PPL Test Part 2: from Maroochydore to Gayndah

After taking-off on 18 at Maroochydore, I wrote down our departure time and made a right-hand turn onto the heading which, given the forecasted winds, would take us in a straight line to Gayndah, about 100 nautical miles to the north-west, on the second leg of the PPL in-flight test.

This leg was pure dead reckoning, so no use of radio-navigation aids or GPS. That’s a pity because Maroochydore has a VOR which I would have loved to use to establish myself on track. Instead I had to look over my shoulder to make sure the outbound track pointed somehow to the airport. I must have done a decent enough job because we soon had Mount Ninderry on our left and a few miles later we flew right over the top of Mount Eerwah, which matched the line I had drawn with a black pencil on my map. So far so good.

I was feeling pretty happy with myself at that stage. I knew from another student who was once failed by the same examiner that if he decided to fail me he would ask me to turn around and fly back home right away. Which meant I was still in the race. I mentally warned myself against relaxing and becoming complacent.

Another thing I knew was that the examiner does not normally fail you in the PPL test if you make a mistake, realise quickly this is a mistake and take the appropriate corrective action. This is the difference with the CPL test where everything needs to be done right the first time and every other time after that.

I called the tower to report clear of controlled airspace and they approved a change to the center frequency. The weather wasn’t too bad and I climbed to 4500ft. A Caribou military transport aircraft had departed Maroochydore right behind us and overtook us on the right on its way to Gympie. With a cruise speed of 160kt it’s not that much faster than our Cessna 172SP and its 115kt. But the comparison stops here. They have two engines and an MTOW over 14 tons, 40% of which can be cargo. Compare that with a single-engine, 1.3 ton MTOW and 4-seater-configuration-only-if-you-don’t-take-baggages-and-not-full-fuel for the 172.

I gave a call to the Gympie CTAF after receiving a friendly nudge from the examiner (“just as an information, there may be an aerodrome within 10 nautical miles”). We crossed the Wide Bay Highway later than I expected. This was our half-way point to Gayndah, so I revised my estimate accordingly. We crossed a few more ridges and valleys, some with roads in them, some not. Of course I couldn’t use the Gayndah NDB navaid. I kept aligning compass and DG, flying the heading, maintaining altitude and dutifully performing my CLEAROFF checks.

The examiner took a sandwich out of his flight bag and asked if it was OK if he ate it now. Sure I said. He unwrapped the homemade delicacy and the smell of egg started to fill the cabin. He finished the sandwich quickly, so I thought hey, at least the smell will go away now. Wrong. Even though the descent was well planned and the corresponding increase in pressure so gradual I never had to pop my ears once, the examiner managed to belch all the way down to ground level.

After clearing the last hill I could see Gayndah, Queensland’s Citrus Fruit capital. During flight planning at home I had realised on Google Earth that the airfield was in a bend of the river, with the bend pointing toward me and the town on my left. Thankfully everything turned out to be where it was supposed to be and I joined the circuit for YGAY, the unlicensed aerodrome of Gayndah with its 1265m long paved runway and elevation of 369ft.

The plan here was to perform a so-called precautionary search before landing, in this case simply overflying the runway at 200ft to check if it was suitable for landing, then do a normal circuit and land. My circuit join manoeuvre was acceptable. I ended up high and fast on final so had to use a lot of flaps to slow myself down for the overfly at 80kt and 200ft above ground. The runway looked in good condition with no obstacles on it or nearby so I went around and climbed back up to circuit height. That’s when I made a mistake that would have meant the end of the test had I been attempting the CPL test.

To understand the mistake, remember I did all my flying training at Redcliffe, elevation 7ft. With an altimeter set to read zero at sea level, there is no practical difference between the altitude over mean sea level (i.e with the altimeter set to the local QNH) and the altitude over the reference altitude of the aerodrome. 7 feet is less than the thickness of the altimeter needle.

Gayndah and its elevation of 369ft was a different story. Of course I knew that I had to join the circuit overhead at about 1900ft and that circuit altitude was about 1400ft. I even had all those numbers written on my knee board.

What happened was that I happily kept climbing above circuit altitude after my go-around. I realized I was doing something wrong when I found myself still climbing mid-downwind. The picture of the airport on my left hand-side was wrong too. I reacted quickly: chopped power down and pushed the nose down to recapture circuit altitude.

Of course by the time I levelled off at circuit height I was on late downwind and too fast, so once again I flew the entire base and final leg with the engine on idle and a fair amount of flaps down. What made matters even worse was that I was supposed to demonstrate a short field landing, which means a lower approach speed on short final. I all worked OK in the end, we landed ,taxied to the apron and shut down.

In stark contrast with the stench of the egg sandwich he had subjected me to while airborne, the instructor now commented on how the air on the ground was filled with the smell of citrus fruit blossom. Readers from the Northern Hemisphere, remember means October means the start of Spring in Australia. The air was still and warm but this is not always the case around here: I could see a piece of corrugated iron, probably torn off a nearby roof or shed, sitting high in the branches of a tall gum tree.

I wish I had pictures to illustrate this post, but I had made a conscious decision not to take my camera on that day, not wanting to give the “tourist” impression to the examiner. I got back into the airplane, re-folded my maps and prepared myself for the third and final leg of the PPL test.

So far so good I thought, but I came uncomfortably close to failing. On the menu for the next leg: engine failure after take-off, navaids work, instrument flying, lost procedure, diversion, forced landing without power, low level flying and a flapless landing at Redcliffe.

Nav7: Back to Redcliffe

Before starting up in Goondiwindi for the last leg of Nav7 I didn't forget to turn the GPS logger back on, so this post will be illustrated with the actual track I flew. Hopefully this will compensate for the lack of photos. GPS tracking is the aviation equivalent of reality TV: no details will be spared, and all embarassing navigation mistakes will be exposed.

The plan was to fly from Goondiwindi (YGDI) back to Redcliffe (YRED) via Millmerran (YMMN), Toowoomba (YTWB) and the township of Esk. As can be seen below, I departed Goondiwindi on runway 22, flew a short crosswind leg, turned downwind and kept climbing for an overhead departure.

I could have made my life simpler by departing on downwind rather than overhead since my outbound track was nearly parallel to the downwind leg. Another thing I could have done better would have been to make sure the extended outbound track pointed at the airfield instead of being about one mile to the north of it.

I kept climbing to 5500ft while maintaining a heading of 033 degrees to Millmerran. The track to Millmerran as drawn on the map was actually 041, but given the forecasted westerly winds at 25 knots I had computed before the flight that the nose of the airplane had to be pointed 8 degrees left of track to compensate for the expected drift. The idea was to keep flying the planned heading and check later if I was where I expected to be or if any adjustements had to be made. In a nutshell, that's the navigation technique known as dead reckoning.

About two thirds of the way to Millmerran I could see on the left-hand side a power line oriented north-south crossing a road oriented south-west north-east. From the WAC chart I could easily tell where I was, which was good, except this was not where I was supposed to be!

I was actually about 5 miles north of the track. I had already flown 45 miles from Goondiwindi, with 20 more to go before Millmerran. Maybe the wind was not as strong as forecasted or had assumed a different direction, resulting in my heading over-correcting the expected drift and taking me further to the left of track. Or maybe I misaligned the compass and the DG. Finding why it happened was anyway secondary to fixing the problem.

That's when the navigation technique known as one-in-sixty comes in handy. It is based on the fact that being off track by 1 mile after 60 miles flown means an angular error of 1 degree. 2 miles after 60 miles mean 2 degrees, and so on. It works great, at least for small angles. From a mathematical point of view, this relies on the fact that the function tan(x) can be approximated as x for small values of x. But let's not complicate things, since the beauty of the method is that it can be done in the cockpit while flying.

It goes a little bit like this: I am off track by about 5 miles after about 45 miles flown. Let's say 50 instead of 45 because it makes calculations easier. 5 in 50 is like 6 in 60. So I was over-correcting drift by 6 degrees. If I turn right 6 degrees now, I will fly parallel to my intended track. However, if I do that I will still be 5 miles off-track. So I need another one-in-sixty calculation to determine the closing angle that will take me straight to my destination. I still have 20 miles to run till Millmerran, 5 in 20 is like 15 in 60, so if I add an extra 15 degrees to the 6 degrees found previously, this means I need to turn right 21 degrees to be on a track to Millmerran. New heading is therefore 012.

And it works, as can be seen in the picture above: after turning onto the new heading my new track was pointing at Millmerran. Near Millmerran I went a bit right of track in order to keep the aerodrome on my left, simply out of curiosity. Then I turned onto a new heading and tracked for the Toowoomba aerodrome. I used the drift correction from the one-in-sixty exercise conducted a few minutes before to compute a new heading.

I picked up the ATIS for Oakey on their VOR frequency. The sequence letter for the information was Zulu, meaning the military control zone was not active and had reverted to a CTAF. My track only clipped the CTR by a mile or so, but I would nevertheless have needed to request a clearance if it had been active. No need to upset the military. I prefer to see fighter jets and big black helicopters at airshows rather than at the end of my left wingtip.

Toowoomba is blessed with an NDB navaid, so I tuned it in and the needle on the ADF was pointing straight ahead. The ADF needle points at the navaid in relation to the airframe, not in relation to the track as is the case with VOR navaids, so one has to take drift into account. However, since I was no longer offsetting a lot of drift, the nose of the airplane was pretty much pointing where the airplane was going, and therefore the needle pointing straight ahead was good news.

I made a couple of calls on the Toowoomba CTAF to let everyone know I was intending to overfly the field at 5500ft. At this altitude I couldn't really have conflicted with traffic in the circuit, but it's good practice. The GPS logger can be cold and cruel at times, pointing mistakes that would otherwise go unnoticed, but in the present case I'm happy to report that my track took me right overhead the airfield.

After Toowoomba I tracked for Esk. Under my left wing were the Cressbrook and Perseverance Creek reservoirs that I had overflown on Nav3 six months ago on my way to Oakey. The hilly scenery was really beautiful in the low light near the end of this winter afternoon. I found Esk and confirmed it with Mount Esk, the racetrack and the red rooves of the Esk Hospital. I descended to 3500ft and once clear of the ranges kept descending to 1500ft to remain under the CTA steps of Brisbane International. 

The GPS logger got its revenge when I joined the circuit at Redcliffe. I was coming in from the west at 1500ft and my track was taking me straight to the airfield. I turned right a little so as to be on the south side of the extended centerline for runway 07/25.

The dead side at Redcliffe is always to the south because all circuits are over the water, i.e. left-hand circuits for 07 and right-hand circuits for 25. That's both for reasons of not overflying populated areas, and avoiding any controlled airspace violation. The Brisbane CTA step over the Redcliffe aerodrome is at 1500ft, and there's a 1000ft step just a couple of miles south of the field.

I knew from listening to the CTAF frequency that runway 07 was in use, which I confirmed by looking at the windsock as I was descending to circuit height over the dead side. The winds had changed since earlier in the day when I took off on 25.

I joined crosswind above the opposite end of the runway. I turned downwind a bit too early so I widened the leg a bit. This is why the track does not look anything like the nice figures in flying training books. I landed on 07, taxied out and refuelled the airplane. I cancelled SARTIME by phone then sat down a few minutes to jot down some notes about the flight so that I could blog about it later. Total flying time today 4.3 hours, at $185 an hour plus $29 for landing at Archerfield. Oops. Looking forward to being able to take passengers with me to share the cost.

So that's it. The navigation part of the PPL is now over. It's a bit of a weird feeling. Next step, PPL pre-test and then test. And hopefully many more adventures after that. And I need to blog about the CSU endorsement. And the PPL theory test. And the airshow in Singapore. And write a guest post for Plastic Pilot. Too many blog topics, not enough time.

Nav7: Things get windy in Goondiwindi

I landed at Goondiwindi at the conclusion of the second leg of Nav7 with an empty water bottle and a correlatively full bladder. Note to self: get smarter with water intake on long legs. After shutting down the engine and securing the airplane my first objective was to locate a bathroom. Any bathroom for that matter.

From a distance I thought the building in the picture below was someone's house. I was ready to knock on the door and beg for the use of those kind people's lieux d'aisance when I realised this was actually the terminal building.

The building was empty but I could still access the facilities. There was a small waiting room with retro-styled lounge chairs, a few leaflets for local businesses and attractions, and a Bible. A sign on the bathroom door was advertising local joy flights conducted by Sudholz Air Charters, a charter company based in Goondiwindi which operates a Piper Saratoga and a Cessna Crusader.

The McIntyre Aero Club is housed in the same building and a plaque reminds visitors that it is Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen who officially opened the club house in 1991, just like he did with the Barambah District Aero Club in Wondai which I visited on Nav1 and again on Nav4.

Interestingly, at least to spelling sticklers like me, his last name is spelled Peterson here, and not Petersen as it should be. I wonder if Sir Joh noticed the typo when he unveiled the plaque in 1991. My guess is that he didn't: this was the year the former Queensland Premier faced a criminal trial for perjury in relation to a large corruption scandal known as the Fitzgerald Enquiry so it's fair to assume he had more pressing worries on his mind.

There wasn't anyone around at the aero club, but they must be a nice bunch of people, given that they organise breakfast fly-ins to coincide with the Gourmet in Gundy wine, food and art festival. And of course they have a brick barbecue on the front lawn.

I had my sandwich on the nicely flowered front deck before proceeding to the back of the building.

All three motels in town offer a courtesy pick-up service from the airport. I hope they also give free rides back to the airport in the morning.

And if you're not heading for a local motel you have a choice of two local cab companies. The Gundy Cab Co. uses a six-digit phone number that takes us back to the previous century. Someone wrote "put correct phone number here" on the other sign advertising the Cotton Country Cabs, but I don't think this would be enough: the business is actually up for sale.

The tour of the aerodrome wouldn't be complete without mentioning the weather station.

The circular device in the foreground is the evaporimeter. Wind speeds and direction are measured at the top of the pole on the right, while the white box on the left measures all other parameters such as temperature, humidity and dewpoint temperature.

I walked back to the apron to check out the only two other planes parked there: a Cessna Crusader and a Cessna 182. So with our C172 that was a bit of a Cessna family reunion.

The Crusader is a six-seat twin-engined airplane with counterrotating propellers, i.e. one propeller turns clockwise while the other turns anticlockwise. This makes the mechanical design and maintenance of the airplane harder, but on the other hand avoids having one engine labeled as the critical engine, thereby improving handling in case of failure of the critical engine.

I went back to VH-SPP to prepare everything for the next leg. The wind had picked up since I landed and turned very gusty. I was surprised because gusty winds were forecasted for aerodromes further north such as Oakey (15 knots gusting at 25) and Toowoomba (16 knots gusting 26), but not for Goondiwindi where the forecast was 14 knots with no gusts.

On the synoptic below Goondiwindi is near the top of the black arrow that says 35 knots, right in-between the cold front and the trough on the east coast of Australia. For those readers more familiar with how things work in the Northern Hemisphere, keep in mind that in the Southern Hemisphere winds rotate clockwise around a low and anti-clockwise around a high.

The wind was actually so gusty I could feel the plane rock from side to side. I was getting worried that I would not be able to take-off safely. The good thing though was that the wind was less than 30 degrees off the runway direction, so I knew I could handle the crosswind component, it's the gusts in the headwind component I was worried about: what if I rotated in a gust, lifted off and then got robbed of 10 or 15 knots of headwind? This would bring me very close to stalling speed. 

I taxied to the run-up bay, did my pre-take off checks, entered the runway and backtracked. From where I was I could see the windsock quite well. The plane was still rocking a bit from side to side with the gusts. I put ailerons into the wind, full power and kept some forward pressure on the yoke to make sure the airplane would not take-off prematurely. At 65 knots airspeed I started rotating and the airplane lifted off quickly and nicely into the blue sky for the last leg of the trip.

And apologies for the corny title. I couldn't resist.

Nav7: from Redcliffe to Archerfield

Nav7 is the last solo nav before the PPL pre-test and test. Last chance to fix bad habits before it's too late. The plan was to go from Redcliffe to Archerfield and refuel there, then to Goondiwindi via Gatton, Warwick and Inglewood. The third and final leg took me back to Redcliffe via Millmerran, Toowoomba and Esk. The total time spent in the air for this trip was 4.3 hours and the airplane was VH-SPP, a Cessna 172SP. A very long flight, so I'll break up the story into three posts.

For this flight I used a PhotoTrackr device that I borrowed from my friend Christian. It's basically a GPS receiver that records GPS fixes to a flash memory that can later be read by plugging the device into a PC. It is powered by a single AA battery and requires only one button to operate. The roof hook at the back of the 172 provided a perfect hanging point for maximising the number of satellites that the device can see.

The track for the first leg starts with a take-off to the west from Redcliffe Aerodrome, then south-west to the TV Towers, south-east to the Centenary Bridge and finally joining the circuit for a full-stop landing on 28R at Archerfield at 10:45AM.

The day started a lot earlier though. When I left home it was 7AM and only 6 degrees outside. Quite cold for a Queensland winter. I drove to Redcliffe with virtually no traffic and pulled into the small shopping centre next to Bunnings for a coffee and a slice of cake. Then I walked into Subway next door.

The lady was kind enough to serve me even though the store was not open yet. She even called me "keen and early". This was the first time in my entire life that these two adjectives were used in conjunction to describe my personality. It must be one of those things flying does to you. I got a foot-long roast beef sandwich with no sauce since I know from past experience how soggy the sauce can make the bread after 3 or 4 hours spent in a plastic bag at the back of the plane.

At the club I helped push planes out of the hangar then sat down for flight planning. The weather forecast was amazingly good with not a single cloud in sight, unlimited visibility and some wind from the west thanks to a large low over Tasmania. The westerlies were expected to grow stronger and gustier in the afternoon though because of an approaching cold front. The forecasted winds at the surface were 15 knots gusting at 25 for Oakey, and 16 gusting at 26 for Toowoomba. Goondiwindi had 14 knots of wind with no gusts and a crosswind component of 7 knots.

I got Tony to double-check my flight notification form. He made sure I knew where controlled airspace was and how and where to check if I needed a clearance into it or not. And also that I had checked the crosswind component for Goondiwindi. Then he signed me out and asked that I rang the club from Goondiwindi to let everyone know I had landed safely.

I took some time to pre-flight the airplane and prepare the cabin for the long flight. I made sure everything was within reach of my seat, including water, spare pencils and flight computer. I took off on 25, kept flying the runway heading then tracked for the township of Samford at 1500ft. As soon as I had a bit of time I tuned and wrote down the ATIS for Archerfield.

After Samford I started flying south, overflew the Enoggera Reservoir and made my inbound call for Archerfield abeam the TV Towers. Then I tracked 153 degrees for the Centenary Bridge. The bridge is sitting very low on the water and is hidden from view by a curtain of trees, which means it only becomes visible when one is practically over it.

Archer Tower asked me to join downwind for 28R. As I reported downwind tower informed me I was number 4 in the circuit and that I should widen my downwind leg. I reported sighting the plane in front of me and widened the circuit a bit. Then a few second later I saw another plane, a lot more to my left, and a lot closer than the previous one I had spotted. This was actually the plane I was expected to follow, not the previous one... Oops... This time around I really widened downwind, doubling the distance between me and the runway. In hindsight, I should have made sure I sighted all three airplanes ahead of me in the circuit when I was told I was number 4, not just the airplane I thought was the one prior to me in the sequence.

I landed on 28R and exited via the second taxiway. Then I taxied to the transient parking area in front of the terminal and called the refuel truck on the radio. He showed up a few minutes later and I asked him to fill up the tanks to the top. He noticed the name of the Redcliffe Aero Club etched onto the BP fuel swipe card and asked if I was on my way to Goondiwindi. I guess I'm not the first student pilot to stop at Archerfield for refuel on Nav7. He added 130 litres, which brought the tanks to their combined maximum of 201 litres.

After he left I checked fuel level and all fuel drains and did a quick walk around the airplane to make sure everything was still fine. I taxied to the grass run-up bay for 28L, making sure no plane was on final for 28R when crossing at the back of 28R on taxiway A9. After run-up checks I made sure everything was ready for take-off before calling ready, not like that time at Gold Coast when I forgot to switch the transponder on. ATIS had not changed, strobes, nav lights, transponder, DG and compass aligned, mixture on full rich, flaps up. I called ready for take-off at the holding point and was cleared for take-off and a departure to the west.

Next stop Goondiwindi. 171 nautical miles to cover with strong headwinds. Estimated duration of the leg one hour and fifty-two minutes. Average ground speed about 90 knots. That'll give us plenty of time to admire South-East Queensland unfold below us.

Nav6: Errol Flynn in command

Relating what happened to me on Nav6 is going to take more than one post. It’s not that this flight was any longer than the previous ones. It's simply that the first leg was a comedy of errors so farcical it will take a full post just to list all the mistakes I managed to cram into not even one hour. Hopefully someone can learn from my mistakes, or at least have a good laugh.

This training flight was a dual navigation exercise for the purpose of assessing whether I was ready to go solo into controlled airspace. The first leg of the flight took us from Redcliffe to Gold Coast at 1500ft. This was the same route as on Nav5, but the lower altitude meant I had to exit Class C controlled airspace after transiting Brisbane International and re-enter it approaching Gold Coast.

The night before, I had made sure that everything that could be prepared before the flight was prepared. I had a cheat sheet with all the frequencies I would need for the whole flight, in the order in which they would most likely be needed. I even had an enlarged printout of the Gold Coast airport diagram with enough space to write down clearances and ATIS. All NOTAMs were printed out, read and relevant ones highlighted. Pencils sharpened, maps folded, ruler, ERSA and protractor within reach in the cockpit. I was more prepared for the flight than I had ever been.

After start-up I dialled the first frequencies I would need to talk on as well as that of the navaids. I requested a code while taxying, took off on 25 and switched to Brisbane Radar for my clearance. They identified us and handed me over to Brisbane Approach who issued the expected clearance for transiting Brisbane International: Hornibrook Viaduct, Brisbane Control Tower, Manly Boat Harbor and then direct to the Jacobs Well VOR.

Our traffic was a Bell helicopter coming in the opposite direction, which we only spotted when it flew by us, despite having all 4 eyes looking outside. We switched to tower who asked us to go behind a single-engine light aircraft which was landing on runway 19. After that we tracked for Manly Boat Harbor, which for a moment I confused with the Cleveland boat harbor, right behind it. Lee was kind enough to give me a nudge on this one, and I turned to intercept radial 146 of JCW.

Once the radial intercepted, we tracked for the Jacobs Well VOR. Or what I thought was JCW. Because, you see, I had forgotten to properly Tune-Identify-Test it. And it very rightfully came back to bite me. I found out later that I had tuned in Gold Coast VOR (CG) instead. The error was not obvious at first because radial 146 of JCW and radial 146 of CG are only one mile apart. I realised my mistake when the station passage didn’t happen on time, and I knew from looking outside that the station was behind me.

What happened was that I had tuned the wrong navaid frequency on the ground, as part of my let’s-get-as-much-as-possible-done-on-the-ground plan. But because VORs require line-of-sight radio communication, I couldn’t identify and test on the ground, so I left it for later. And when the moment came to use the navaid, I had forgotten about the missing identify and test. This definitely qualifies as a learning experience.

We then tracked for Gold Coast. I wrote down the ATIS for YBCG, and I was about to contact Brisbane Approach for requesting a clearance to enter Gold Coast Classs C airspace when Lee stopped me. Where are we? Approaching Q1 at 1500ft. And what does the ERSA say? That we may request our clearance directly from Gold Coast tower. Which is also the scenario we had discussed in the briefing before the flight. Which I had forgotten. Bad. On to Gold Coast tower, who clear us to track for Gold Coast airport with a clearance limit of Burleigh Heads. The frequency is very busy with the usual mix of jet and GA traffic.

At Burleigh Heads they clear us for joining final for runway 14. We haven’t been in the air for 30 minutes at that stage and I already can’t believe I made so many mistakes. Did I mention I also completely forgot to make a call on the CTAF frequency for Southport, even though we came within a few miles of the field at 1500ft?

I decide to finish this leg on a good note and apply myself to making a very nice landing. We cross the threshold. There’s plenty of runway in front of us. I remove power. I let the plane go down, and when the ground gets closer I bring the nose slightly over the horizon. The stall indicator goes off. All good so far. We haven’t touched the ground yet and we’re near stall speed, this should make for a nice landing, letting the plane touch the ground only when it decides to.

Suddenly the plane really stalls. Usually this is followed very soon by the nice and reassuring chirping sound of the main wheels touching the ground. Except that in our case nothing but a deafening silence happened for the next two seconds, and then we hit the ground. I could feel the struts absorb the energy of our plane falling down onto the runway from a height of about 2 meters. Lee is laughing. I fell victim to a textbook optical illusion: because the runway here is a lot larger and darker than at Redcliffe, I underestimated our height, and flared too high. For estimating our height, I should have looked at the horizon ahead of me rather then look to the side and down at the runway surface.

We exit the runway, hold short for a Jetstar A320, taxi to the GA parking, shut down and stretch our legs a little. I prepare the cockpit for the next leg. We won’t be able to fly at 6500ft to Kyogle as planned because of clouds over the ranges. We decide to go for 2500ft instead.

Startup again, ask for an amended clearance at 2500ft which we obtain. Take-off on 14, right turn to intercept radial 215 of Gold Coast and we climb to 2500ft and level off there. Just a couple of minutes later Brisbane Approach tells us we’re leaving controlled airspace, which I read back dutifully.


I do my CLEAR-OFF checks and start computing an estimate for Kyogle. Lee points at the altimeter which is now reading 2700ft. I use the trim to make the plane slowly loose altitude and get back to 2500ft. Lee says I need to be more aggressive than that and push the nose down now to get back to 2500ft as soon as possible because we’re currently busting controlled airspace. Busting controlled airspace? That doesn’t sound good.

What happened was that our amended clearance made us leave controlled airspace at 2500ft and fly right below the next Class C step, whose base is precisely at 2500ft. Class C airspace around airports is pretty much like an inverted wedding cake. Flying a bit lower than 2500ft would not have been a big drama, but flying one foot higher is a big no no. Especially when it’s not one foot but 200 feet and the objective of the day is to assess my ability to fly solo in controlled airspace. Needless to say I didn't get a tick on that one.

Mal has an expression for that, he calls it an Errol Flynn day, in reference to the Australian-born actor who apparently had a reputation for breaking anything he touched. My Errol Flynn day lasted less than one hour, but I still have trouble understanding how I could get so many things wrong, even though a similar exercise a few weeks earlier went without problem.

As a consequence, I’ll have to redo the controlled airspace part of Nav6. The plan will be to go from Redcliffe to Gold Coast, then to Toowoomba via the Laravale VOR and back to Redcliffe. This will give us plenty of Class C airspace to get in and out of and hopefully a chance for me to demonstrate that I can do better than on my Errol Flynn day.

Kangaroo 1 - Airplane 0

Aviatrix just recently posted a story about towing airplanes with the hand brake on, and how this could result in a nasty flat patch on the tires. This reminded me of a tire I saw in the corner of a hangar at Redcliffe a few months ago:

The two tow bars at the back are of the type Aviatrix refers to as the giant tuning fork. I guess if you're a whale, elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, giraffe, okapi, or alligator, all animals known to use infrasounds, this would indeed be a handy tuning fork for your very long vocal wavelengths.

That tire came from the main wheel of a C172SP. I think the story is that a kangaroo jumped in front of the plane right after touchdown on 07 at Redcliffe. The pilot jumped on the brakes and blew up one of the tires, but fortunately enough the airplane didn't suffer any other sort of damage. No idea what happened to the kangaroo though. Probably hopped his way back to the pub with a good story to tell.

That's actually quite a facetious bunch of kangaroos we have at Redcliffe. The entire mob lives south of the threshold of runway 07. I saw them a few times in the distance when flying early in the morning. I think during the day they just retreat in the shade.

The close-up picture above does not require much explaining, it's very consistent with blocking the brakes. Which makes me think, why don't airplanes come fitted with anti-lock braking?

Thanks to the irreplaceable Wikipedia, I just found out that the first anti-lock braking system was actually developed in 1929 for use in airplanes by French automobile and aircraft pioneer Gabriel Voisin. He and his brother designed the Antoinette III, the first airplane on the European continent to succeed in landing back where it had taken off after flying a pre-assigned 1 kilometer long closed circuit.

What one can learn with just a few clicks of the mouse will never cease to amaze me.

Nav5: seven controller, a few street lamps and a diversion

The first leg of Nav5 took us from Redcliffe to Gold Coast through the Brisbane Class C airspace. I think I talked to more controllers in the first 30 minutes of this flight that in all my flying training to this day.

Redcliffe being a non-towered aerodrome, my only contacts with controllers so far were during navs to Archerfield, Maroochydore and Oakey. On a couple of occasions I also contacted Brisbane Radar to request a radio check early in the morning when no one was answering on the local CTAF frequency.

We requested a code and clearance from Brisbane Radar, who immediately handed us over to Brisbane Approach. We got cleared for the Hornibrook Viaduct, Brisbane Control Tower and Manly boat harbour at 1500ft.

As we approached the tower, the controller gave us a landing clearance for runway 14. Hmmm... that was very nice of him, but we never intended to land at YBBN, and never asked for a clearance... Before I could think of what to say he came back and corrected his mistake. A minute later we overflew the threshold of runway 01 and I could see three Qantas airliners queuing up at the holding point right under us.

Tower handed us over to approach on the other side of Brisbane airport. We overflew the Jacobs Well VOR, jotted down the ATIS for Gold Coast then switched frequencies again a few more times through approach, tower and ground for Gold Coast. In total, I talked to seven different controllers. My radio calls were good, thanks to careful preparation and quite a bit of rehearsal at home beforehand.


We landed at Gold Coast on runway 32, taxied to the GA parking and started up again soon after for Cherrabah. Gold Coast was very busy that morning, we had to wait for a little while at the holding point. Finally the controller gave us an immediate departure and we took off just as a Virgin Blue 737 was coming in to land. As we departed I glanced back at the runway to realise that, instead of the normal Virgin Blue red livery, this aircraft was entirely painted in blue. Sean explained that this was Virgin Blue’s 50th Boeing 737, and that the names of all employees, including his from a past non-flying job with the airline, were printed on the overhead lockers.

According to Wikipedia, Virgin Blue’s name if a play on the predominantly red livery and the Australian slang tradition of calling a red-headed male 'Blue' or 'Bluey'. So I guess this solves the mistery of why Virgin Blue planes are usually painted red.

We climbed to 6500ft to clear the ranges of the Gold Coast hinterland and tracked for Cherrabah. That was quite a long leg, with spectacular views of the mountains. We identified Palen Creek Prison Farm. Sean tried to convince me to stop doing 'track crawling', i.e. spending my time with my nose in the map in order to always know where I was. Our ground speed was higher than planned, so we entered the open country near Killarney earlier than expected. This threw me off for a moment, then we kept flying the heading and, sure enough, we found Cherrabah a few minutes later.


In the morning when I had called the Cherrabah Homestead to request permission to land, the person on the phone had requested that we overfly the runway once before landing “to scare the roos”. We did one 100ft overfly but couldn’t see any kangaroos. Sean talked me through the approach and landing. Quite a challenging approach actually, with hills on all slides and a sloppy runway.


The airfield is one of those places you have to see to believe. Too bad Shane didn’t get to see it on his Nav5 and got diverted to Warwick and its swarms of flies instead! The runway itself is actually quite nice, it was upgraded from a grass strip to a sealed runway a while ago. Cherrabah is not a licensed aerodrome, so I guess they do not have to comply with too many regulations about runway lighting, and obviously they let their creativity go wild with these beautiful solar-powered replicas of classical street lamps in the Australian bush. The terminal building, although empty, is well worth the picture too.


We took off on 28 and did some low-level flying following a road and a river, pretending the cloud ceiling was so low we were following natural features on our way to Warwick. This is what some people call IFR Flying: I Follow the Road. We then tracked north to Toowoomba, and as we were near Allora we diverted direct back to Redcliffe. I requested and obtained a clearance for crossing Amberley airspace and amended our flight plan.

We flew a few miles south of Lake Wivenhoe, crossed the ranges, kept our eyes out for airplanes tracking south for the "TV Towers" entry lane to Archerfield, found Petrie, the nearby paper mill, then approached Redcliffe from the dead side and landed on 07. We had a thorough debrief during which Sean said that the two things I really had to work on were holding an accurate altitude and heading, so I'll have to make this a priority for the next navs. And avoiding track crawling.

Nav5 was my last time flying at the front of the aircraft for a little while. After that I had two weeks of business travel, half a week of jetlag, some busy days catching up on work, and almost a week of vacations. There was a lot of flying of course, but unfortunately only of the kind that involves sitting at the back of an airliner for more than ten hours in an economy seat that makes the cockpit of a 152 feel like luxury.

First solo nav: I love it when a plan comes together

Nav4 was my first solo nav. It was very enjoyable, very rewarding and, of course, amazingly quiet in the cockpit.

I showed up at the club bright and early and got started on the flight planning tasks that can only be done on the day. I downloaded the weather and NOTAMs, computed headings, ground speeds, time intervals, fuel consumption and endurance, and finally filled in the flight notification form.


Mal was about to sign me out when I mentioned that this was my first time flying VH-MSJ. This airplane is a Cessna 172N, while the other three 172s at the club are the much more recent 172SP model. The 172N model came out in 1977 and VH-MSJ was first registered in Australia in 1979, which makes it about 30 years old.

Even if it is the same type, there are sufficient differences between the two models to make an instructor uncomfortable at the thought of sending a student solo in a model he has never flown before. The model N has a 160 HP carbureted engine, while the SP has a 180 HP fuel-injected engine, which resulted in a significant increase in cruise speed, from 105kt up to 115kt. In addition, the flaps on the N model can be extended down to 40 degrees, which was later brought back to 30.

In addition to differences with the type, there’s a few idiosyncrasies with MSJ itself. As they say in the Qantas safety briefing, subtly, every aeroplane is different. You bet they are. MSJ has only one radio, which is situated on the right-hand side of the panel, making it awkward to dial frequencies. All navaids are unserviceable, even though the second ADF is not tagged as such. This is fine of course since Nav4 is pure dead reckoning in class G airspace. And although the rudder trim is forever set fully to the right, a very healthy amount of right rudder sill needs to be applied at all stages of the flight, even in cruise.


Mal suggested we go together for a few circuits so that I could familiarize myself with the airplane. So off we went. My first impression was that MSJ behaves a lot more like a 152 than the 172SP. The biggest difference is when extending the last stage of flaps on final. Mal was right, it really feels like pulling the handbrake.

We did a normal circuit, a go-around and a full-stop landing. I really had to push hard on the yoke when applying full power with 40 degrees of flaps on the go-around. This may be why Cessna limited flap extension to 30 degrees in later models; there may have were just too many accidents caused by stalls on a go-around, with the airplane pitching up violently too close to the ground for any form of stall recovery to be carried out.

We came back, Mal jumped out, I refueled, parked and took some time to set up everything nicely in the cockpit before starting again. I took-off on 07, left the circuit on downwind and maintained 1000ft as VH-TRE, one of the two C182 of the club, was inbound at 1500ft just above me. I carefully climbed under the CTA steps, identified the Woodford prison, then stopped climbing because a line of CUs had formed over the top of the ranges. After Kilcoy I resumed climbing, eventually reaching 6500ft and started to relax a little.

That’s when it really hit me, the pure pleasure of being on my own in the aircraft on my way to somewhere else than the home base. I was flying an antiquated 172 with a groundspeed of 95kt because of a headwind, but I couldn’t have been happier. You know a good flying moment when you can’t stop smiling to yourself in the cockpit.



As part of my CLEAROFF checks I kept looking for suitable areas for forced landings under me. There weren’t many in this very timbered area. I found some comfort in the idea that, at 6500ft, it would take me about 10 minutes to glide down to ground level in the even of an engine failure, which hopefully should be enough time to find a suitable landing site and conduct an approach.

Speaking of engine failure, I scared myself a little while leaning the mixture. On the 172SP, I am used to leaning the mixture using either the EGT or the fuel flow indicator. On MSJ, the only way to go is by the ear. It all worked as expected, except that the engine started running rough as I was leaning the mixture and really sounded like what I had imagined an engine quitting would sound like. It only lasted a fraction of a second but that was enough to send a chill down my spine. I gave the mixture two full turns and everything was back to normal on the rich side of peak.


The visibility was so good I could see Tarong power station far under the left wing. On my right was lake Barambah, and ahead of me I could see rooves glistening in the mid-day Queensland sun. According to my map I should have been over the tip of the lake, which meant I was off course by a few miles. Remembering the lesson I learned on Nav3, I decided to keep flying the current heading. Three towns appeared ahead of me, which matched the map and meant Wondai was the one on the left.

I found the airstrip and positively confirmed it was Wondai thanks to the big white letters that conveniently spell WONDAI near the windsock. I joined crosswind for runway 18. Somewhere in the base turn I lost track of where the runway was. My excuse is that Wondai is a grass strip in the middle of an area of similar color tones. I found myself on base and way too high. I turned final, extended full flaps and still couldn’t go down fast enough. With 1400m, the runway would have been long enough to accommodate a landing with a touchdown point somewhere mid-strip, but that would have been a display of rather poor airmanship, so I decided to go around. Good thing we practiced go-arounds with full flaps earlier in the day…

The second attempt at landing was the good one, I touched down OK, taxied down the grass runway and turned left onto the sealed apron. I parked MSJ right in front of the local terminal building and next to a King Air 200. I dipped the tanks and found 150l, exactly what I had planned to find. I love it when a plan comes together.

I had lunch and chatted with the pilot of the King Air, who was kind enough to let me use his mobile phone on Telstra to call the club and let them know everything was fine. Damn Vodaphone and their ridiculous coverage of rural areas. I guess you get what you pay for.


I started again and took off on runway 36 since there was virtually no wind at the time, which saved me and the airplane having to backtrack all the way back up the runway. I extended the downwind branch to establish myself on track for Kumbia. I had the Gordonbrook reservoir on my right, gave a call to the Kingaroy CTAF and enjoyed the scenery. There were lots of patches ahead of me which could have been Kumbia. I kept flying my heading and Kumbia appeared right under my nose, right when I expected it. Dead reckoning is such an absolute joy when it works perfectly well…

I made a turn to the east and passed abeam the Tarong power station on track to Kilcoy at 5500ft. I was about 10 miles west of Kilcoy and ready to switch to the CTAF frequency to make an overfly call when I heard the controller on the center frequency give traffic advisory to an IFR flight. I mentioned some “unknown VFR traffic 10nm west of kilcoy 5500ft”. I though, Hey! That’s me they’re talking about on the radio! I’m famous! I got on to the controller and told her I was MSJ and tracking to Kilcoy maintaining 5500ft.


She asked me to squawk ident. I looked at the transponder to find the “ident” button. Apart from the rotating knob there was only one button on the panel of the transponder, but I couldn’t read the label on it. It HAD to be the ident button. I pressed on it and the voice of the controller came back saying I was identified. She then asked me to report sighting IFR traffic at 6000ft in my 10 o’clock. I turned my head to the left and there it was, right under my left wing and in the opposite direction. I reported traffic sighted and clear of traffic.

After Kilcoy I descended to 3500ft and cleared the ranges. The visibility was so good I could already see the Redcliffe peninsula. I gave the Caboolture CTAF a call then landed on 07 at Redcliffe.

As I was taxing back I heard a Cessna 172 coming from the south make a call for joining the circuit at Redcliffe on a “right base 07”. That’s funny because joining base is not allowed in non-controlled aerodromes, and there are no right-hand circuits for runway 07 at Redcliffe anyway.

All in all an extremely enjoyable day. Great flying, and dead reckoning navigation worked flawlessly. I've heard about people who always prefer to fly with a passenger, even if the passenger cannot act as a safety pilot. As far as I'm concerned, I can't wait to go on a solo nav again, it's such an awesome feeling.

Nav3, take 2

One week after Nav3 was cut short due to weather, I went with Lee in VH-SPQ to cover the remaining bits, i.e. lost procedures and class D airspace. The plan was to go to Gympie, get me lost somewhere on the way, get unlost, find Gympie, perform a full-stop landing at Maroochydore and get back to Redcliffe.

While going through the Maintenance Release during the pre-flight checks, I noticed that one of the two vacuum pumps was out, which was confirmed by the corresponding light on the annunciator panel during the pre-take off checks. The vacuum gauge was in the green though, indicating that the other vacuum pump was working properly. We would therefore be able to use the two instruments that depend on those engine-driven vacuum pumps, i.e. the artificial horizon (AH) or the directional gyro (DG). And in the unlikely event that the second vacuum pump failed, safety would not be adversely affected since we have back-up solutions for both the AH and the DG.

We do not actually require the AH for VFR flights since we are expected to infer the attitude of the plane from looking at the big natural horizon outside the cockpit rather than the small artificial one inside. My experience so far is that the AH comes in handy for maintaining a given angle of bank in climbing or descending turns, but that’s about it. Of course the AH is a critical piece of equipment for instrument flying or for flying in mountainous areas where no natural horizon is visible. I understand it’s also a welcome help on hazy days or when the sun glare prevents the pilot from clearly distinguishing where the earth meets the sky. But on that day, and for that flight, we could definitely have done without the AH.

Loosing the DG in flight would have been a lot more annoying than the AH, but again no reason to cut the exercise short. Provided it is kept aligned with the compass throughout the flight, the DG helps in maintaining a constant heading with a margin of about one or two degrees. Should the DG fail, we would have had to use the magnetic compass instead. This would be a lot more annoying for two reasons.

First, the compass is a small instrument that is awkward to read. The way to keep a heading with the compass is to turn the plane onto the heading using the compass, pick a feature far ahead of us, use that feature as a reference for flying the heading, and keep choosing new reference features as we move along. Second, the indication given by the compass is only reliable in straight, level and unaccelerated flight. This means no heading information is available during prolonged climbs, i.e. precisely when the nose of the plane covers whatever distant feature we may have decided to use. Flying with only the compass is not impossible of course, many planes do not have a DG at all, such as the Tiger Moth below. But you will also notice that the compass on the Tiger Moth is a lot bigger and probably easier to read than that found on modern light aircrafts.


We took off, left the circuit and tracked north-west to Gympie. Soon after leaving Redcliffe Lee put me under the hood for a while and got me lost somewhere in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Getting un-lost was relatively easy. I noted the time, slowed down the airplane and started to fly a racetrack pattern around a nearby township that I chose as my anchor point. Reading “ground to map”, I could see a lake a couple of miles to the east, with a dam at its northern end. This matched Lake Baroon on the map within the circle that contained my most likely position. The only problem was that the map didn’t show any township to the west of the lake. This was really puzzling. Everything else matched: the terrain, the road, the power lines, even a radio mast a bit further to the west. Lee hinted that maybe not all townships are on the map. It all suddenly made sense, I declared us un-lost and we were soon back on track.

We continued on the Gympie, I found the field quite easily and turned right towards the entry point for Maroochydore. I obtained a clearance from the tower who asked me to report sighting traffic going in the opposite direction below me. It took a little while but I eventually spotted the other plane, reported “traffic sighted” and soon after we were cleared for a visual approach to runway 12.

I made a very average landing, vacated the runway, switched to the ground frequency to realise it is actually the same controller as the tower frequency. We taxied to the GA parking, had a bite to eat and something to drink. Lots of helicopters and GA aircrafts around, in addition to jet traffic for Virgin Blue.

We started up again, obtained taxi and airways clearance direct to Redcliffe and taxied to holding point Juliet for runway 12. We taxied by the Maroochydore campus of the Singapore Flying College which trains pilots for Singapore Airlines using a range of GA aircrafts but also a Learjet 45.

Airborne, departure call, identifying Ring Tank then the boundary of the Class D controlled airspace for Maroochydore. We are already within 10 miles of Caloundra, so call to the CTAF and then back to Redcliffe where I made a decent landing this time.

We stopped at the Flinders Aviation workshop so that they could have a look at the vacuum pump and order a new one in. That's when I learnt that, even though they are called left and right pumps on the annunciator panel, they are actually more like top and bottom pumps in reality.


Taxi back to the club, then debrief. Lee said I was ready to go on to Nav4, my first solo nav. This is so cool. Really looking forward to that. Still have to work on maintaining altitude more precisely (read: within a hundred feet), especially in controlled airspace. And maintaining heading too. My departure call out of Maroochydore was sloppy, so I’ll have to improve that too.

Nav 3, Take 1

Nav3 is a navigation exercise where the student pilot needs to convince the instructor of his ability to navigate solo in non-controlled airspace. This is a requirement for moving on to Nav4 which, precisely, is a solo nav in non-controlled airspace. In our case, this means departing Redcliffe properly, finding our way around, not getting lost, getting un-lost after simulating getting lost and performing diversions. All that without busting controlled airspace.

It is on the first leg of the nav, from Redcliffe to Esk, that the student needs to get a tick in all the right boxes. The portion of the flight after that is a supervised navigation exercise through Class C airspace (Oakey), uncontrolled airspace (Gayndah) and finally Class D airspace (Maroochydore).

We departed the circuit on downwind and stayed at the circuit height of 1000ft until we crossed the Bruce Highway. Then we started to climb gradually so as to remain under the steps of the overlying Class C airspace.

I knew from studying the map prior to the flight that our track intersected the limit of the 2500ft CTA step over the top end of Lake Samsonvale. However, instead of overflying it as expected, I found the lake was a couple of miles to my left. We were only 10 miles from Redcliffe, so that was some very significant drift. I checked the alignment of compass and DJ, which was fine. My suspicion was a stronger than expected south-easterly wind. I was about to do a 1-in-60 to compute a new heading to Esk when Mal said not to bother at that stage and keep flying our current heading.

We climbed to 3500ft, cleared the D’Aguilar Ranges, changed area frequency and kept climbing to 4500ft. Ahead of us was Lake Wivenhoe. Next task was to find the township of Esk.

The lake didn’t look at all like what I was expecting to see given where I thought I was. What I could see was a river and not a lake, which meant I was a lot further north than I should be. I tried to match the shape of the river bends with the map. This didn’t work, so I tried something else. There was a fairly large mountain ahead of me, which I thought was Mount Brisbane. This would actually make sense since the drift that pushed me north of Lake Samsonvale a few minutes ago would have pushed me in a similar manner to the north of Lake Wivenhoe.

However, a few things didn’t add up. I couldn’t see the bridges at the foot of Mount Brisbane or the township next to the substation. And there was a township on the edge of the lake under my left wing that didn’t match anything on the map.


Then it dawned on me (with a subtle hint from Mal: “What have we been suffering from in Queensland these last four years?”) that it was the drought that was responsible for the shape of the lake not matching the map. There was no magical drift or 50-knot crosswind to blow me off track. It all suddenly made sense. I was actually on track, the township on the left was Bryden and the mountain ahead of me was Mount Esk. Yey! And of course this also explained not having overflown the northern tip of Lake Samsonvale earlier. Order was restored to the universe.

I could further identify Esk because it was sitting to the south-west of Mount Esk in a dip between three hills. My last doubts were lifted when I saw the red rooves of the hospital in the south-west corner of the town, which matched exactly what I had seen in Google Earth at home a few days before when preparing for that nav.

Big sigh at that stage. The first leg of the nav was completed successfully, we found Esk and didn’t bust controlled airspace. I don’t think I came very far from failing though. All throughout this first leg I was verbalising out loud what was going through my head. Mal actually recommended to not make strong statements about where I thought I was, but rather start each sentence with “I think” which indicates to the instructor that you are still thinking and that there’s still a chance you may get it right in the end. It’s a bit like using legal language to prevent litigation.

After Esk we tracked to the south-west to find Perseverance Creek Dam, which is one of the VFR entry points for the Oakey RAAF base. When I had finished taking the ATIS, I noticed a lake ahead of us. No longer trusting the shape of lakes on the map, I was pretty sure this was Perseverance Creek Reservoir. I could even see the dam!

There was another lake, Cressbrook Reservoir, that we should have seen before this one, but this is a fairly mountainous country, with lakes tending to hide behind hills, so I was not overly concerned that I couldn’t see any other lake behind us. In addition, the map doesn’t show a dam for Cressbrook Reservoir, so this had to be the right one.


I was wrong on this one (again!), and Mal explained that I could have easily avoided that by using my watch for estimating where I should be now, rather then reading from ground to map (bad!). And looking at the VTC carefully, there is actually a dam for Cressbrook Reservoir, it is just very difficult to see because it is hidden under three thick coloured lines that represent the boundaries of class E and C airspaces and a danger area.

We obtained a clearance for Oakey, got handed over to approach and then tower. My radio calls went OK given that it was my first encounter with Class C airspace procedures. The preferred runway was 09, but we accepted runway 14 because it made the taxi to the civil terminal easier and provided us with an opportunity to practice crosswind landings.

The approach and touchdown went OK, even though my circuit was way too wide. On final I had the help of the PAPI lighting to stay on the glide slope. Very convenient. Compared to the 152, the heavier 172 is a lot more stable on final, which really helps. Soon after touchdown Mal had to jump on the yoke and turn the ailerons into the wind because I had forgotten about that last part of the crosswind landing procedure and the wind could have flipped the aircraft over… not good.


We parked at the civil terminal, had a peek inside the Museum of Australian Army Flying and took this picture of this Australian designed and built CAC Boomerang. It was donated to the museum by the widow of a former RAAF pilot who had flown the aircraft. Hopefully one day I’ll come back with enough time to visit the museum.


We departed Oakey for Kingaroy but didn’t quite make it to Kingaroy. The cloud base ahead of us was a lot lower and darker than forecasted, and it was obvious that heavy rain was falling on our expected track to Gayndah. Mal decided to not push forward and get back to Redcliffe instead. This gave me an opportunity to do a diversion. We turned east and passed abeam the Tarong Power Station.

We didn’t know if we would be able to cross the ranges, but we had a number of options. One option was to fly back via Kilcoy which would offer us lower ground. Or fly down the valley that leads to Watts Bridge and land there. And we still had the option of turning around and landing at Kingaroy.

We ended up going via Kilcoy, the clouds over the ranges giving us sufficient ground clearance. From there we followed the D’Aguilar Highway to Woodford, after which we descended to 1500ft and tracked direct to Redcliffe. We landed and debriefed. Mal asked me to concentrate on my readbacks the next time I fly in controlled airspace, and also make sure my maps are folded properly before the flight so that they can be neatly unfolded as the flight progresses. This is because at some point in the flight I had to take out the VTC for Oakey and the cabin was hardly wide enough for unfolding the map and folding it back properly. Which of course blocked the view and subsequently makes it very hard to "see", let alone "avoid".

Mal was very helpful in finding a spot in the busy booking sheet of the areo club for me to finish Nav3. He could make it fit in the day before my planned Nav4, which was great since it wouldn't mess up my training plans. The idea for the second half of Nav3 was to go to Gympie, then Maroochydore and back to Redcliffe. And after that, Nav4, first solo nav!