After numerous calls to check the weather suitability and constant monitoring of the TAF we finally got the break needed to get up there again. We had a warm front move really slowly up the UK at around 15knots which brought cloud base down to 200ft and the rest of it was pure fog and mist, which is great if you have autoland equipment but not so good if you need to actually see more than a few feet infront of you.
Matt gave the initial briefing, covering some of the theory behind what was to happen today, I figured that I was doing quite well as I could reel off what Vx and Vy was and when they are best used etc but thought it was a little strange considering the amount of reading that I had done when I didn't know that Power Attitude Trim is reversed on the exit to a climb. I soon remembered thinking to myself when looking at all the pictures of climbing and descending in the study book "PAT going up, yup understand that, aha all the other pictures look the same so I guess I don't need to read them" How wrong can I be! So during the practical it was highlighted by complete confusion at times over what I should be doing.
Sorted all the paperwork out, less tippex needed this time which has earned me the nickname of tippex, although I guess it is better than my nickname from my biking days which was killswitch (the switch that kills the engine) Onto all the checks, yup everything looks fine apart from the rear strobe was out. Checked the engine and fuel and started her up only to find that pulling the throttle back to idle stalled the engine..... didn't expect that. Must check that again on the power checks! That was it, I was off, this time doing everything except the comms which I was told to research before monday as that was mine to do too.
Takeoff went well, held the center line and off we went, rotated at 65 and climbed nicely towards 1000ft only to realise that I had drifted half a mile off course already because I hadn't put any rudder in after rotation.... damn. Then into the cloud at 1500ft and a disorientating nav up to 5,000 ft.... nope, still cloud... this didn't look good, but then at 5,500ft I kicked myself as we popped out of the clouds which were at this point like really flat cotton wool and for the first time in weeks there was nothing but blue sky and beautiful sunshine. At this point I was figuring that it was pretty awesome up there, sunglasses on, thinking how dark and dingy it was back down there until we started the lesson.
"Lets ascend to 6,500ft" said Matt "Pick a visual reference point outside the window and begin the procedure" ........ urm, it's flat cloud as far as the eye can see, and the only thing in the distance is a tiny bit of dark cloud, which at a guess would be moving. Anyhow, that was the least of my worries. We began, LOOKOUT, Power, Attitude, Trim.... nicely on the way up on a Vy climb, dipped the nose at 500ft, quick check for traffic and back into the climb. Then exiting the climb the whole Attitude, Power Trim (reversed) completely threw me and for the rest of the lesson threw me so much that I ended up forgetting direction and ended up off course a few times, I lie, it was the majority of the time. Managed to nail the last couple though and we entered a cruise descent back down towards VRP Haxey and join the downwind leg.
Time for landing, just over Bawtry it was power back time, flaps down two stages and we were all lined up, this time it seemed less daunting, I managed to hold the centerline with some fine adjustments and apart from being a bit ground-shy it all went well once I had put some belief into matt that holding the a tonne of metal at 80mph at some concrete more nose down than I thought was fine. I touched down! admittedly with a little bounce but still awesome and loved every minute of it.
Next is two hours on Monday to recap and run through slow flight, stalls etc and Comms, I've got some reading ahead!
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