Second solo (lesson 20) PPL
20 Jun 2005Back at Plymouth again, and with my normal instructor, I went up with him (before going solo again) and flew 4 circuits perfectly very nice soft landings onto runway 31 with the noise of the tyres gently touching on the runway then we landed taxied back in and then, much like what’d happened in Exeter, he jumped out and said “make sure you are back on the ground by 3pm, have fun!!”
I was off on my own again. The purpose of the second solo is to do more than just a single circuit, doing a number of touch and go landings. So after the usual preflight checks I taxied out onto runway 31 & took off into the circuit. I flew around six times doing five touch and go’s and one intentional go around as briefed beforehand. It all felt much more familiar doing it at my home airport, and I was pretty comfortable being in the plane on my own after the first touch and go.
On the last circuit before I landed I was instructed by ATC to orbit at the midpoint of the downwind leg for some commercial traffic to depart, and another aircraft had to orbit at the beginning of it (which should place them more than a mile away from me). As I came around on one of the orbits, I saw a shadow of another plane flying in my direction (opposite to they way you’re supposed to orbit) so I knew the other plane must be closer than they should be.
Runway 31 at plymouth has right-hand circuits, so orbits are done with left hand turns, They had just joined from the overhead, so may have got a little confused about which way to turn when asked to orbit. I knew I was orbiting in the correct direction and in the correct spot, so I descended slightly to 700ft to make sure there was no chance our paths would cross in case they hadn’t seen me & were too close, and continued my turn, craning my neck trying to see if I could spot them, which I eventually did, really not very far away at all, and just as I thought, in a right hand turn instead of left.
I lost sight of it as I continued around, but given where it was when I saw it, I knew it would have likely passed almost directly overhead me shortly before, and I could feel some of the wake turbulence drifting down from it’s engine. It was the first time I ever felt a little scared in a plane because if I had been at circuit height it would have been close enough that our paths crossed!
Thankfully very shortly after I was told to continue in the circuit, as was the other plane, I had just started another circle, but as I was only about 90 degrees off the downwind heading, I opted to just turn right rather than complete it (as you are usually supposed to), to get away from the other aircraft. So I made a sharp turn to the right, and gave it full power, flying at about 110kts instead of 90,to put some distance between us, then flew the rest of the circuit as normal and landed perfectly. The other plane ended up having to carry on orbiting because there was an Air Wales plane coming in on the ILS, & there was only enough time to squeeze me in before them. So I was able to taxi in and park up before they landed giving them a bit of a look as he went past - I suspect they were somewhat oblivious to how close we’d been though!
In general though the flight was really good, all my landings were good and the last one, despite the slight panic before it, was so smooth I didn’t feel or her the wheels touch!
I did tell my instructor what’d happened and he said i’d done the right thing, I’m not sure if he spoke to the other pilot or the tower about it, but I don’t think anything further came of it.