I had two lessons booked today, originally the morning sessions was going to be some solo circuits to consolidate after my first solo earlier this week. The wind however was pretty strong and outside the student limits, so that got cancelled.
In the afternoon we decided to do a nav and I had PPL Lesson 18: First Navigation.
I went through the planning with my instructor and while I got the principles of what we were doing I will need quite a bit more practice until I am able to do that on my own.
I have ordered a map and already have a scale ruler, protractor and CRP 5 so as soon as that arrives I can get to grips with the planning.
We then went out to the plane to fly our planned route of Cranfield -> Little Horward -> Daventry -> Olney -> Cranfield.
It was REALLY windy today so it took a lot of effort to hold the heading but the first two legs of our route were exactly on time! The final leg we were a little bit out however Olney wasn’t far away and I still spotted it in good time.
My instructor then through a diversion in and asked me to find Sywell. On the map I could see that Sywell was between Northampton and Wellingborough.
I set a heading of north 330 I believe and quickly picked up the two towns and a reservoir which was exactly what I was expecting to see.
I then picked up the aerodrome in good time and pointed it out.
My instructor then told me to return to Olney so I did a quick 180, spotted Olney in the distance and then called up Cranfield Approach to request join.
They instructed me to join on a right base so I flew of to the left of the airfield then turned right onto final, got my approval did my checks and landed.
The wind was high but luckily it was basically right down the runway so little to no cross wind was faced.
My landings are consistently smooth now which is nice and I have the flair height down.
I must admit the work load on this flight was really high. I think it being a short nav with high winds added to that. I was wishing the plane had an autopilot at certain points!
On top of this you have to check the map to make sure you are where you are, do checks including the top of climb check (which was new to me) and update your ETA.
Another 1 hour in the log book and I have 2 more hours booked next week so lets hope the weather plays ball.
