Winter Flight

So that was a long break, five months this time. I really mustn't do that. To that end I've decided to run for a while with 1/2 day holidays on a Friday to get some regular practice in. I also really, really need to memorise some of the well know pilot acronyms and checks.

So after such a long break I was somewhat nervous. Tony chose a simple flight with some stalling and turning exercises. The mic on my headset wasn't working so I didn't even do the radio work. Thank goodness because I also need to learn that. It had been a nice clear CAVOK morning and was still bright and clear as we took off to the west, but huge stormy cumulus clouds were visible in the distance as we gained altitude. The manoeuvres went pretty well, hearing the stall warning, feeling the light buffeting and finally the heavy bumping before pushing the stick forward and going to full power to recover. A few turns as well, some to 'clear' before stalling. Light nervousness means I don't stay at 30°, easing off by a few degrees as the turn progresses.

It seemed like a surprisingly short flight and we turned and headed for Blackbushe. Traffic had been quite heavy and lookout seemed more important than ever. Approaching deadside "over the numbers at the end of the runway" to join the circuit at 800ft. By some fluke I had the aircraft set up and trimmed at 70 knots which after a bit of Tony's input we were down. Tony said it was my best landing yet - I'm pretty sure he says that kind of thing to inspire confidence for next time.

The Weather

Despite a fine looking late summer day I arrived at Blackbushe to be greeted by Tony telling me we weren't flying. There was a lot of turbulence, wind was very gusty and veering all over the place. Tony thought it was a good time to do a lesson on weather, specifically METAR, TAF and what Tony calls Wind Checks.

I'd been looking at forecasts for a while via AeroWeather and was familiar with the kind of information passed in TAFs and METARS but it was very useful to go though what I should actually get from them. I'm going to include a write up of what Tony said here for my own learning purposes.

METAR - Met Actual Report

Weather report from the Met office reporting current conditions.

The current report for Farnborough (the local service for Blackbushe) is as follows:-

EGLF 111250Z 21016KT 180V250 9999 SCT025 19/13 Q1005

EGLF - The ICAO airport code for the station.

111250Z - Date and Time. 11th, 12:50, ZULU time (GMT)

21016KT - Wind and direction. Bearing 210 16 knots. May include G for gusts and a speed.

180V250 - Wind direction variable between 180 and 250.

9999 - Visibility. 9999m or 10km. This is as good as they measure.

SCT025 - Scattered cloud at 2500ft. Just add two zeros as Tony said to Nicholas Lyndhurst. Sometimes two cloud entries when there are layers.

19/13 - Temperature and Dew Point. Tony's tip: difference x400 for visible moisture. Today 2400ft. 

Q1005 - Qnh is 1005.

Other weather types that appear:-

VCXX - Vicinity XX

RA - Rain

SH - Showers

SHRA - Showers and rain, can include be + or -

DZ - Drizzle

RADZ - Rain and drizzle

MI - Mist

BR - Fog (Brume)

SN - Snow

GR - Hail (Tony says they say Granite Rain in the US - Grêle)

RERA - Recent rain

FU - Smoke (Fumée)

CB - Cumulo Nimbus

CU - Cumulus

TCU - Towering Cumulus

NSW - No significant weather

This guy has a nice article on the subject.

Cloud types are measured in 1/8ths of the sky so:-

FEW - Few clouds 1/8 to 2/8

SCT - Scattered clouds 3/8 to 4/8

BKN - Broken clouds 5/8 to 7/8

OVC - Overcast 8/8

TAF - Terminal Aerodrome Forecast

This is a weather forecast and has a stated valid time.

EGLF 111101Z 1112/1120 21016KT 9999 SCT020 TEMPO 1112/1120 20018G28KT

Station, date & time, wind, visibility, cloud are the same at the METAR

1112/1120 - valid time. In this case 11th 12:00 to 20:00.

TEMPO - Temporary condition which is no more than half of the forecast time

BECMG - Becoming, condition will change to.

PROB30 - Might happen

PROB40 - Probably happen. 

Wind Check

How we calculate the cross wind component. 

This is very important and based on the aircraft type we're flying. The ratings for familiar aircraft are:-

PA28 17-20 kts

C152 12 kts

We use the Clock Code to get the cross wind amount. Using runway 25 i.e. bearing of 250±10°

Wind 220 @ 40 kts. 30° difference. 30 is half clock face, so cross wind is half ∴ 20 kts.

Wind 210 @ 30 kts. 40° difference. 40 is 2/3 clock face, so 2/3 cross wind ∴ 20 kts.

Approach speed

If the wind is gusting we add 1/2 the difference in wind to the approach speed.

Thus 220 20 G30. Difference 10 means our approach speed needs 5 extra knots.

This is important on shorter runways. A PA28 has Vapp  of 70kts and Vatt 65kts. 1 knot difference is about 100ft stopping space on the runway.

Sunday Revision

Once again I've been staring at the skies, watching the planes going by. It was time for another lesson so I booked a double at the weekend. The weather was very mixed - sunny with heavy rain showers which made for a very interesting flight.

In G-BPTE we took off on runway 25 as usual, but this time with two stages of flaps so we positively leapt into the sky at 55 kts and headed west. Once in the air the scale of the weather was pretty evident. Ahead of us was a black cloud pouring grey shadowy rain onto the landscape below. Tony said to aim towards it's left hand side. I really wish I'd taken a few photos, it was stunning.

We flew around it's left hand side revealing it was a line of rain clouds snaking off in an arc to the south. There was a thin section ahead to our right and Tony pointed me through it. A brief splash of rain on the windscreen and we burst out the other side and into the sun. Awesome!

We ran through some revision of various lessons - stalls, slow flight, medium and steep turns. I think my favourite feeling is when I'm in a turn, looking out of the cabin window at the ground. Even so my steep turns just weren't steep enough as I kept slipping away from the required 60° turns. Slow flight went very well over sunny Berkshire and stalls were pretty smooth. Tony also use some blanking devices over the instruments to force me to maintain altitude or heading based on stuff outside the cockpit rather than instruments. That went surprisingly well proving I stare at the dials far too much. My difficulty came returning to Blackbushe. Joining on the dead side and trying to hit the circuit height and speed just seemed beyond me. In our debrief Tony and I decided it was sheer burn out - concentrating hard for an hour and then trying the difficulty of joining and landing. One thought is that I should have a quick snack before flying or rest in the middle of a lesson to keep my concentration levels up.

Big Ol' Flight Sim

I had half a day off work yesterday to take up a birthday present from my lovely wife - a 30 minute session in an airliner flight simulator at iPilot at the Westfield Shopping Centre.


The simulator was for a Boeing 737-800 with electronic instruments. I did one take-off from Heathrow, a landing at Heathrow 27-R and a landing at Gatwick 26-L.The experience was quite a good reminder of my flying weaknesses - heavy handed and not leaving enough time for the aircraft to react. This was much more obvious when flying a big plane. I'd love to go again, but it's almost as expensive as a light aircraft lesson!

Slow Flight Revision

Another Friday morning off work and off for a flying lesson. I'd been practicing my circuit walk though quite a lot, however since the weather finally favoured it Tony suggested a revision in slow flight at 2-3000ft. He did a longish brief running though the theory and exercises, I was left to alpha check G-JJAN, we hopped aboard and we were off, heading north west towards Newbury.


He gave me a go at calling Farnborough radar which I messed up entirely. Still that matched the very poor captain's take-off brief.

He ran through changing altitude, heading and speed several times which was confusion to my poor brain. I seem to cope with things in a very serial fashion - height or speed or heading!

Anyway the basic theory he was trying to drum into me is:

• If we're too slow, put the nose down.
• If we're too fast, raise the nose.
• If we need to gain height add power.
• If we need to descend reduce power.
• Don't forget we lose height when turning.

The work cycle is height, heading, speed.

Regular FREDA checks - Fuel, Radio, Engines, Direction, Altitude.

And of course we haven't learned our pre-landing checks either:

• Brakes
• Undercarriage
• Mixture
• Fuel - check there's enough to perform a go around if necessary, fuel pump ON
• Flaps - select landing or descending flap
• Carb heat - apply and check for icing
• Hatches and Harness

Sunday Shabbiness

Another lesson on Sunday - it's nice to be getting down to it. Weather was fine for circuits, quite hazy but not too bumby for a change. Not such a succesful flight though. Terrible approaches and way behind the aircraft. Tony says I need to practice the walk though in the garden more or on the flight sim. So to cheer myself up I've bough a Saitek yoke and throttle quadrant controls on e-Bay.

I've found somewhere quiet near work to practice the circuit walk though on a lunch time. So while it's sunny you'll find me there, walking in squares and talking to myself.

I've also joined AOPA - free for student pilots, so that's nice. Very efficient sign up too - I filled out the form on the web and my membership stuff was with me in a couple of days.

RT Lesson

Tony's basic rules are WHO, WHO and WHAT.

WHO are you speaking to (Blackbushe Information)

WHO you are and where (G-BPTE, downwind)

WHAT you want (Request radio check, airfield information and taxi)

In reply 'repeat like a parrot'.

So the initial conversation at Blackbushe would go:

Blackbushe information, Golf-Juliet-Juliet-Alpha-November, request radio check, airfield information and taxi.
Golf-Alpha-November, taxi to holding point Alpha, runway 2-5 in use, Qfe 1005, (wind?)


There are three airfield comms standards:-

Radio: Advise of ground movement and air information. They have no control and are simply a central point for information.

Info: Control ground movement only, up to the runway. Provide air information.

ATC: Control ground, runway, circuit and approach. May have different frequencies for different services - ground, approach, tower and ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service).

Further Friday Flying

I had half a day off work on Friday and managed to squeeze in another couple of lessons. Once again the weather was pretty clear but very bumpy which made the finals approach pretty interesting. Tony thinks I'm getting better at the first three quarters of the circuit, but neither of us are happy with approach and landing. Tony had a go at videoing the sessions - it will be interesting to see those!

So I need to work on getting ahead of the aircraft while turning from downwind to base and turning from base to final. 

We also had a long briefing about RT, classifications of airfield radio and responsibilty.