Wow – Its been 5 weeks since I last blogged…. But in that time I have only logged about 6hrs.  The weather in the UK has been outstandingly poor. In fact, it has been the wettest June on record. I should point out that the lack of flying isn’t all down to the weather, but I have averaged 1hr every 2days for the last few weeks, in which I have been training ‘full time’.  If this continues, I may still be here in 12months time….. But at least we got to look around the tower and radar rooms...

As the UK weather outlook looks ever gloomy, I am considering swapping onto the IR now and going back to the CPL afterwards, since the IR can be done whatever the weather. Final decision will be made soon…

So… The CPL

For each flight there is a lot of preparation. There is also quite a bit of book work to get through throughout the course as well.

So far I have done 3hrs towards the CPL, of which all has been navigation. The standards are pretty high: +/-100ft, +/-5deg and +/-2min at all times, and we are navigating between small villages, not large towns as in the PPL. It’s quite difficult, but practice really helps.

I have just done a few hours in the FNPT1 (Flight Navigation Procedure Trainer) AKA Simulator. This sim has no visual, and is purely for getting used to flying on instruments. At the moment I am doing ADF and VOR tracking/ intercepting.

So that’s all really. Not too much to report. I do finally have some video of asymmetric and normal circuits, but I haven’t had a chance to edit this yet. Standby for that. Hopefully I will soon be able to report of some more flying!

Happy Flighting

Ben