June 25, 2011 - Oshawa for Breakfast
My usual instructor being away today, my flying was overseen by Tatiana, another instructor I have sometimes flown with. The goal for this morning’s lesson was twofold: First and foremost, navigate to Oshawa Airport, and get there before 10 a.m., to avail ourselves of some free breakfast! (More here.) The idea was that on the way back, we’d also practise some upper airwork, review of slow flight, stalls, steep turns and spiral dives.
As it turned out, the morning was rather rainy with ceilings of about 1600 – 2100 ft, so upper airwork was pretty much out. However, the weather presented an excellent opportunity to practise both navigating in sometimes marginal VFR conditions and also Pilot Decision Making (as we were leaving CYOO to head back to CYTZ, some fellow pilots stopped us to share their two cents worth, ie. that the visibility was not ideal, that there were lots of rain clouds, and didn’t we want to stay a few hours and wait it out. We decided to go anyway.)
Navigating turned out to be okay. Finally Korkka’s incessant throwing of charts in my face and sudden, “here, find such and such” and “where are we now?’s” seem to be paying off, and I was able to decipher some of the many squiggles on the chart so that I knew I ought to be looking for a curve in the highway and a train track to guide myself to Oshawa. (I know, I know, one should have THREE landmarks to navigate, but 2 out of 3 ain’t bad, I guess!) One challenge was that due to low-ish ceilings, we were not at our usual 2200 or so, making it a bit tricky to see too far. But with the help of Tatiana’s “well, do you see Oshawa yet?” at an opportune moment, I was able to locate the aerodrome, and – despite my ongoing lack of ability to discern magnetic, true and runway headings and align them with my heading indicator – I managed to get into an (admittedly enormous) circuit pattern and turn base for landing on RWY 30, and even make more or less the appropriate radio call for same.
When weather closes in like this, the opportunity to consider diversions and/or precautionary landings arises. After wolfing down some soggy pancakes and crappy coffee, and looking around at the aircraft and other aviation-related displays for a bit, we headed back to the plane for a short briefing on precautionary landings. Unfortunately, by the time we finally took off from Oshawa, time did not permit a demo of same, so we headed pretty much straight back to City Centre, avoiding rain and clouds as best we could, and making radio calls at various points to leave the zone, advise area traffic of ourwhereabouts and intentions, get ATIS and request permission to enter and land at CYTZ. The crosswind and gusting at City was considerably more challenging than it had been in Oshawa. Furthermore, I hadn’t done a decent x-wind landing in some time. And of course my ability to align myself with the runway is not stellar at the best of times. Let me just say that my approach and landing at CYTZ was less than fabulous, even with assistence. :-P
Lousy weather and crappy crosswind landing notwithstanding, the lesson was, in my opinion, a success overall. We didn’t get to practise any upper airwork, but we got to actually go somewhere, which is always motivational. And at this point in my training, still, any time in a Cessna is a learning opportunity. (How many run-ups will it take before it is automatic, LOL??!!) In addition, the wnds on the way out were so calm, it gave me a chance to just look around a bit and enjoy the view – nothing quite like literally flying beside the clouds!! Flying to an actual destination, even for a crappy breakfast and a rainy display of aircraft, reminds me of why it was I wanted to learn to fly in the first place.
As it turned out, the morning was rather rainy with ceilings of about 1600 – 2100 ft, so upper airwork was pretty much out. However, the weather presented an excellent opportunity to practise both navigating in sometimes marginal VFR conditions and also Pilot Decision Making (as we were leaving CYOO to head back to CYTZ, some fellow pilots stopped us to share their two cents worth, ie. that the visibility was not ideal, that there were lots of rain clouds, and didn’t we want to stay a few hours and wait it out. We decided to go anyway.)
Navigating turned out to be okay. Finally Korkka’s incessant throwing of charts in my face and sudden, “here, find such and such” and “where are we now?’s” seem to be paying off, and I was able to decipher some of the many squiggles on the chart so that I knew I ought to be looking for a curve in the highway and a train track to guide myself to Oshawa. (I know, I know, one should have THREE landmarks to navigate, but 2 out of 3 ain’t bad, I guess!) One challenge was that due to low-ish ceilings, we were not at our usual 2200 or so, making it a bit tricky to see too far. But with the help of Tatiana’s “well, do you see Oshawa yet?” at an opportune moment, I was able to locate the aerodrome, and – despite my ongoing lack of ability to discern magnetic, true and runway headings and align them with my heading indicator – I managed to get into an (admittedly enormous) circuit pattern and turn base for landing on RWY 30, and even make more or less the appropriate radio call for same.
When weather closes in like this, the opportunity to consider diversions and/or precautionary landings arises. After wolfing down some soggy pancakes and crappy coffee, and looking around at the aircraft and other aviation-related displays for a bit, we headed back to the plane for a short briefing on precautionary landings. Unfortunately, by the time we finally took off from Oshawa, time did not permit a demo of same, so we headed pretty much straight back to City Centre, avoiding rain and clouds as best we could, and making radio calls at various points to leave the zone, advise area traffic of ourwhereabouts and intentions, get ATIS and request permission to enter and land at CYTZ. The crosswind and gusting at City was considerably more challenging than it had been in Oshawa. Furthermore, I hadn’t done a decent x-wind landing in some time. And of course my ability to align myself with the runway is not stellar at the best of times. Let me just say that my approach and landing at CYTZ was less than fabulous, even with assistence. :-P
Lousy weather and crappy crosswind landing notwithstanding, the lesson was, in my opinion, a success overall. We didn’t get to practise any upper airwork, but we got to actually go somewhere, which is always motivational. And at this point in my training, still, any time in a Cessna is a learning opportunity. (How many run-ups will it take before it is automatic, LOL??!!) In addition, the wnds on the way out were so calm, it gave me a chance to just look around a bit and enjoy the view – nothing quite like literally flying beside the clouds!! Flying to an actual destination, even for a crappy breakfast and a rainy display of aircraft, reminds me of why it was I wanted to learn to fly in the first place.