Solos & IFR

This week started off well flying-wise with me managing 4 flights. I have had 2 solos and 2 duals. My solos were 1 ½ hours of circuits, and 2 hours out-of-circuit PFLs and Steep Turns. The 1 ½ hours of circuits was the same as before, however it was the first time that I have done it at Hamilton Airport, where it is rather more busy and controlled compared to Whakatane, where I had done the rest of my circuits so far.

The 2 hour solo (PFLs and Steep Turns) was the first time that I have left the airport’s control zone by myself. It meant I had to fly the departure away from the airport to a point called Scotsman’s Valley, hang around a place just north of Morrinsville for around an hour and a half, while practicing the exercises and then returning via the reverse track back for an arrival into Hamilton. All went very well and you can see my track below. You can see just how many turns & PFLs I did !!!!!

The above tracking system is what we call Spidertracks. It uses a little bit of kit inside the cockpit which reports our position every 2 minutes so that we can be easily tracked throughout our flight.

Other than flying solo, I have had my first 2 IFR flights. These basically consisted of me wearing a non-fetching hood, meaning that I couldn’t see anything outside the cockpit. This allowed me to practice flying entirely on the instruments, which could be very helpful if we ever inadvertently entered some cloud where we would have no outside cues. I have a further 4 IFR flights in the Katana practising much of the same sort of stuff.

IFR Hood

Away from flying, not much else has happened this week. We have just seen on our notice board here at Clearways that 3 of our CP106 coursemates are supposed to be joining us at the end of November. Bearing in mind that we’ve only been here just under two months now, it feels that we have been here for a lot longer than that; we have though been very lucky to have got so much flying done so far. Hopefully, the weather will stay true to the forecast as we have sunshine and 22/23 degrees for the next 5 days (none of the snow like back in the UK). It just better stay nice tomorrow as I have my second out-of-circuits solo with a Sunday alarm of 06:30AM. Nice.

Speak next week….