Flight 5 - short evening flight with GPS track!

Ok, I haven't got much time to write, but I do have some time to post some very interesting graphics and photos. The sky still has a lot of smoke haze which means a very interesting and colourful sunset. Check out the pre-flight photo with red sun in the sky, then the in-flight photos with a very strange sunsetting. On the photo to the right above, the light coloured circle in the centre of the frame is actually the sun. Later that evening we had a light show of a sunset, a great time to be flying!

GPS track

This time I remembered to bring my GPS. It's just a simple hiking unit made by Timex which is linked via radio to my watch, and a separate recording unit. You can download the recorded data and convert it to a Google Earth format so you can view where you went in full 3D! I've annotated an overhead view to show the left and right traffic patterns that we covered this evening. The normal traffic pattern is to the right, 800ft Traffic Pattern Altitude hence shorter and lower than the left pattern which is 1000ft.

Tonight's flight was short but eventful. A surprisingly large amount of traffic coming back from a weekend away. We did a right pattern, touch and go, left patten touch and go, left pattern, landing, take off, right pattern, and short approach/descent. This is all plotted nicely on the chart to the right. This chart has two vertical axis, one speed and one altitude. You can see the difference between the 800ft pattern and the 1000ft pattern.

This picture shows the traffic pattern as viewed from the air, you can kind of make out the tracks but there are altitude errors in the recording which make it look like we dropped to the ground briefly before popping back up again. Of course this didn't happen during the flight!


Touch and go

As the name suggests, this is where you touch down on the ground like a normal landing, but then full power and 0 flaps before taking off again. Saves a lot of time taxing down the parallel and waiting turns with other aircraft for access to the runway. Everything seems to happen very quickly!

Short approach/descent

I can't remember exactly what this was called, but as you can see from the GPS track one of the right hand circuits was much shorter than the others. The ATC asked if we could do a short approach and we did. This meant dropping the engine throttle back to idle, full 30 degree flaps, and then gliding down at 60knts (no engine power!) in what felt like a very short and fast descent down to the runway. It was actually a real buzz! I'm looking forward to practising these for real.

Parking up

One final picture showing just how much detail is available on Google Maps and Google Earth now, you can see exactly where I parked the plane!

Flight stats: 29 June 2008, 8pm, 0.7hrs flight, N24351 (starting with 15gal fuel).

Lessons/Skills: Practiced patterns, including 2 left patterns, and 1st short approach.

Next lesson: Stalls?