First land away since PPL renewal

Having done a bit of local flying, including a first flight with passengers I was itching to get out of the local area and head to a different airfield, so set up a plan to fly to Turweston airfield in Oxfordshire.

The weather was looking good for a trip on Friday 1st December, so I booked one of the PA28 Archers the day before, the only issue with the weather would be a cross wind from the north, so it all depended on the strength of the wind.

Arriving at the airfield, I signed the aircraft out, contacted Turweston with the airplane details as they request inbound pilots obtain prior permission and was told they were using runway 27 Right.

A thorough check of the aircraft inline with the PA28 checklist and we were ready to set off.  At Tatenhill the grass on the airfield is waterlogged at the moment so all the planes are parked on the tarmac which makes for a very crowded and complex environment and I had to wait a few minutes for one of the other aircraft to complete its run up and pre takeoff checks.

As Birmingham was on track and heading for the Daventry VOR made a nice kink I was planning to track the radial down to the VOR and turn direct to Turweston when passing Daventry town itself (about 5 miles short of the VOR) and do the reciprocal on the return journey.

Although there was almost a 90 degree crosswind it was fairly light so the take off and turn out of circuit was fairly comfortable.  Although there were few clouds, the base was around 1900ft on the QNH so I stayed below my prefered altitude until around Daventry when they cleared more.

Heading south I set the radio to East Midlands and set up their listening squawk, which was something new to me but something that I think I will use in the future.  Squawking the code for East Midlands allows them and other air traffic units that I am listening on that frequency, so they can give me a call if they need to.

Tracking the Daventry VOR did not go quite as planned on the journey south and I never really got on top of it.

Approaching Turweston I changed the squawk back to 7000 and called them up on the radio, where the joining instructions reiterated runway 27 RH.  Silverstone stood out as a great landmark, but I was late spotting Turweston airfield and put in an orbit north of the airfield to settle myself down and plan the circuit.  Joining downwind and heading down the circuit I heard someone joining for an overhead join.

The circuit at Turweston is odd in that the approach and departures are offset 20 degrees from the runway to avoid houses on the extended centreline, so this was a bit of a new challenge as the last time I had to contend with this was when I was training for my PPL back in the 90s.

My approach went quite well up until I ballooned the flare and so elected to go around and have another go.  Heading back up to circuit height I could see the other aircraft in circuit heading across the upwind of the airfield to start the downwind.  All through the circuit I was aware that it was going to be fairly tight as to whether he would still be on the runway when I arrived to land.  Fortunately he must have had the same problem as I had off the first approach and he also went around for a second attempt leaving the runway clear for me to land.  This attempt was a vast improvement on the first go and is probably one of the best landings since I restarted flying, definitely better than the landing at Tatenhill on the return flight.

Since I was last here there has been a large investment in the airfield and the airfield offices and control have moved out of their previous portacabins and into a nice shiny conference centre/tower complete with cafeteria.  So it was up to the top floor to pay the landing fee and then back down to the first floor for a light lunch and had the chance to bump into some people that I had known when I was flying previously.

The flight back was a lot more relaxed, and I managed to follow the radial back out from Daventry to Tatenhill.

Following us back into Tatenhill we were followed by a student in one of the Cessna 152s as she returned from her qualifying cross country.

After parking the aircraft we tidied up, paid for the flying and headed for home.

This trip allowed me to practice some things that I had not used for so long, and the return leg was much smoother and relaxed as I learned from the issues of the outbound lag and put them into practice for the return.

All in all a successful day’s flying.

Walk over The Bosley Cloud

Wanting a short, but slightly strenuous walk today, we decided to follow a walk that appeared in the walking guide 100 Walks in Cheshire by David Bishop (Route no. 52).

Near the start of the walk, Timbers Brook.

The route was easy to follow as it stayed on well developed paths, although we did decide to come of the route as the road that this follows was a bit busier than we would have liked.  There were a couple of times that we had to think about the directions on after we had reached the summit and were on our way down, but checking the map in and a bit of thought showed us the right way.

Panorama near the top.

Even though the weather was hazy, from the summit we could just about make out the radio telescope at Jodrell bank, which according to the sign by the trig point was 8 miles away as well as some of the larger buildings in Macclesfield and would look forward to popping up here again when the weather is clearer.

The walk starts off on an open track and heads through woodland most of the way to the summit.  Pausing at the first clearing that had a view we took advantage of the low seat that was there and had lunch.

As we approached the summit it cleared to open moorland where the best views are to be had in all directions, including a view down towards Rudyard lake.

By the trig point there is a metal plaque pointing out directions and distances to some of the local landmarks, but it is probably optimistic to say you can see London.

The Bridestones.

The walk downhill is also pleasant passing down steps and through more woodland down to the main road, here we walked the short distance to visit The Bridestones, which is the remains of a burial mound, the stones being those that surrounded the burial chamber itself.

Turning to the road we started walking towards the coach and horses, but gave up on this as it stayed to get into tight bends so we checked the map and found a small footpath that cut a corner back to one of the lanes that lead back to the car park.

Overall this was a nice walk, not too strenuous and with great views and a nice variety of terrain and landscape to walk through.

The directions in the guide were reasonably easy to follow and lead us on our way quite well.

Pilots licence renewal (after 17 years)

For a number of reasons 17 years ago I let my pilots licence lapse and stopped flying.

At the end of last year a few people suggested that I should see if I could get flying again. Fortunately I obtained my original licence under the old CAA rules which meant that it was valid for life as long as the pilot kept in current practice or satisfied an instructor during a flight test that the pilot possessed the necessary skills to continue flying.

First thing though was to visit an Aeromedical Examiner (AME) to get a medical sorted out, unfortunately the last test of the medical threw up a problem and the AME could not issue the medical at the time, extra tests would be required and he took a few minutes explaining how I could go about getting them done through the NHS, and provided a letter to take to my GP to get the ball rolling.

It took a few months and a number of tests, but eventually the Consultant declared me all clear, a letter was sent to the AME and a brand new medical certificate, backdated of course to the earlier date that the medical was undertaken.  So with a good 20 months medical it was time to move onto the next step.

Whilst waiting for the medical I had been looking around for a training operator, also checking what steps I need to actually renew.  The consensus was that renewal should be a proficiency check with a flight instructor, following a period of training to bring my skills back up to the standard.

Although there are a number of flying schools near me that had Cessna 152s.  In the past I had rarely flown high wing aircraft and decided to go with a school that had the more familiar, to me, PA28 series of aircraft, although they are around £15/hour more expensive.

My first lesson involved checking to see if I could land OK and getting used to the aircraft.  The first landing was really rusty and was a bit heavy on the nose wheel, not exactly the best way to land a PA28.  Also throughout the flight I was trending to lead with the rudder too much.  After around 10 circuits there was some improvement, but I left for the day feeling a bit deflated and thinking this was going to take a little longer than I originally thought.

Unfortunately this year's appalling weather the second lesson was cancelled due to fog on the airfield.

During the enforced gap I was able to go over the flying in my head, what I did wrong and what went right.  When getting in the aircraft I had lowered the seat quite low and thought it might help if I didn't the next time.

A few weeks later I was back and with a string of lessons already booked over the following couple of weeks.  The second lesson was better, I was relaxed with the aircraft from the start and the higher seating position made me more comfortable and in control.  At the end of the lesson and feeling a lot better about my flying the instructor said that the following day's lesson would be outside the circuit.

The third lesson started with a take off and heading out of the circuit to do some upper air work, I was asked to demonstrate a clean stall.  After carrying out the necessary HASELL checks I closed the throttle and lifted the nose quite high into the air, and executed quite a savage stall.  My instructor was impressed that I had remembered the HASELL checks, but didn't quite want such an aggressive stall. We continued with the lesson, through a clean stall and a stall in landing configuration. Then onto steep turns, a couple of practice forced landings.  Boy PA28 really falls out the sky if you stay at  100 kts and don't set up for best glide.

Returning to the circuit we finished off the lesson with a practice forced landing over the airfield and different landing configurations such as flapless and glide approaches.

I was feeling a bit better after this and even better still when after the flight he said that we should try for the test on the next flight.

Almost a week later and having planned a short navigation exercise to a disused airfield we set off into the air again.

Climbing out of the airfield, I set course for the airfield checking my course as we went along, the halfway point as we crossed the motorway and not forgetting to do a FREDA check the disused airfield appeared just to the right of the nose.

Happy with the Navex we turned back roughly towards the airfield and was given a heading to steer, once over open countryside carried out the upper airwork, stalls and steep turns etc.

A well executed PFL and we were heading back for an overhead join at the airfield and then into the circuit for a number of landings.

Landing off the glide approach we taxied back and after shut down from the passenger seat came the words “You tidy this up and I'll get the computer started and we will sort the paperwork out.”  I Smiled.

After the paperwork was finished, and a well earned coffee, I had a nice beaming smile all the way home.