Passion for Learning

Aircraft: C172
Registration: C-GYWN
Dual Time: 0.9 Total: 57.2
PIC Time: 0.0 Total: 26.5
Total Time:   83.7

After a couple of sessions in the 4040 Simulator, Louis and I were ready to spend some more time getting our butts frozen off and our night dual time worked on.   As mentioned previously the night rating is made up of some dual, some solo and a lot of Instrument time.  of the 10 required hours IFR 5 can be simulated and 5 must be hooded.  The trick here is that if you fly at night, and do hood time you cannot count both simultaneously.  It’s a tricky reg and I understand the spirit of it however it can cause one to do all their hood time during the day, and never actually see how hard it is to fly by instruments that you can barely see at night!   I opted to do some of my hood time at night, and then save $$ by doing as much as possible in the sim.

Louis was a great simulator instructor as he has a strong grasp of the equipment and has a small tell tale smirk that happens each time he “tries” something.  On our most recent sim flight I was captain of a C182 flying an ILS into Ottawa’s runway 32 when I noticed that no matter how much throttle I gave, the aircraft would keep descending at an unholy rate.  As I broke out of the cloud, I could see we were about to crash into the approach lighting.  I said Louis, she won’t climb, too much drag.  he asked “What could cause drag?”  I offered, flaps, up,  Gear?  Up, what else??!!  The lights loomed closer and then the simulator popped up with “you have crashed”.  It was almost as exciting as the real deal.  My heart pumped and Louis then showed me that I had accrued 60% icing on the airframe!  I guess he clicked it on and forgot about it.  I just flew the airplane.  Good one!

So that sim time would do nothing to prep me for tonight’s lesson which was to be made up of circuits over at CYND.  We had a short briefing to discuss aircraft lighting then I performed the walkaround on GYWN.  My secret favorite bird in the RFC’s fleet.  It was a balmy -20 with the wind chill so it was a pain to have to add 1 liter of oil but at least that was the only snag and soon we were taxiing over to runway 09 for takeoff.  During the taxi I discovered what “soft field” techniques really mean as I proceeded to get the aircraft stuck on a big chunk of ice.  It was interesting doing the runup and trying to keep from sliding around!  Soon I was flying down the runway on my second night takeoff.  I had left my “head lamp” flashlight on with the red LED’s glowing brightly during the take off roll but as I rotated to climb I noticed they offered horrible glare off the foggy windshield so I snapped the light off and went with the regular lighting.

We flew over to Gatineau and I joined the circuit well to come around for my first landing.  No landing light allowed!  It was decent, little off center but passable for sure and great for my third only night landing.  I noticed the approach was shallow and long so on the second time around I modified my pattern slightly to try to come in “normally” for what I am used to seeing.  This only sorta worked with us again sighting the PAPI from a lower angle than I am used to.  Another T&G and we were flying around again for three more.  The part I worked hardest on was the base to final turn, I seemed to rush it and ended up making a long angled final instead of that picture perfect turn to line up straight final.

Since the runway was long and in excellent shape we left the lighting off for all the circuits here and soon were looking at the hobbs and heading back to Rockliffe.  It always feels good to enter a pattern you know so well.  Louis even gave me back my landing light for this one.  As I turned final for CYRO I could tell immediately that the runway was much shorter and really really rough.  I quipped to Louis, “I don’t know what to expect when we touch down here”.  He responded “like normal but with a lot more noise!”.  He was right,  I landed in the first third then using no brakes just allowed the aircraft to roll to a crawl then turned around to taxi in.

We shut down and put away the bird then walked in to pay and debrief.  I am certain that I did learn a lot on this flight, however it didn’t really feel like it.   Although we did practice flying at night, there was little said so I don’t know if it’s that I’m just doing well enough, or if I could be doing more?    I think that flight instructors are taught to keep their comments “professional” and not to pat their students on the back so much but it still feels great when you put together a nice approach and landing to hear it from them.  To hear nothing is almost the worst thing because then we wonder what was done right?  What was done wrong?  Not complaining here at Louis by any means as he generally does offer much insight I just guess that I expected the night flying to be either harder, or maybe I’m actually pretty good at it.  As my own judge I do not want to make that call without the experience to know better!

That said although I have done 100% of the flying to date on our night flights, I would not feel comfortable going out solo right away.  First I’d like to go with Louis over to CYOW and practice there, both the comms and the flying.  I also MUST go out over to the uber dark areas of the world and get the actual feeling of night flying.  I want to do this with Louis on board and not when I’m alone for the first time!!   I’m sure he has these cards up his sleeve already and am looking forward to the next flight!

Tags: Dual

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 10:52 pm and is filed under Night Rating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.