Lesson 13 PPL
04 Jan 2005There’d been a bit of a gap since my last lesson. In that time, my original instructor had changed jobs, so this was my first lesson with a new instructor. We did a navigation exercise, practising everything I’d learnt previously in the ground briefings.
We started at Plymouth, initially went up to Holsworthy, over to Crediton and then back to Plymouth. This would be the route that I’d eventually fly as my first solo navigation.
The clouds were a little low today. When I was going from Holsworthy to Crediton, we hit a large bit of cloud and there was nothing we could do except fly around it. But as we came around, there was another cloud and we had no choice but to go in. My instructor took control for that bit as he is fully instrument rated. It was really strange being in cloud in a little plane because you can see all around you and there is nothing but white. You wouldn’t really be able to tell if you were upside down!
Once we were through it, I took the controls again and then after about an hour in the air I came back towards Plymouth and did an almost perfect landing. The speeds, times and headings seemed to generally work out too, & it was fascinating to see the theory working in action.