Lesson 45: Blowing Off The Cobwebs

Today it didn't rain and the stars aligned and well, there was nothing else conspiring against me and and.. and .... i actually got into the left hand seat of an aeroplane again! This of course during the Olympics! Booked as a getting to know you Mr Aircraft session again, it was great to be up in the air again. My instructor did the flight plan and we left a very quiet Rochester Airport at 12:30 and tracked out on a bearing of 135 to Detling. We then went 8 nautical miles beyond that on the same bearing before getting into 'free air'. 



At this point we had just passed Ashford and my instructor got me doing some turns, steep turns and stalls before heading back. On the way back we infringed Manstons airspace (this was just after leaving their frequency - where we were the only ones ON their frequency) and got a telling off! I couldn't hear a thing in my headset which was annoying but my instructor wasn't happy with this and telephoned them as soon as we got back and they said it was ok and nothing to worry about.


The skies were absolutely devoid of aircraft. Cloud cover was about 3,000 feet, QNH 1010. It was a bit bumpy coming round the circuit to land and the wind was quite strong although straight down the 20 runway at 20 knots. Landing was OK, I noted the stall warning sounded as I was touching down which doesn't usually happen with me but speed control was a little tricky. I heard somebody else saying that when I was back in the flying school.


Anyway, blimey - I actually was lucky enough to fly again and it was great. I went to book again but my instructor is off now for three weeks so my next lesson is in 3 weeks time. I will probably do a refresher again. The Olympics will be finished and the sky will return to its normal zones and no doubt the traffic will return. I've done all my exams and completed the course its a case of doing this solo qualifying flight and then preparation for the final exam. The weather has been awful this year so I've been unlucky and lost momentum somewhat.


45. 04/08/12 C152 G-CEPX EGTO EGTO 12:30 13:40 1:10 EX15, EX 10a, 10b (15 minutes)
HOURS = 39:15 DUAL + 09:10 SOLO