The start of navigation......

Since speaking last week, I have completed a further 6 flights, a combination of duals and solos. On Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, I flew my first 3 'General Handling & Circuits' solo flights. For these flights I get around 1.5 hours to go within 25nm of the airport and practise anything that I have done so far (such as stalling, turns & PFLs), and then return to the airport for 30 minutes in the circuit. These all went really well and I have been able to highlight the areas that need working on such as the PFL pattern and Steep Turns; however the turns were improving.

On Wednesday, I also had my first Navigation flight and it meant with my instructor I got to go north on a 115nm trip. The weather wasn't too good so the whole flight was flown between 2000-2500ft, a little lower than I would like to have been. 

Navigation 1 Plan

The navigation flights mainly comprise of checks. When approaching a turning point we have to run through, what we call, 'Pre-Hat checks'. We have to check that instruments are aligned,  and that we are sure about our next heading, altitude, airspeed and timings. When we have identified our turning point, we then turn onto our next leg and then do the 'Post-Hat checks' ensuring that we are now on the correct heading, speed and altitude, while the timer is restarted. 

After the 'Post-Hat Checks' we then do a Gross Error Check to make sure that we are heading in the right direction, otherwise we could end up with no clue where we are. After this, it is then time for the general cruise checks using the acronym CLEAROF. We then keep tracking for that leg and keep on track using 'Event Cycle Features' which are features we can look out for along the way to make sure we are heading in the right direction. For these short flights, its then time to approach another turn and the process starts all over again....

I'm not sure how boring all of the above is, so here is some pictures from my second navigation flight which I did today (Saturday), south of Hamilton.

Navigation 2 Plan - the big black line is a diversion that we practised in flight.

Lake Taupo on a sunny but hazy day.

Lake Taupo - the white dot just above the centre is one my coursemates flying the same route in reverse.

Not much has happened this week, most of us have been rather busy flying nearly every day. Hopefully we will be keeping this pace up, as we seem to be racking up the hours and pushing quickly through the course.

I've added a few pictures from the last week or so on the photos page, and with the sun being around, hopefully there will be many more sunny pics to come.