Lesson #3

Time flown today: 0h 55m
Time flown so far: 2h 45m

I had my third lesson booked for 13:00 today.

I've arrived to the club 15 minutes before and found Pete chatting to Chris and Mark; I later found out both have recently passed their skills test and were preparing for their first trip to France, which they would commence as soon as I bring G-BTNH back; this is exactly the sort of stuff I'm doing my license for!



A few moments later we were doing the pre-flight briefing - it seems we will re-look at straight and level we've done last week, this time attempting to stay straight and level whilst increasing and then reducing speed, and then again whilst opening flaps; if we'll have time we would also look at climbs and gliding decends.



Briefing over Pete book the plane out and we're out to do the pre-flight checks; Pete goes over with me again over the walk around, and once we climb in he hands me his check list (I should buy now at this point, I guess) and I'm doing the pre-flight checks for the first time on my own - nothing too difficult, just need to keep track of the steps and follow the text in the list; even I can do it!



I guess at this point I'm quite slow at it, but that would improve over time, I'm sure - better be careful than quick, that's for sure.



Engine started, Pete calls tower - runway 24 in use again and he rolls us out; Pete takes care of getting off the grass, but it's all me taxiing from there - controlling both the rudder and the throttle (which is the new thing); needs a lot more fiddling with than expected (it's probably just me, though), and I don't seem to be finding the right way to handle the rudder peddals, can't get comfortable control over these things, and I will have to sort this out soon!



We reaching holding point B1, turn into the wind and I go through the power checks.



That done, Pete calls tower - there's no-one around and we're ready to "take off at own discretion".



Pete takes it from here and lines us up on the runway, but asks me to carefully follow through with the controls, probably so I can try the takeoff next time, I was thinking to myself.



I keep a watchful eye on his rudder work and I think I finally figured out what I'm doing wrong - I try too hard to not move the top portion of the pedal - the brake, which makes an awkward movement, when it appears I really should just maintain pushing forward the whole rudder, but make sure to use the middle of the feel for the movement and not the top; I shall have to try this next time around.



Ligned up on runway 24 I confirm the heading indication is aligned with the compass when Pete surprisngly says it's all mine - "keep us aligned with the centre line and throttle fully open"; I did not expect that.



I do a reasonable job at keeping us aligned and at 60 knots I pull the yoke, we takeoff; my first time.



Trying to hit 80 knots for climb the angle seems very steep initially, but then I have to push the nose down to avoid slowing too much and it turns out the angle is really quite shallow; given this I wonder whether I started to steeply to begin with or whether it was correct to start steep and then reduce the nose, I need to remember to ask next time.



Very quickly we reach 500' and Pete takes control, he turns us south towards Woking town centre and switches over to Farnborough radar.



We keep on the heading for a while, but shortly after Woking Pete hands me control and I practice keeping straight and Level; he then takes control again and demonstrates the exercise - he opens the throttle, speed builds up and he counteracts with the yoke to maintain altitude and, once the speed settles he trims; he then brings the throttle back to crusing level (around 2300 rpm, but really by ear), again compensating with the yoke to maintain level and trims.



It is now my turn and it all goes fairly smooth; I'm certainly not accurate enough with the throttle yet, I insist on doing either too small or too big movements, but I think that's reasonable for a first time; I think I'm doing a reasonable job at keeping straight and level though.



We've done fast and are now slow and so the next exercise is to open the flaps; I reach to the lever, which - when closed - is way too far on the floor for my arm length... and start to open it - stage 1, compensate by lower the nose, stage 2, compensate some more, done. I'm straight. that wasn't bad at all!



Now closing the flaps - stage 1...oops! closed both stages at the same time; the nose drops quite sharply, but - gladly - I don't get overly excited and bring it back to level.



Lost a fair bit of hight in this exercies though so it's only fitting that we look at climbs - need to remember entering climb uses 'PAT' - Power, Atitude, Trim

I increase the power to full, and shorlty after start pulling the yoke to raise the nose; we enter a climb and I look for 80 knots; the horison disappears infront of me, which unerves me for a second, as I wasn't expecting that, soon enough we approach the 2000' we're targetting for and, 50' before I start to level; exiting climb using the same 'PAT' I reduce the power, lower the nose and, once the speed's built up, trim back; apparently I've been to aggressive with the nose lowering thing as we end up closer to 1900'; something to work at I guess.



It's time to start heading out, and I handle all the turns to get us back towards Guildford and then straight over Woking town centre.

Pete calls Fairoaks and it looks like we're the only ones there so we're going to join into the [left] downwind; Pete points out the path we're going to take and I'm still handling the turns, which I find very exciting; we're slowly descending to the 1100' circuit height at fairoaks.



We're parallel to the runway, Pete quickly goes through the downwind checks (I have no idea what there are yet!) as I do my best to keep straight and level but only do a reasonable job; having to correct a bit to the right we quickly reach the point to turn base (identified by the chruch spire between the trees); I execute the turn and manage not to lose any height, which I'm please with, and shortly after I'm asked to turn us onto finals, I certainly expected Pete to take control by now and am extremely excited (yet very composed!), final it is and the turn, guided a bit by Pete hands looks reasonable if not smooth.



I'm now trying to keep the nose pointing at the numbers (as Pete keep telling me) but it takes me a while to understand what that means exactly; the windscreen is relatively big, even in a warrior; eventually I get it I think, and although I know Pete was guiding the yoke with me I'd like to think I did a reasonable job at getting us to the numbers; Pete guides me through the flare and we touch down; not the smoothest of landings, for sure, but pretty good; he's a good instructor.



There's very little to taxi from the end of 24 and LTFC, and Pete parks us on the grass. end of lesson 3 and I'm delighted.



Apart from doing most of the flying today I think much of my excitement came from the fact that I was very comfortable in the air; all the nervousness I experienced in the first lesson, and to a large extent again in the second was completely gone; didn't seem to care the small torbulances we've hit here and there, the thermals that pushed as up over the hills north of Haslemere or any other bit that was, quick literally, thrown at us; I was very comfortable and confident and was happy to look around during the turns and the climbs.



Not overly confident, which is obviosuly important, at any level - certainly mine - but confident enough to be able to enjoy it, and focus on all the other bits; and there's a lot to focus on.



As before I used My Tracks on my G1 to track the flight, you can find it here

Medical done

An hour of my life and £170 lighter I now have my medical checks required.
Wasn't too much to worry about, but had to be done, and would have been a real bugger to find out I don't get the sign off for whatever reason having gone through more than 2 lessons; having said that - I would have probably gone for NPPL instead in that case which only requires GP letter I believe.

Anyway - have the medical, and as a result a CAA reference number as well; I'm 'on the computer' now, which makes it all a bit more official.

Lesson #2

Time flown today: 0h 55m
Time flown so far: 1h 50m

My second lesson was booked for Saturday early morning (09:30) and, having leart the lesson the week before, I'm at the club at just before 09:00.

I really appreciate the piece and quiet; having two young kids it's been a while...9am arrives and the field slowly wakes up; shortly after the first takeoff is happening - this must be an amasing time to fly.

The weather is not amasing, and it looks like it's going to rain later, but for now it appears to flyable, which is good.

Pete arrives around 09:15, and we check weather and notams together before going through the ground briefing - it looks like we'll be looking at the effects of the other controls - throttle and flaps today as well as the effect of the 'slip stream' - the 'wind' generated by the engine and it's effect on the main controls.

Pete book the plane out (it's G-BTNH again, which I'm happy about) as I untie the plance; he then shows me how to do the walk around to check the plane outside; after we climb in Pete goes through the pre-flight checks, calls for taxi and it's 24 again; he rolls us out of the grass and I'm given control over the rudder to taxi us to the holding point while Pete handles the throttle.

Reacing B1 we're through the engine checks and, when completed, Pete radios and we're ok to go.

Takeoff is still causing me slight nerves, although I promised myself it wont!, but that disappears shortly afterwards as we turn towards Woking, and then head over Guildford.

Just after Guildford Pete demonstrates the effect of the slipstream; first he accelerates (mostly by lowering the nose) and demonstrates how sensitive the controls become; I have a go at feeling them and really small movements are required to get the desired outcome.

Pete then raises the nose and the speed starts to bleed out; at around 70 knots he lets me feel the controls again - they feel really sluggish and it takes big movements to get the plane to react.

And now for the slipstream - Pete opens the throttle and raises the nose further - we're still going slow, but now the air stream from the engine hits the tail fairly fast so rudder and elevators are very sensitive, but aileroins are still sluggish as they are aneffected by the engine stream.

A good thing to know..

We turn around and it's time to play with the flaps - Pete demonstrates first and I follow with practice of opening the flaps; we must first ensure we're within Vfe speed (104 I think for the warrior II, but its clearly indicated with the white arc on the speed inidcator) and then we can open the first stage of flap; the nost raises which I counteract with the yoke and the speed starts to bleed.

Another stage opened and the same happens again, this time the nose movement is even bigger.

Third stage of flaps is less about lift and more about drag and indeed there's hardly any movement of the nose but speed bleeds out much quicker now.

It's time to raise the flaps back, one by one, and the reverse effect takes place. all makes sense.

We're doing well for time, and its all going pretty well, so Pete suggest we'll start looking at turning.

I know the basics already so it's more a case of a) keeping the turn coordinated, complimenting the roll with the rudder to ensure the ball stays in the centre b) getting familiar with 'the picture' - the angle which horison crosses through the windscreen; getting to know this ensures one can enter the correct angle of turn without having to check the instruments, which give one more chance of looking outside (for traffic and for fun), which has to be a good thing!

I think I'm doing fairly well and doing a few practice turns to either side I get the angle fairly consistent, and I'm mostly coordinated; I learn that left turns require very little rudder (if at all, after the initial 'getting into the turn') whilst right turns need a fair bit more; Pete explains it is all a result of the rotation of the prop.

Soon enough it's time to head back and I'm turning us towards Ockham; where Pete calls in and takes control.

There's a fair bit of activity on the circuit (although not too much) so we're asked to do an overhead join for 24 left, Pete cross over the centre of the runway (or thereabouts) and then executes the three left turns whilst descending to 1100' to get us into the circuit.

We're turning into base, and then final, and there's a plane before us just about to take-off; I learn it's a visiting aircraft and they're not quite familiar with the turn out, so they talk to the tower and get instructions while we're getting closer.

Pete suggests this might have to be a go around, something I'd be the last to object to, but in the end the guy ahead roll out, and Pete - with nerves of steal (and 900 hours worth of experience, I guess) holds the approach and we touch down moments after the guy ahead has left the runway.

Very interesting.

A very pleasing lesson - I feel like I've achieved a lot in these 55 minutes as we go into the club to check out and write the cheques.

An interesting thing is that this time I remembered I've got a G1 phone, with GPS capabilities and Google "My Tracks" installed and I turn it on when we start the taxi.

The result is a tracked path on Google maps that shows the entire lesson, which I find very interesting; I'm hoping to remember to do this in every lesson (but will inevidebly miss some); you can find this one's here

Because I did not think about it for the first lesson I've tried to manually create the track of it from memory, it surely not 100% accurate, but should be good enough and could be found here (you will have to zoom out to see either track)

First flight logged

Time flown today: 0h 55m
Time flown so far: 0h 55m

So -the first lesson started on Saturday 25th at 13:00. I showed at elegantly at the club just after 13:30! I've had the time wrong in my calendar and whilst I was thinking I'm being extra careful arriving half an hour early, it turned out I was actually half an hour late....never again!

Pete, my to-be-instructor, called me as I was on the way to the airfield and so as I was driving to the club he did all the preparations- fuelling, checks, etc. to help me make up the time; there's plenty of time for me to learn these....

I arrived at the club and we went straigh into the briefing room for ground briefing where Pete covered what we would be doing in the air - experiencing (and experimenting) with primary and secondary effects of the main controls - the ailerons, elevators and rudder.

Obviously I have nothing to compare to to, but I think that the hours on the flight simulator paid here as I knew the material discussed fairly well (in theory!) and so fairly quickly we headed for the plane - a Piper Warrior II (PA-28-161) registered as G-BTNH.

Pete showed me how to climb onto the cockpit (which I've only done once, a few weeks earlier, when visiting the club) and explained the basics - how to adjust the seat (I think I can get away without needing a cushion, luckily), plugging in the headset, fastening seatbelts, etc. and then went over the main instruments.

With that done we buckled in and Pete went over some checks and started the engine; he then called tower and received instruction to hold at B1 for runway 24 and off we went.

We've started to roll out from parking spot on the grass and Pete turned the plane to the 45 degrees recommended to go from the grass to the tarmac of the taxiway.

We've started to taxiing towards the holding point, and - about a thid way and a couple of turns in, Pete passed the control of the rudder to me to practice manouvering on the ground; I did a reasonable job in keeping straight, which is not that difficult after all, and then experimented with turning a little bit to either side and returning to the centre, but I did not do a perfect job centering on the line; Pete reminded me I'm not sitting in the middle of the plane and so I had to keep the line slighly to my right, which I though I did, but clearly did not.

Final turn arrived and I directed the plan to the right relatively well, having to apply some brakes in the process, Pete then took control again and turned the plane 45 degrees from the taxiway centerline to perform the power checks.

The 45 degress is a good habit to avoid annoying any plane waiting behind when we raise the engine's RPM us as well as avoiding rushing into the runway should the brakes fail.

We then checked that all engine guages are in the green, raised the RPM from 1200 to 2000, and checked the effect of turning off either magneto (RPM should drop, but less than 150 RPM for each) as well as the effect of the carb heat (again - RPM should drop slightly - failure to drop would suggest carb heat does not work)

Last we checked that the engine does not stop when throttle is on idle (a good idea!) and with that power checks were done.

A quick check with Tower that we're ok to be taking off and Pete aligned us with the runway and started the takeoff roll.

Pulling back at 55 knots or so the plane started to gain height slowly as we proceeded with the runway direction; I was a lot more nervous than I expected to be and the ride was certainly bumpier than I thought it would; this is something flight simulator can definitely not help with!

Climbing through 500 feet Pete turned south towards Woking town centre and continued climbing, each minute my nervousness grow bigger, to the point I was actually thinking I made a very big mistake getting onto that plane to begin with...

During this time I'm pretty sure Pete contacted Farnborough Radar, but I wasn't quite following :-(

We were past Woking town centre, and quickly approaching Guildford when I decided its time to stop being a fool, compose myself and try to, if not actually, enjoy myself; at least I should calm down and concentrate on what Pete is doing...

Surprisingly enough that, and possibly the fact that we were now over 1000 feet up, and the ride was way less bumpier, was enough and my nervousness pretty much disappeard.

I guess that initially it all feels just incredibly unnatural, and the bumpiness from the thermals at low altitude in a warmish day did not help, but 10 minutes in I was starting to feel much better about it all, managed to enojoy the view a little bit and concentrate on following Pete's actions, which is a good thing! especially as we were approaching the practice area.

When we arrived to the practice area, just north of Haselmere, Pete demonstrated the three manouvers I will be attempting - rolling to either side and levelling off, raising and lowering pitch and yawing to either side.

He then demonstrated them all again focusing on showing me the secondary effect - when rolling long enough the plane would yaw to the opposite side (as drag is increased on the higher wing, which is having to travel faster); when yawing, eventually, the wing will drop and the plane will start to roll, and when changing pitch speed will increase or decrease. all logical stuff.

It was then my time to have a go!

I got control of the Yoke from Pete and started to roll the plane to the left, intially very subtly and then with a bit more confident (yet smooth-ish) move; sure enough the left wing started to drop and a split second later we started to turn; it is counter-instinctive at this point to remember to straigthen the yoke once the turn angle required is achieved as my instinct expect the plane to behave like a car at this point and level off on it's own if I straighten the toke; it does not.

A quick prompt from Pete and I'm straightening the yoke, the wing stops to drop further and we're still turning.

A second later I'm turning the yoke to the other side and level the plane off and then doing the same to the other side. cool. I'm flying!

Next I'm playing with the pitch - pulling the yoke the nose starts to raise, we're climbing initially, but soon enough the speed starts to bleed off and with it our climb rate; I'm probably being slightly to quick to lower it back as I'm getting nervous we're going to stall, but I'm sure we were'nt anywhere near it (I vaguely remember the stall speed of the warrior II to be just over 40 knots, we we're still doing 80 or so!)

Next I'm lowering the nose, and that's much nicer (although I dared not get too much ground on my windscreen) and the speed picks up again (ah, yes - and we're losing altitude rapidly).

Last in turn is playing with the rudder - I pick a spot on the horizon and apply right rudder; sure enough - the spot moves to the left (ok - we're yawing to the right...)

Next I went through all the exercises again, this time paying attention to the secondary effects better, but all very logical.

Soon enough its time to head back and Pete lets me do one last turn to get us back toward Guildford before he takes control.

We fly past Guildford and then towards the disused Wisley strip - which is easily identified for navigation (it is also the home to the Ockham VOR station) and a good reporting point before approaching Fairoaks for landing.

Pete turns does the radio calls as we turn towards Fairoaks, where we fly over the runway and join the right hand downwind in operation, we then follow the circuit and Pete brings us down in what must be a near perfect landing; I've nothing to compare to, but I'm well impressed!

There's a very short taxi to the club's parking where we shut down and step out.

What an experience! I'm so excited I can barely make sense....

I can't wait until the next lesson, which would hopefully be next week!

The beginning

Saturday 25th was the day I finally took my first flight lesson on the road to a JAR PPL license.

I've been thinking about this day for a very long time; it took me a long while to actually get this to happen for a varaiety of reasons, and eventually I signed-up at the London Transport Flying Club based in Fairoaks (EGTF) which is just 5 minutes drive from my home in Woking.

I've decided to write this blog for several reasons - first of all - like several other's whose blogs I've followed in the past couple of months, and based on some good advice from others -I believe that writing my experiences as I go through the training will help me digest it all; being able to refer back to my notes will help me learn, as well as gauge my progress.

I also hope that it will be a nice memory to go back to occasionally, and - I figured - as I'm going to write it all anyway, I might as well publish it as a blog - someone, at somepoint, may actually find it interesting; I know I found others'

I hope to come back and write about the time leading to mefinally taking the lesson, and deciding on LTFC, but first, before it gets all mixed up with other things that rush through my head - I should write about the first lesson...