A few weeks ago I passed the landmark 5000 views, thanks to everyone who reads this on a regular basis and sorry for the delay in a blog update, I've been fairly busy, which I will describe in the following text.
I passed my PT1 with an excellent score of 2 (6 being the worst and 1 being the best, but it's very difficult to achieve a 1 even with a faultless flight). So understandably I was over the moon with that and it's something to live up to in my next PT which will be in a couple of weeks time, which will focus on emergency procedures, stalls, steep and gliding turns, flapless,performance and glide approaches and instrument flying.
I also spent Thanksgiving out here, which was darkened by the fact I had to write and submit a 3500 word mini-assignment for the Bucks New University aspect of the course and I also worked in a team to create two presentations which again were prepared and presented to BNU which contributed towards the overall score for my foundation degree. Thanksgiving was really nice though as everyone else vanished off on 'vacations' so there were literally 10 or so people left on campus, so it was nice and peaceful. One of my good friends Sari made the fatal error of leaving his dorm room open when he went off to San Francisco, this was what he got for his lapse in concentration when forgetting to lock his room...
...as the note we left him said "Your plan for an early night has been FOILED!
Desk and Walls
His sink, which was still fully functioning!
Side shot of his desk
(click on all pictures for a better image!)
The weather here hasn't been great over the past few days so I have had to cancel a few flights, however, I have since been signed off for solo navigation flights. This involves planning a route, getting your times, winds, speeds, distances, logging in flight every detail or action you take and basically flying your proposed route as accurately as possible. Navigation is a big contributing area of PT3, so plenty of practice is available before then.
I have also had a few night flights, which have been my favourite part of flying out here so far! I did a night navigation back up from Ryan airfield (KRYN) and have also done dual and solo circuits here at Goodyear. My favourite part of the night nav back up from Ryan is that, we used other airfields as reference features to use to make sure we are on track. Some airfields have pilot controlled lighting, meaning that, if you tune up the CTAF frequency on your radios, then press the comms button which you use to talk over the frequency on 7 times, the runway lights magically come on. It is absolutely amazing to watch and also do. However, when I was focusing on getting this correct, forgetting that I was actually broadcasting over frequency on each click, I counted out loud, which was picked up on my mic, this causing an anonymous response from another aircraft on frequency to say "Nice counting man!", to which I replied having realised my error, in a very British accent "Thank you very much, have a safe flight'. I have found, any error you make, no matter what size, expect to get laughed at or be the butt of a joke somewhere along the line, it's just how it goes in this game it seems.
Anyway, I am currently trying to upload a video to youtube of early morning circuits which I did a few weeks back, with a beautiful sunrise over GYR. It only lasts 5 minute or so so it should be done soon.
I have my final night circuits on Tuesday 6th December so expect a video from then too!
All the best!
Sam
P.S Well done to my good friends Tom Milsom, Adam Roberts and Jai Dillon on gaining their Commercial Pilot Licenses, see you back in Oxford in the new year guys! All the best to the rest of AP321 who have their CPLs in the near future too!
Thank you for my Sri Lankan blog follower for getting in touch, it means a lot to hear that people are globally interested and are reading my blog as well as my family and friends back home. Look forward to seeing you when you start in Oxford in January.
