A fellow flying blogger visits Sydney

Without any doubt, the highlight of writing an aviation blog is meeting in real life pilots I first got in touch with through the blog. This is how I had a coffee at Frankfurt airport with Vincent in 2008, and how I went flying with Chris in 2009. 2010 promises to be a bumper year in that respect, something I am really looking forward to.

Early January I had the pleasure of playing host for one day to Michael and his lovely wife who had the very inspired idea of leaving the Michigan winter behind and spent a few weeks in Australia and New Zealand over the holiday season. Michael is the blogger behind Cleared for the Option and flies out of Willow Run airport (KYIP), near Detroit and is currently working on his instrument rating.

The three of us went for a local flight around Sydney on a Sunday morning, leaving the circuit for 11L at Bankstown on crosswind in the Archer VH-SFA.

We flew the GA lane northbound across Sydney's northern suburbs and turned southbound around Palm Beach.

I started descending to 1500ft over the water. Approaching Long Reef, we experienced some radio problems when requesting a clearance for the Harbour Scenic One procedure: the transmission was perfect one moment, chopped and hardly audible the next. I tried switching radios, still the same. I advised ATC I would do orbits outside of controlled airspace and contact them again when the problem is fixed.

Michael suggested that since I was low and doing orbits, my wing may be blocking the signal intermittently. That made a lot of sense, so I climbed and flew straight for a moment and the problem fixed itself. Thanks Michael!

Tracking towards the Harbour Bridge our traffic was a helicopter towing a massive red banner over Manly Beach. He was not going terribly fast so we overtook him on the right hand side.

This was a banner ad for WeightWatchers. I find it kind of cruel to fly a weight loss ad over the beach on a Sunday afternoon, it's really preying on beachgoers' insecurities, which I guess makes for effective advertisement.

We did a couple of orbits over the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House which offered great views of Sydney CBD. Did I already mention that The Matrix was shot here?

After that we tracked south along the coast on the Victor One route. Clouds were starting to build up, time to head back to Bankstown!

Below is Stanwell Park, not too far from where Laurence Hargrave flew his box kites which inspired many of the early pioneers of heavier-than-air flight, including the Wright brothers. Today hand gliders launch from there, the launch pad can be seen on the right-hand side of the carpark.

We flew back to Bankstown via Appin, followed the M5, called inbound at 2RN and joined final for runway 11R at Warwick Farm. All the details in the video below, and as you can see I had a lot of fun playing with Youtube's annotations feature!

Before saying goodbye we exchanged out-of-date aviation charts as we had agreed beforehand. When Michael opened the Detroit sectional chart to show me his local airspace, I couldn't believe the density of aerodromes. The scale of the chart is the same as our VNC in Australia, but there's many, many more airports. Granted, the population density of the US is eleven times that of Australia, but that's still very impressive. Michael also gave me some approach plates for his home airport of Willow Run, my first time holding approach plates in my hands actually since I do not have, nor am I training for, an instrument rating (yet).

It was great meeting Michael and his lovely wife, we had a great time flying around Sydney and exchanging pilot stories. Now I only need to find a valid reason to pay Michael a visit in Detroit and go for a local flight with him out of Willow Run. And I'm afraid setting a new record with a $2,000+ trans-Pacific hamburger run is not a valid reason.

Update: Michael posted his write-up of our flight with some extra photos, make sure to visit his blog! Thanks again Michael for getting in touch with me in the first place, this was awesome!

First Passenger and Steamed Dumplings

Last Saturday I passed the GFPT test, nearly one year after starting my flying training at the Redcliffe Aero Club. I won't talk about the test now, this deserves a full story or even two. What it means in practical terms though is that I can now take passengers with me on flights within the training area of the Redcliffe aerodrome.

The training area corresponds to the boundary of the so-called Danger Area D629, minus the part of area D629C north of Roy’s Orchards. Vertically, it extends from sea level to 3500ft AMSL or to the bottom of the overlying Class C airspace, whichever is lower. Put into the local context, this means Redcliffe, Deception Bay, Beachmere, Caboolture, Bribie Island and the Glass House Mountains National Park.

It may seem a odd or even a little perverse to put a training area in the middle of a danger area. That’s only until you realize that the training area is the very reason why the whole area is designated as dangerous.

In all fairness, there are other factors that make the area dangerous. The Glass House Mountains are one. These are a half-dozen volcanic peak towers in the middle of an otherwise flat area of forests and fields. With Mt Beerwah at 1824ft and three other peaks above 1000ft, you do not want to be flying VFR with a low cloud base in there.

The other danger factor are the three local non-towered aerodromes: Redcliffe and Caboolture, just 9 nautical miles apart, and Caloundra a few miles over the northern boundary of the training area. That’s a lot of light airplanes, charters, ultralights, gliders and helicopters flying around, especially on week-ends. All three aerodromes share the same VHF frequency, which makes a lot of sense from a safety point of view since one can form a picture of what's happening in the whole training area. On the other hand, the amount of flying activity can really clog the airwaves and make it difficult to place radio calls at times. It is for this reason that the Redclife Aero Club decided recently that the downwind call can be considered optional in such situations.


A long time ago I had promised my friend Xuan that he would be my first passenger whenever I would be allowed to take passengers. I mentioned the idea to him earlier in the week and he said yes without hesitation. Xuan picked me up at home this morning and we started the day with a delicious Chinese brunch at his place. I think I could have meat dumplings and green tea for breakfast everyday.

We drove to Redcliffe together with Xuan’s wife Rachel. Unfortunately I had booked a Cessna 152 so I could only take one passenger, and Rachel had to wait for us at the club for a little over one hour while we went flying. Before the flight I showed the airplane to them both, explained how the controls worked and what all the instruments and the pre-flight checks were about.

Then I gave Xuan the passenger brief, with special attention paid to the fastening of the safety harness, which is a bit awkward in IVW. This airplane is a 152 Aerobat model and is fitted with a proper aerobatics harness rather than the more common car-style safety belt. I made sure to mention to him that the rudder pedals were not foot rests and that if he saw another airplane nearby I expected him to let me know.


There was a strong, slightly gusty south-easterly crosswind, and a cloud base lower than forecasted. The visibility was very good though. We took off on 07, tracked for Beachmere, climbed to 2000 ft and followed the shoreline. As we were abeam the Bribie Island bridge I looked in the distance under our left wing and could see dark clouds and showers of rain over the Glass House Mountains, precisely where our plan said we would be in 15 minutes. I decided to continue anyway since we always had the option of turning back to Redcliffe.

As we were over the Woorim Golf Course at the southern end of Bribie Island we turned north and followed the beach, climbing to 3000ft. Talking to Cara back at the club later I realised I could have made this section of the flight a lot more interesting by flying over the beach at 500ft rather than staying up high. Something to keep in mind for next time.

Approaching the top end of Bribie Island we turned left and tracked west towards the Glass House Mountains township. At that point I could see low clouds and rain right ahead of us so I started a descent and levelled off at 2000ft as we crossed the Bruce Highway. We made a right turn over the township and tracked north, keeping the Steve Irwin Way on our right.

Soon we were abeam Beerwah and had the Conondale Range to our left. We managed to find Australia Zoo, did a half-orbit around it and headed for Mt Beerwah. Finding Australia Zoo was actually very easy thanks to the adjacent parking lot and the U-shaped Crocoseum stadium. Unfortunately Xuan had left his digital camera at home and all the pictures for this post were taken with his camera phone. But I suspect Xuan did that on purpose in order to get another flying opportunity in the near future :-)


We flew in-between Mt Beerwah and Mt Coonowrin then made a large right-hand turn around Mt Beerwah. This was all the more impressive since we were flying at 2000ft around a 1824ft peak. We encountered a few turbulences in the lee of the peak. Knowing we had a south-easterly wind I could have anticipated that and flown higher or further away but I didn’t. No big drama, but one more item on the list of things to improve.

We crossed the National Park in the direction of The Twins, did a right-hand orbit there and looked down at the surrounding pineapple fields. Completing the orbit put us on the way back home. I made a call to the Caboolture CTAF to let everyone know we were over Beerburrum tracking south-east to Donnybrook at 2500ft. At Donnybrook we turned south towards Beachmere and descended to 1500ft. I pointed the Hazelton airstrip and the satellite dishes to Xuan then made our inbound call for Redcliffe. Only two aircrafts were in the circuit: YYM, a Robinson R22 helicopter based at Redcliffe, and BUQ, the other Cessna 152 from the club.

As we overflew the field the windsock was still pointing at 07 with a strong crosswind from the right. Below me I could see the meat-bombing Chieftain at the holding point. We descended over the dead side and joined the circuit crosswind. Before turning base I extended 10 degrees of flaps and slowed the aircraft down to 70 knots, about 10 knots slower than I would usually do. I did that because turning base with such a crosswind means turning into a headwind, which automatically increases the airspeed, and could take us outside of the white arc.

We encountered a few bumps and strong windshear at about 200ft on final and I had to add a lot of power to keep the airspeed at about 65 knots. As we passed the threshold I removed the crab and lowered the right wing. The angle of bank I set was probably too much because we started drifting to the right. A bit less aileron, a bit more rudder to keep straight and we made a decent touch-down on the right-hand side of the centerline, right wheel first, then left wheel, and nose wheel soon after.


We parked right in front of the clubhouse. As I was dipping the tanks I realised I had less that 50 liters left should have stopped at the fuel bowser on the way back. I was about to start again to go refuel when I noticed the Chieftain just pulling in at the bowser. No refuelling this time, the next person flying IVW will have to do it. Here goes one aviation Karma point.

I went back inside, paid 1.0 hour for the flight (private hire of club aircraft is on tacho at RAC, i.e. it does not include taxi time) and added 1.1 hour of Pilot-In-Command time to my logbook (counted on VDO, i.e. from start to shutdown of the engine). Good deal, I feel like I got 0.1 hour for free!

We left the club and stopped in Redcliffe on the way back to Brisbane and had a stroll on the beach. The wind was a lot stronger there than at the aerodrome. A few parachute jumpers landed on the beach in front of us. They had most likely jumped out of the Chieftain we saw earlier.

A coffee later we headed back to Brisbane under the guidance of George W. Bush’s voice coming out of Xuan’s GPS. We had a hard time choosing between him, the Queen of England and Kim Cattrall. We hanged out at Xuan’s place for a while and then had a beautiful homemade Chinese dinner with a number of different dishes from different parts of China. I only wish all future passengers would feed me in a similar way.


All in all I am quite happy with my first passenger-carrying experience. I was a bit nervous about it in the days before since it was Xuan's first flight in a light aircraft and also because of the forecasted crosswind. Even if it was only a local flight, I had drawn the proposed itinerary properly on the map, and even rehearsed the whole thing once flying a C172SP in the flight simulator on the PC at home.

I really enjoyed the experience and I can't wait to take passengers again. In that respect flying is like holidaying: it's a lot more fun visiting new places with other people rather than on your own. I booked a C152 again for next week-end, but the weather forescast says showers and clouds. Let's see how it all works out and who may be sitting in the right seat and subsequently feeding me next week-end.

Lenticular cloud over Obergurgl

About a year ago we spent one week on the ski slopes of the tiny Austrian village of Obergurgl. Perfect weather all week long, great food, great company and great skiing despite bad ski shoes. But that's a different story.


One day at lunchtime, as we were washing down sausages and fries with Almdudler, I noticed a lenticular cloud across the valley. This very special type of cloud is formed when the wind blows perpendicular to a mountain range and creates a system of standing waves.

There’s a lot more pictures of lenticular clouds over at the Cloud Appreciation Society, exactly 282 of them. This other Web site has some absolutely stunning pictures of lenticular clouds. It's just freakish how some of them just look like flying saucers.

Speaking of weird clouds, the most recent issue of Australian Flying discusses the Morning Glory weather phenomenon, and how riding this very special cloud is the Holy Grail of Australian gliders. Makes me want to learn gliding actually. The one and only time I flew in a glider was with a friend of my father when I was 15. That was an amazing experience. Hmmm, here's an idea for when the PPL is over....

Nav1 and plenty of venturis at Wondai

Last Sunday I went out on a navigation exercise with Lee to Wondai (YWND) via Kumbia and came back to Redcliffe via Kilcoy. Redcliffe Aero Club members will recognize Nav1 of the PPL training.

All the navigation was done by dead reckoning. We left Redcliffe at about 11AM and tracked to the north-west, passing the townships of Hazeldean on Lake Somerset, Blackbutt, the Tarong power station and Kumbia. The flight was very enjoyable, with scattered clouds at about 4000 feet, a headwind between 10 and 15 knots and hazy conditions. We did a few corrections for drift using the 1-in-60 method as well as a ground speed check which gave us a figure of 100 knots.

At Kumbia we turned to the north-east and soon had Kingaroy under our right wing. We made a call on the Kingaroy CTAF frequency to let everyone know we were in the area. The Gordonbrook reservoir appeared under our left wing, then the township of Tingoora. Just a few minutes later it was time to start our descent to Wondai and think about how to join the circuit.


There was only one other aircraft in the CTAF, a Texan. I joined crosswind for runway 18 and performed my first landing on a grass strip. The grass was about a foot high, which definitely qualifies for "long grass" on the performance charts! The surface of the strip was uneven, and I had to keep the control column pulled all the way back to prevent damage to the nose wheel and propeller. We shut down, ate our packed lunch in front of the terminal building of this peaceful little airfield and enjoyed the serenity.


I took a few minutes to walk around camera in hand. Wondai is home to the Barambah District Aero Club, which was officially opened by none else than infamous former Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.



Around the corner from the clubhouse, I noticed two airplanes in open hangars.

The first one is a small taildragger with rego VH-MSP. The VH Register tells us that it is an Auster J5, first imported into Australia in 1951. Searching the Web, I discovered the work of Ed Coates, who has been collecting pictures of aircrafts for the last sixty years. His amazing Web site has two older pictures of VH-MSP taken in 1964 and 1990. It further identified the type as an Auster J5 Adventurer.

The type was first manufactured in England in 1947 by Auster Aircraft, a British light aircraft manufacturer which ceased production in 1968. Quite a few of these planes made their way to Australia. There are some beautiful pictures taken at the Auster Rally 2007 in Wentworth in south-western New South Wales. The next edition will take place later this year at Goolwa in South Australia.


The aircraft has a surprisingly narrow engine compartment, about twice as tall as wide, with 4 prominent exhaust pipes on the underside. This looks a lot better than the ugly exhaust manifold that can be seen on these pictures of another Auster J5.


The vacuum system is driven by two venturis, one on each side. The venturi on the port side is rather small and looks similar to the venturis found on Tiger Moths, or at least is similar to the picture of a venturi used on a Tiger Moth and featured in Bob Tait's CPL Aerodynamics. the venturi on the other side is similar in size and shape to the venturis of older Cessna 172s, such as VH-DCO stationed at Redcliffe.

I could only open the door a crack to take the picture below. I would not have wanted to enter the cockpit further anyway because of the scary flying insects inside, some of them about two inches long. According to the placard on the instrument panel, the plane was (or still is?) used for glider towing. Wondai is a pretty popular place for gliders and has a winch launch system.

The J5 type was originally designed as a 4-seater, however the placard clearly says “No Passengers” and “Pilot Max Weight 100kg”. Although the aircraft is fitted with dual controls, these were probably only used for training with no glider in tow. Pilots are rarely the jockey type, and the likelihood of finding an instructor and a student with a combined weight under 100kg can be safely considered as statistically insignificant.


The instrument panel is rather antiquated. It has rocker switches for the two magnetos instead of the rotary switch found on modern aircrafts. The Airspeed Indicator shows a stall speed of about 56 knots clean and 30 knots with flaps down. In addition to the altimeter and magnetic compass, one can find oil temperature and pressure gauges, as well as a massive turn coordinator in the middle and a tachometer on the side. A Vertical Speed Indicator (VSI) was added later and sits on top of the dashboard. Only the left stick has a Push-To-Talk button. I couldn’t see any radio inside though.

In the next hangar I found VH-DID, a 1963 Cessna 172D, with two identical venturis, one on each side. The D model was the first one to feature the so-called Omni-Vision rear window which improved visibility but also increased drag.


There was virtually no wind when we started up again, so we decided to take-off on runway 36, which saved us having to taxi all the way back to the threshold of runway 18 over bumps, holes and grass. We took off, kept climbing on downwind and left the circuit overhead to the south-east in the direction of Kilcoy. The tip of Lake Barambah was about the only good navigation fix on that leg. Lee recognized Mt Monsildale, but I wouldn't have found it on my own. We found Kilcoy where we expected it, at the top end of Lake Somerset, then crossed the ranges and started our descent towards Redcliffe, leaving plenty of space between ourselves and the overlying Class C airspace.

Approaching Caboolture I made a radio call to say that we were 10 miles west and tracking for Redcliffe, only to realise that I had made the call on Brisbane Radar frequency... Oops. The call was promptly re-issued, this time on the correct frequency. We made our inbound call for Redcliffe just as we crossed the power lines west of the Bruce Highway. Lee asked if I was really sure I was 10 miles inbound. I said yes, then he pointed at the GPS that he had configured to display the distance to YRED. It showed 9.7 miles, not too bad :-)

As I was at 1500 feet overflying the live side of the circuit at Redcliffe I could see VH-MSJ right below me turning base for 07 at 1000ft. We continued to the dead side, descended to circuit height and joined crosswind for 07. The wind was straight down the runway, a very unusual occurence at Redcliffe. I landed on 07, parked between then hangars and shut down. Lee went back in and I took a few minutes to clean up the plane, write down the figures and repack my stuff.

Before leaving in the morning I had followed Lee's advice to put the flight notification acknowledgment printout at the front of the airplane folder, with a big SARTIME written across it. This was a smart move since otherwise I would have forgotten to cancel SARTIME. I called CENSAR over the phone, gave our callsign VH-RAQ, place of arrival and nominated SARTIME, and the person at the other end of the ligne confirmed the cancellation.

In the short debrief Lee explained to me how to use the DG to establish the airplane on track when leaving an airfield without overflying. He remarked on a few other things, such as the fact that I had started my fuel log using departure time and not the time of engine start-up, and that I did not properly monitor oil pressure on start-up. Appart from that he was happy with mu flying, and nav1 was therefore called a success.

Next step is my GFPT test next Friday. Back to the 152, I'd better make sure I go over the aircraft speeds and procedures again. The forecasted weather is showers of rain with lots of clouds and a near-direct crosswind of about 20 knots... Let's see if the test happens. I really hope it will, otherwise I will have to postpone it for at least several weeks, which would prevent me from going solo on navigation exercises, which would seriously delay the advancement of my PPL training. But I guess I shouldn't complain about the rain.

Common problems with loaned general aviation headsets

Ever since I joined the Redcliffe Aero Club in March last year, I’ve been borrowing a headset each time I went flying. The club has a number of basic headsets that students can use for free during lessons, most of them of the Altronics brand. They are regularly maintained and even replaced, and they usually do the job.


I grew a bit frustrated with those headsets over the last few months though. The most common problem I experienced was with the mike boom not staying in place correctly. The mike book is the part of the headset that connects the microphone to one of the ear cups. It is usually either a hinged wire frame assembly or a flexible metal tube that can be bent so that the microphone sits just a few millimetres from the lips (the so-called “flex boom assembly”). What happens over time is that screws on the wire frame get loose, the flex tube develops a tendency to move back to its original position, or the linkage between the mike boom and the ear cup comes apart and pops out, leaving the mike boom dangling.

As a result, the mike invariably ends up moving away from my lips, which means that people on the receiving side of my radio communications experience a fainter voice and a lot more noise, i.e. a very badly degraded signal-to-noise ratio. So that’s all not very optimal.

Typically, with such a faulty headset, I would need to use my left hand to push the mike closer to my lips when making a radio call. This is not ideal in the circuit since the best practice is to make calls during turns and not after or before. This is to maximize the chance of other aircrafts sighting us. Other pilots will look for us when they hear the call (“turning base”, “turning final”, etc.), and they’re most likely to see us if we maximize the cross-section of the plane that they can see, i.e. if we are banked.

Therefore, with one hand holding the mike near my lips, that leaves only one hand for the yoke, throttle, trim and flaps. In most cases this works fine since flaps, throttle and trim are set before or after the turn. But you get the idea. It seems wrong to have my left hand busy with the “communicate” thing while both hands could be used for the “aviate” thing. In addition, it is quite disruptive when trying to have a conversation with the instructor. Try that when adjusting power in a turn and you’ll realise you need to grow a third hand. Or get your own headset.

There are a few other problems I’ve found with headsets that have seen too many hours, too many students and too many planes. On one occasion, I had one of the two jack plugs slightly come out of the socket. That was the thick one, the one connected to the speakers in my headset. I think it was helped by my right knee nudging against it, but I also suspect it was caused by wear and tear of the plug. As a result, the instructor could hear me, but I couldn’t hear him. It happened during the roll on a touch-and-go, and I realised something was wrong when Mal reached for the carby heat and firmly pushed it in.

The story was that we were practicing crosswind circuits and I had forgotten to remove carby heat on final, most likely because I was busy with all those things that keep you busy in a crosswind final. After I applied full power for take-off, Mal shouted “carby heat, carby heat” at me but I couldn’t hear him, and I can understand he got a bit cranky on this one as the end of the runway was approaching. On the climb-out we sorted out what the problem was and realized the plug was a few millimetres out.

Another thing that happened to me during training lessons was that the headband came lose and changed position in flight. Before each lesson I took time as part of the pre-flight routine to adjust the headband and make sure it felt comfortable with my sunglasses on. Still, one ear cup would drop at some point, which would force me to hand over the controls to the instructor while I was putting the headset and my sunglasses back in place. Not the kind of thing you want to be bothered with when you’re trying to make the most of a training flight.

Comfort is another problem with “best value” headsets. Last September I went on a one-week air safari from Redcliffe to Ayers Rock, for which we spent about 30 hours in the plane. I’ll talk more about this trip in future posts. For the time being, let’s just say that after 4 to 5 hours in the plane each day I had the impression that the headset had grown spikes that were slowly making their way through my skull. Granted, I do not have much hair to offer as a cushion between the headset band and my skull. But still, a nice cushion around the headband would have been nice.

So, little by little, I made up my mind about buying my own headset sooner rather than later. I had in mind to buy one after I got my GFPT as a gift to myself, so why not now rather than in two months? According to what I heard and read, proper GA headsets can last decades if properly taken care of, so delaying that purchase did not make sense. I ended up buying a pair of David Clark H10-60 which I find absolutely awesome. This post is getting a bit long now, I’ll go through the details of the selection and purchasing process in the next post.

Steep turns and compass turns

Now that I have demonstrated sufficient proficiency in crosswind landings to be allowed to fly solo to the training area, I can get on with the other remaining lessons for the GFPT.

According to the Redcliffe Aero Club syllabus, I still need to do compass turns, precautionary search, maximum performance circuits and two hours of instrument flying. Plus a couple of hours of solo airwork in the training area. If everything goes according to plan, I should be able to get all that done within the next two weeks. Fingers crossed.


On Wednesday I went back to the training area with Lee to practice compass turns and steep turns. I had already done one session of steep turns two months ago. What I remembered was that steep turns with 45 degrees angle of bank were no big problem, not really different from a 30 degree turn really. There was however a lot more difference going from 45 to 60 than there is from 30 to 45.

At 60 degrees I really had to pull the control column all the way back to maintain a constant altitude in the turn. The acceleration experienced in the frame of reference of the plane is 2 G. I could feel the skin on my face, especially the cheeks, being pulled downward. In one turn I tried to raise my right hand and it really felt twice the weight. I know, this shouldn't come as a surprise, but as always it's one thing to read it in the book and another thing to experience it in the plane.

This time it all went a bit more smoothly then the first time. I did well at maintaining altitude within the required 100ft margin for a full-circle steep turn. This despite the fact that the horizon was hard to find on that day. Lee noticed that I didn’t wait for the nose to start falling before pulling the control column, I’ll try to work on that when I go solo. We also discussed how much power to add in steep turns in order to keep a good safety margin between us and the stall speed. I was not consistent enough however with rolling out within 10 degrees of the target heading, so that’s also something to work on.

Compass turns were rather uneventful. As long as you remember the ONUS (Overshoot on North and Undershoot on South) and SAND (apparent turn South when Accelerate, North when Decelerate) rules that apply for the Southern Hemisphere, then it’s just practice.

The nice thing in Redcliffe is that because of the 07/25 orientation of the runway, the compass error linked to acceleration is very obvious when accelerating on take-off. With the nosewheel on the centreline for a take-off on 07, the compass swings well past East in the few seconds after applying full power.

It probably is also quite obvious when decelerating during a short-field landing, but keeping the plane going straight while braking keeps me busy enough to not have had the opportunity to stare at the compass so far. What's also quite likely is that on landing the various shocks and vibrations will prevent an accurate reading of the compass.

Lots of flying booked for the next weeks. Getting up at 4:45 twice this week was hard, but I’m happy I did it. Booking lessons within a few days of each-other really helps with not loosing the feel for the plane, but that may turn out to be a costly habit in the long run :-)

Crosswinds tick!

Some absolutely awesome flying was had yesterday morning. At 6AM the windsock was showing a strong crosswind from the south, so I took off with Lee in BUQ, the other Cessna 152, for a session of crosswind circuits. This was pretty much the same drill as last time, using runway 07 with a strong crosswind from the right, just with no rain.

In the pre-flight briefing we had decided to use only 20 degrees of flaps and aim for 75 knots on base and 70 on final. Crosswind landings require a lot of rudder and aileron work, and these 5 extra knots make a real difference when the moment comes to swing the nose of the plane back onto the centreline and keep it there while flaring.

The other advantage of an increased airspeed is in reducing the angle of attack required for creating a given amount of lift, which increases the margin between our angle of attack at any given moment and the angle of attack at which stall happens. This is particularly important in turbulent and gusty conditions, such as this morning, since a sudden change in airflow direction could stall one wing, or both, which is a sure recipe for disaster at a few hundred feet above the ground.


On the base leg I applied myself to maintaining 75 knots and controlling our rate of descent so as to end up between 600 and 700ft when turning final. The reason behind that is to ensure that we are established on final not below 500ft. This is not an actual regulation, but more of a best practice to make sure we have enough time to get ourselves sorted out on final.

This is not really hard in fact, just a matter of concentrating and maintaining the proper scan between the runway, the ASI and the altimeter. One reason why you want to really stick to the airspeed of 75 knots in the Cessna 152 is that Vfe is 85 knots. It only takes a gust of headwind and a couple of seconds of inattention for the airspeed to reach the end of the white arc.

My landings this time were a lot better than the time before. I was careful to really fly the plane all the way down. I only flared too high on one occasion today, which is a definite improvement over last time too. Lee suggested that I removed the crab as I crossed the fence, i.e. way earlier than in my previous session. This worked wonders.


Doing so gave me enough time to transition properly to the wing-down technique after removing the crab and make sure I was tracking along the centreline before starting to flare. After flaring I forced myself to give the plane enough time to float above the runway and decide itself when to touch the ground. This was no problem since I could control track and heading with rudder and aileron. On a couple of occasions I could even distinctly hear the upwind main wheel touch the ground before the other one (and before the nose wheel), which is very rewarding.

In total I did five good landings, and as a result Lee gave me a tick for crosswinds. This means I can now go solo to the training area over Bribie Island. Actually, I already went solo there about a month ago, but that was early in the morning on a day with no wind, either actual or forecasted. I still need to complete about two hours of solo airwork before being able to attempt the GFPT test, which is still scheduled for February 29th.

During one circuit this morning a Cessna Caravan called inbound from above Brisbane International control tower as we were turning onto the crosswind leg. Lee called him and proposed to extend our downwind leg to let him land first, which the pilot of the Caravan gladly accepted. On late downwind the Caravan called a short base turn. I looked over my left shoulder and could see the Caravan in a tight descending turn that clearly indicated there weren’t any passengers on board. This was a Caravan from Seair Pacific, a Queensland charter operator based on the Gold Coast. A few minutes later it made a departure call for Lady Elliot Island, which is about 50 nautical miles north-east of Bundaberg, in the top right corner of the Brisbane WAC chart.

Tomorrow morning, weather permitting, we’ll go to the training area to practice compass turns. This is again a 6AM-8AM booking, which means getting up at sparrow’s fart for the second day in a row. But flying in the early morning has this way of putting a smile on my face for the rest of the day, so I really cannot complain.