Around the island

My route around the island

Note: this is a post I planned to put out ages ago in November, but as usual I have been pretty busy working and doing the usual christmas festivities, so hear it is, before the year ends (approximately 4 hours as I type away!)

 On one very cold, crisp late November day I decided to do my first 'overseas' flight. Overseas in this context was a grand distance of 5 nautical miles! It took 45 mins to fly the 74nm round trip around the Isle of Wight, routing Goodwood-Southsea (southern tip of Portsmouth)-St Catherines Point-The Needles-Cowes-Goodwood. It was really beneficial to keep up my navigation skills, talking to another ATC unit- Solent Radar, whilst enjoying the views. I was astonished of how small the Isle of Wight actually is, its just a big two-dimensional diamond that has broken away from the mainland. I live so close to it, but have only properly visited it once in my life! That should change next year when I plan to land there at Sandown, a trip I was planning on doing on this particular day, but the runway was in a poor condition-thanks to the previous week's nonstop deluge!

       Approaching the Needles, IOW. Apologies for the picture quality, my camera was massively out of focus!

   The Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth

My trusty means of transport for the small adventure!

The green light

The view from the CAA house, Gatwick, after the Class 1 Medical (I was somewhat more relaxed by then!)

This month has been very productive. A visit to Heathrow for the Professional Flight Training exhibition started November off. I found out stacks of info, met some great people and came home with a headache with the amount of info I absorbed that day, let alone three bulging goody bags. It all relates to my next step ...commercial flying.However lots of money needs to be saved before before then...we will see how that goes! (Unless I am lucky with the few sponsorships out there!) Incidently, it was interesting to find out about a couple of sponsorship/cadet schemes out there in the industry as well as other schemes to help individuals climb the ladder of commercial training. 

I also passed my Class 1 Medical earlier in the month too, so as the post hints, I can now in theory go ahead and plan my commercial training (aslong as I stay fit and healthy!). It was a good move to get checked out with a Class 1 medical first, before big money is spent on hour building and commercial training, as it would be tragic to get through all training only to realise you cannot fly commercially due to a medical problem.

Autumn aloft

The first part of autumn sent us some good flying weather, so I took the opportunity to fly some more friends and family on pleasure sightseeing flights plus a solo navigation flight. The name of this post suggests flying amongst leafy valleys, tinged with browns, yellows and golds but as you can see, alot of my flights were local, focusing on the urban sprawl of my hometown Portsmouth. Many of the photos were taken by a friend of mine, which is really useful when you dont get a chance to do so yourself, because I am, erm, flying!

Home!

Hayling Island

On final for runway 24, Goodwood House

On another flight in early October, I undertook a short navigation flight from Goodwood to Beachy Head and back. Amongst all the local sightseeing flights, I wanted to brush up my navigation skills since the last time I used them was for the Skills Test...a very memorable day! I flew between waypoints marked on the map as VRP (Visual Reporting Points) at 2,300ft flying parallel to the coast. As I reached Lewes VRP, I flew a new heading- south east towards Beachy Head. Overhead Beachy, I did a few turns then headed back to fly my planned route in reverse. Despite the weather being decent, I found it to be quiet in the skies, I guess most people are stuck in some work office at 1pm midweek! 

   Brighton from the North

Approaching Beachy Head, where the South Downs plunge into the sea, aswell as a few suicidal sorts

a deserted beach at Seaford

Annotated map of my nav flight, shown by blue line

Perspectives from the Revival:year two

Sometimes pictures speak better than words, so here's my snapshot from this year's Goodwood Revival

Yours truly

P51 Mustang

 The cosy cockpit of a Hawker Hurricane

             In one day I learnt and absorbed so much information from these beautiful historic aircraft- flight line of Spitfire's and Hurricanes, I suppose I was learning on the job! Much of my interest before came from present day airliners.

  Hawker Hurricane Mk1, this example took part in the Battle of Britain 1940!

     P-47 Thunderbolt

Overview of the Revival-the view from the cockpit of a Douglas DC3

Home from above

Looking upwards-tail and contrail

 Friday was a good day-full of flying. In the morning I did a solo local nav flight over my home city of Portsmouth, as the following pictures illustrate. Then to round off the day, I did some gliding at Lasham as part of a club event I organised through my work.

 Approaching Portsmouth, overhead Hayling Island

      My house amongst that concrete,brick and slate jungle down there!

 Recently the weather has been really decent-clear skies, good visibility (for now anyway) and light winds. High pressure is in charge at the moment, but over a prolonged period of time an inversion can develop. An inversion is a layer in the atmosphere where the temperature increases with altitude. The layer can form a lid-trapping in pollutants,haze,dust, smoke etc from the earth below-which once it has built up, can really reduce visibility.

Inbetween gliding duties

 This was the second time I have flown in a glider-so this time around we looked at stalling and stall recovery and turning, and the effect of adverse yaw. I always forget how much 'foot work' on the rudder pedals is required in gliding, showing how lazy my feet can be when powered aircraft!

       Lasham Airfield, whilst under tow

Licence in hand

Just two weeks since all the form signing for my licence issue, this arrived through my letterbox last thursday. I was surprised how quick it was processed. So I'm now a proud owner of a PPL.

Naturally, as soon as the licence arrived, I was on the phone to the airfield to book out an aeroplane. I went up this Monday just gone, just for a few circuits, before my evening work shift. After being signed off at the ops desk I walked out to the aeroplane, the start of my first ever flight on my own...without the student banner...a very very amateur private pilot!

It was a very proud moment, lining up on the runway, 855m of grass runway ahead, a sudden uncontrollable grin consumed my face, I think I just realised what I had achieved for the past two and a bit years of training. Hard work does pay off!

'Oscar Charlie' after a short but sweet flight in the circuit...a very monumental flight