What a fantastic day it was today! It was 30 degrees celsius, still air and great visibility ....... in October. And even better than that (for me anyway) was the fact I was flying!! I arrived about 8AM in the most beautiful sunshine to a quiet airport. I had done my preparation the night before and in the morning by plotting out three routes as I was not sure what we would be doing today. As it turned out it was a super day combinig some navigation work and my first land-away at another airport - Lydd.
Everything went really well on my side, with lots of things to absorb. Lots of radio work. I had a failed transponder as well. The weather was amazing. Apparently it was the hottest day in October since records began yesterday and today was just as great.
The trip went from Rochester Airport (my home base) North East to Southend Pier, turning South East to Whitstable, East to and overhead Manston and South West over to Dover. On my plan I was to return home at this point but instead we headed down to Lydd Airport where landed.
It was my first time landing on a hard (non grass) asphalt runway and it was great. It was much bigger than the runways at my home airport so you have plenty of time to land. The circuit was large as well and it was nice going round the circuit over nice countryside and sea as opposed to the motorway, houses and supermarkets I have back home. Taking off on the way home we didnt even use flaps as the runway is so long. It felt so smooth with none of the bumpy bits you have on the grass runways.
The return leg home was a joy and the landing good. My instructor was pleased and said I could have done this on my own but there was a lot of radio work. I felt confident with this because of the work I had done leading up to yesterdays exam but its one thing saying everything right and another thing knowing exactly what to say and when.Things to take away from todays wonderful day is I want to have better cockpit management (better map folding for a start), more map referencing and more work on the RT. What a great great day. I loved every minute of it.
logbook entry
33.02-10-11 C152 G-CEFM EGTO LYDD 09:10 10:20 1:10 1-1 EX18logbook entry
33.02-10-11 C152 G-CEFM LYDD EGTO 11:35 12:10 0:35 2-2 EX12E/13
HOURS = 30:00 INSTRUCTOR + 03:20 SELF
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