So a couple of weeks ago she returned and I did a session of circuits to get me back into the swing. It was nice to be back in the sky, even on a hazy day with only just enough visibility and cloud base. It went amazingly well with (in Barrie's words) three 10/10 circuits. He was so please that he sent me solo for another three. We were on runway 25 which I find easiest so that helped.My last landing my approach was a bit too high and it resulted in a flat landing but apart from that all was well.
I followed up last week with a solo Navex to Greenham Common and Overton. A few circuits first for Barrie to check I was still flying okay. This time we were on runway 07 so not as smooth. One rough landing, one go-around and one pretty good one and I was off on my own. Visibility was amazing today and I scarcely had to worry about navigation - I could see the next waypoint when I turned onto each heading. This sortie was flown starting at 2700 ft to fly clear of Aldermarston and Greenham. There was a NOTAM in place for Greenham common - not to overfly below 2500ft. It turns out they're filming the new Star Wars there. There are some bunkers in the South West corner and I spotted the Millenium Falcon sitting there! Sadly my camera wasn't working so I didn't get any footage - more of that in a mo. Radio work and flying were good but navigation may have slipped because of the visibility!
I've been looking at various techie toys for use when flying. Firstly t got me a Rollei Racy Actioncam which I planned to use on the windshield on a suction mount. I got some nice point-of-view video of the circuit session, perhaps a bit too much propeller. I believe I can reduce that with a faster frame rate. Sadly I messed up with the Greenham run because I left it filming in the car all day and it was out of juice by the time I mounted it in the plane!
Secondly I've finally subscribed to Skydemon. I've been using their demo for quite a while to double check my flight planning and I like what they've got going on. I also I figure I owe them some money by now having signed up with all of my e-mail addresses. I have always been concerned about having a phone or tablet active without being in flight mode in the cockpit. It's bad enough when someone forgets to turn off their phone. I did find various suggestions that disabling the sim with a pin number or removing it seems to turn off the phone signal and 3G while leaving the GPS active and that seems to work with Skydemon. This guy has some notes about it, though as a hiker he's mostly trying to save battery. I'm planning to log my next 'grass field' practice circuits tomorrow, it will be interesting to see the same of my circuits!
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