Learning to Fly – Hour 52 & Yet More GST Revision
Here I am again, stupid O’clock in the morning, its 0540hrs, talking to my Cockatiel and feeding him crunchy nuts cereal.. yawning away, I gets into my old ford who is called Mord, and we tracks off to the M1, which is always rammed, but I have no choice, have to get on it otherwise its “A” & “B” roads that are also rammed.
This is because until they complete the widening works of the M1, everyone including me have to crawl at 2 mph for miles to our destination.…. Oh how peaceful …
Anyways, I get to the airfield, the barrier is down so I have to park Mord outside of the airfield gates, whilst I sorts out Gunny. As soon as I get near the hanger, the security light comes on and the fucking security bell starts to ring BRINNNNNNNNG, this last until you turn it off or until it gets light…. Its now 0720hrs, its friggen freezing, the airfield is soggy and my feet are four times bigger than they was when I parked up, namely due to mud!
I opens up the hanger, turns the Alarm off “Ahh Piece at last”, and wheels out the Eurostar, by time I gets back to the hanger my fucking feet have grown again, “Friggen mud”…
As I have probably said before in previous blogs, even though I clean Gunny on a regular basis, she is at the moment somewhat dirty, a bit how I like my woman… “oh I’m gonna some grief on that statement from the Mrs”.
It takes me about 40 mins to put Gunny together, that moving other aircraft and wheeling out Gunnies bits & bobs. As I finish Rob arrives, “Morning GT, morning boss I replies, once you are finished GT, pop down to the office, and we shall have a cuppa before we start, OK Rob, see you in a bit”
Its about 15 more mins before I gets to the office, the kettles on and Rob is on the laptop, extracting the latest on the weather. Rob shows me how to get info from the NATS web site for fueture use, we have a coffee, books out and walk over to Gunny, “have you fully DI’ed Gunny, “yes Rob, we are ready to go, … really GT, well I can see one thing you have missed, … what’s that then… the friggen nose cone you muppet!, … oh bollocks.. oh how we laughed… not!
Soon we were screaming down the runway (12) towards the hedge at the other end of 12, bar forward, and we have lift off. Over the Rose gardens we climbed and out towards the M25. “where do you want to go Rob, err towards south mimms GT please, and climb to about 2500ft QNH, OK Rob.
OK GT lets carry out an HSELL Check. Things went a little pair shaped here because I made a statement about our height. I said we were at 1400ft QNH, and Rob said so are we high enough to carry out this maneuver, erm yes Rob, what are the rules GT. Well we must be above 1000ft, in a clear place.. OK said Rob so are we OK .. er Yes Rob… I think then there was some confusion between me and Rob of what I understood about QFE & QNH, anyways, submitted, shut my gob, and Rob explained what the differences were between AAL and AMSL.. after that we continued on, admiring the winter wonderland.
Once at 2500ft, the air was crisp, and the winds were light, which were blowing from the south, I think it was 170.. OK GT, lets speed up to 75mph, staying at 2500ft please…. I did so, but I was not keeping Gunny on the straight and level, but this attempt was better than previous attempts recently.
The next request was to slow down to 55mph, this I did, to a good standard I thought. By this time we were near Potters Bar, and Rob wanted me tor turn around and head for home.. OK GT lets turn here mate. OK Rob, I will carryout a LIFE Check, as we turn, OK boss said Rob. After the life check, we were heading 290 towards Plaistow’s.. OK GT, I would like you to put the aircraft in the incipient Stall position (well that’s what I remember him asking), ok Rob…
I told Rob I would carryout a HSELL check, which I did… and there I go’s pushing the bar forward and at about 48 to 43 old Gunny starts to just buffet a bit, OK GT back to normal flight.. That was OK GT, but why don’t you just take time to sort your self out a little, get the aircraft nice and level and then carry out the maneuver, err sorry Rob, I replied.. OK, once again I carried out the carried out the maneuver, this time it went better than before …. Good job, perfect, now lets put her put her back into that position, but this time lets stall Gunny, and then I want you to carry out standard stall recover, OK Rob, I’ll carry out another HSELL check, no mate you should be ok as we have only just done one, OK Mate.
So in to the stall we goes, but for some reason I fucked it up, the bar came back to rapidly and I was a little slow on the power,… again GT please, .. Oh shite! Into the stall we go once again, but this time everything went well oray!
OK GT, lets carry out a pitch only recovery at 2000ft, and we shall have another HSELL check please. Once complete, I carried out the maneuver, in Robs words OK, but could be better, so yep, you guessed we did another and another until they were at the standard required.
GT when you carryout the HSELL check I want you to tell me what height we are at on the QNH and what height we are above the ground, like this Rob said “ we are at 2000ft on the altimeter , and our height above the ground is 1600ft,… OK, and I want you to tell me that on every HSELL check like that… errrr OK Rob..
So you guessed it, from then on it was blar blar 1700ft, blar blar blar 1300ft above the ground lardy dar lardy dar..
Soon it was time to head back to the airfield, but on route we had an engine failure, which I screwed up, but picking the correct field, but forgot the basics and went in up wind, the totally wrong direction, so a bollocking of Rob yet again, basics, basics basics, he said ….ohhhhhhhhhh bugger!
The last maneuver was the 60 degree turn which I buggered up because I did a 360 instead of a 270, oh shite!, and again GT, and to the left GT and to the right GT… after tossing around in the sky for about 10 mins near Bovvy, Rob said lets head back to Plaistow’s GT, OK Boss
We had a over head join, and descended on the dead side for a right hand circuit for runway 12.
As we had a cross wind at the airfield it was a landing on runway 12, which is along the pylon wires, and then a dog leg into Plaistow’s. This runway, is not the best, and is mighty tricky, but I have mastered the other two I can master this one I am sure.
Soon we were back on mother’s earth, or should I say Derrick Brunts land, and taxied off to the apron.
During my debrief, Rob did say that it was a much better GST Revision session than previous and things were coming along nicely, and I was to stop beating myself up.. but hey, that’s how I deal with things, that’s how I improve, sad but true
Points too sort out:
- Understand what the examiner wants to see
- Sort myself out before carrying out the maneuvers
This session was much better, I think I still need another dual revision, and then I need to practice for a few lessons, that’s me thinking out loud, might be wrong, we shall see readers, we shall see…
Happy Landings
GT & Gunny Flexwing
