Have you managed to do a landaway yet?
Not yet, other commitments have meant my air time has dropped right off.
Any pilots here?
- Thread starter Rexxar
- Start date
Not yet, other commitments have meant my air time has dropped right off.
Last night was the first night flying of the season at my aerodrome. Wasn't sure about the weather in the day but cleared up nicely and no winds by the time we took off. Ended up racing some low clouds back from Worcester.
Checked out the plane and noticed the landing light wasn't working. To me, this is an absolute must at night but the instructors seemed to think it'd be fine. Flew with an instructor I've never flown with before - nice guy, but I stick to the checklists, what it says is what I do, this guy had a few different ideas - went a bit off piste, not sure if it was just because it was at night so he was being overly cautious. Flying around was good fun, asking me to fly to X and I was guessing the headings (can't say I've even looked at a paper chart since passing
), all worked out good.
Now... landing. Landing with no landing light. I did the take off and planned to do the landing. How on earth you're meant to judge your height and the flare in darkness with no reference to the ground is beyond me, especially as it was my first night landing. I had the side lighting on the runway but my focus was ahead of me. To say it was the worst landing I've ever done would probably be an understatement Then I had to hold a torch outside the window whilst the instructor taxied us back, even he didn't like it in the end.
Needless to say, now I've experienced it, next time I'll be calling it off if the landing light isn't working. We'll be doing a short nav flight over Birmingham overhead and Gloucester next week which should be great at night, then it's an hour of dual then solo circuits and I should be done with that.
In other news, built up a few hours in the PA28 - great stable aircraft and managed to take my brother up at the start of this week.
Hope you've managed to get up a few times @SupraWez!
Checked out the plane and noticed the landing light wasn't working. To me, this is an absolute must at night but the instructors seemed to think it'd be fine. Flew with an instructor I've never flown with before - nice guy, but I stick to the checklists, what it says is what I do, this guy had a few different ideas - went a bit off piste, not sure if it was just because it was at night so he was being overly cautious. Flying around was good fun, asking me to fly to X and I was guessing the headings (can't say I've even looked at a paper chart since passing
), all worked out good.Now... landing. Landing with no landing light. I did the take off and planned to do the landing. How on earth you're meant to judge your height and the flare in darkness with no reference to the ground is beyond me, especially as it was my first night landing. I had the side lighting on the runway but my focus was ahead of me. To say it was the worst landing I've ever done would probably be an understatement
Then I had to hold a torch outside the window whilst the instructor taxied us back, even he didn't like it in the end.Needless to say, now I've experienced it, next time I'll be calling it off if the landing light isn't working. We'll be doing a short nav flight over Birmingham overhead and Gloucester next week which should be great at night, then it's an hour of dual then solo circuits and I should be done with that.
In other news, built up a few hours in the PA28 - great stable aircraft and managed to take my brother up at the start of this week.
Hope you've managed to get up a few times @SupraWez!
To my knowledge, to fly at night you must have an operative landing light. You of course do some circuits with it switched off, but sure as hell I wouldn't do a normal lesson without one.
I love flying at night, it's so peaceful, but I'm not sure I would go up in an SEP any more after dark, the risk is huge, I refused to instruct at night when given the opportunity as i wouldn't fancy my chances if the engine went pop
I love flying at night, it's so peaceful, but I'm not sure I would go up in an SEP any more after dark, the risk is huge, I refused to instruct at night when given the opportunity as i wouldn't fancy my chances if the engine went pop
I have had a couple of lessons since my last post but its been spread out due to weather and work commitments sadly.
Was thinking I might take a week out of work and see if I can get it finished, hopefully a sensible option but need to chat with my instructor as currently my lessons are pretty spaced out.
Was thinking I might take a week out of work and see if I can get it finished, hopefully a sensible option but need to chat with my instructor as currently my lessons are pretty spaced out.
More night flying tonight - managed just under 2 hours. Just need 1 hour solo circuits now to tick that requirement then I'm done. What better way to end a nice flight than being told the dreaded "Can you give X a call" by ATC after we landed. 
Bit of confusion whilst we were flying inside a certain someones airspace. Was fine after we spoke to them.
My airfield had a plane crash this morning (pilot/passenger fine, plane not so much) so quite a bit of drama brewing there at the moment.
Bit of confusion whilst we were flying inside a certain someones airspace. Was fine after we spoke to them.My airfield had a plane crash this morning (pilot/passenger fine, plane not so much) so quite a bit of drama brewing there at the moment.
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Did you infringe airspace?More night flying tonight - managed just under 2 hours. Just need 1 hour solo circuits now to tick that requirement then I'm done. What better way to end a nice flight than being told the dreaded "Can you give X a call" by ATC after we landed.
My airfield had a plane crash this morning (pilot/passenger fine, plane not so much) so quite a bit of drama brewing there at the moment.
We were cleared to enter, just a bit of confusion on two instructions whilst we were within. I rang to speak to them but the watch manager was plugged in, instructor rang them 30 minutes later and finally got through - was essentially told what we knew after reviewing the GPS track, apologised and everything was fine. They seemed a bit more miffed that the instructor hadn't listened to the instruction and corrected it. Bit of a learning experience for all!
Glad to hear the air traffic unit proactively discussed it with you and the instructor. It’s the best way for everyone to learn and improve from experience. It can often be too easy to put in a report and forget about it but there’s a lot to be said for a conversation on the phone!
I've not managed to get so much gliding in this year due to the arrival of a new family member in December last year but I did get my Nav test completed and have had managed a few soaring flights. I've been waiting for the field conditions and weather conditions to be good enough for the club to let me venture off on my first cross country. For this my aim was to complete my Silver distance which means flying at least 50km away from the airfield and abiding by the 1% rule where I musn't lose more than 1% of the distance traveled in height from my start to end point. Last Thursday was the first time field and weather and my availability all coincided so off I set. After a briefing and making out my planned route which was Lasham to Abingdon bridge and back I checked over a club Grob 102 and set off to the launch area.
I took a winch launch as that meant even with the 1% rule I could be landing 50km away and still achieve my silver distance. I spent near enough the first hour scrabbling around the airfield in lift that was hard to work and also taking me South when I wanted to be flying North. Eventually I thought I've enough height to make the jump between the South / North cumulus divide that was over the airfield. I arrived under a nice big cumulus to the North at 1500feet QFE, pretty much the same height as what I released at on launch. Things then progressed. I left the airfield at about 2600feet QFE even though in briefing 3500feet was the minimum. I chose to do this as the lift (cumulus) looked better to the North over Basingstoke. I just flew local soaring rules which are always be within gliding distance of the airfield so I said to myself I simply wont move on from Basingstoke until I'm at 3500feet. I left at 3400feet and moved on as the thermal seemed to die at this point and again things looked better further in land. The next thermal saw me up at 4000feet QFE and from there on in I simply stayed high topping up at each cumulus that worked. After just over an hour I turned Abingdon Bridge and started the journey back but my Silver distance was in the bag as long as I hadn't violated any airspace, which I didn't.
On the way back I did drop below 2500feet QFE so I was on the look out for fields to land in. I also spotted an awesome looking cumulus which was in the direction of a favourable field so I headed back on myself a bit but it was worth it. Think the avg climb was 5+ knots, it was like being in an elevator and I was back up to top of what airspace allowed in no time. The direct route back had a large blue area and as I wasn't against the clock I decided to head west a bit and follow the cumulus before getting back on track. If I'd been in a club Discus I'd have risked the gap but in a Grob 102 you can't really push much past 65knots without hitting the glide angle too hard. I arrived back at the airfield with masses of extra height, which you wouldn't do in a race scenario, you aim to finish with enough margin to complete a circuit and land. It was all about flying away from the airfield for me on this day, working on speed comes next!
All in all a great day and once I'd relaxed after leaving Basingstoke and not being able to see the airfield it was a most enjoyable experience knowing I was racking up the kms with no engine power and using the power of nature to keep me airborne in all my task was 111km that day but the GPS comp said I'd flown 130km total so many a waste km there. Flight track and barometer chart below.
I took a winch launch as that meant even with the 1% rule I could be landing 50km away and still achieve my silver distance. I spent near enough the first hour scrabbling around the airfield in lift that was hard to work and also taking me South when I wanted to be flying North. Eventually I thought I've enough height to make the jump between the South / North cumulus divide that was over the airfield. I arrived under a nice big cumulus to the North at 1500feet QFE, pretty much the same height as what I released at on launch. Things then progressed. I left the airfield at about 2600feet QFE even though in briefing 3500feet was the minimum. I chose to do this as the lift (cumulus) looked better to the North over Basingstoke. I just flew local soaring rules which are always be within gliding distance of the airfield so I said to myself I simply wont move on from Basingstoke until I'm at 3500feet. I left at 3400feet and moved on as the thermal seemed to die at this point and again things looked better further in land. The next thermal saw me up at 4000feet QFE and from there on in I simply stayed high topping up at each cumulus that worked. After just over an hour I turned Abingdon Bridge and started the journey back but my Silver distance was in the bag as long as I hadn't violated any airspace, which I didn't.
On the way back I did drop below 2500feet QFE so I was on the look out for fields to land in. I also spotted an awesome looking cumulus which was in the direction of a favourable field so I headed back on myself a bit but it was worth it. Think the avg climb was 5+ knots, it was like being in an elevator and I was back up to top of what airspace allowed in no time. The direct route back had a large blue area and as I wasn't against the clock I decided to head west a bit and follow the cumulus before getting back on track. If I'd been in a club Discus I'd have risked the gap but in a Grob 102 you can't really push much past 65knots without hitting the glide angle too hard. I arrived back at the airfield with masses of extra height, which you wouldn't do in a race scenario, you aim to finish with enough margin to complete a circuit and land. It was all about flying away from the airfield for me on this day, working on speed comes next!
All in all a great day and once I'd relaxed after leaving Basingstoke and not being able to see the airfield it was a most enjoyable experience knowing I was racking up the kms with no engine power and using the power of nature to keep me airborne
in all my task was 111km that day but the GPS comp said I'd flown 130km total so many a waste km there. Flight track and barometer chart below.The baro recording is from the Flarm fitted in the aircraft. I assume the club have set it so that it reports QFE. In the actual glider I have the altimeter set to QFE and the digital vario set to QNH. I have a note on my map of 23mbar in case I lose battery so I can adjust my altimeter so it'd be on QNH whilst away form the airfield. So hopefully I have all bases covered there
Note airspace is why I didn't fly a straight track on the way up to Abingdon. I just clipped a corner of airspace where Class A starts at 4500AMSL. Staying to the left of it gave me an extra 1k to play with.
Many congrats Gixer on your silver distance. Takes some skill, especially down south with all the airspace and relying only on thermals!
Back in my gliding days like yourself was waiting to get my XC endorsement so tried to get my silver height, sadly didn’t descend low enough before starting the climb and missed it by 3ft! Doh. Never had a chance to try again as I switched to power and the rest is history.
Scuzi, I would guess the main reason for using QFE is that it is set on take off and since there is rarely a radio onboard a glider, let alone talking to atc there isn’t any source of an accurate qnh setting.
Back in my gliding days like yourself was waiting to get my XC endorsement so tried to get my silver height, sadly didn’t descend low enough before starting the climb and missed it by 3ft! Doh. Never had a chance to try again as I switched to power and the rest is history.
Scuzi, I would guess the main reason for using QFE is that it is set on take off and since there is rarely a radio onboard a glider, let alone talking to atc there isn’t any source of an accurate qnh setting.
Thanks Blinkz. Tell me about the airspace thing and the CAA have recently approved Farnborough's request for more which is ridiculous and creates even more bottle necks for GA aircraft. The main danger being that now all GA have to pretty much pass over Lasham to head North if coming up from the South. This may not sound bad to some but Lasham is the biggest gliding club in the world. The last stat I saw was that in one year we have over 23700 launches! Many of these are training flights. My club is raising a legal case against this approval by the CAA.
Quite annoying when you miss a claim by only 3 feet. Had I not already had it I'd have got my Silver height that day too. My low point was 1148QFE and high point 4593QFE so 3445 feet of climb, which was the best it could get due to Class A above me. It is tight gaining your silver height when the airspace is 5500AMSL. You're better off heading west a tad more over by popham where Class A starts at FL65. You'll be back to gliding one day I'm sure many return!
When soaring locally it makes sense to have QFE set. In the club two seat trainers (K13s) there are no radios and it also gives students information. By this I mean they can learn what it looks like at 500feet, 1000feet, 1500feet AGL. During training however you make several flights with your altimeter covered. Gliding is all about TLAR when it comes to landing. TLAR = That looks about right. Once away from the airfield whilst your instruments may give you a rough idea it's all down to the pilot to make judgement of when you start your circuit, turn base, turn final to get you into a field safely. You only get one shot remember!
Blinkz in the club single seaters we do have a radio. I do not have my RT license yet however. I will be doing this the next time a course comes up. This does not mean I won't use the radio. I know the important frequencies and the basic lingo needed to see me through. You have to know this to pass your Bronze badge, as you're aware. What I can't do is talk to air traffic to request transition through Class D for example. If I suddenly found myself lost and thought I was in Class D though at that point I would be straight on the radio to inform them regardless of the fact I have no RT license. Talking is good when it comes to letting people know where you are!
Scuzi planning a flight, taking into account winds and where cumulus will be present, where airspace is etc is all part of gliding. I am not experienced in this at all but the planning part can make or break whether you complete a task or end up in a field. Then once flying you need to be able to look at the sky ahead and pick the route with the most energy, again something I've a lot of experience still to gain in. I'm happy with my progress though. Considering I've not actually had any thermal soaring training, i.e. compass flights (two seater cross country flight) or lessons flying thermals I'm happy. I have however been flying RC gliders for years so know about thermals and read a lot and then practice centering techniques in Condor simulator. I think next year I'll get on a compass flight with an experienced pilot and see what choices they make and why.
Quite annoying when you miss a claim by only 3 feet. Had I not already had it I'd have got my Silver height that day too. My low point was 1148QFE and high point 4593QFE so 3445 feet of climb, which was the best it could get due to Class A above me. It is tight gaining your silver height when the airspace is 5500AMSL. You're better off heading west a tad more over by popham where Class A starts at FL65. You'll be back to gliding one day I'm sure
many return! When soaring locally it makes sense to have QFE set. In the club two seat trainers (K13s) there are no radios and it also gives students information. By this I mean they can learn what it looks like at 500feet, 1000feet, 1500feet AGL. During training however you make several flights with your altimeter covered. Gliding is all about TLAR when it comes to landing. TLAR = That looks about right. Once away from the airfield whilst your instruments may give you a rough idea it's all down to the pilot to make judgement of when you start your circuit, turn base, turn final to get you into a field safely. You only get one shot remember!
Blinkz in the club single seaters we do have a radio. I do not have my RT license yet however. I will be doing this the next time a course comes up. This does not mean I won't use the radio. I know the important frequencies and the basic lingo needed to see me through. You have to know this to pass your Bronze badge, as you're aware. What I can't do is talk to air traffic to request transition through Class D for example. If I suddenly found myself lost and thought I was in Class D though at that point I would be straight on the radio to inform them regardless of the fact I have no RT license. Talking is good when it comes to letting people know where you are!
Scuzi planning a flight, taking into account winds and where cumulus will be present, where airspace is etc is all part of gliding. I am not experienced in this at all but the planning part can make or break whether you complete a task or end up in a field. Then once flying you need to be able to look at the sky ahead and pick the route with the most energy, again something I've a lot of experience still to gain in. I'm happy with my progress though. Considering I've not actually had any thermal soaring training, i.e. compass flights (two seater cross country flight) or lessons flying thermals I'm happy. I have however been flying RC gliders for years so know about thermals and read a lot and then practice centering techniques in Condor simulator. I think next year I'll get on a compass flight with an experienced pilot and see what choices they make and why.
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Hey guys, thought I'd give this thread a bit of a revival!
I've had an amazing time with said airline for the last 18 months, however I'm sure most of you know who I'm talking about and what happened to them at the weekend. Its a bit of a long shot but I know some guys here are airline as well and I was wondering if I could maybe give you a shout in trust about my rather abrupt "career move"!
Cheers
I've had an amazing time with said airline for the last 18 months, however I'm sure most of you know who I'm talking about and what happened to them at the weekend. Its a bit of a long shot but I know some guys here are airline as well and I was wondering if I could maybe give you a shout in trust about my rather abrupt "career move"!
Cheers
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Indeed, 850 Hours on type, 1250 total
Sorry to hear about flybmi, everything I heard was that it was a good outfit and of course it’s always sad when an airline goes under.
I’m glad you managed to get your TR and some experience but I’m sure that doesn’t help right now.
I’m happy to help/give advice if I can, either on here or via trust. Virgin are recruiting at the moment but I’m afraid without an ATPL, a Boeing or Airbus type rating and I believe 2500hrs you won’t be able to apply. I’m sorry to say an Embraer rating isn’t hugely useful in the UK.
I would have thought Ppprune would be your best bet at info on what other airlines are recruiting at the moment. Perhaps easyjet have lower requirements?
I’m glad you managed to get your TR and some experience but I’m sure that doesn’t help right now.
I’m happy to help/give advice if I can, either on here or via trust. Virgin are recruiting at the moment but I’m afraid without an ATPL, a Boeing or Airbus type rating and I believe 2500hrs you won’t be able to apply. I’m sorry to say an Embraer rating isn’t hugely useful in the UK.
I would have thought Ppprune would be your best bet at info on what other airlines are recruiting at the moment. Perhaps easyjet have lower requirements?