Finally - A Break in the Weather

Last Friday finally saw a suitable day for a lesson. I've had lessons missed because of bad visibility, turbulence, fog, snow and holidays.

This week's lesson started very shakily - awful circuits scarcely controlling a slightly different aircraft (G-BPTE), using runway 07 and a right hand circuit. However once the wind changed and we switched to runway 25 and a left hand circuit, it all seemed to pick up.

Tony said he was impressed with the improvement. I personally think he was just relieved to be back in one piece. There was a lot of rust to be removed and I think that was a good start - I just hope we don't leave it that long next time.

Happy Landings

Last Friday's lesson was the most positive lesson I've had for ages. I'd been watching the METAR all morning from the office. I saw the cloud rising, the weather clearing up and the wind picking up. By 3pm there was blue sky, broken cloud around 2000 feet and a 14 knot almost directly down runway 25.

We took off and flew towards Reading to get me into handling the aircraft and then returned to Blackbushe to do some circuits. For the first time I felt in control of the aircraft through the whole circuit. I even did most of the radio calls. My turns onto base and final legs were much more under control (except the last one where I think I was getting carried away)

Most importantly I landed the plane a couple of times without hands on assistance from Tony. A lot still to learn - there was a couple of ballooned landings, one go around but I finally feel I can see what I should be doing.

Snow Stops Play

No flying last week - Blackbushe is closed due to snow on the runway. Ah well, more time to prepare!

Here's a photo from 2010 showing Alpha-November with a bit of snow on her. This is Iceman's pic - hope he doesn't mind too much!

Cold, Cold Flying

Another blue sky winter Friday presented excellent flying opportunities today. It was barely above freezing on the ground and this week's lesson featured much use of carb heat. Tony said it was around minus 10 at 3000ft.

I was a few minutes earlt and saw the end of Tony's previous lesson in  Alpha-November, a spot of touch and go:

 

This week was more getting back into flying with a little climbing, descending, turning and slow flight. Air pressure was high - Qnh 1040 so Alpha-November positively leapt into the air. Maintaining and 80 knot climb was a bit of a fight! For a change we're using runway 07 so things are a little backwards.

Another fairly pleasing set up for finals ended up in another reasonable landing, with a great deal of Tony's input I should say.

Tony wants to do a few circuits next week so its back to walking the circuit for me!

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!