When i woke this morning, I hadn’t expected that i would be doing some flying. Days that are this full of surprise are magical. Through my home window in West London, i could see the sun beaming through the high clouds. With my morning coffee , I called Cranfield having checked the TAFS and METARS on the web to book G-ECGC.
It was to be my first navigation ex landing away from my home airport. For the past few hours, i had been doing circuits using the newish new hand control on the Cessna 172. I wanted to build confidence on landing the aeroplane under different wind conditions and adjusting to a different plane then the one i trained in.
I plotted my headings before leaving home. I planned to route via Daventry VOR and take the scenic route to Oxford. The flight was very pleasant, a little bumpy but fun. I may have overplanned if there is such a thing. I was happy with my vor tracking and i got a little tongue twisted when i spoke to Brize Radar – instead of asking for radar information, i asked for lars (lower airspace radar services) – the controller did still understand what type of information i was asking for.
it was my first experience at arriving and using an airport that has, ATIS, Approach, Tower and Ground Radio facility. I used them all on arriving and departing. Oxford is a big home for commercial pilot training and the airport behaves like a commercial Heathrow style airport. The landing fee was a little more then i had expected. I have a new airport visited to log in my logbook.
Cranfield to Oxford VFR flight plan
After a coffee stop, we said our good bye to the nice staff in the ops room who booked us out. Oxford is just in front of Brize Norton controlled airspace. With the QNH set, I would make a sharp turn to the left 500ft after take off to avoid the controlled airspace and the adhere to the noise order for the local villages. We took off at 16.35 and the day was getting grey. I used my nav lights and had the strobes on all way to Cranfield.
This time instead of tracking on VOR, i was going to use the Automatic Direction Finder (ADF) which tunes into the Non Directional Beacon (NBD). The flight home would be quick as we had a strong tailwind. You can feel the aeroplane moving faster. We pasted Wing, and soon would be abeam Leighton Buzzard, once my home and the home of my mother and my grandparents. In fact, flying around this part of the UK does feel very homely. Lots of fond memories were triggered as we flew past. At this point, i put on the carb heat and slowly descended to 1500ft, getting ready to make my joining call once overhead Woburn. We had a strong head wind on finals and this meant applying a little more throttle then with gentle wind. Trying to maintain a descent of 250 ft per mins the 500ft.
Touchdown was good, All in all i was happy with how the flight went. I need to look at the map less frequently, monitor my headings a lot more closely, be more precise on the radio. The wonders of learning!
My Next flight will be with a special person.
Total flight time:
Cranfield to Oxford : 1HR / Oxford to Cranfield 0:45mins
