Extra260 Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 I spent much of yesterday (Tues) morning staring out my office window at the perfect weather And when I say perfect, I mean Perfect, not a cloud in the sky and not a breath of wind! I had a lesson booked for today (Wed) that I had to cancel, so while I was calling up to do that, I thought what the heck, I'll see if there are any planes available now.. nothing till 3pm.. damn! Of course I said "that will be fine thanks" NAIPS was reporting nosig (no significant change) till 6pm so with luck the weather would hold. When I got to the airport, the weather was still great, but it was hot (31deg C) and humid. Not quite perfect then but still better than it has been lately. The aircraft I had booked was VH-NAM, which has black leather seats, before I had even buckled my seat belt I was dripping with sweat and wondering if flying was such a good idea after all. Anyway, I fired up and called for airways clearance. ATC reported back that they were only reading me 2 out of 5! Bloody typical, when will the school fix the frigging radios (common issue on all their aircraft!). So I tried the other radio, but I couldn't receive on that one, however they did say it was very slightly better. I considered rejecting the aircraft at that point, but since the engine was running I figured I would just receive on one radio and transmit on another. What a pain that was, every frequency change (ground, tower, departures) had to be done twice. Anyway, off rwy 30 with only a few minutes delay for the airways clearance, off to the Barton training area. As soon as I got past Mt Ainslee the turbulence kicked in, not severe but lots of updrafts, one put me up 300ft in a couple of seconds! Once out of the controlled airspace I headed off towards the river, then did a clearing 360 turn to look for traffic. I did a few steep turns, no problem there, a couple of stalls and then stooged around for a bit, headed north of Murumbatemen and did a couple of Practice Forced Landings - and realised I really need to practice them with an instructor again. On both times I wouldn't have made the field I chose (first one short, second one long!). I also got caught out by the lack of detent on the second stage of flaps on NAM, not sure if it's worn out or just not there but I accidentally put in full flaps and got a lot slower than I had intended I only did two PFL's as it was hot and took a long time to climb back up each time. I could see some heavy weather building off to the west, so decided to play it safe and head back (as it turned out I could have stayed out longer), ATC cleared me direct to Canberra and offered Rwy 12 with a 5kt tailwind, I declined and told them I Required Rwy 30 (into the wind!). I've never landed with a tailwind before and didn't see any need to do so without an instructor sitting next to me! Of course they then had me doing a few orbits around Hall.. that was fun as every time I flew over the ridge at the back of Hall I went up 200ft! ATC eventually vectored me for a right downwind on 30 but first sent me out half way to Bungendore. It was then that I discovered my heading giro was off by 20 deg (ATC told me actually), but I'm damned sure I synced the giro/compass before I took off. I've never had it drift that much before. I was abeam the threshold before approach cleared me for a visual approach and handed me off to the tower. I was high and close so I chose to do a steep approach, tower advised a late clearance as a 182 was taking off on Rwy 35, in the end it wasn't a problem, full flaps, flared just right, killed the drift with ailerons, heard the stall warning for maybe 2 seconds and a quite decent landing. I was a bit slow letting the nosewheel down and wasn't 100% centered but I was quite happy with the landing. I was happy with the flight in general, but I think that's the last time I accept a plane when the radio's aren't working properly, it's bad enough that they are old radios without the flip-flop channel change, but when you have to do everything twice it's a real pain. I've booked for next week again to do some PFL's with an instructor, then I'll go out and do some again solo. In the mean time I really need to get my head in the books and get the bak done. Vincent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bosch Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 How strange ... I was having issue with the AI drifting in TAW yesterday too! I had to correct it about once every 10 minutes or so. That's fun when you're under the hood! I also think both TAW and NAM have had the detents worn down on all flap settings but 10°. I always pay careful attention to where I am positioning the flap lever, and double check where the indicator is when it stops moving. Good to hear you got back in the air again and was happy, mate! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dow Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 Surprised you had decent weather at 3pm! I went back to do yesterday's photo properly today, (grrr my expense) and went up with Alex (I think) in TAV at just on 12.30 with lots of building cumulus, anyway a perfect flight to the city, perfect 4 runs past the location, perfect flight straight back in to Rwy 12. But there was a mass of dark grey clouds coming in from Burrinjuck (slowly though). Love reading your reports blokes, keep it up whatever you do! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Extra260 Posted February 10, 2010 Author Share Posted February 10, 2010 How strange ... I was having issue with the AI drifting in TAW yesterday too! I had to correct it about once every 10 minutes or so. That's fun when you're under the hood! I also think both TAW and NAM have had the detents worn down on all flap settings but 10°. I always pay careful attention to where I am positioning the flap lever, and double check where the indicator is when it stops moving. Good to hear you got back in the air again and was happy, mate! Interesting, I've never noticed it before on TAW, I'll have to pay closer attention to it next time. Same goes for the flaps. Oh how I wish for a newer aircraft where everything works.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Extra260 Posted February 10, 2010 Author Share Posted February 10, 2010 Surprised you had decent weather at 3pm! I went back to do yesterday's photo properly today, (grrr my expense) and went up with Alex (I think) in TAV at just on 12.30 with lots of building cumulus, anyway a perfect flight to the city, perfect 4 runs past the location, perfect flight straight back in to Rwy 12. But there was a mass of dark grey clouds coming in from Burrinjuck (slowly though). That was 3pm yesterday 3pm today was rather unpleasant and definitely not good flying weather. BTW, TAV seems like a strange choice for aerial photography, bit on the cramped side. Love reading your reports blokes, keep it up whatever you do! Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgruschow Posted February 10, 2010 Share Posted February 10, 2010 I love your reports. They cast my mind back many years. In my day the radios were all valve models. Lucky if they worked at all. Very few fields had controllers. When visiting another field you had to locate the landing Tee to decide which way to land. The usual practice was to land on the most convenient runway, after a quick look to make sure no one was landing the other way. Downwind landings were easy enough. The scary ones were downwind take offs when you were way over MAUP weight. But it was fun. Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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