Will try and keep this one shorter.
Lesson #4 - Medium Turns
This one had my nerves jangling. Arrived at the aerodrome expecting the worst. The weather forecast was heavy showers, 4K vis, broken cloud. FI looked at me and smiled: "Perfectly flyable. Will make a better pilot of you".
Cocky me, went straight into the checklists while my FI chatted with a colleague. Cocky me did the internal checks and was totally satisfied. Cocky me did the pre-taxy checks and started up the aircraft. Throttled up, didn't move an inch.
Lesson 1 for today: don't miss out the chocks in full view of the flying school and the mechanics fixing a bizjet over the taxyway.
So up we went into a sky that looked as if it had had the stuffing ripped out of it by a terrier.
Take off was spot on, and I instinctively trimmed the climb out and took us out of the zone without much instruction. That's all feeling very comfortable and second nature now, as are the decents. I turned onto a bearing so as to avoid a large CB and headed out over the sea where there was, apparently, some clearer air.
We levelled at 1800 to stay below the base, a base which became considerably blacker, and which suddenly began throwing hailstones at me, giving my FI the opportunity to teach me how to look out for wing icing. Thankfully the hail didn't stick. "Looks like we're in hyperspeed doesn't it?" my FI smiled, as I recalled a section in my Met book I remember stating: 'NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, FLY THROUGH HAIL LEST YE BE TOAST'.
What really unsettled me was the updraft from the cloud. I glanced at the VSI to see that we were rising at 1000 ft/min and nothing I did to the stick would level that off. It felt like being sucked up. The airspeed was steady, and my FI told me it was fine, just ride it to the other side. It's the first time I've felt *totally* at the mercy of the elements and I have to admit to being scared. But he was cool as a cucumber and never touched the controls, so I had faith that I was in fact in some control. It felt like we were riding white water.
We got tho the other side, climbed up to 4K and found a clear patch between clouds to practice turns over the blue sea. This is by far the hardest lesson I've done. Vis was great between the showers but there was virtually no horizon and 30 degrees felt massive! Had to really force myself to fight the survival instinct and bank it over. I could see the sea, the cliffs, and the rocks below my wing but because I had no horizon datum I was relying on the AH too much and fixating on the VI to hold height. My instructor covered up the VI and it became easier when I stopped chasing it. First few turns I lost 100-200 ft. Then when I focussed on not losing height I kept missing the heading, or forgetting what heading I was heading for. By the end of the lesson I was only losing 20ft or so, so he was happy. But I felt massively saturated. Still haven't found the headspace to kick the rudders in yet, or retain any kind of situational awareness as to where we are!
The flight home was much clearer and the turns, with a better horizon, were MUCH easier, and I had more of a sense of when the nose was slipping down or rising. I flew the headings home, even got the chance to relax and enjoy the view for 10 mins, which was gorgeous and dramatic and reminded me why I love this. I did the circuit join (with FI calling out the headings) and trimmed and flew the approach all the way down with me on stick and my FI on throttle. He reckons I'm a couple of lessons away from doing my own landing. Fingers crossed.
I feel absolutely battered now. Makes me chuckle when I see the Pooleys manual refer to the horizon - four hours in and I think I've only seen this elusive beast once. Great fun though