that the tower is just beyond the M5/M7 junction I was able to school myself on the surrounding ground features a bit more, and feel more confident about locating the tower without the aid of the ADF the next time I fly in from that direction.)

Making my inbound call to Bankstown Tower at 2RN, I received an unusual traffic instruction, specifically to track direct over the control tower at 1500 feet to remain clear of a Beechcraft Duchess which was about to take off from 29R. Halfway there I radioed to confirm the instruction, just to be sure … then, reporting overhead the tower, I was directed to join crosswind for 29R as per the usual procedure. He chipped me slightly for flying too far west before turning crosswind, however he wasn’t unkind and quickly cleared me for my visual approach to the runway. I quickly dropped down to circuit height and, receiving an early landing clearance, turned base conscious of the growing crossswind. This time the landing was a 6/10, nowhere close to my best, but I, pax and plane were home safely and in one piece.

Reflecting

Hands down, this is one of the best flights, overall, that I’ve done. Others have, of course, been special for various reasons – my cross country solo flights, flying into Canberra’s controlled airspace, my first Victor One/Harbour Scenic, taking my son flying, and of course my GFPT and PPL flight tests. But yesterday’s – because I was flying my dad, who is significantly responsible for my love of aviation; because Dad is by far the most enthusiastic passenger I’ve had so far, and he had an absolute ball flying with me; because it was my fastest visit to another airport since I qualified for my PPL; and because it was just such a spectacularly beautiful day that showed off scenic Sydney in all it’s glory; for all these reasons, plus the fact that it was another successful, enjoyable and instructive flight – it was probably the best one so far.

This is why I learned to fly.

Gettin’ ready for the big one: PPL test next week!

Right, then. We’re getting down to the final 10 minutes of the game here. Specifically: if next Wednesday’s (14 September) weather holds up, I should know by about 3.00pm that day if I’ve finally got my coveted Private Pilots License.

Practiced my emergency procedures

Having completed my final dual cross-country flight, I also flew a quick hour in the Bankstown training area back on 26 August. Practised my stalls (power-off and in landing configuration), forced landings and Precautionary Search & Landings. Much to my annoyance, I forgot to practise my steep turns, on which I may be tested and to be frank I haven’t really got them nailed yet. But, c’est la vie and all that – will just have to focus and nail them if asked to do it on the day.

Stalls were fine. Forced Landings were OK – maybe a 6/10 – I only realised after I’d done them that I’d incorrectly put the aircraft into a glide at 80 knots, rather than the “Best Rate of Glide”speed of 75 knots. Won’t make that mistake in the PPL test!

Precautionary Search & Landing again OK, though I made a bunch of passes over the landing area at 1000 feet above ground level and neglected to drop down to 500 feet above for final pass and to simulate actual landing approach. Again, won’t make that mistake in PPL.

In any case I’ll be revising all these procedures in my Flying Training Manual over the next couple of days to make sure I don’t forget any detail. It’ll be OK.

Most annoyingly, before taking off at Bankstown for that flight I made the very rookie error of believing that I was transmitting from my COM2 radio while the transmission switch was on COM1. Consequently, I made repeated calls to the Tower over the Ground frequency. Convinced I had radio problems, I requested permission to taxi back to parking and was given permission to taxi via the runway (having already approached the runway holding point). Once off the runway and halfway to parking, I spotted the error, turned around and headed back, with apologies to Ground (who were very nice about it I must say).

One lovely thing about this flight: cloud was scattered puffs of fluffy white cumulus at about 2000 feet, so climbing up through and above them to 4000 feet to practise my stalls, I was treated to the lovely vista of white clouds immediately below me. There’s something new about every flight I do, and in this case, I do believe it was the first time I’ve flown solo in the training area with significant cloud below me. Made it a slight challenge to navigate visually so as to stay within the boundaries of the Bankstown training area – a new twist that I’d not had to manage before.

Now I’m hitting the books

It seems prudent to go over all the theory and all the practical stuff outlined in the Flying Training Manual as well. Here’s when I feel very blessed by my memory’s capacity for retaining heaps of stuff through short-term study.

Have been through the BAK and PPL theory materials, just working my way through Air Law again and then I’ll hit the Flying Training Manual (boning up in particular on Forced Landings, Precautionary Search & Landings and Steep Turns). Then it will be my little “cheat booklet” on the Piper Warrior with all the operating speeds and performance matters specific to the aircraft.

Then I think I’ll pull out ERSA and my maps and bone up on all of the aerodromes I’m likely to be possibly landing at or navigating to on  the day (depending on where the weather dictates that we fly to on the day). Make sure I’m clued in to aerodrome specifics (for example, at Cessnock you have to call ahead to get permission to land, and on runway 35 up there they only do right hand circuits).

Further, a survey of possible/likely diversion destinations would seem prudent. And finally, I think I’ll pull out my old flight plans and have them ready to choose/copy from when my flight route for the day is determined. The less flight planning I have to do from scratch on the day, the better.

On the day

Gonna get me a good night’s sleep on the night prior – not too much study hopefully. Make a decent lunch and take a big bottle of water.

Aircraft (my reliable old NFR, hopefully) is booked for 9.30am, but I’ll be there at 7.30. Will get it fuelled up and inspected early, and I wouldn’t mind 10 quiet minutes in the cockpit to completely refamiliarise myself with the radio and navigation systems. Make sure I have the radio buttons all sorted!

And focus. (As I write I have the spectre of a job redundancy hanging over me, which is of course quite stressful – I’ve gotta put it out of my mind for Wednesday). And – as several have advised me – take it carefully, treat it as a passenger flight, and enjoy it!

Will report back …

Nav 7: Final cross-country navex Bankstown-Cessnock-Bankstown (next stop: PPL test!)

Date: 01/08/2011

Hours flown	Dual	Command	Instruments
This flight	2.60	0.00	0.00
Total to date	46.64	13.10	2.00

Last Monday, on probably the best day for flying I’ve enjoyed in my nearly 60 hours so far, I finally managed to get out for my final cross-country navigation exercise. It was a truly magnificent flight: I think I enjoyed it more than any other so far. However, like all flights, it was not without its challenges and hiccups, as I’ll relate.

Flight route and objectives

Yesterday’s flight took me, in simple terms, north from Sydney to Cessnock in the Hunter Valley, then further northwards towards Scone, followed by a diversion west to Warkworth and then south back to Bankstown. The flight was planned and flown using the following waypoints:

• Depart YSBK (Bankstown)
• Fly north to PAA (Patonga) via northbound Lane of Entry (overflying Parramatta, Pennant Hills, Hornsby)
• Direct north to YCNK (Cessnock) for landing
• Then further north via YSGT (Singleton) to YSCO (Scone)
• South to YWKW (Warkworth), MQD (Mt McQuoid) and Brooklyn Bridge (BBG)
• Then south to PSP (Prospect) via southbound Lane of Entry (overflying Berowra, Dural, Pennant Hills)
• And home to Bankstown.

In actual fact I didn’t get as far as Scone, as one of the main objectives of the flight was to practice a diversion in that general area so that I’m reasonably prepared if I fly up that way for my final PPL test with the club CFI. (I’ll describe that exercise shortly). Other objectives were to:

• Fly again up and down the Sydney Lanes of Entry. (These routes have to be flown quite precisely and I’d only been through them once before, on my first navigation exercise. Club policy is to require students to have flown these routes twice dual before being allowed to go solo through them).
• Become familiar with flying around and avoiding the Singleton Army Base restricted area “Dochra” to the west of Singleton, and
• Generally do a last “consolidation” cross-country flight before heading into my final PPL test.

Sorting out the aircraft and getting away

I’d booked one of the club’s Archers, SFA, for this flight. I’ve only flown it once before. It’s a slightly better touring aircraft than the Warrior as it has a bit more grunt up front (cruising at 110 KIAS vs 105) and is a better performer – in terms of range vs passenger load – than the Warrior.

Unfortunately, SFA was due and into its 100-hour maintenance on Monday, so I missed out. Denied SFA, I quickly rebooked Warrior UFY (flown on my first cross-country solo flight) only to find out that my instructor had booked another Warrior, IJK, which I hadn’t yet flown. (IJK was undergoing a comprehensive engine replacement and external/internal refit in the earlier stages of my training, which is why it was new to me on Monday). I’m always up for flying a new aircraft, so I elected for IJK. Weather checked (CAVOK conditions) and flight plan done, I headed out to the flight line.

IJK, my ride for this flight

For an aircraft just out of a comprehensive refit, IJK was mildly suss, I must say. Landing light was not working and the strobes on the wings were only functioning intermittently. However, given the weather conditions we decided these were not issues requiring a change of aircraft.

Of ever so slightly more concern was what appeared to be a slightly stuck or damaged fuel drain below the right fuel tank. After fuelling, the standard test for fuel quality involves draining a sample of fuel, via the fuel drain valve, into a container to identify any water or impurities in the fuel. On doing this, the fuel drain developed quite a steady drip of fuel. On manually pulling the drain down, the drip stopped.

Given that the fuel drip had ceased, we decided to fly to Cessnock on the right tank and (upon landing) check our fuel situation there. If the right fuel tank drain was leaking in any way and our fuel supply was diminished, we could refuel at Cessnock and in any case have more than enough fuel in our full left tank to make it back to Sydney comfortably. In the unlikely (in our judgement) event of running out of fuel in flight en route to Cessnock, we could always switch to the left tank. (In any event, as I’ll relate, we suffered no loss of fuel whatsoever).

Another view of IJK that I love - with Bankstown's resident DC3 parked in the background near our flight line

I started up,  taxyed out to the run-up bay and ran through the pre-flight checks, deciding to do the pre-takeoff checks before engine run-up as engine temperature was not yet quite in the green. All done, we taxyed to the runway and took off to the west on Bankstown’s runway 29R (right), climbed to 500 feet and then made a right turn towards Parramatta on a magnetic heading of about 010 degrees. Reaching 1000 feet, I levelled out until over the pipeline that runs east from Prospect Reservoir to Potts Hill, then climbed to 1900 feet to clear Parramatta, changing to area frequency (124.55 mHz) and transponder code to 1200 as I did so.

Parramatta to Cessnock: Over the hills

The Parramatta to Cessnock leg was essentially two stages. First, head north up the Lane of Entry from Parramatta to Patonga. Second, track direct from Patonga to Cessnock.

The Parramatta-Patonga stage was the first time I’d navigated along the Lane of Entry without any assistance. It went well enough. AirServices Australia publishes a handly little spiral-bound guide for entering and exiting Bankstown Class D airspace, complete with landmarks and navigation references, magnetic track headings, radio frequencies and altitude limits, that made it (relatively) easy to map-crawl all the way to Patonga. Once over Parramatta I climbed to 2400 feet and changed to area frequency 125.8 just before overflying Pennant Hills. Then it was further northwards over Hornsby, and another 10 minutes or so before identifying the small Hawkesbury area communityof Patonga lying in a small sheltered beach north of Berowra.

Along the way, John recommended making a radio call when northbound just before Pennant Hills, which is just south of Hornsby. Hornsby is the point at which northbound aircraft can turn right to track towards the coast for Longreef (usually aircraft planning to do Harbour Scenic and/or Victor One flights down the coast). They also track back from Longreef to Hornsby to rejoin the Lane of Entry and can be a traffic hazard, especially if they don’t make appropiate radio calls/position reports. So John recommended I make a this call to alert any traffic in the area to my presence. Good safety tip!

At Patonga I turned north onto a track of 349 degrees magnetic direct for Cessnock, put the aircraft into a climb for target altitude of 6500 feet and settled in for the 25-minute flight to Cessnock. Climb performance was not fantastic as we were still carrying close to a full load of fuel, we were probably only achieving a rate of climb of 400 feet per minute, so it was a good 10 minutes before I levelled out in the cruise.

The flying was magnificent! Still air, no turbulence, and despite some building high cloud, CAVOK in all directions with clear views off the coast to our right, the Hawkesbury area and Blue Mountains to our left, and the Hunter Valley to our north. This is how conditions remained all day (despite one shower on approach back to Bankstown), which meant that I was able to climb to and maintain optimum altitudes for the entire flight. I was rapt. It’s so much fun to get up into the clear smooth air and be able to stay in it all the way, and the views are magnificent. This is one of the many things that make flying so much fun for me.

After about 10 minutes in cruise, we approached the northern reaches of the coastal ranges and the southern end of the Hunter Valley. I put IJK into a 500 feet-per-minute descent, ran through the top-of-descent checks and started scanning for local traffic (visually and via the radio) as well as looking for the airstrip. Radio traffic informed me that runway 35 was in use, which at Cessnock involves flying a right-hand circuit. So I descended to the west of the aerodrome to circuit height of 1200 feet and joined the circuit mid-crosswind, behind an aircraft doing circuits from the airstrip. Still not 100% sure of the fuel situation in the right tank, I switched to the (full) left tank as a safety precaution in case we had to do a go-around and needed power in a hurry.

The landing was solid, though as John pointed out, my feet weren’t as awake as ideal. (I find this is one of the “feel” things that erodes as your time between flights increases). Regardless, we taxyed for the Cessnock southern run-up bay and parked and shut down for a quick stretch of legs and a fuel check.

John checked the fuel. Full in the left tank (as expected) and about 30 litres down in the right tank. This squared precisely with my expectations of the fuel we should have used (according to my flight plan and fuel log), so we were 90% reassured that we weren’t losing any fuel.

With that said, John – being ever-cautious, which I like about him as an instructor, because it teaches me good habits – suggested a 2-prong strategy for our return leg:

1. Take off and climb on the left (full) tank – reason being that these are the most “vulnerable” phases of flight during which running out of fuel is to be particularly avoided; then at the top of the climb switch to the right tank and
2. Run on the right tank for another hour so as to conserve fuel in our known “best” tank for the later stages of the flight and return to/landing at Bankstown.

Cessnock to Warkworth – Diversion practice!

So, start-up, run-up and pre-flight procedures and checks, and I made the very short taxy  to Cessnock’s runway 35. “Entering and rolling”, I made an upwind departure and climbed to 1500 feet above circuit height. Reaching that altitude, I turned direct for the Singleton NDB (non directional beacon), which is situated to the northwest of Singleton township. I was heading for the NDB as a means of skirting well clear of the Singleton Army Base, a restricted area located immediately south and west of Singleton.

I climbed back to 6500 feet before reaching the NDB. As soon as I overflew the NDB John diverted me to Warkworth – diversions being part of the final PPL flight test, and something that I’d only done twice before. So with Scone out of the picture (as planned), I pulled out my VNC (Visual Navigation Chart) and quickly sketched a line between Singleton and Warkworth. Visually, the line was a straight line to the west, which I estimated meant a track of 270 degrees true, or about 258 degrees magnetic when adjusted for local magnetic variance. Laying my pencil – specially notched with 10 mile/6 minute increments – I estimated my time to reach Warkworth at 8 minutes. I then set course for Warkworth and set about making my radio calls to Brisbane Centre to amend my flight plan.

This radio exchange went OK, though the controller sounded a tad frazzled and impatient. In fact before I spoke with him I heard him flaming a Virgin flight somewhere in the area, whose pilot could not seem to get the controller’s message that he was using the wrong radio frequency. Equal parts heartening and disturbing to realise that a commercial pilot with the airlines could make this mistake also, but I suppose that’s human nature …

I was very quickly in the Warkworth vicinity, overflying several large open-cut mines (this being the lower Hunter Valley). But could I locate the aerodrome? Could I hell. 5 or 10 minutes of circling around was fruitless. John encouraged me to bank the aircraft to both sides to improve my visibility of the ground, but to no avail. Finally John took pity on me and banked the aircraft steeply to the right to reveal that I was in fact right over the aerodrome! A grass strip used for gliding, I could even see the twin crosses marked on the aerodrome to indicate gliding operations. Oh well – didn’t find it that day, but I now know what the place looks like if that’s my diversion destination during my final test.

Warkworth to Mt McQuoid – Just cruising

After circling Warkworth for a couple more minutes I turned south to begin the southbound trip back to Bankstown, putting the aircraft into a climb to 7500 feet as I did so. Conditions remained beautiful – there was some cloud around, but well above us, with great visibility and no turbulence to speak of.

South of Warkworth I still had to be mindful of remaining clear of the Singleton Army Base restricted area, so with a bit of map shuffling and visual reference to the ground I decided that if I could stay to the west of the road joining Warkworth and Broke – which is to the south of the Army base – I would remain in the clear.

Once over Broke, I turned to align myself with the ADF (Automatic Direction Finder) needle, set the DI (Directional Indicator) bug and made straight for McQuoid. I checked the radio freqencies I’d need for the return trip and then “relaxed” for a few minutes with nothing else to do but steer for McQuoid and maintain straight and level flight at 7500 feet.

McQuoid to Brooklyn Bridge: On track, or heading into controlled air space?

We were over McQuoid after about 10 more minutes of cruising. I switched maps to my more detailed Sydney VTC (Visual Terminal Chart) and put the aircraft into a 500 feet-per-minute descent. (Estimated time from McQuoid to Brooklyn Bridge was 16 minutes and I needed to get down from 7500 to 2400 feet by that point, so a steady but not drastic descent was called for). I set course of about 161 degrees magnetic and started visually scanning for the general vicinity of Brooklyn Bridge, expecting to reach it in around 16 minutes.

About 10 minutes in, John remarked that the area immediately south of us didn’t look much like what he was expecting, and he wondered if we were too far off to the right and heading for the controlled airspace of Richmond RAAF Base. A quick check of the map and a scan outside suggested he might be on to something, so I pointed us another 20 degrees or so towards the east. After another few minutes we caught sight of Brooklyn Bridge, which from its position off to our left confirmed John’s suspicion that we’d been far off track to the right. Had we maintained that track, unquestionably we would have busted into Richmond air space. This would not have been a good situation, either in general terms or particularly if this had happened to be my actual PPL test flight.

Flight track adjustments made, we arrived over Brooklyn Bridge at 2400 feet and ready for our final leg home via the southbound Lane of Entry.

Brooklyn Bridge to Prospect and Bankstown: Map crawling, looking for strobe lights, and virga

As with navigating through the northbound Lane of Entry, going southbound it’s necessary to maintain pretty specific altitudes and headings to avoid infringing on various areas of controlled air space to the right and left. This also involves looking for some prominent land marks, and a couple of strobe lights as well.

The first thing you’re looking for is the Berowra strobe, a visual navigation aid for pilots that lies just south and west of the Berowra township. Trouble is, the strobe wasn’t working on this day – and apparently has been out of action for at least 4 days. Anecdotally, it’s often out of action or hard to spot anyway. So I was a little unsure of what I was actually looking for. Another good reason for having done this flight today, as John was able to point out the general location of the strobe in relation to Berowra township, and also the actual location of the strobe, in a kind of cleared area.

Next up are a couple more prominent features left and right of your required track – being particularly important not to stray right into Richmond air space – and in particular the South Dural strobe situated atop a water tank. This strobe was fortunately easy to spot, though CASA’s Class D procedures recommend that you be able to identify the water tank (green sides/orange top) without the aid of the strobe if needs be.

At Berowra John commented on a couple of virga showers of rain in the vicinity up ahead. In simple terms, these are rain showers where the water evaporates in the air before reaching the ground. So amazingly, in a day of mostly CAVOK conditions with only high cloud and no precipitaion, I found myself briefly flying through a rain shower!

From the South Dural strobe it’s a track of about 205 degrees magnetic to Prospect Reservoir and the inbound reporting point for entry to Bankstown. As I flew this final part of the leg I descended to 1500 feet and progressed through the required sequence of radio frequencies. Monitoring the ATIS for local weather and runway in use, I made my inbound call, then approached Bankstown and landed towards the east on runway 11L. Landing was reasonable, though in the light 8-knot crosswind I should have used more rudder on late final to achieve better alignment with the runway centre line.

The usual short taxy back to parking and I shut down with the satisfaction of a great flight and the knowledge that the next cross-country flight I do will be my final test for my Private Pilot License!

Checking the fuel in the tanks, I haven’t done the exact numbers but the fuel remaining in my right tank was about 35 litres, consistent with the additional hour or so I flew on the right tank between Cessnock and Bankstown before switching to my left. So I conclude that we in fact experienced no leakage of fuel from the suspect fuel drain underneath this tank.

Flight post mortem: Reflecting on the Richmond air space thing

Reflecting on what could have caused me to be off track southbound from Mt McQuoid and heading straight for Richmond air space, I’ve come up with the following possibilities:

1. Incorrect magnetic track determined during initial flight planning. I have yet to go back to the map to check the track and heading I’d planned between McQuoid and Brooklyn Bridge, to see if I calculated it inaccurately. A mistake is obviously possible. However, I planned the flight weeks ago slowly and methodically, so I’m not inclined to think this is the most likely cause of the problem. Probability as a contributing factor: LOW
2. Incorrect heading determined when adjusting for forecast wind during final flight planning. I was under some time pressure that morning before the flight – I’d had to dash down the road to buy a new E6B flight computer and was conscious of needing to get the flight and weather stuff done so I could fuel and check the aircraft and get away at a reasonable time. As mitigating factors, I’m getting more proficient at doing the final flight planning immediately pre-flight, and despite time pressure, I consciously forced myself to slow down and focus on doing the planning right. But if I was to make a mathematical error regarding this leg of the flight, the morning flight planning definitely involved a bit more stress and pressure than usual. Probability as a contributing factor: MEDIUM
3. Incorrect heading maintained due to misreading flight plan during flight. Looking now at my flight plan, I see possible error resulting from misreading my flight plan. My planned track from McQuoid to Brooklyn Bridge involved a magnetic heading of 166 degrees. However – and I can’t be sure of this – I may have inadvertently set a course of 161 degrees, which was my planned heading for the preceding leg from Warkworth to McQuoid. My memory is a bit hazy on this point – but I seem to recall having a figure of 161 degrees in my head at the time. Having said this, a magnetic heading of 161 degrees should have actually pointed me more towards Brooklyn Bridge than a heading of 166 degrees. So I’m inclined to feel that if I did in fact make this error in reading my flight plan, it should actually hav worked in my favour. Probability as a contributing factor: LOW
4. Stronger than expected easterly winds blowing me off course and to the west. It’s of course always possible – even probable – that the winds you experience in-flight are totally different to those which were forecast. You can be flying in the smoothest possible conditions and still be subject to a 20 knot wind blowing you sideways. It’s one of those things you can never predict, and have little control over, other than remaining watchful and making regular checks of your actual versus planned position and track. Probability as a contributing factor: HIGH
5. Inadequate monitoring of position when actually flying that leg. I must confess to “letting my guard down” a bit flying the initial part of that leg back to Brooklyn Bridge. I knew (or thought I knew!) where I was, where I was going, and what I was doing next. I took the opportunity to chat for a few minutes with my instructor about life, the universe and everything. And in doing so probably didn’t remain as vigilant about my navigation as I should have been. Probability as a contributing factor: HIGH

In my defence on point 5 above, it was the first time I’d navigated southwards over this area towards Brooklyn Bridge, so it was unfamiliar ground – and, flying over the hills in the Hawkesbury area away from the coast can make visual identification quite challenging, ground features being an extensive series of green hills interspersed by the occasional waterway, with only isolated and hard-to-spot landmarks or distinguishing features.

What I learned: Things to do in future

At this stage – and subject to checking my flight plan in point 1, I’m inclined to think my track error was a combination of factors described in points 4 and 5. So, what can I do in the future to minimise the likelihood of making this mistake again – particularly when flying in this region north of Sydney?

1. Never assume I’m “on the right track”. At all stages of flying a leg, make regular checks of your actual vs planned position and track using all means at your disposal: estimated vs actual flight times and positions, time checks over known landmarks, reference to navigation aids, general scanning and assessment of “am I, within reasonable limits, at or near where I expect to be”.
2. Make sure I’ve read my flight plan correctly. No matter how clearly you’ve planned your flight, in-flight with other demands on you, it’s quite possible to focus on the wrong line on the plan and read a heading for a leg other than the one you’re actually flying. Take an extra second to make sure you’re reading the right figure.
3. Assume that the winds you experience in-flight are different to those forecast. In other words, expect to be blown off track and to have to navigate and correct accordingly. Make it part of your work routine to always be looking for how far off track you are and what you have to do to correct it. If you find you’re maintaining track without any additional effort, so much the better.
4. Southbound from McQuoid to Lane of Entry, incline towards the coast. In this specific area north of Sydney, flying the McQuoid-Brooklyn Bridge southbound leg, a safe way to leave plenty of margin between yourself and Richmond air space is to incline to making track error towards, rather than away, from the coast. Once the Hawkesbury waterways start to come into sight – assuming reasonable visibility – Brooklyn Bridge is reasonably prominent and you can always adjust your southbound track to arrive overhead. If you’re flying south on this leg and you can’t see any water, or the water is way off to your left, it’s a safe bet you’re headed into restricted air space.

Next

So that’s it. So far as my PPL is concerned, the training flights are over. The PPL flight exam is scheduled for Wednesday 14 September, hoping the weather is suitable. I’ll go out and do a solo hour in the training area a couple weeks prior to practise emergency procedures (stalls, forced landings, precautionary search and landings, steep turns) to brush up as it’s entirely possible I may have to do one or more of these during my final exam flight.

And some study and revision between now and then, especially on the areas listed in my “Knowledge Deficiency Report” from my PPL theory exam. Can’t believe I’m nearly there!

Nav 6: 2nd solo nav flight Bankstown-Cowra-Orange-Bankstown

Date: 03/06/2011

Hours flown	Dual	Command	Instruments
This flight	0.00	4.00	0.00
Total to date	44.04	12.30	2.00

Second solo nav

 

On Friday 3 June 2011 I flew my second – and final, pending my Private Pilot License tests – cross-country solo flight. It had been a full month since my last cross-country flight to Canberra. Since then I’d had a short flight in the training area, but nothing too substantial, so it was really good to get out and stretch my wings, as it were.

 

For those not wanting to read about this flight in detail but wishing to have a look at the pictures I took (with my humble Blackberry), see the Google Picasa slideshow.)

 

The flight requirements and route

 

Flying a few hours solo cross-country is part of the curriculum requirements for the Private Pilot License. On this flight it was necessary for me to achieve three things. First, minimum flight duration of 3 hours. Second, minimum flight distance of 150 nautical miles. And finally, 2 landings at 2 separate aerodromes.

 

For practicality and safety reasons it made sense for me to fly solo a route I’d previously flown dual with my instructor back on my 2nd navigation exercise. So the planned route was YSBK-WAD-YCWR-YORG-YBTH-YKAT-WAD-TWRN-YSBK. Which translated means:

• Start from my home airport of Bankstown (YSBK)
• Fly to Warragamba Dam (WAD)
• Thence direct to Cowra for first landing (YCWR)
• Thence direct to Orange for second landing (YORG)
• Then home flying Orange direct over Bathurst (YBTH),
• Then Katoomba (YKAT),
• Then back to Warragamba Dam
• Reporting inbound to Bankstown at the 2RN radio tower (TWRN) then home.

Getting away

For weather and schedule reasons I’d postponed this flight several times. It was reassuring, during the preceding few days, to read consistently favourable forecasts, and conditions were CAVOK at my place when I woke up that morning, and out at the airfield a few hours later. Having already done most of my flight planning, it was relatively quick to check the ARFOR (Area Forecast) and TAFs (Terminal Air Forecasts) and factor the forecast winds into my flight plan for my planned tracks and time and fuel calculations.

My instructor had a quick look at my flight plan and at the weather forecast and quickly signed me out to go. He DI’d the aeroplane for me (that is, he did the Daily Inspection – I can’t sign off on this until I’m qualified), wished me an enjoyable flight and left me alone without further ado. I taxied NFR to the edge of the taxiway and called up the fuel truck. (Fuel trucks being unable to go on the grass due to recent rain). I performed my own inspection of the aircraft as well – I make it a rule that I always do this even if an instructor has already DI’d my plane and signed off on it – and after getting a full load of Avgas in both tanks I was ready to go.

Leg 1: Bankstown to Cowra

Taking off to the west in calm and nearly CAVOK conditions, I exited the Bankstown control zone and climbed to 4000 feet, flying through the Bankstown training area and tracking for Warragamba Dam. At Warragamba I climbed to my planned altitude of 6500 feet and maintained the same heading to track for Cowra.

As I crossed the Great Dividing Range I could see large patches of morning fog abeam both sides of the aircraft. I knew from my pre-flight planning that Bathurst was fogged in, which was of mild concern as I planned to overfly Bathurst on my return leg later in the day. However, I figured I could check the weather conditions from both Cowra and Orange when  landed at both those aerodromes, and if necessary steer clear of Bathurst. As things turned out, the Bathurst fog cleared well before I was back in the area later in the day.

Morning fog off to my right, outbound to Cowra

Once across and west of the mountains I noted an increasing build-up of cloud up ahead, roughly level with my altitude. I decided fairly quickly not to try to fly about the cloud, firstly because from what I could see it was building up to be at least 4 to 5 OKTAS (that is, covering four to five-eighths of the sky), and I felt that flying above the cloud layer would exceed my personal minima. Secondly, an increase in flight level would have taken me to 8500 feet (per regulations for flying levels about 5000 feet) which would put be just under Class E airspace. There’s nothing that would have forbidden me to enter Class E, but having never done so before, I decided my first time would not be on this day. Possibly over-cautious, but I prefer this to not being cautious enough.

Cloud building up, outbound for Cowra

So it was down to reducing altitude and seeing how the flight progressed, being ready to turn around if the cloud forced me below the LSALT (lowest safe altitude) listed on my flight plan. So down I went, progressively, to about 5200 feet, putting up with the more turbulent air.

As things turned out, the cloud didn’t force me any lower – albeit things were darker once I was under the cloud layer – so my passage to Cowra was unimpeded. I flew the rest of the 1-hour leg uneventfully, noting more cloud off to my right around the Blayney area. Passing Mt Misery on my left and skirting the northernmost edge of the Blayney Wind Farm, I selected the frequency for the Cowra NDB (non-directional beacon) on my ADF (Automatic Direction Finder) receiver, making my inbound call to the Cowra CTAF when I judged myself within 10 nautical miles of the aerodrome and descending gradually to circuit height.

Tracking for Cowra, approaching Mt Misery

There was not much wind evident in the Cowra area but as luck would have it there was a bit of traffic around the aerodrome, including a light trainer and a paraglider, both making radio calls indicating that runway 33 (landing towards the north-west) was in use. So I joined the circuit mid-crossfield and flew a standard circuit approach, making my mandatory radio calls as I did so, and made a decent landing at Cowra. I decided to park and take a toilet break, so taxied off the runway to the small Cowra terminal and parked on an otherwise empty tarmac. It was bitterly cold with no-one about (apart from a Diamond trainer who landed shortly after me), so I didn’t hang around too long.

Leg 2: Cowra to Orange

I took the opportunity to check the current weather conditions at my next destination of Orange, courtesy of the web browser on my Blackberry phone, and while indications were low-ish cloud around the aerodrome, nothing suggested that I alter my flight plans. So without further ado I started up, backtracked on 33 then turned around and took off to the north-west, circled left and climbed to circuit height, then overflew the aerodrome and tracked direct for Orange.

Instrument panel, 4200 feet inbound for Orange

It’s only about 20-25 minutes flying in a Warrior from Cowra to Orange and a pretty straightforward leg of flying, apart from staying well clear of a designated danger area off to your left in the form of an open-cut mine. So aided by my ADF turned in to the Orange NDB I pretty quickly found myself in the Orange area and listening to the CTAF for clues on local traffic and runway in use.

Turned out there was quite a bit of traffic around the Orange circuit – probably the busiest day I’ve so far experienced at a non-towered aerodrome. Amusingly, one pilot in the area was clearly from the West Indies, broadcasting his position and intentions with a lovely Caribbean drawl that made me picture Bob Marley in the cockpit (“November Mike Lima, turnin’ ba-a-a-se”) and brought a smile to my face.

Fortunately, my experience from my first solo flight landing at Wollongong had taught me the value of extreme vigilance in and around the circuit area and I made sure not to rely solely on what I was hearing through my headset and to keep a very sharp look-out. Despite the several aircraft in the area, I felt calm and in control of the situation, which as a small but satisfying confidence boost.

Traffic was landing in the 29 direction (towards the west), unlike my previous visit to Orange when landing was in the easterly direction. Finding myself approaching the aerodrome on the live side of the circuit, I decided to join on the downwind leg and announced my intentions accordingly. I was quickly down on the ground with another satisfactory landing. On roll-out and approaching the main taxiway connecting the Orange runway with the terminal area, my path on the taxiway was blocked completely by a large twin (not sure what it was, possibly a King Air) or something larger, so I was left with no choice but to taxi the full length of the runway to exit on the smaller taxiway which I knew to be at the runway’s far end. So I kept up my speed – not wanting to hang around on the runway and knowing that other aircraft would soon want to be landing behind me – and fairly sprinted for the taxiway, breathing a small sigh of relief than I was able to radio my “clear of all active runways” message.

I taxied to the Wade Aviation hangar where the fuel bowser is located, and finding another aircraft already fuelling, parked just across the taxiway and shut down. Once he was clear, I started up, taxied to the bowser and shut down again, then hunted down someone in the Wade hangar to help me with fuelling. Armed with one of their swipe cards, I filled NFR up, returned the swipe card, paid for the fuel and sat down in the adjacent small lawn area for a quick lunch.

Warrior NFR, parked in fuelling area at Orange Airport (YORG)

Leg 3: Orange to Bankstown via Bathurst and Katoomba

It being time to go – and wanting to get back to Bankstown so I could get home in a reasonable time – I was back in the cockpit and going through pre-startup checks still wiping crumbs from my mouth. A quick check on the CTAF frequency told me that the traffic pattern had changed and Orange traffic was now using the 11 runway – a takeoff to the east. So without further ado I was away, with the usual pre-takeoff checks and the mandatory radio calls.

Tracking east direct for Bathurst I climbed to 5000 feet and levelled out, with cloud still above me and not wanting to move above 5000 and be in contravention of the regulation requiring any flight tracking between 0 and 179 degrees magnetic above 5000 feet to maintain altitude of “odd plus 500” thousand feet (eg. 5500, 7500).

Again, it’s a fairly quick hop from Orange to Bathurst and I was soon overflying the aerodrome, intentionally seeking it out for the sheer discipline and exercise of doing so (rather than turning early on to my Katoomba heading). You never know when you might be in need of any local knowledge during a future flight …

Overflying Bathurst

From this point, it was uncovered territory for me. On my previous flight in the area, Bathurst was the point at which my instructor had given me, as an exercise, a diversion south to Oberon. This time, no diversions were necessary and I was bound direct for Katoomba.

So I set course south-east for Katoomba, noting that as I tracked eastwards the cloud appeared to be lifting again. As I approached Katoomba I decided not to overfly the airfield proper, preferring to skirt west of Katoomba and over lower ground, giving me more options in the event of an engine problem at that point in the flight.

Heading south-east abeam Katoomba

To my pleasure – especially given the mountainous terrain of the Great Dividing Range that I was crossing for the second time that day – abeam Katoomba just before crossing the range proper I was able to climb my planned altitude on that track of 7500 feet. This was the highlight of the day’s flight, not only allowing me (albeit briefly, as I was close to home) to climb into some gorgeous still air, but also affording me some truly majestic views of the Blue Mountains and the Great Dividing Range, with serried ranks of imposing sandstone cliffs and escarpments rising above the greenery. These moments truly make recreational flying worthwhile.

I was struck, although still some 50 nautical miles away from home, just how early I could see the smudge-like look of the entire Sydney Basin open up before me as I glanced left from 7500 feet up. Which reminded me that I was pretty close to home and I should start thinking about how I was going to get there!

Looking east towards the Sydney Basin from 7500 feet

Approaching Sydney from the north-west as I was, the logistical issue to be dealt with was to avoid infringing on controlled military airspace in the Richmond area (that is, Richmond RAAF Base), which lay directly between me and Bankstown as the crow would have flown. (The alternative would have been to seek an airways clearance to enter Richmond airspace, which is frequently done in certain circumstances, but  hadn’t done it before – my flight through Canberra’s Class C airspace notwithstanding – and wasn’t about to attempt it now). I started descending, knowing that I had to get down from 7500 feet to 4000 feet by the time I reached Warragamba Dam to fly under the Sydney Class C control step. And as a quick means of confirming how far south I was on my track towards Warragamba Dam – enabling me to skirt the Richmond area – I tuned my ADF receiver to 576 kHz, the frequency of ABC Radio National as broadcast by the 2RN tower which is one of the two inbound reporting points for Bankstown. Noting the ADF needle swinging to roughly 45-450 degrees to my left, I reasoned that it wouldn’t be long before I’d be needing to turn east to head home and that I must be getting close to Warragamba. Almost immediately, I sighted what I now know to be Lake Burragorang – the main water storage that is impounded by Warragamba Dam – up ahead and knew that all I had to do was to turn left and follow it all the way to the dam. Which I did, continuing to descend to 4000 feet, and I was soon overflying the dam, seeing the expanse of the Sydney Basin open up before me.

Tracking Lake Burragorang east towards Warragamba Dam

Ten minutes more and descending to 1500 feet, I was quickly at 2RN and, inbound clearance received, joined “right crosswind” (a slightly unusual direction from Bankstown Tower) for my approach and landing from the east on runway 29R. Down with a light landing, I was soon parking, shutting and then tieing down the plane, knowing that the next time I fly solo cross-country will be after I have gained my Private Pilot License.

Joining right crosswind leg for landing on runway 29R Bankstown

Reflections and learnings

The main thing I took away that I think I need to work on is to work on the strict discipline of tracking my progress against my flight plan. I think I was a little bit spoilt on this flight in that I’d done it before (albeit with an instructor beside me) and therefore didn’t perhaps have to work quite as hard on staying aware of where I was as I might otherwise have had to. I feel that I could definitely improve in terms of using my watch to maintain frequent estimates of how far along (and off) a flight planned track I may be, and cross-checking those estimates against visual indicators on the ground. I’m not saying I’m not doing these things – far from it – but I think there’s plenty of room for improvement in terms of how often I do it, and how accurately.

What’s next

Since making this flight I’ve passed my final theory exam and once cancelled my final cross-country dual training flight due to illness. I’m hoping to do this final flight in a couple of week. Once that’s done, all that remains  is the PPL test!

Marking time

I’m supposed to fly my second cross-country solo flight tomorrow, but looks as though weather is going to get in the way. There’s a large cold front pushing up from the Antarctic via the southern states and – quite apart from forecast rain and low cloud base – winds of 40 to 45 kilometres per hour are forecast. Unless the weather between now and 9am tomorrow changes drastically – nuh-uh, not this little black duck.

My back-up plan, so’s I don’t waste my drive to the flying club tomorrow, is to sit the exam for my Flight Radiotelephone Operators Licence (FROL) and get that out of the way.

I’m quite sanguine. It’s 3 weeks since my last major flight (to Canberra), but I went up locally with my parents just over a week ago and I now know that between flights I don’t actually forget everything I ever learned about flying! There’s always next week …

So, stuff still to go:

• FROL theory test (mentioned above)
• PPL theory test (must sit this soon)
• 2nd cross-country solo
• 2 more dual flights – should include Sydney Harbour scenic flight(s) which will be way cool, and
• Finally, the PPL test flight.

Even if I do just one of these flights every 4 weeks – with some short local or circuit flying here and there, in between – 4 months max and it will all be done.

Navs 3 and 4: Going south this time, and first cross-country solo

Date: 19/04/2011 to 20/04/2011

Hours flown	Dual	Command	Instruments
This flight	2.00	2.00	0.00
Total to date	40.14	6.60	2.00

Seems I have hit the wall in terms of blogging daily. Due general pace of life I have been unable to blog after each flight recently, so I’ll continue my trend of wrapping up recent flights in a single, catch-up blog.

Focus of this entry is nav flights 3 and 4. Both flights were very similar in terms of flight plan, tracks and locations. Nav 3 was special in being a checkride with Ashley (the Grade 1 instructor who reviewed me prior to my first solo and first area solo flights), and Nav 4 in being my first solo cross-country flight! Nav 3 took place on Tuesday (19/04/11) and Nav 4 on the next day (Wed 20/04/11).

Nav 3 – Bankstown – Goulburn – Bankstown (or was it?)

After my 2 apparently successful initial nav flights (see entries for Cessnock and Cowra/Orange flights), John evidently felt that it was time to send me up again with Ashley to see if I was ready for my first cross-country solo. So this flight was planned as a foray out over the ranges via Warragamba and Bindook down to Goulburn and return to Bankstown. The wrinkle in all of this is that Ashley was required to give me a diversion to another waypoint or destination en route, but he wasn’t allowed to tell me where in advance. So I didn’t know if we’d make Goulburn and then divert elsewhere on return, or whether I’d even make Goulburn.

The flight was in FTU, an aircraft I’d flown in only a couple of times, very early on in my initial flight training. Turned out it didn’t even have a working ADF (Automated Direction Finder), meaning I couldn’t make use of the NDB (Non Directional Beacon) navigation aides en route and had to rely solely on dead reckoning. It wasn’t bad practice actually.

The flight very nearly didn’t take place. FTU had apparently experienced severe spark plug fouling earlier in the day, and the same problem occurred when I was doing my run-up checks. (Very low RPM’s and rough idling when I checked my right magneto during run-ups). So we had to taxy over to the other side of Bankstown Airport to Schofields’s maintenance provider to see if we could fix the problem. A new spark plug on the lower left hand side of the engine and we were on our way, aided by the tower’s permission for us to take of (unusually) on 29 Centre to avoid me having to taxy all the way back to the opposite side of the airport again.

I have to say that FTU handled quite strangely on both takeoffs I made in her that day. During climb-out, normally I have to roll the trim wheel back a few turns to trim the nose upwards to maintain best-rate-of-climb speed of about 75-79 KIAS. But in FTU I seemed to have to roll the trim wheel forwards – quite disconcerting at first. Made me wonder if the neutral position on the trim wheel in FTU is correctly marked. It certainly felt on climb-out as thought I had to force the nose down, rather than the usual situation of needing to pull back on the control column to bring the nose up. Weird. But anyway …

Out over Warragamba Dam at 4,000 feet and then turned left towards Bindook, a major NDB/VOR (Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Radar) installation located south-west of Warragamba in the Great Dividing Range. Notwithstanding my lack of a working ADF, my track to Bindook was almost spot-on and Ashley pointed it out to me as we approached it – a cleared area amidst wooded hills.

Over Bindook, Ashley sprung the diversion on me. Could I please divert to Wollongong (YWOL), sorry we won’t be going to Goulburn today.

Dragging out my map, protractor and navigation ruler, I worked out a new track to YWOL fairly easily, along with an estimated time of arrival, and turned left to find Wollongong. Much to my pleasure, about 15 minutes later we dropped over the escarpment around Wollongong to find Albion Park Airport directly in front of us! Doing an orbit to drop down from 5,500 feet to circuit height of about 1,000 feet, we joined mid-crosswind for Wollongong’s 16 runway and made a pretty decent landing. Given the option, I elected to stop at YWOL for 15 minutes (as opposed to doing a touch-and-go landing) as I was getting a bit sore and wanted to stretch my legs.

As it happened, Ash both lives in the YWOL area and did his flying training there, so he knows the airport intimately. We taxyed over to park outside the HARS (Historical Aircraft Restoration Society) hangar, grabbed a bottle of water and had a quick peek into the HARS maintenance hangar. All manner of wonders lay within, which I’ll describe later in this blog.

Our break over, we started up and headed off again, making a downwind departure from runway 16 and climbing quickly to 3,500 feet (to clear the escarpment around YWOL) and heading more or less due north for Appin and Menangle Park. Once at Menangle Park (which is also an inbound reporting point for Camden Aerodrome), we map-crawled the rest of the way home to 2RN and Bankstown, remaining just to the left of the Hume Highway to avoid infringing upon Camden Aerodrome controlled airspace to our left and on the Holsworthy Army Barracks and military zone to our right. Joining crosswind for runway 29R at Bankstown, I made a really damn good landing and we were home. Ashley declared himself more than satisfied and that I was good to go solo the following day, weather permitting.

Nav 4 – Bankstown – Mittagong – Wollongong – Bankstown

Although I’d planned on heading solo to Cessnock for my first solo (having been there on my Nav 1 flight), John and Ashley were reluctant to send me there as they felt that I needed at least one more flight through the northbound and southbound lanes of entry before doing them solo. Ash wanted me to head to Goulburn as originally planned on the previous day. However, weather was getting in the way and as there were storms forecast (30% probability) around Goulburn, both I and Ash weren’t comfortable going there and Bathurst was not an alternative as the cloud base over the ranges was looking just too low.

So I proposed a brief first solo flight, literally Bankstown down to Wollongong and return. However, Ash felt that this was too short (you need a total of 5 solo cross-country flying hours as part of your pre-requisites for achieving the Private Pilot License), so I had to revise my flight plan to do as follows: depart Bankstown, head down the Hume Highway to Mittagong, continue to Marulan (distinguishable by a large cement factory and a couple of large truck stops), then head direct to Wollongong, land, then return home.

I fuelled up UFY (in which coincidentally I did my first circuit solo) and headed out. Taking off from 29R, I turned south-west for Menangle Park and, achieving Menangle, climbed to about 3,000 feet while tracking towards Appin. Over Appin I then turned south-west and more or less just tracked down the Hume Highway towards Mittagong, only getting up to 4,500 feet as clouds above were a bit dark and heavy.

I successfully located Mittagong Aerodrome then continued southwest for Marulan – though a bit carefully as the weather off in the distance looked dark and showery. I wasn’t sure weather I was going to make Marulan or turn around and head for home or the coast.

A good 10 minutes before I expected to reach Marulan, I spotted a large cement processing factory off to my left. Surely this couldn’t be Marulan already? I forgot to look for the truck stops that Ashley mentioned to confirm if I was there already. I was faced with a decision though. If this was Marulan, then now was the time to turn left and head for Wollongong. But if it wasn’t – how many prominent cement factories could there be within a 20 mile radius of the Marulan area? And did I really want to head closer to some dark looking weather, especially on my first cross-country solo?

Reasoning that if this wasn’t Marulan I still wasn’t very far away, and that regardless, my planned track to Wollongong would take me back to the coast within reasonable proximity to Wollongong regardless if I was actually at Marulan or still a bit to the north-east. So I turned for Wollongong and 15 minutes later dropped down over the coastal escarpment to find myself only slightly to the north of where I’d reached the coast yesterday, and still very close to Wollongong Airport.

Joining mid-crosswind for runway 16 (again), I was a bit startled when a Jabiru joined the circuit on the base leg and not too far in front of me. I’d made my appropriate radio calls on the Wollongong CTAF and hadn’t heard anything from the Jabiru so I was a bit narked when he made is joining-base call and appeared from my right, but of course I did the right thing and avoided him, extending my downwind leg to leave enough room for him to land and vacate the runway before it was my turn to land. I then made a good landing (my landings really are better again this week!) and taxyed to the same parking area as the day before, just next to the HARS museum hangar.

Parking UFY, I went for a stroll to stretch my legs and took a few quick phone snapshots outside the HARS hangar. Notably, HARS operates the only operational, flying Lockheed Constellation in the world! Known affectionately as “Connie“, this magnificent aircraft lives at Wollongong and, courtesy of my ASIC card entitling me to be airside at RPT airports, all I had to do was stroll over to the hangar door to gape in appreciation!

I also spied – briefly – a couple of DC3’s, a non-flying Lockheed P-2 Neptune, a de Havilland Drover and the shells of various other aircraft too numerous to mention. One of the first things I’ll do with my PPL will be to take a quick flight down to Wollongong to have a proper look at the HARS museum (I’ve driven past it often enough on the way to and from the South Coast). My quick Blackberry snapshots will have to suffice for now:

Connie, with DH Drover in front

Ex-RAAF DC3

Tourism done with, it was time to head home. I got back into UFY and retraced my steps from the day before, the only wrinkle being that I found myself at Menangle Park before I registered that I’d already flown over Appin! This and my earlier doubt about Marulan alerted me to the fact that a couple of my nav calculations (specifically my estimated time intervals between waypoints) may have been wrong, as I wasn’t in any significant headwind or tailwind.

Insight #33

Your flight plan is just that – a plan. Check and double-check it carefully so you can be confident in your tracks and calculations. But don’t expect everything to go to plan. Be prepared to deal with the unexpected, as and when situations arise. Think on your feet!

A final, again pretty good landing at Bankstown and I was home, well stoked I may say after a 2.0 hour flight being my first cross-country solo. I was very pleased with myself! The most enjoyable flight I’ve done so far.

Nav 2: Bankstown – Cowra – Orange – Bankstown

Date: 18/04/2011

Hours flown	Dual	Command	Instruments
This flight	3.70	0.00	0.00
Total to date	38.14	4.60	2.00

Did a nearly 4-hour return flight in NFR today to Cowra, Orange and back. I won’t blog as extensively as I did for my first trip to Cessnock, but will try to debrief on notable features of the trip as I recall them.

Outbound – YSBK to YORG via YWCR

Took off at about 10.15am, interestingly fro Bankstown’s runway 29C (two nine centre). I don’t normally take off or land on this, but 29R was under maintenance so they had arrivals and departures on 29C. Longer runway than either of the other two.

Left turn over the railway tracks and we tracked direct to Warragamba Dam, climbing to 4300 feet. Over Warragamba we maintained heading of 259 degrees and, climbing to 6500 feet (few clouds around 4000) we tracked direct to YCWR (Cowra).

No question that the NDBs (Non Directional Beacons) help you stay oriented, but it’s good not to rely too much on them if they fail. I was trying to keep a good track via dead reckoning, and I applied a reasonably successful track correction at one point, but our club CFI likes pilots to use all nav aids available (safety I guess), so it’s kind of a double-think thing you have to develop.

Along the track we noted Blayney and Mt Canobolas to our right, and the Blayney Wind Farm and Mt Misery to our left. Closing on Cowra, we overflew to determine wind direction, then decided to do a touch-and-go landing and then track to YORG (Orange) where we were more confident of the fuel situation. Tracking to Orange we kept well clear of a designated danger area to our left, being an open cut gold mine, which (allegedly) presents danger to air traffic up to an altitude of 8500 feet.

Landing at Orange coming in from the west (on Orange’s notably up-sloping single strip runway), we backtracked and taxied to park next to the airport’s AVGAS bowser. I quickly learned that despite the profusion of fuel cards available to me from the club, none of them worked on the bowser and we had to arrange with a company based in the adjacent hangar to purchase fuel (for which the club reimburses me). Seems stupid to have supposedly 24/7 automated AVGAS bowsers at regional airports when they either don’t accept fuel cards or are apparently often out of service.

After refuelling the aircraft we had a quick lunch and then headed for home.

Inbound – YORG to YSBK via YBTH

Run-ups and pre-flight checks done, we did an “enter and roll” call prior to the runway then lined up and took off. Climbing to about 5000 feet we got a call on the Orange CTAF from a REX (Regional Express) flight who had landed while we were having lunch. He was preparing to take off and just wanted to ascertain our position, heading and intentions so that he didn’t come shooting up the back of us! Very nice of him, I thought.

Tracking over YBTH (Bathurst), my instructor John then told me to do an unscheduled diversion to Oberon. Grabbing my VNC (Visual Navigation Chart), I scrawled a track from Bathurst to Oberon, eyeballed the required estimated track change (059 degrees, from memory) and the estimated time to Oberon (12 minutes), then turned for Oberon rather curious as to how good my diversion track was. I also (for the first time) called Melbourne Central to advise an amendment to my flight plan.

Turned out it was on the money! Oberon appeared reassuringly, straight ahead, some 10 minutes later. Seat-of-the-pants dead reckoning navigation.

While en route for Oberon I dragged out my protractor and figured out a quick revised track from Oberon to Warragamba Dam, which was more or less dead on. Over the Great Dividing Range and down into the Sydney Basin, noting Katoomba off to my left, descending to 1500 feet by the 2RN radio tower inbound reporting point, then joining crosswind for runway 29R and a rather nice landing to finish the day.

The weather was beautiful and cruising at 7500 feet was as still and smooth as could be. Flying at its best. I have been a bit spoiled by conditions in my first 2 nav exercises and surely it can’t continue this well, but you take what you’re given and it made for a very enjoyable nav exercise today. My confidence benefited enormously.

Next

Off tomorrow on a return trip to Goulburn with Ashley, my instructor from my pre-solo and pre-area solo checkrides. If tomorrow goes well, I may well be off for my first cross-country solo on Wednesday – likely a return trip to Cessnock (from my Nav 1 exercise) or Goulburn again. Stay tuned.

Nav 1: Bankstown – Cessnock – Bankstown

Date: 15/04/2011

Hours flown	Dual	Command	Instruments
This flight	1.90	0.00	0.00
Total to date	34.44	4.60	2.00

View flight overview on Google Maps

Yesterday my cross-country navigation training began! After 3 hours of ground briefing on Thursday, John asked me to have at least 2 flights planned so that we could choose either, weather depending. Following Thursday’s nav briefing I planned the bare bones of a YSBK-YCNK-YSBK (Bankstown-Cessnock-Bankstown) flight, then arriving at the Club early yesterday morning I put together same for a YSBK-YGLB-YSBK (Bankstown-Goulburn-Bankstown) flight. For those unfamiliar with geography around Sydney, the YSBK-YCNK-YSBK flight gives you a northerly coastal flying route option, while YSBK-YGLB-YSBK gives you a south-western inland option.

Pre-Flight Planning

It took me a fair while to put these 2 plans together, and I was under the hammer because we needed to be ready for the off by 1.30pm. 12.30pm rolled around and I hadn’t even looked at the area forecasts for each of the 2 routes nor done my winds, headings and estimated times for either of the plans. Fortunately I was able to do this fairly quickly, and I opted for the Cessnock option (a good, short introductory nav flight anyway) as the forecast clouds around the inland slopes and ranges didn’t look too hot.

Insight #29

This won’t be earth-shatteringly surprising for experienced aviators, but a good flight plan takes time to put together. Certainly at my stage and level of experience, it’s a matter of hours. It’s not something to be rushed. Time taken to plan a good flight, and to get real familiar with the map routes, is time well-spent.

1.30pm rolled around, John was back from his last ride and I hadn’t checked out my aircraft yet! OK, I wasn’t massively behind – only about 15 minutes or so – but it did give me added pressure to get through it all and get going. To be fair, it was also a slightly artificial situation in that I’d had to plan two flights prior to departure time. I wasn’t in anyway underprepared in terms of lack of application – I’d been at the club since 9am and I’d been up late doing flight planning the night before, having only had the nav briefing the previous day – but the pressure was indeed on. I learned a couple of things out of this.

Insight #30

Try as hard as you can – without compromising the quality of the pre-flight planning process – to be ready to go on the dot of planned departure time. The more time you have up your sleeve, the less rushed you feel. And, the earlier you’re ready to go, the better the chance you have for avoiding unfavourable weather that might affect your flight.

And …

Insight #31

You can have most of your flight plan completed well in advance of your flight. Waypoints, lowest safe altitudes, magnetic tracks, ideal altitudes, distances, radio frequencies and nav aids, aerodrome details, all of these can be done early and can then form the “template” for your proposed and future flights. On the day of flight, you can then take the flight plan, get your weather details and relatively quickly make your altitude decisions, wind, heading, groundspeed and estimated time interval (ETI) calculations, your fuel calculations, last light, estimated times of departure and arrival and of course your weight and balance and takeoff/landing calculations and checks.

Getting into the air

My ride was SFA (Sierra Foxtrot Alpha), a new aircraft for me and in fact it’s a Piper Archer – basically a somewhat more powerful version of the Piper Warrior I’m now used to flying. It was only due to my original aircraft being in unscheduled maintenance that this eventuated. But I jumped at the opportunity to fly the Archer! It’s a more powerful and slightly faster version of the Warrior, while being basically the same plane – so it was pretty painless to have to get my head around this as we started up and taxied. I’ll be doing some nav flights on the Warriors as well, but for later navs and my own cross-country flights the Archer will be my chariot of choice.

Fuelled up, started up and then one of the ear pads fell off my headset! John took over and taxied while I got myself sorted out, but it took me 2 minutes of fart-arsing around and unnecessary stress to fix my headset, get it on my head and resume control of the aircraft. It’s only the 2nd time this has happened to me in nearly 40 hours of flying – evidently the earpads are made for easy replacement and can come off easily – but it’s enough for a little gem of practical learning for me.

Insight #32

While getting organised for flight, check the earpads on my headset to make sure they’re in place, and don’t put the headset on the floor of the aircraft – the earpads can get bumped loose.

Run-up and pre-takeoff checks and departure and emergency briefs done, we had a brief wait and then were cleared for takeoff on 11L for a crosswind departure. Up and left towards Parramatta and we were away, me instantly feeling the additional grunt that the Archer’s engine adds to the aircraft’s performance.

The trip

Getting away at 2:25pm, we were over Parramatta at 2:28 and then heading up the northbound lane of entry to Patonga, noting key landmarks on the route including Parramatta CBD, the M2/Pennant Hills Road interchange and Pennant Hills, the Sydney Adventist Hospital  and Hornsby CBD. Over these and then we were up over the hills and gorges tracking towards the Hawkesbury area, arriving over Patonga at 2:38.

Turning left onto a heading of 333 degrees at Patonga, we headed direct for Mt McQuoid, which is equipped with an NDB (Non-Directional Beacon) which makes it very easy to track inbound. McQuoid reached at 2:53, we then turned right onto 018 degrees for Cessnock. Pretty soon we could see the greenery of the Hunter Valley ahead, and all of a sudden Cessnock Aerodrome in view (pretty good visibility yesterday). Entering the Cessnock area and making the necessary radio calls on the Cessnock CTAF (Common Traffic Advisory Frequency), we were in the Cessnock circuit and down for a quick touch-and-go, with arrival Cessnock at 3:08.

Not wanting to hang around due possible rain south of Sydney on our return, we headed straight out at turned left on 161 degrees for Warnervale Aerodrome. Overflying Warnervale at 3:25, we then turned right for Brooklyn Bridge. Achieving Brooklyn at 3:38, we then joined the southbound lane of entry and engaged in what John calls “map crawling” – that is, following a series of closely located landmarks on the ground rather than being guided primarily by the flight plan. So, southbound we tracked over Brooklyn, the Berowra strobe (according to John, he’d never seen the strobe as clearly as we saw it yesterday!), the Galston Sub Station, the South Dural tanks and strobe (ditto comment from John), the M2/M7 interchange and then the familiarity of Prospect Reservoir. I don’t have it recorded exactly what time we arrived Prospect, but it would have been around 3:51, and I know we landed at 3:55, so total flight time was just 1 hour and 30 minutes, about average for the YSBK-YCNK-YSBK flight apparently.

Conditions were pretty much ideal, apart from the last 5 minutes when the southerly wind in advance of rain was getting seriously up and I made a crosswind landing with just 1 stage of flap. John felt that I’d handled the first flight very well. He flew most of the outbound leg while I navigated, then I made the Cessnock landing and take-off and flew the return leg as well as navigating. I’d not had to worry about course error too much (it was only a short trip), the ride was pretty smooth so no distracting bumps, and we didn’t have to dodge any weather. But I suppose that’s ideal for the first nav flight. I know it will get more challenging.

There’s certainly plenty of work to do! I was busy pretty much the entire flight between the many activities involved, including:

• Flying the aircraft
• Keeping the DI (Directional Indicator) aligned with the magnetic compass
• Attending to the discipline of maintaining my flight log and managing my maps and times
• Checking for landmarks to confirm my position
• Checking the engine operations
• Confirming and managing my altitude
• Sorting out my radio and nav aid frequencies
• Making sure I was generally oriented
• Managing my fuel, and
• Making the radio calls

I can certainly now attest from personal experience the old navigation maximum about “staying ahead of the aeroplane”! Preferably by 15 or 20 minutes at all times. Can’t wait for my next nav.

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 22 – Lessons 31 and 32 – Precautionary Search and Landing / 2nd Training Area Solo

Date: 04/04/2011

Hours flown	Dual	Command	Instruments
This flight	0.90	0.90	0.00
Total to date	28.54	3.20	1.20

NFR was back online today after replacement of brake lining on right wheel. Conditions this morning looked a tad windy – ATIS forecast a maximum crosswind of 15 knots and John said he would not send me solo in conditions like this. And he was also reluctant to do our other outstanding lesson – short field takeoffs and landings – in a strong crosswind. So he elected to do our other outstanding lesson, Precautionary Search & Landing.

Precautionary Search & Landing

Unlike forced landings, a precautionary search and landing is usually done under power – that is, you have full or partial power. So in essence and theory, you’re able to do a bit more of a methodical, thorough search for an appropriate landing site than under engine failure conditions.

When would you do a precautionary search and landing? Various situations, including:

• Running out of fuel and can’t make destination
• Weather closing in eg. unavoidable storms and/or lowering cloud
• Ground rising with low cloud
• Close proximity to last light and you won’t make your destination

Etcetera.

John was at pains to point out that all of the above factors are well within your control and with normal planning and airmanship you should never find yourself in any of these situations. However, situations can develop and obviously you want to know how to land if you absolutely need to.

The other situation in which a precautionary search and landing is typically done – and this is a relatively common situation in Australia, I would think – is when you’re landing on an unregistered/unrated airstrip, such as a bush strip on private property. In these situations, you will definitely want to make a close inspection of the landing strip/surface, slope, obstacles, wind, appropriate circuit pattern, approach path, climb-out path, hazards such as livestock etc.

So. Taking off from 11 left and making a 180-degree turn climbing to 1500 feet, we tracked out past Prospect Reservoir and, maintaining 1500, tracked towards a field that John likes to use for this lesson. Our simulated conditions were: fly no higher than 1200 feet (eg if cloud bottoms were at 1200), and no lower than 700 feet (ie no lower than 500 feet AGL, and spot height is about 200 feet out in that part of the Bankstown training area).

Approaching the field – which is just south of Tadpole Lake, a key landmark delineating the start of the training area – a column of smoke conveniently told me which way the wind was blowing (from my left, or roughly 170 degrees magnetic). Taking into account a large brickworks or dump immediately west of the field – which I decided I’d rather avoid so far as circuits were concerned – I decided on an upwind landing in about the 150 degrees magnetic direction, with a left hand circuit.

Dropping down to 1200 feet, I slowed the aircraft down and put out one stage of flap to slow to about 80 knots. Flying base, I looked down to make as good an initial inspection of the field as I could. Turning downwind, I noted a dam at the far left end of the field – to be avoided obviously – and a plantation of trees and shrubs marking the upwind end of the strip. Turning crosswind – still at 1200 feet – I made a closer inspection of the end of the strip and also noted trees on either side of the strip to be avoided.

Turning downwind – all the while doing as close to 80 knots as possible – I started counting seconds as I passed the end of the strip. “One potato, two potato, three potato …” etc. The rough rule of thumb, when flying at 80 KIAS, is that one second equals about 40 metres in runway length. Reaching the threshold of the strip at 22 seconds, I estimated the length of the strip at 880 metres.

Continuing downwind, I noted power lines on my right to be avoided, and on my left, a river or creek short of the landing area which would need to be avoided on approach or in the event of landing short of the landing strip. Then on turning base again, I lowered the nose and let down to 700 feet AGL. Turning upwind but staying to the right of the landing strip, I was able to look out my window and get a closer and better look at the landing surface.

I got a better look at the landing surface – looked relatively level from 500 feet AGL, but hard to be sure, and I thought I saw patches of what looked like concrete – could there have been a factory or some other building on this strip in the past? Hard to say. I also noticed – this time around – a few cattle grazing below, which in a real situation would have needed to be frightened away from the landing area by doing a lower altitude pass at (say) 50 feet AGL. However, we were unable to descend that low in this exercise.

While doing this, I also estimated the length of the runway again, and this time made it 20 seconds estimating 800 metres in length. Averaging my two estimates, I made it about 840 metres in length, give or take.

Crosswind turn gave me a closer look at the end of the runway, as did downwind and base. For final, we stayed at 700 feet AGL overflying the landing area, then did a go-around and climbed away. John declared himself satisfied that I’d flown the precautionary search and landing OK.

Climbing back to 1500 feet, John sprung an engine failure on me – which this time (unlike my Steep Turns lesson) I’d been anticipating! Raising the nose, I converted airspeed to height and quickly ran through my CMF routine – carby heat on, mixture full rich, fuel pump on, switch fuel tanks – to simulate immediate responses to an engine failure. I picked a field just ahead and to my right, and planned a downwind, base and final leg as I was not working with much height up my sleeve. During this I slowed a bit much – to about 60 KIAS – and the stall warning horn sounded, but I lowered my nose immediately to build up airspeed.

I was then about to simulate my squawk of 7700 on my transponder and my Mayday call, but John declared himself satisfied with my immediate responses and a good choice of landing site. So we climbed away without further ado. It was a good exercise in a situation in which I may not have had time to do anything other than immediate checks and plan and execute an approach. I had little time for my Mayday call and precious little still for the prescribed CFMOST checks. Priority number 1 is Aviate and get yourself down safely, even if you can’t make all your calls or do all your checks.

Tracking back via 2RN, I neglected to lean the mixture (which apparently our CFI likes us to do when inbound) and also to flick on my landing light. I really need to make sure I do these things during my GFPT test with Bill Cooper next week!

Approach and landing were good enough, no comment from John, so I’m assuming the landing was acceptable.

Second Area Solo

Once back at the clubhouse, John said that if conditions remained as they were, he’d be OK to send me for my 2nd solo. Basically I had to hang around for half an hour and hope that this was the case. So John went out in NFR with another student, and I grabbed a bite to eat and kept an eye on the weather.

The ATIS was India and suggested wind from 180 degrees at 10 knots with a crosswind maximum of 10. Back down, John said the conditions were quite OK and the crosswind not as bad as suggested by the ATIS, so he cleared me to go. I didn’t need prompting! So once signed out by John, I grabbed the flight bag and went out to pre-flight NFR.

Fuel was up to tabs on both tanks, so no fuelling was needed, and the aircraft was good to go. So I started up and headed out, taking off again from 11 left and doing the 180 degree turn climbing to 1500 feet to track south of Prospect.

Things were much bumpier than this morning! I stayed at 1500 feet and returned to the field we used this morning for our Precautionary Search & Landing lesson, and did another Precautionary Search & Landing exercise myself. It was a bit more challenging as the wind from the south was stronger and gustier, and I had to use a bit more throttle control to maintain 80 knots on the 1200 foot and 700 foot inspection circuits. Additionally, the wind blew me in towards the runway on crosswind and away from the runway on base. But I managed OK and felt pretty satisfied with the exercise.

After overflying the landing site, I climbed out to 3000 feet and further into the training area, trying to find some calmer air but it remained quite gusty and bumpy for the entire flight. Trying to stay out for 1.1 hours (as opposed to the 0.9 I managed in my first area solo), I did several slow turns out round Bringelly and Warragamba, and after I judged I’d been out long enough, started to lose height in stages so that I could arrive over Prospect Reservoir at 1500 feet. (Unfortunately, I managed to be out for only 0.9 hours again – bugger – so my next solo, hopefully tomorrow, I’ll have to make damn sure I’m out for at least 1.2 hours so as to get my minimum 3 hours of area solo time. The southerly blew me in towards Prospect way quicker than I’d anticipated, even after my noodling around out in the training area!)

I did everything as required when inbound, other than neglecting to lean the mixture on the way in, so I’ve got to make sure I do this tomorrow to be ready to do it for the CFI.

I had to point the nose a good 10 degrees to the right of Prospect just to track over it, which indicated the significant southerly blowing, and in fact the ATIS had changed to information Juliet with a crosswind of 12 knots. After my inbound call I tracked to Warwick Farm while descending to 1000 feet and was really bounced around by the headwind I was facing into.

Turning final for 11 left over the railway tracks and making my 3-mile call, I throttled back to 2000 RPM and put out 2 stages of flaps and commenced my approach. I realised shortly after that in the sort of wind I was in I probably should have used a maximum of 1 stage of flaps, or done a flapless landing, but the approach was OK and I was able to maintain airspeed with relatively minimal throttle inputs. But I was sharpened (I hope) to the need to make appropriate flaps decisions for landing based on conditions, and in similar in future I will do flapless landings or use a maximum of 1 stage of flaps.

The landing was OK. I think it was probably the strongest crosswind I’ve yet landed in, and when I was finally down I had landed pointing slightly right of the runway centre line, but it wasn’t a bad situation and I was able to roll out and stay aligned with the runway pretty easily.

Five minutes and I was back at the flight line, parking and shutting down NFR and breathing the sigh that always comes after my solos and I’ve been working and concentrating hard! Definitely bumpier and more challenging conditions than for my first solo, but I managed well and got down safely, so again, a good confidence booster.

Tomorrow – hopefully – my third and last Area Solo. I’ll need to make it a long one, 1.2 hours plus. But if conditions are right, I’ll do some practise stalls, forced landings and steep turns, which should keep me busy and out there for enough time.