Woke up early this morning! It was bad as I wasn’t flying until 16:30, so I had breakfast and sat outside in the sunshine. It was 22 Celsius at 9 am here. I went over my procedures and nav methods. I went and had another look at the airshow today. Parking was chaos, I had to spend $10 for parking. I arrived at the flight school around 3.30.
I planned a navigation to Hudson. It went pretty well, everything is much quicker in the Arrow when your doing 120 knots. My waypoints were 3 minutes apart, so I was busy. I arrived around 3 nm left of track, so I don’t think they were correct as I held my heading almost exactly.
From there I was given a diversion to Pierson. Diversion went great, arrived on time. I was given an engine failure not too far from Pierson and John said to make a touch and go there. We got down pretty close but they were setting up gliders so we just did a go around. We would of made it.
On the go around, I was given an engine failure after takeoff, and at 1000 ft, you don’t have much time to get yourself organised. You’re dropping at 1200 fpm so you’ve got less than 1 minute to complete a shutdown check.
I went back to Ormond, and we had to complete 3 landing types.
Flapless went okay, just add 5 knots onto your normal speeds.
Short Field – was great, basically flying the arrow at 65 knots it was more less all power. The second I let the power out it sunk onto the runway.
Glide Approach – was the better of the three. The examiner will allow you choose when you’re allowed get the engine failure, so I closed the throttle, completed my checks and it went so smoothly. It was one of those moments when the sun was setting behind us and we were slowly cruising down the runway with the nosewheel still in the air. It reminded me of the reason why I love doing what I’m doing and how it’s all worth while!
I forgot to mention that over the weekend I was with a new instructor called John Geary. John is studying in Embry Riddle, which is the national Aeronautical College. I’m not sure what he is studying, but he certainly knows his stuff. It’s really good that I got to fly with three instructors as I got used to someone new in the right seat with me. Hopefully this will ease the skills test. I’m flying with Stephen Fisher on Tuesday to complete my Form 170A, which really is the end of the course.
Talk soon,
Andrew
