However, at last the diary dates came around and on Monday I was at Blackbushe checking out G-BLWV in a howling cold wind. It was such a different experience to being on the ramp at sunrise on a warm day in Naples. There is a new regime at Blackbushe Aviation so that when using one of their aircraft you exchange your car keys for the aircraft keys and a netting bag containing a checklist, fuel tester, hi-vis waistcoat, and a headset. I guess the headset could be useful for a passenger. The fuel-tester is also useful if the aircraft has been refuelled. When I was at Naples Air Centre you always tested the fuel using a GATS jar before every flight. The idea is to collect the tested fuel in this jar and then pour it back into the tank (through the gauze filter). Dumping the fuel on the ramp was not allowed. Having said that, one of the fuellers used to fill the tanks until the fuel was running down the wings and there was no way you could empty the fuel into the tank.
Having carried out the external checks on WV, I did some of the internal checks before taxiing over to the fuel bay to top up the tanks. My instructor Christian came over to the aircraft as it was being filled. We then moved away from the pumps, completed the checks and took off on runway 07 that was almost straight into that wind. We departed the area to go through the various manoeuvres that are checked on the skills test. There was cloud at 2400 feet but this was just enough to allow the planned manoeuvres to proceed. In general I was OK but there were some areas where improvement is needed. My radio procedures were poor as I did not really know what I should be saying. My landing approach back at Blackbushe was not great either because my airspeed was rather low on a few occasions. It just goes to show how rusty I got in just over two weeks. So my homework was to read CAP413 (the 110 page document on radio procedures), get used to the UK charts, plan a visual nav. route and log from Blackbushe to overhead Marlborough, think about how I would handle the promised diversion, get my head back around the correct speeds for various flap settings on approach, etc. This first flight back in home territory was a bit of a wake up call to get re-focused on flying and my next lesson was planned for Wednesday the 22nd.
The main differences that I noticed between Florida flying and UK flying are :-
Warm and sunny in Fl, and cold and windy in UK
Florida is flat and the altimeter is set for xx.xx inches of mercury at sea level. There is no QFE or QNH. The highest place that I flew to was Punta Gorda that has an elevation of 25 ft above sea level whereas Naples is 8 ft.
The look of the charts is very different and a lot of detail is different such as they show the morse code ID on the VOR’s on a US chart.
The radio procedures and terminology are significantly different.
The US have a lot of local weather radio stations for getting the weather in the area you are flying, whereas in the UK this is limited.
The Florida terrain can be difficult for visual navigation (especially over the Everglades) whereas it is easier to pick up significant features in the UK.
The aircraft registrations are different. Most of the fleet at NAC had registrations in the format N***AC (where *** is a three digit number and the NAC is rather like Naples Air Center). So when flying amongst many other NAC aircraft, you got used to ignoring the AC part of radio calls and tuned one’s ear to pick up on the numeric part. Now back in the UK the abbreviated call sign uses Golf and the last two letters of the registration. So now I need to retune my ears and brain to pay special attention to the last letters that I was previously partially ignoring.
Having done my homework and regained my focus, I set off for my 1:30pm lesson at Blackbushe. Christian checked over my chart and log and was happy with them. Today was reasonably sunny for the first time in ages and so the cold east wind was slightly offset by some sunshine as I checked over G-CCHT. This is a C152 that I had not flown before. It also needed the fuel tanks topping up. After I had got the engine started, I could not get the brakes to release. After many attempts to free them I gave up, shut the engine down and went back to the school offices. Christian came out and found that one wheel had the brakes locked. Rocking the aircraft backwards and forwards whilst I sat in the cockpit and applied and released the brakes did the trick. I got everything re-started and taxied to the fuel pumps. Whilst the aircraft was being refuelled I was able to take my chart and log from the cockpit and put the last bit of input in which was the compass deviation for that aircraft.
We took off on runway 07 that was again almost straight into the east wind and I turned in the right hand circuit direction to start my nav exercise from overhead the airfield. I actually kept turning and went past my planned heading of 285 before realising and getting back on the correct heading. The visual navigation went well and my radio procedures were much better. Soon after I took off Christian did say that I should be talking to Farnborough Radar so I did this and missed my first visual checkpoint in the process. The rest went to plan and with the tailwind we reach Marlborough in under 20 minutes. Overhead Marlborough, Christian asked me to divert to Henley on Thames and I struggled to find this on the chart. This was my first ever diversion and I did make some mistakes. Firstly my maths let me down and I worked out the heading wrongly although I realised this within minutes and recovered from my mistake. I did start to use a VOR and did not identify it plus did not really use it at all having messed up my original heading. I did not hear some of the radio calls intended for me. As I approached Henley on Thames, Christian had to tell me to descend because the chart detailed some height restrictions as we neared Heathrow. So quite a catalogue of errors but hopefully I shall not repeat them. Once near Henley I was asked to route for Blackbushe and this time I was at 90 degrees to the wind and Christian asked me what my maximum track error due to wind could be. I did not know but do now. Typically the max error in degrees is 60% of the wind speed in knots. I soon had visual contact with Blackbushe and requested a frequency change. Blackbushe information virtually gave me straight in clearance and soon we were back on the ground after I flared a bit too early this time. I was amazed that we had been to Marlborough and Henley on Thames and back in just about and hour. It would have taken 3 or 4 times as long in a car.
At the end of the lesson Christian reported on the areas where I had improved and also the new mistakes. Overall I did feel a big benefit from this flight and flying over UK airspace seemed less daunting. I just need to learn from my mistakes.
I will be doing more diversion work in my next lessons that are after the weekend.
I have no pictures in this post. Next time I hope to include a few if the weather allows.
I’m glad to be flying again.
Peewit
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