Lesson 5

Turning

Conditions were great today, not a breath of wind when I got out of the car, not too hot, no clouds. I enjoyed the flight today because, among other reasons, it wasn't at all bumpy. So far although I've experienced only mild turbulence in a little aircraft like the skipper there is lots of minor adjustments needed just to keep the wings level, which is ok. But like I said today was smooth.

After the briefing my instructor sent me out to have a go at the full pre-flight inspection by myself. Following the checklist dutifully (and comfortably, mainly due to my in-sim familiarity with checklists, and plenty of book reading) I noticed one little problem. When he came out to see how I went I informed my instructor of the abnormality, which was obscure, fairly insignificant and easily remedied. To which he replied along the lines of 'I'm afraid that problem was un-natrual. Cheeky instructors tend to set these things up sometimes'. I'm not going to tell you what it was in case your instructor uses this trick on you, because it helped to reinforce in my mind the responsibility of following what at times seems an arbitrary list of words, that is actually very important.

I did plenty of taxiing, which I enjoyed. I'm getting a better feel for the pedals, and not breaking too hard, but still limiting the ground speed.

After takeoff we passed pretty close underneath a Cessna heading in the opposite direction. I asked my instructor if that was too close, ie less than 500ft vertical separation (Camden outbound altitude is 1300ft while inbound is 1800 ft = 500ft difference), and he said it was about right and explained the importance of maintaining the correct altitudes. As he said, if I was a bit too high and the Cessna was a bit too low things could get dangerous.

Then we built upon what I had already learned, and surprisingly I felt much more comfortable with some maneuvers which previously had been slightly confusing to coordinate, such as setting up a climb, which I put down to reviewing the notes from the previous lesson.

After demonstration, I went through climbing turns, medium level turns (30 degrees) and gliding turns, getting used to putting the horizon at the correct position outside the window. Also getting into the habit of checking for traffic before a turn is something that will have to become natural eventually.

Judging the angle of the horizon out the window is something that will take more practice, although I feel I'm improving bit by bit. I also have to stop looking out the side window at the ground. As my instructor said, like skiing, where you look is where you'll go. So during my descending turns to the left I was losing too much altitude, which he put down to the fact that I'm in the left-hand seat, whereas on the right I can't look out the side as much. Made sense to me.

After we landed we taxied the Skipper to the bowser for refueling. I learned how to earth the aircraft, put the card in and fill the tanks. Another step forward. Training so far has been very effective in allowing me slightly more freedom in the operation of the aircraft each time, like slowly opening up each aspect bit by bit.

Next level is stalls, which I'm looking forward to, although the weekly forecast isn't so good.

All in all a very positive day's flying, which only serves to motivate me.