Fri May 20, 2022 6:02 pm
#1912150
Unsure what today would bring as I drove to the airfield. Strange mix of rain, cloud, strong'ish wind forecast in places. VFR at Gloucester, marginal VFR at some surrounding fields but with a few broken at 1200 reported at Bristol. However, the general cloud base was around 6000 which would have been challenging to do some in-cloud IMC training without getting into the freezing level. We had a good chat over the options, and decided to go for the Radstock - Corsham navex and see what it's like when we get up there with a backup plan to do some IMC training if it was bad enough that we had to abort the nav.
So, off we went. All fairly uneventful. I need to work harder on planning my exit from the airfield area better and getting onto my initial heading - snaked a bit left and right for the first third of that but pretty good for the rest of it. Still getting a mixture of looking for features that are difficult to spot and ignoring bigger features but it's slowly getting better. I think as well, it's a case of just chilling out a bit. I feel at times that if I can't pinpoint exactly where I am, I feel lost. However, I've just flown past somewhere known and just not necessarily caught sight of the next reference point yet and if I wait a minute or two, I find somewhere that confirms I'm on the right heading. Practice...
More frequent carb heat as it was raining and we were skirting some light cloud at times.
It was quite challenging today and the instructor said it was quite difficult conditions with marginal VFR in places. We did manage to get up to 2500 for the first leg but long-range vis was not the best, hence tricky to be picking up the next VRP from a long way out.
Next challenge was requesting a Bristol zone transit. I was really happy with my radio work today. I don't recall any err, umms and it is starting to flow quite naturally. I've been trying to wing the radio stuff without writing it down and been getting it nearly right. However, wrote more down today and it's much easier - still a bit tricky being a left hooker and writing/using the PTT not easy. Got the squawk, told the controller the intended route (via M4 J18, over Bath racecourse and on to Radstock VRP), then got politely refused due to inbound traffic (bullies). So, we dropped to 1800 and just flew under. Turn at Radstock all good and the next leg up to Corsham uneventful. Even remembered to write down turning point times which I've had a nasty habit of forgetting when out dual but seem to remember when solo.
After Corsham, we went in search of a bit of cloud. Only found some broken for about 5-10 minutes so did a bit of basic IMC. Good to learn to fling it around a bit to make sure AI is working as expected before heading into cloud - another thing that makes perfect sense but great to be taught to do it. It wasn't the best intro to IMC as we kept popping out of cloud but it wasn't the worst. I quite enjoyed it for the short time but can see that it can become quite challenging. Height and level seemed under control - direction was a bit more challenging but I was happy to have done a bit of it anyway.
Back to Glos then for a SOHJ on 27. Radio was great, up until the point that we forgot to report 3m as requested. Was curtly asked (and rightly so) to confirm position and we were about 1m from the overhead. Non RT compliant apology seemed in order and it was quiet on the frequency so hopefully not earmarked as a troublemaker. Landing reasonable but needed a bit more right boot to line it up better.
So, another good lesson with some more experience gained. I'm happy. Instructor is happy. What's not to like.
Week off for hols in Crete now but back for a 4 hour lesson on June 3. Planned to fly into Cardiff as prep for my QXC which could follow shortly afterwards and then we'll use any extra time for a bimble and general skills.
35:25 flown. About 7:05 solo.
PPL(A) gained 30/8/22, started Aug 21, C-152, EGBJ