27 - Diversions, in a roundabout way

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" background="045085a3.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Golf Mike Bravo going around...</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Golf Mike Bravo going around..."><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Golf Mike Bravo going around..."><U><B><IMG SRC="03b0e0e0.png" border=0 width="14" height="14" ALT="up" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A><B>   </B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="14" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="14"><B>     </B><A HREF="id88.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="26 Divers Diversions"><U><B><IMG SRC="02f0e0e0.png" border=0 width="14" height="14" ALT="previous" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A><B>  </B><A HREF="id109.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="28 Landaways"><U><B><IMG SRC="0300e0e0.png" border=0 width="14" height="14" ALT="next" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="046d2e83.jpg"> <div>     <IMG SRC="558a1780.jpg" border=0 width="161" height="120" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <A HREF="id61.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="1 Trial Lesson"><U>1 - Trial Lesson</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id62.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="2 Effects of Controls"><U>2 - Effects of Controls</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id63.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="3 A trip to Henstridge"><U>3 - A trip to Henstridge</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id64.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="4 Straight and Level"><U>4 - Straight and Level</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id65.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="5 Or not!"><U>5 - Or not!</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id67.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="6 Up, down and around"><U>6 - Up, down and around</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id68.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="7 Stalls and Slow Flight"><U>7 - Stalls and Slow Flight</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id69.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="8 More stalls and PFLs"><U>8 - More stalls and PFLs</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id70.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="9 Into the circuit..."><U>9 - Into the circuit...</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id71.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="10 Golf Mike Bravo Going Around. Again!"><U>10 - Golf Mike Bravo Going Around. Again!</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id72.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="11 Circuits and spice (and Things Not N"><U>11 - Circuits and spice (and Things Not Nice)</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id73.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="12 More circuits (and brain fade)"><U>12  - More circuits (and brain fade)</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id74.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="13 Developing a flair for the flare"><U>13 - Developing a flair for the flare</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id75.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="14 Close But No Cigar!"><U>14 - Close But No Cigar!</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id76.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="15 Still no cigar"><U>15 - Still no cigar</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id77.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="16 Solo"><U>16 - Solo</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id78.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="17 Getting the hang of it again"><U>17 - Getting the hang of it again</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id79.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="18 I Follow Railways"><U>18 - I Follow Railways</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id80.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="19 Head in the Clouds"><U>19 - Head in the Clouds</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id81.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="20 Second Solo"><U>20 - Second Solo</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id82.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="21 Reach for the Pie!"><U>21 - Reach for the Pie!</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id84.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="22 Into the Zone"><U>22 - Into the Zone</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id85.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="23 Back to the Circuit"><U>23 - Back to the Circuit</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id86.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="24 Another Navex"><U>24 - Another Navex</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id87.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="25 First Solo Nav: The going gets tough"><U>25 - First Solo Nav: The going gets tough...</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id88.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="26 Divers Diversions"><U>26 - Divers Diversions</U></A></div> <div> 27 - Diversions, in a roundabout way</div> <div> <A HREF="id109.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="28 Landaways"><U>28 - Landaways</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id110.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="29 Solo Landaway"><U>29 - Solo Landaway</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id111.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="30 QXC"><U>30 - QXC</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id112.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="31 Where do you want to go today?"><U>31 - Where do you want to go today?</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id113.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="32 Revision"><U>32 - Revision</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id114.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="33 Finals"><U>33 - Finals</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id82.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="21 Reach for the Pie!"><U>21 - Reach for the Pie!</U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#CCCCE4" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>27 - Diversions, in a roundabout way</I></div> <bR> <div> 20 December</div> <div> It started off as a nice but cold and frosty morning, although the 215 showed an occlusion heading our way from the North west, expected to reach us at about 3pm. My FI couldn't get there early and so the lesson was not scheduled to start until 11. So I spent some time helping Dave, another member and ex-airline pilot defrosting his DA40. It was good and useful spending the time chatting with him, as he has the plane on the club books and I'm hoping to convert onto it once I've passed my test.</div> <bR> <div> By the time Alistair had arrived and we'd gone through the usual faffing and preapration, it was gone 12. We were doing diversions, with no route planned, although the consensus was that we would head towards the bad weather so that we wouldn't find ourselves unable to get back. Much of the faffing had been deciding where to go, as we wanted to get in two landaways. We'd dismissed the Flyer mag freebies (Stapleford and North Weald) as being in the wrong direction, and settled on Sleap and Shobdon. We'd do a precautionary touch-and-go at Wellesbourne to be legal in case we couldn't reach our intended destinations.</div> <bR> <div> The touch and go at Wellesbourne was on runway 18. For the first time that I've seen, they had the PAPI lights switched on. This was a totally new experience for me, and I have to say they had me slightly mesmerised for a bit and I ended up overcontrolling trying to get 1 red and 1 white (I went rapidly from 2 whites through 1 red 1 white to 2 reds, and then back up to 2 whites before relaxing and settling down!). For the last 200 feet I just ignored them and flew the "picture". It's also nice to see my landings are finally coming good and consistent!</div> <bR> <div> From Wellebourne we headed west towards Alcester. My scrawled line on the chart showed the best way to Sleap (avoiding getting tangled in Birmingham's airspace) was to fly the 325 degree radial to the Shawbury VOR, which we should pick up over Alcester. VOR tuned in and idented, we picked up the radial and turned towards it. Since we'd not calculated any heading (this was a 'diversions' exercise after all), I started with a 5 degree offset into the wind to see how we got on. It was pretty good as a first guess, and we just made small adjustments to the heading to keep the needle centred.</div> <bR> <div> It was soon apparent however that we were flying towards bad weather, and it was getting steadily murkier. By Bromsgrove we were in drizzle and the  ground features were getting hard to make out. By Kidderminster I thought it was getting marginal (although my FI said it was still legal VMC), but we both agreed it was only going to get worse, and so we decided to turn around.</div> <bR> <div> We did a 180 degree turn and followed the same radial back (turning the OBS through 180 degrees too so that the needle still showed us the "right" direction. Quite quickly we were out of the murk and back into good visibility, and we'd spend some time -- finally -- doing steep turns.</div> <bR> <div> Starting with turns to the right, my FI demonstrated it and then invited me to have a go. First get the plane really accurately trimmed -- 100kts at 2000 feet and heading South. Bank to 30 degrees, and as you pass through, feed in an extra 100RPM and add extra back pressure. Maintain 45 degrees of bank, maintain your altitude and roll out 15 degrees agead of your target direction. Well that's easier typed than done!</div> <bR> <div> After the initial strangeness of the slight 'g' loading, which was easy to get used to, I managed to stay within 100 feet on the second go, and 50 feet on the third. Turns to the left though were a completely different kettle of fish. Having got used to the picture of the horzon turning right, turning left was completely different, and after 3 goes I could only manage to stay within 200 feet! I kept losing 100feet rolling in. Maintaining the turn was okay, but I lost another 100 feet on the roll out.</div> <bR> <div> We were going to go on to some 60 degree turns -- the idea being that these are really hard and so when you go back to 45 degrees, suddenly it's easy. Unfortunately the weather was catching up with us again, making the horizon indistinct and so we called it a day. </div> </td> </tr></table></body>