Its now well into winter and lessons are being cancelled with extreme regularity, but this morning the weather really looked good. It was an early start, so a quick check over the weather to confirm and off I went.
It was a cold morning and I was delayed somewhat by having to de-ice the car. It was also a slow drive, the back roads from Caistor to Humberside Airport were also very icy.
Arriving at the club house, Richard suggested I could either head out on my own again for more solo practice or we could do a little Nav exercise. I have been reading up on my Nav and it sounded interesting. That and the small runway was covered in ice which would mean a crosswind landing. I opted for the Nav exercise.
I was told to plan for Driffield, Market Weighton and back to Humberside. A few quick lines on the map were soon drawn in routing us from the VRP Elsham. Richard gave me the wind and I soon had some speed, timings and headings on my nav log. Richard also worked them out and I was glad that they agreed. So with that we headed off to check the plane.
I went through security and found G-GALB parked close by outside the Global hanger as usual but she was covered in a light coating of ice. While I did the pre-flight Richard set to and attacked the ice with a brush, gentle clearing all surfaces of ice. With once side completed Richard asked me to stop the preflight and assist in swinging the plane round. This was soon done, and I got in the plane to finish off. At this point Richard gestured to me, to come out. I did so, and he pointed out that the port side engine cover latch was undone. Oops! In being disturbed in my checks I had not quite started back at the point I had got to. This time Richard was there to spot it. Next time I might not be so lucky. I made a mental note. If you get disturbed doing the checks go back to the beginning of that section.
Once I had redone the checks we both got in and continued through the checklist. We soon had the engine running and were tuning into the ATIS to get the latest weather, and then back to tower for the radio check and taxi instructions.
As usual we taxied to holding point Bravo and went through the power checks. Richard pointed out the the oil temp had still not reached the green and suggested we set a higher idling speed to normal and continue with the checks but miss the 2000 rpm checks until the oil temp had reached the green. With the rest of the checks complete it took another few minutes before the oil temp reached the green, and so we finally completed the last of the power checks.
With that all sorted I radioed tower for clearance and we were soon in the air heading off to Elsham, one of the Visual Reference points for Humberside. Once at Elsham we both started our stop watches and I took up my first heading.
Richard suggested at this point it might me a good idea to check the DI against the compass, as it might have shifted during the take-off. He was right, we were about 5 degrees out. Richard said I should make a habit of checking the DI during Navigation Exercises regularly and after every turn. With it also being such a cold day we put the carb heat on for a couple of minutes, just in case.
As we went along, Richard pointed out land marks and showed them to me on the map. The hard part seem to be judging the scale of everything. One town looked very much like another, trying to Navigate, flying the plane, and also keeping a listening watch on the radio all seemed like a lot of work to have to cope with. I was quite surprised to find us reaching Driffield within 30 seconds of my calculated time. Wow this Navigating lark must work!
The second leg was much like the first with an old rail way line to follow to make it easy. The third soon had us back to Elsham, exactly as per our eta.
Once we were down Richard told me to plan Humberside, York, Bridlington. We would do it together the next time the weather was suitable and then following time I would try it on my own. Glup!!!