After the weather continuing to frustrate the multitude of cadets trying to fly, this week the skies finally cleared and training changed up a gear. Over the past 7 days I have managed 8 flights in total, consisting of 3 solos, 3 Ops routes and 2 night flights. And with that amount of progress I am now in a position to take flight exercise CE042; Ops route VFR Competency Assurance. If I were a wings cadet this would be similar to progress test 1, but as I am flying on the MPL our assessments are slightly different. During training each lesson has basic competencies which are required to be achieved for the lesson to be a success, so strictly speaking the C/A tomorrow is no different to a normal lesson. That said, the fact this is the final VFR flight ensures there is an increased level of stress ahead of the flight!
My flights this week have consisted of three main areas; solo's, duals, and night flying. For the solos I managed to travel quite a few miles, as well as visiting New Zealands busiest uncontrolled aerodrome, Ardmore. This sits just south of the city of Auckland, and with the international airport the area has lot's of restrictive airspace, into which it would be quite easy to stray and get a telling off. During the approach to the aerodrome there are some quite strict procedures to follow designed to keep traffic moving in different direction roughly separated, whilst also continually looking for other aircraft which may be a potential threat. Unfortunately whilst having priority another aircraft cut in front of me so I had to start the approach from scratch, but asides from an elevated workload the visit went without further consequence.
I also experienced a new type of flying this week, Night VFR. As the later sim flights on the MPL course can simulate night flight quite easily, there isn't a great requirement to fly a traditional night rating course. CTC's approach is therefore tailored to our needs, so during the first flight we learnt how town's can look closer at night, approaches and landing are a lot more difficult, and the instruments take on a new level of importance. For the second I took another trip to Ardmore (thankfully with a lot less traffic about), and after watching another cadet take on the circuit, I flew a few circuits, transited back to Hamilton, and did a few more circuits before the fog rolled in. Personally I found the landing the most exciting part of night flight, especially when the landing light was turned off! During the approach you feel like you're descending into a black hole, so to achieve a touchdown on the main wheels the landing attitude is selected and the side lights indicate rate of descent. I quite enjoyed it, but scarily the next time I land a real aircraft at night it will be a 50 ton jet!
Downwind for Tauranga
The final element of my week was the 3 Ops routes I flew with my instructor Scott. I have been incredibly lucky that Scott has made the routes quite challenging, and to simulate the C/A he's only given me the route/scenario an hour before my take off time. They have ranged from picking a passenger up at an aerodrome where he acted as a passenger, to flying around Auckland utilising him as a member of crew that I could delegate tasks to. During the flights I would then be given unusual simulations such as a rough running engine or sick passenger, so that the pressure was kept on throughout the profile. I feel ready for the C/A (which isn't to say i'm not nervous), but have some work to do so Liam and I are going to go through some theory as we both have the C/A tomorrow.
Hopefully tomorrow goes well and in no time ill be in the sim working through instrument flight. Lot's more fun to come.....
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