Mon Jun 29, 2015 9:55 pm
#1385945
I am always torn when crossing the Bristol Channel as to whether to cross Nash-Minehead which is five mins shorter but at lower altitude under 2000' then 3000' or cross Porthcawl-Linton and climb and climb outside the airspace.
Usually though if weather permits I cross at Porthcawl and have never (until Friday) come close to infringing there.
The track almost tells the story on its own - the curved 'homing'to my visual waypoint as I failed to allow sufficient for the drift, the points at which I tried to sort it out.
I can see two main causes - stronger than forecast westerly making my heading 'wrong' and a flaky aerial meaning I was spending a lot of time trying to establish two way comms for the water crossing and troubleshooting the issue, rather than monitoring track and registering the fact that while the nose was indeed pointing towards and slightly west of Linton I was nonetheless drifting further and further east.
GPS was present but shoved temporarily behind camping gear out of the way while I was faffing swapping aerials and headsets. I checked the track only later after landing and was past the airspace before it was on my lap again.
Fortunately while Cardiff couldn't hear me, I could hear them perfectly so was able to adjust somewhat, although it was so close, that if they'd wanted to call it an infrigement they'd frankly have been perfectly justified!
Happily, they were more concerned with making sure I stayed in touch until I was safe and dry the other side and perserverd with making sense of my poor transmission strength until I coasted in.
Usually though if weather permits I cross at Porthcawl and have never (until Friday) come close to infringing there.
The track almost tells the story on its own - the curved 'homing'to my visual waypoint as I failed to allow sufficient for the drift, the points at which I tried to sort it out.
I can see two main causes - stronger than forecast westerly making my heading 'wrong' and a flaky aerial meaning I was spending a lot of time trying to establish two way comms for the water crossing and troubleshooting the issue, rather than monitoring track and registering the fact that while the nose was indeed pointing towards and slightly west of Linton I was nonetheless drifting further and further east.
GPS was present but shoved temporarily behind camping gear out of the way while I was faffing swapping aerials and headsets. I checked the track only later after landing and was past the airspace before it was on my lap again.
Fortunately while Cardiff couldn't hear me, I could hear them perfectly so was able to adjust somewhat, although it was so close, that if they'd wanted to call it an infrigement they'd frankly have been perfectly justified!
Happily, they were more concerned with making sure I stayed in touch until I was safe and dry the other side and perserverd with making sense of my poor transmission strength until I coasted in.
"Let's go flying"
Scribblings of a novice PPL
Scribblings of a novice PPL