Navigating

Well the good news is that I'm still flying, rather confidently now. After my first progress test I had two solo circuit lessons which were so much fun. On the first of those solo circuits I had to cut it short since the winds suddenly became rather violent. I came in to do my third touch and go and as I flared this nasty gust blew my aircraft and as the main wheels touched the tarmac, the nose was pretty much facing toward the CAE building (which isn't at the end of the runway). Luckily, my exceptionally fast thinking mind told me to go full throttle and perform a go around. Once I was stable in the climb, I contacted tower for a wind check, I was then promptly informed that the winds were 10011KTG15, and as fast as tower responded, I immediately requested a full stop. I thus touched down safely and I am now able to fortunately tell this tale! 

The next solo lesson went much better. Winds were calm, the sky was crystal clear, and there weren't any Goliath thermals trying to push me up into the Tropopause. I managed to do 2 glide ins, 2 flapless landings, 3 normal landings and of course 1 full stop. By the end of it I felt pretty confident in the general handling of the aircraft.

So now my latest venture on this programme is navigation. I was really looking forward to it because I did enjoy flight planning and general navigation when I did it in ground school, so I was really looking forward to applying it practically. 

The first few navigation lessons involve basic familiarization with flight planning on our terminal and sectional charts and filling out nav logs. The general planning process goes like this:

1. Route planning on sectional or terminal chart the day before the flight and partial completion of nav log
2. Completion of planning using winds aloft to give groundspeeds and headings to make good planned track
3. Execution of the planned flight!

There is a lot to take in. If you're not familiar with Falcon Field airport, it operates within a Class D airspace, and only 4000ft above the airfield is Class B, which is where all the big jets fly, and you cannot enter Class B without clearance. Since Phoenix Skyharbor is only 15NM away, there is a myriad of Class B shelves around Phoenix which we must pay special attention to avoid. 

Navigating just like the old days

The first navigation flight we did was from the airfield to a visual landmark and back again. There is so much going on, you don't really have time to relax. For instance, you need to constantly check your heading, speed, altitude and timing. On top of that, remembering the cruise checklist which is checking the fuel tanks, engine indications, flight instruments and location, and also constantly looking out for where you are, where you're going and making good headings to maintain the planned track. It does sound rather daunting, however you do just eventually get the hang of it all. At this stage I'm no where near perfect, however constantly improving on the ability to look for visual reference points to prove that I'm heading towards the correct turning point, and performing the checklists are slowly becoming second nature. 

At first it was quite challenging to find good turning points to plot on the map, but once you become more familiar with the procedures, the planning becomes a lot less tedious and much more enjoyable. It's quite satisfying when you plan your route with headings and groundspeeds adjusted for wind, and you make your turning points at the time you planned exactly.

So that's it really for the flying, unfortunately this week my instructor's been off sick with a neck injury so I've not been able to progress as quickly as I had hoped. My next solo and dual missions are AP25 and AP26 so I've still got much to learn yet.