A pilot diary from Sydney, Australia.
Inspired by http://anthonyjhicks.com/flying/
Thanks to Basair, Curtis Aviation and Schofields Flying Club.
Thursday 15th December 2005 - 2.0H TT107.4H – Bankstown/Nowra/Bankstown – I need a fix of aviation – seven weeks is too long to spend away from flying. No licence received from CASA as yet so I am required to bring an instructor along, which I probably would have done anyway, given my lack of recency.
It was a very relaxed and cruisy departure – there was no one testing me or evaluating me, Simon was merely advising and assisting, lending experience to the flight. We got a clearance to track through the class C airspace south of Sydney airport and headed off down the coast for Kiama. Simon and I were both struck for the brilliant colours of the water. I was a little concerned at first that I had plotted my course too far over the sea. The coast arcs inwards between Stanwell and Wollongong, whereas we were flying a straight line. No matter, the water looked lovely and inviting anyway.
Contacted Nowra Approach and was cleared in to Nowra aerodrome. Being a military aerodrome the military controllers have slightly different rules to civilian controllers. They required me to read back reporting requirements, which civilian regs stipulate you are not to do, I requested a descent to avoid cloud, they replied I was cleared for a visual approach, which with civilian regs means I am free to manoeuvre within 5 miles of the aerodrome, but with the military appears to mean a free for all. They allowed me to continue to squawk 1200 in controlled airspace.
No matter, we checked out the sights and made an approach into Nowra. I made my usual error of making my approach too close to the runway and consequently we were too high on final. Simon selected 40 degrees of flap, and it was like someone had pushed the ‘down’ button. A black and orange insect appeared from nowhere and bumped drunkenly around the cockpit. Maybe it was the concentration but for some reason it looked huge and dangerous.
“What is that?” asks Simon.
“I think it’s a bee,” I said rather distractedly. My attention was elsewhere and I had no spare brain capacity to process the consequences of a bee in the cockpit.
“Maybe it’s a wasp!” exclaims Simon.
“Thanks, buddy,” I reply and get on with the approach. I haul back on the yoke in the flare, flaps up, power on and off we go again. Once we were safely in the climb I looked around for the mystery insect again, which appears to have miraculously transmogrified into a harmless ladybug.
We head back to Bankstown and chat merrily. It is a beautiful day, visibility is great and there are enough puffy clouds around to make the sky interesting, but not dangerous. Simon spots an aeroplane ahead performing aerobatics. We call up on the local frequency and get no response. We then give him a wide berth and descend to 2500 feet. As we go past we continue to watch the Robin looping and rolling.
2RN radio mast is impossible to spot as usual until Simon points out a new Bunnings Warehouse has been built nearby. Forget the radio mast, report over the hardware shop. Back in for a slightly hot landing.
Friday 6th January 2006 – 1.8H TT109.2H – Bankstown Circuits – Not sure if I should post the events of this day in it’s entirety, but I guess I can claim mitigation by way of my lack of recency. I was rusty as hell. If I thought I was rusty before when I made mistakes, I was wrong. I probably made mistakes because I am a ham-fisted novice. This time I learnt the meaning of rusty.
Started off reasonably, checking out the 172 I booked for the morning found a depressed (read flat) nose oleo. It strikes me that you might not know what that is, so I’ll tell you. It’s the shock absorber for the front wheel. It needs to have a little spring in it to smooth out the landings. It had none and needed a pump up, so out came the Mobil truck for a quick whiff of air. Mr Cessna, in his infinite wisdom, placed the valve deep inside the engine bay, necessitating the removal of a large number of screws to remove the engine cowling before we could even see the thing.
That fixed and the aircraft pre-flighted (pre-flown?) I started up and taxied out, only to find I was swinging rapidly to the right. Oh, no, thinks I, I haven’t removed the tie-down! How embarrassment. Negativity, the tie down is right here beside me. Perhaps the recent rain has bound the brake to the brake pad, a few pumps on the brake and a liberal application of power will fix this puppy. I continue to pivot on the right donut. What to do? Shut down, get out and have a look, is the answer I found written in my wetware. Out I gets and kicks tire firmly, before I ask myself, err, you did remember to remove the hand brake, right? Oops. I never use the handbrake on these aircraft, they are flown so regularly and always tied down, and so it seems pointless. Nevertheless, someone disagreed. Start up, HANDBRAKE OFF, taxi out.
The weather over the past few days had been gloomy and raining, completely unlike Sydney in the middle of summer, which is another story. Normally Sydney gets thunderstorms towards the end of summer associated with frontal activity. Large cold front sweeping west to east lifts warm, humid air over eastern Australia. Result - rain, wind, lightning, hail, Cumulo-Nimbii, and usually all over in an hour or two. Strangely we have of late had been the recipients of a northern monsoon reaching much farther south than usual. Is Sydney becoming tropical? Yet I digress. Suffice to say, it had been wet and rainy.
So Bankstown is in restricted VFR, meaning visibility not quite what it should be. I get clearance to perform circuits on the northern side. Warning – long-winded, aviation jargon filled explanation follows. Bankstown has three parallel east-west runways, a long centre runway for high-performance aircraft, a northern runway for arrivals and departures, and a southern runway for circuit training. I get clearance to perform circuits on the northern runway? Cue puzzled look from me and one brain not quite comprehending the implications of this, but I accept it and ask to taxi to the centre runway, instead of the northern one. Puzzled looks from bods in tower, but a Gallic shrug and approval given to taxi out via taxiway Yankee (which, incidentally, used to be a runway itself.) I stop short of the centre runway and ask for clearance to take off for circuits. I am told to line up, then commence circuits on the northern side and make left turns (instead of right turns for the southern side.) Brain finally clicks as to what I have already agreed to. Take off uneventful and circuit northern side quite good apart from momentary pucker wondering where the preceding twin has gone (hint – northern runway is departure runway.)
In for a landing, which is quite possibly the biggest bounce and kangaroo hop I have even seen, made or even heard of, open the taps and go around for another go, this time to the southern side. Things are getting a little more familiar now. Time after time comes the theme to the dambusters, follow the bouncing Cessna, although admittedly the oscillations are becoming less extreme each time. After about an hour and a half comes what I’ve been waiting for – a decent landing! Stable approach, good round out, good hold off, crosswind technique, chirp, and flaps up and off we go. One more like it and I decide I’ve had enough for the day, make a decent full stop and taxi back then shut down.
An eyebrow greets me as I pay for the session.
“1.8 of circuits?”
“Yeah,” I reply, “and 1.6 of it was rubbish.”
Wednesday 11th January 2006 – 0.9H TT110.1H – Bankstown training area – My first passenger, my fiancé Kirrily. Still no licence from CASA so I needed Rod to trot out to MHG with me to sign the MR. The day was already very hot at 0930, so he didn't seem too pleased to have to leave the confines of the air-conditioned office to sweat out on the flight line. The aircraft needed fuel so I called Mobil on the radio for a quick top-up. I heard a strange echo when I called them and when I popped my head out of the cockpit I could see the fuel truck no more than 20 metres away. I could have shouted to call him over and the refueller made sure to rub it in. My excuse that I couldn't see him behind the tail didn't wash.
Taxied out and departed upwind out to the training area, Kirrily being the perfect passenger, even spotting traffic before I did - what eyes! The training area was chockers with aeroplanes and I had my hands full just avoiding other aircraft until I could climb a little near Warragamba Dam. Kirrily then told me her camera was out of batteries (hence no photos) so we did some turns and headed back.
I heard over the radio that Bankstown tower was preparing to change circuit direction so we orbited a bit longer until they had it sorted out. The approach was pretty well spot on and we glided in to a smooth, straight, squeaker of a landing. I'm sure my previous circuit session had paid off and I was relieved not to scare my first passenger with a dodgy landing.
Kirrily paid me the ultimate compliment when I asked her how the landing was.
"It looked easy," she said. There you have it - I make 'em look easy.
Tuesday 29th March 2006 – 1.2H TT112.3H – Bankstown training area – My licence having finally arrived from CASA, and five months in the making, I decided to ease back into flying by booking a familiarisation flight with Basair in a new Tecnam. My plan is to use these neat little aircraft for for shorter cross country flights in the months to come. They suit my purpose admirably, simple, cheap, reliable, excellent visibility. On the downside they have no navaids apart from GPS (which is a blessing in disguise,) and they are only a two seater, so only one passenger at most.
I met a serious young instructor named John who showed me the primary features and attributes of the Tecnam, what to check, what to look for, what was out of the ordinary. It is unlike anything I've flown before. A joystick, no big deal, but having to grip it with my left hand instead of my right had me a bit worried. No mixture control - the Rotax automatically adjusts the mixture. A handbrake instead of differential footbrakes, requiring quick hands to go from the throttle to the brake.
Actually it takes very little to adjust to the aircraft, after wrestling with the seat belts to get strapped in. Removing the mixture control reduces the workload, the handbrake is a little tricky at first but no big deal and the left handed joystick feels natural almost straight way. The sliding bubble canopy gives excellent visibility. Power changes require large amounts of rudder, fine by me, and the thing climbs dramatically for a tiny piston engined thing.
John and I headed out to the training area, dodging large clouds as we went, did some steep turns, the controls feeling nicely balanced. Practiced a forced landing and found it wants to glide forever, a very clean design. Back to Bankstown for some circuits. The clean design means that it can be difficult to get it to slow down and come back down to earth. The designers had the foresight to equip it with 40 degrees of flap, resulting in a dramatic nose down attitude on final.
Overall, I enjoyed it immensely. I look forward to becoming better acquainted with the Tecnams in the near future.
Tuesday 29th March 2006 – 1.1H TT113.4H – Bankstown training area – I trundled back out to Bankstown to finish off my Tecnam endorsement. The sky was clear and blue with some scattered cumulus, but kind of windy and gusty. A study of the Tecnams flight manual showed the crosswind limit as 22 knots, which is sizable and big enough to deal with anything we should encounter on the day. John was waiting for me, so we grabbed the keys and set off for the flight line. Everything started to slowly come back to me again - the delay in receiving my licence has really dulled my flying abilities, but like riding a bike, as long as the underlying skill and knowledge is there it all seems to come back.
After an impromptu lesson in prop-swinging we departed out to the training area, but I found it difficult to maintain altitude. This stemmed from a combination of my rusty handling skills and low level turbulence, which gradual got worse as the time afternoon went on. The turbulence, that is, not my handling skills. Demonstrated a quick stall in the approach configuration and the first attempt displayed just how docile the Tecnam is at the stall, similar to a Cessna 152. As long as she is held in balance she just wants to mush, rather than drop a wing and dart for the green stuff. My second demonstration saw me approach the stall more aggressive to try and force the nose to drop, which it duly and, a quick recovery in less than 100 feet and back we went to the circuit.
The sky was so clear that 2RN radio mast was visible from beyond Hoxton Park, we entered the circuit downwind and started some touch and goes. This was all going well, with a steadily strengthening crosswind to make things more interesting. John was satisfied that I had a handle on flying the Tecnam, called enough and we went round one more time for a full stop. Only this time, drama! The windshear on final was drastic, the ASI bouncing between 40 and 70 knots and I had my hands full keeping to the approach path. About 70 feet above the ground and large gust blew us sideways and tried to flip us over, like we'd flown into the slipstream of a passenger jet. I called a go-around, which somehow didn't make the papers.
It must have looked pretty gnarly because I heard someone ask over the radio, “Err, Bankstown tower, confirm current crosswind?”
We went around for another go, were cleared for the northern runway at the last moment, straightened, rounded out, flared, touched down and taxied back to the flight line.
I really enjoyed myself and have the green light to take a Tecnam out in future.
Tuesday 23rd May 2006 – 1.2H TT114.6H – Bankstown training area – I've
decided to broaden my aeronautical horizons and find a more flexible aviating
solution - Schofields Flying Club. Anyone who has read these pages knows
of my long association with Basair, and I'm not severing my ties to them.
They were perfect for me when I was learning to fly, but now I am a
qualified pilot, I find they are no longer ideal for what I want to do.
Too busy and too regimented, basically. I would still recommend them to
someone starting out to fly, and no doubt there are PPLs out there who find
they are fine for them, but recently they have been found wanting, as far
as I am concerned. I don't really want to criticise them on a place as public
as this, because it really isn't anyone's fault. They are a fine bunch of
guys and gals there, hard-working, dedicated, professional. Our needs
just grew apart. As this is starting to sound like the advice column in
Dolly magazine, let's just say I needed to find an organisation less concerned
with the commercial exigencies of a training business, and more focussed on
providing mutually beneficial services and opportunities for aviators.
And say no more about it.
So
http://www.schofields-flying-club.com.au/
it is. They once were based at Schofields aerodrome, which is no more,
despite how it looks from the air. Expunged it has been from the
aeronautical charts, and don't even think of landing there, no Sirree.
It's just a mile long piece of tarmac now, not an emergency airstrip.
Trust me. Although the aerodrome is no longer there, the club remains,
relocated to Bankstown. I met with an instructor, John Lowing, who agreed
to check me out on the Piper Warrior. I had read the newsletter http://www.schofields-flying-club.com.au/newsletter/apr06.htm earlier
on and realised this was the same John Lowing who had recently successfully
negotiated an engine failure at Canberra airport. What are the odds of it
happening again so soon? Must be astronomical! Safe as houses, I
reckon.
So
I met up with John at the club, pre-flighted the aircraft and taxied out while
he guided me on the subtle differences in the aircraft from a Cessna, and of
taxying from the opposite side of the field. No biggie, just try not to
make too big a goose of yourself. I got as far as the engine run up.
Left
mags, drop, right mags, no drop, is that right? I must still be on the
left mags. Right mags. Boom! Backfire. Oops.
That's no mags. Try again. Left mags, drop, both. Right mags,
drop, back to both.
"Do
you normally check the mags like that?" Err no, I just got a little
confused.
Head
out to the training area, getting to grips with the new aircraft and getting
back up to speed with, ya know, that aviating thing. Steep turns to warm
up, did a few nice ones, including a bump from flying through the slipstream,
then some stalls. Discovered that the Warrior doesn't really stall the
way a heavily loaded Cessna 152 does. A C152 will just about do a
half-roll when it stalls with wing drop. I couldn't discern any wing drop
with the Warrior, not in the clean or approach configs, nor in a climbing stall,
not even a stall from a climbing turn. To demonstrate, John got me to
release the yoke. I kept the aircraft in balance with rudder and cut the
throttle. The airspeed fell, the nose lowered, the airspeed rose, the
nose rose, the airspeed lowered, the nose lowered - a classic phugoid cycle. Next I
released all controls and the Warrior gradually fell into a spiral dive, just
like Wolfgang
said it would.
"Ok,
lets head over to Hoxton," he said.
"Ok,"
I said.
"But
first," he said and pulled the throttles back. I demonstrated a very
slack emergency landing procedure, but he seemed satisfied, and we headed off
to Hoxton Park.
There
was only a helicopter in the circuit at Hoxton, and judging by the windsock, he
didn't seem too bothered by the fact he was landing with a quartering tailwind,
dropping to a dead crosswind at ground level. This resulted in a gnarly
picture of coming in way too fast then wobbling about as the crosswind roiled
and burbled over the tree line. It was just a bit too drastic for my liking,
we went around and we scooted off in search of 2RN. This was my
first approach to a non-towered aerodrome since the revised CTAF procedures
were implemented, and my lack of familiarity showed. Several radio calls
were conspicuous in their absence, but never mind, room to improve.
Gave
an inbound call to Bankstown, then revised and requested some circuits.
The controller seemed a little put out but gave instructions to join downwind
and remain at 1500 feet. My turn from downwind to crosswind was way too
long, as I was struggling to get to grips with a strange sight picture, and
strange instrument placement.
"Follow
the Warrior on half-mile final," the tower advised the traffic behind
me. In case you missed it, that was a negative critique, half a mile
being waaaay too long to commence a final turn. I had to use a fair bit
of power to drag us in to the threshold, but we got there and touched down very
nicely, went around again, turned at a more reasonable point this time for a
pretty good circuit and lovely touchdown, round again with a practice engine
failure on take-off and a glide approach, survivable but not ideal due to me
being slow to get moving. Taxi back and shutdown.
All
in all, a very useful session with John happy enough to give his OK.
Thursday 1st June 2006 - 2.3H TT116.9H – YSBK-YCNK-YSBK – Hoo bloody ray, I finally get to use my licence.
HQR, a Piper Warrior from Schofields was ready and it was a case of hurry up and wait. I got away late for one reason or another but made a reasonable take off and departure from Bankstown and headed for Cessnock. The weather was not great, but definitely flyable and interesting, scattered clouds above 3000 feet and occasional showers.
Found Cessnock ok and had my first experience with the new CTAF procedures. I have to admit that they work pretty well, better than the old procedures in my not-so-humble opinion. The circuit at Cessnock was relatively busy, with aircraft doing touch and goes, arriving and departing, all making their radio calls succinctly instead of rabbiting on about who was doing what, no problems keeping a metal picture of what was going on. Made a couple of touch and goes then departed south for Bankstown.
I must have added instead of subtracted magnetic deviation when preparing my flight plan, because I found I was way off track by the time I got to Mt McQuoid. My efforts to 1-in-60 my way back weren't doing anything at all, so I tracked direct for Calga NDB, which was adjacent to my flight planned track, resumed my heading and continued on.
The occasional showers treated me to
a rainbow - from above! Very nice seeing the colourful arc stretch from
one side of the plane to the other. Entered Bankstown, southern side,
nice easy landing, held to land long for a quicker taxi back to the flying club
and shut down.