The final hours to build and a new type

Earlier in Spring 2019, I enrolled at my chosen commercial flight training organisation with a view to commence the commercial flight training -MEP (multi engine rating)  and CPL (commercial pilots licence ) in October 2019. With this in mind, I needed to build the remaining PIC (pilot in command) hours towards the 100hrs needed before commencing the CPL. I had a plan of how and where I would fly to build these hours but I took the opportunity to fly a new aircraft type, the Robin DR400 pictured above, which was kindly offered to me by the owner to build the remaining hours. 

Compared to the G1000 glass cockpit of the school Cessna 172’s, the Robin offers  ‘traditional’ analogue instrumentation, which I wanted to gain more experience of before moving onto the analogue instruments of three PA28s at the commercial ‘big school’! It’s not a major difference but it would I thought it would benefit my instrument scan. The obvious differences being that it is a low wing aeroplane compared to the high wing Cessna and Piper Cub I had been flying up to this point plus a few different systems like the braking system -using the parking brake lever instead of toe brakes which I had become accustomed to previously. This Robin is a joy to fly, light responsive controls and an impressive cruising speed to build those much needed hours. 

Before setting off to hour build, I completed a checkout on the aircraft with the owner which comprised of some stalls -  demonstrating a fully developed stall and base turn to final configuration stall , steep turns, and a PFL. We flew in the local area to the east of Goodwood before joining the circuit for three touch and go’s. These included a normal circuit, followed by a flapless and glide to land. With the checkout complete, I could now go and forth and hour build, but first I had to go back to work, after spending a lunch break airborne! 

Later that night, I continued to read the aircraft POH (Pilots Operating Handbook) and set about planning future trips...

Update from inplaneview!

Hi everyone! I’m pleased to say that I’m still here and I endeavour to keep this blog, inplaneview  going after a very long hiatus! It’s been nearly two years!!

Since my last post, I finished my hour building, moved house and commenced and completed my commercial flying training, so in a nutshell I am now a proud owner of a CPL! I couldn’t be happier to achieved this goal, one which I had been working towards for a very long time! 

As I write, the global COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed chaos across the world, leaving the UK like many countries in lockdown! The country still managing to function thanks to all the hard work from all the key workers. Being at home, it has given me time to reflect on what I have done so far and time to resurrect this blog. The posts that will follow will take a little step backwards, ultimately picking up where I left off, documenting my journey from then to now...

Reflections from a Summer of aviating

Another late post, sorry! Since the last post, the past 3 months have been extremely busy at work thanks to the scorcher of a Summer .  I’ve managed to rack up more hourbuilding and I also got married to my beautiful wife! This post is another short one in the way of words, instead more pictures to illustrate a Summer aloft. Enjoy! 

No flying on this day! 

The forecast was correct! 

A quick trip to Sandown, Isle of Wight on a lunch break 

A morning of flying circuits after the low cloud stopped a planned Nav flight to Rochester, Kent 

Another trip to Sandown thanks to the free landing vouchers in Flyer Magazine! The view from the tower 

A hazy morning perfect for a local flight to practice PFLs (Practice Forced Landings) 

Summer of hour building continued...

The plotted route showing the westbound transit through Southampton towards the New Forest

Since my last post I’ve managed to get airborne on quite a few occasions thanks to the superb hot weather we’ve been experiencing lately. My hour building has been a mix of short navigation exercises coupled with plenty of circuits and some genberal handling for good measure! I also completed a Class D airspace zone transit through Southampton Airport’s overhead which was great to practice the RT (radio telephony) skills and fly a heading under radar control, I will certainly make zone  transits a regular occurrence in the upcoming hourbuilding. Above is a snapshot from my VFR chart showing my westbound routing through the zone. 

Crossing the 20 numbers whilst transiting Southampton’s overhead

Keeping a keen weather eye on that fog bank drifting off the Solent, just west of Beaulieu, New Forest 

Home! 

On another short navigation exercise I planned to fly a straight line between two points - Thorney Island and Four Marks, which was a very straight forward route, however I wanted to practice a drift correction method so I was purposefully slack in holding an accurate heading, allowing the aircraft to drift with the wind at 2,000ft. As I reached the half way point on the leg shown on the picture of my chart below I could determine how far in degrees I was off track, by which I then corrected for the drift by doubling the track error.  The purpose of this being to arrive back on the intended track at my destination, correcting the heading to offset the drift caused by the wind initially. 

Inversion Flying 

Thanks for reading, more trips to follow...

A Spring of aviating

After a wet March, April and May proved to be a lot drier, bringing some much settled weather suitable to ‘commit aviation’ in! 

Since my last post, (which I appreciate was a long time ago) I have been checked out and logged some flying hours in one of the flying schools Cessna 172 aircraft which is having its engine ‘run in’. The reason for this procedure occurs after an engine overhaul or cylinder replacement, the purpose being to house the piston rings inside the cylinder walls effectively- created by expansion through high pressures by operating the engine at high power settings. 

Flying this aeroplane for some hour building has been ideal for navigation flights of at least an hour airborne because the running in procedure avoids any activities using low power settings like stalling, circuits, or flights of less than 45minutes airborne. However, an engine which is running in is absolutely fine for navigation exercises flown at 2450rpm- and believe me, you get to your destination pretty quickly, covering some decent distance! 

Over the South Downs, dodging a few snow showers, this was my first ‘engine running in’ trip in GNXOE 

Whilst I’ve been getting back into the swing of hour building I’ve been able to cover exercises like diversions, VOR tracking, navigation using a chart and stopwatch and creating CPL style  PLOGs for each flight. I try to fly accurately to CPL standards- +/- 100ft for altitude keeping and within 5 degrees of desired heading on the DI. If I can try and fly to these standards and cover exercises from the CPL course now, it hopefully should make the transition to this next stage a little easier! 

A FlightRadar24 track of one of my navigation/ diversion exercises! 

My navigation trips have included the following; 

Goodwood - Washington Int VRP- Swanborough airstrip-Uckfield - various diversions - Plumpton- Goodwood ( it helped sharpen the navigation skills by choosing small villages or private farmstrips which can be difficult to find!) 

Goodwood-Dorking- Goodwood - tracking both the MID (Midhurst) and GWC (Goodwood) VORs 

Goodwood-Uckfield - Tunbridge Wells VRP - Bough Beech Resr- M25/M23 Junc VRP - Guildford- MID VOR- Goodwood ( an anticlockwise nav around the Gatwick zone ) 

As well as a few local flights and a few sessions of  circuits thrown in! More trips to follow, thanks for reading!

Amongst the hourbuilding, I’ve had a few trips in the Super Cub too, great to get some tailwheel exposure again, I plan to do more flying in the Cub as part of the hour building 

Crosswind check-out

Preflight checks before heading off from Lee to Goodwood 

As hoped, February brought drier and much colder weather, enabling many people myself included to get airborne again. As part of a repositioning exercise, we had to fly one of our flying school aircraft back to its home airfield, I was able to combine this with a currency checkout flight in the Cessna 172. As luck would have it, on this particular day the wind was a sporty northerly- ideal for some crosswind circuit practice at both Lee-on-Solent and Goodwood  which both  have roughly east-west runways. I was glad of this as I wanted to focus on these with a patient instructor sat next me! 

We took off from Goodwood in the ferry aircraft, three on board- me and two instructors - one instructor to ferry the aeroplane back, the other for the check out flight. I flew both legs and experienced a very soft field crosswind takeoff from runway 28 at Goodwood. This was a good experience for me as it was something I haven’t done in a while- keeping the control column back to keep the weight off the nosewheel, intowind aileron - progressively moving the control column back to neutral as airspeed builds. To measure takeoff performance, I’d planned that if I wasn’t at 70% of my rotation airspeed by the midpoint of the runway- I would abort the takeoff. Luckily this wasn’t the case and we lifted off, pushing slightly forward on the control column to let the aircraft build airspeed in the climb. 

Passing north abeam Portsmouth enroute to Goodwood- picture credit to flying instructor Charlotte Dadswell 

The flight to Lee was uneventful, joining downwind for runway 05 for a rather surprising smooth crosswind landing! After a quick aircraft swap we fired up and flew three circuits before heading back to Goodwood. I needed these to satisfy the CAA currency rules before taking up passengers- 3 take offs and landings within a 90 day period. This was a good exercise to practice crosswind circuits, adopting the crab method all the way down to the roundout for landing. This involves using rudder to point the nose of the aircraft into wind all the way down the approach to counteract any drift. Upon the roundout, I apply rudder in the opposite direction of the previous input to point the nose straight-inline with the runway centreline and apply into wind aileron to prevent any drifting caused by the ‘sideways acting’ wind! 

It was highly beneficial to get some practice on these and hopefully use them often to keep the skills sharp. My next trip will involve another checkout flight to fly one of the flying school Cessnas which is having its recently overhauled engine ‘run in’. 

Till next time, thanks for reading...

Not so much a ‘dry January’....

Another day of ‘no flying’...

Well what can I say? I know I’m not alone when I say I miss flying! It’s certainly the talk and frustration shared amongst the flying types I rub shoulders with everyday....the weather! But it was January after all and any flying this time of year is a bonus! It has meant that I can spend time thinking about how to structure the hour building and get inspiration on new airfields to visit. It’s been a while since I last flew so it’s going to take a few refreshers to shake the rust off and get current again, so I plan on getting current on one of Goodwood Flying School’s Cessna 172S’s an aeroplane I learnt to fly in some eight years previous! A steady mix of genberal handling, PFLs and a stack of circuits should certainly help, I hope to cover some crosswind circuits too as you can never practice them enough! 

Anyway that’s about it for now, I (and everyone else) is hoping for a drier and more settled February so hopefully I can get airborne again, once the flying gets going again the posts should be more frequent crammed with more content so stay tuned! 

Thanks for reading 

This sight greeted me upon arrival at work one morning. It shows a very shallow layer of radiation fog blanketing the airfield. It forms when the land cools overnight and subsequently cools the air immediately above its surface. As this air cools it condenses and looses its ability to hold moisture so it forms condensation and fog occurs. It normally burns off once the sun gets to work on it, but it was particularly slow to clear in some places on this day in early January!