Its School Holidays, I have a few days off, the weather is great......What else to do? 

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An old video taken during one of my training circuit sessions at Hoxton Park. The aircraft is a Skipper

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17 April 2009

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February 2009


Woke up this morning and the weather looked great, so it was out to Bankstown to do my second Solo Navigation exercise.

Today's route: Out of Bankstown , over Warragamba Dam - Oberon - Blayney - Orange Airfield - Bathurst irfield - Katoomba and back to Bankstown. Flying time of 2 hours 54 Minutes.




I feel quite confident navigating, but the aim of today was to - tidy up my procedures and try and grab a few pictures with my phone. Achieved both. Pictures are not great, but importantly I was happy with my cockpit management.


Bankstown to Blayney . It took a while to get out of Bankstown. Just after I started up the winds changed and so runways were changed. By the time I got out of the run-up bay there was a queue - which was delayed when the first aircraft lost comms. Ended up sitting for about 20 minutes waiting for an opening - and it was hot in inside the plane!!!
For those who have operated out of Bankstown you may find it interesting that I still haven't used 29. I thought today would be my first but as mentioned above the departure was shifted back to 11L. I know how to use 29, but wouldn't mind practicing.

Once over Warragamba I started to climb, originally I was going for 4,500 feet but there was lots of haze, so I kept going up to 6,500ft. From here to Oberon is over the Blue Mountains and it is "Tiger Country" - meaning that when you look down there are no nice flat spots to aim for if something goes wrong. It doesn't really worry me, but its always a little more relaxing when yo arrive on the other side.

Below is a picture of the approach to Blayney.



Orange
I planned to do a "touch and go" at Orange, as I haven't been there before. So as I approached I dialed up the AWIS (an automatic weather broadcast on radio) and conditions were good. Making all the appropriate broadcast I entered the area and completed one "touch and go" and then headed east for Bathurst. Wasn't the greatest but it achieved my aim.

Bathurst
Original plan was to land, shut down and have a quick leg stretch, however after the delay getting out of Bankstown I decided just to do another "touch and go". As I approached the airfield I looked out and off to the right was Mt Panorama (home of the bathurst 1000) so I had to grab a picture (below).



I did one landing- which was better then Orange's effort , climbed out and headed for Katoomba.

Return Trip
All Went well. Looking out ahead it was hard to make out the mountains due to haze, but as I got closer I could quite easily see the town of Katoomba and off to the left was the airstrip.






Once over the town I started descending to make sure I complied with Sydney's height restriction, flew back over Warragamba Dam and turned towards Prospect Reservoir (entry point to Bankstown). Made it back to Bankstown, shut down and went in search of a nice cold drink....

What's Next
I am fairly confident in the navigation and general airmanship things but II want to do a session of landings and emergencies with my instructor and then do the Pre-Licence Test. This is a practice run to get checked out and confirm if I am ready to sit my final exam. Hopefully things should go good. I would love to just get in and finish it all this week but unfortunately work will have we travelling a bit of the next few weeks so see what happens.

Oh, and here is the obligatory "Hey look at me self-portraits shot - which just goes to show that you don't get any better looking at 6,500 feet.



Until next time........

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Very happy.
This week I passed my PPL Theory exam, which means I can now start doing my solo navigation training runs. The exam is the final theory exam for your Private Pilot License.
I sat the test in Canberra at a contracted exam centre. After making a booking I turned up an Thursday Morning, was placed in a room with a computer that hooks into CASA's web-based CyberExams. You are allowed to take in certain manuals and calculators (which are all checked). Once you are ready an exam is downloaded - which consists of a random selection of questions from the database.

I achieved a score of 85% and I have to be honest and say I know that the questions I got wrong were in areas I hadn't properly studied. In fact when I got to the last 4-5 questions about Human Factors (medical) I knew I had been caught out. I was also a bit weak in engine management with respect to manifolds and EGT - an area I should have read more about. So I went back to the start of the exam and double checked every question to make sure I hadn't made any stupid mistakes

For those who may find it useful, I took the following approach to preparing for the exam. Like most things - I didn't really start getting into the theory side until late, so a few weeks ago I kicked off a big theory effort. I decided I would try and use a variety of texts to get different ideas and different examples of practice questions. Some of the places or texts I used:

CASA's Sample Questions
PPL Sample Examination Questions
A great resource and well worth going through. Many of the questions in my test were the same or very similar. Actually if you look through the sample questions you will notice there are not to many Human Factors ones, the real I was weak in -so maybe I did get a little focused on the example questions and not the whole course curriculum

Rob Avery's PPL Exams.
Avfacts ATPL - Study Texts
This was a great help. It has 4 tests that you do, each takes between 2-3 hours. They are in multiple choice format (as is the CASA exam) and although they cover very similar questions to those on the CASA page - it also has a few extras that make you think. Once you have done the exam you go online, submit your answers and the results appear straight away.

If you use this make sure you buy a copy of the :CASA VFR (day) work booklet". many of the questions (weather, loading and performance) refer to the data in this book, which is also the same workbook you will use in the test, so its a great practice resource.


Bob Taits Private Pilot Licence VFR Study Guide.
Bob Tait VFR Study Guide
I used this for few reasons.

• First off I like the explanations it contains and it is easy to follow.
• Secondly, the Practice Exam at the back was a great final workout to identify areas that I was weak in (in the tests above) and wanted to retest.

If you are going to to do your PPL exam my recommendations would be to practice a few things that you know will be tested and are worth more points in, for the exam - which should make you feel a little more confident and relaxed. For example;

• Loading Systems - know and practice all three - A, B, and C. Each are slightly different and if you can do them all confidently it will help you on the day.
• Know and practice how to calculate Density and Pressure Altitudes
• Know and Practice Beginning of Daylight and Darkness
• Know how to do both types of Performance Charts (Take off and Landing)
• Know how to work out how to regain your track (1 in 60 Rule)
• Read through the VFR Flight Guide (VFG). You can use it in the exam and it has a lot of good stuff that will help you

Just knowing the things above wont give you a "Pass" but in my case it gave me a lot more confidence and the fact that I could do them pretty well also meant that I could do them fairy quickly - which gave me a lot more time in the exam to focus on other areas and time to go back and double check

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September 2008

Well the weather gods have been good to me and I managed to do my third navigation run on a bright and sunny day . This run was approximately 3.3 hours and took me out to Cowra, NSW.

I had been planning the run all week so that I had a much better appreciation of what I would see (lesson learnt from previous flights) and on the day I checked the weather forecast early, made a quick call to Cowra airport and the weather was as per the forecast , so all was good.

The actual route was: Hoxton Park - Jenolan Caves - Blayney - Cowra - Crookwell - Moss Vale and back to Hoxton Park

Hoxton to Cowra
Up and out of Sydney fairly quickly,(going to miss the traffic free ease of Hoxton when it closes in December), turned west and headed for my first waypoint - Jenolan Caves. As I passed over Warragamba Dam I was feeling confident that my planned track - taking into account the wind was correct. As we approached Jenolan Caves I could see the roads but couldnt actually see the caves. I had expected that and knew there was a tower nearby, which I saw and started to turn onto my new course. My instructor looked over at me and asked "where are the caves" - I gave my excuse but he made me orbit and look down - there they were standing out like the proverbial...! Back to the planned route and I was feeling comfortable - in fact I even managed to grab out my phone and snap a picture of Oberon


My next waypoint was Blayney (which I realised that I have never been to). We arrived overhead on time and without too much fuss. As we turned towards Cowra I looked out and saw the wind farm near Lake Carcoar, and even managed to garb a picture. To read about the wind farm Click Here!



Continuing on I was pleased when about 7 miles out of Cowra I could see the airport, although it was slightly off to the left. I turned towards, descended down to 2000ft and joined crosswind into the circuit. My landing wasn't my best performance, arriving over the threshold a bit to slow. We landed safely, checked fuel and prepared to get going again. Once again I even managed a photo of my Sundowner and Instructor:



Cowra to Crookwell
With little traffic around we took off quickly and shaped our course for the next checkpoint, Crookwell. Once again a fairly good run and we passed on-top on time. This was quite a nice scenic leg and it was good see that some parts of the area were greening up, after many years of drought.

Diversion - Crookwell to Hoxton
Passing overhead of Crookwell my instructor said "okay we cant go direct home due to pretend bad weather . So take us via Moss Vale. To buy some time I put us in an orbit, stumbled around with my maps and pencils - plotted a new course and bravely set off on my diversion. 10 minutes later I was feeling good as Berrima and then Moss Vale came into view right in front of us. Passing over the M5 freeway I turned us north and followed it back to Sydney. Thankfully my landing at Hoxton went much better than the Cowra effort.

Reviewing the Run As should be expected this was my best run. The navigation planning and execution went well, I had a lot more free time in the cockpit to plan my radio frequency changes, manage the fuel and look out the window. I do need to work a bit more on planning my descent times, only just making it back down under Sydney's Control Zone on the way in!!. I also still need to work out where to put all my pens and maps so that they are easily managed in the cockpit.

Whats Next
My instructor wants to have another session of air-work (forced and precautionary landings) and some circuits next and then the plan is to send me off on my first solo navigation run. Before I can do that though I have to go and sit my theory test, so its off to study for a couple off weeks.

Will let you know how the test goes soon - I hope

Just for some history here is a copy of my plan:

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[September 2008


Completed Nav Run 2 last Saturday and it was a lot of fun.

The route was: Hoxton Park - Patonga - Cessnock - Muswellbrook - Bylong - Mudgee - Bathurst - Katoomba - Hoxton Park

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September 2008

Once again weather caused a few delays, but I finally completed my first navigation run a few days ago. The Plan, Hoxton - Mittagong - Goulburn - Robertson - Hoxton

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25 Aug 2008

The weather over the past few weekends has not been that kind to student pilots; I managed a set of circuits in about 10 days ago. It was pretty gusty and unstable, but that made it interesting and a great experience. Noticed a lot of differences coming out of the Skipper into the Sundowner, bit more powerful and faster, but I didn’t actually find that too hard to adjust to, just meant that the downwind legs were a little quicker. The major difference I discovered was coming in over the threshold (white keys), the skipper used to float along above the runway whereas the Sundowner drops pretty quickly - as you can imagine the first few landings were a bit harder!

Because of the weather we had to cut the lesson short, in fact I ended up being the only lesson held that day. Of interest, when I was taxying back in, I looked over and there were a trail of Cessna’s coming in and shutting down on the grass. Something had occurred over at Bankstown, so the runway was closed. They all left Hoxton about 30 minutes later. Makes me think what is going to happen on December 15th when the money hungry Govt finally hands over Hoxton to land developers. Better hope nothing major occurs over at Bankstown then, or if the wind really picks up and crosswinds become an issue at Bankstown, there won’t be a North/South runway available (hmm the site of 20 Cessna’s lining up to get into Sydney brings a smile and "told you so" feeling.

Managed to get another set of circuits in today, felt heaps more comfortable and they went fairly well. Didn’t mind having to do an extra session as I now have a much better feel for the aircraft and instrument layout. This should allow me to focus more on the navigation bit coming up next.

Next up my first nav flight, Hoxton - Mittagong - Goulburn - Robertson - Hoxton Pete

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