GST Archives - Get Your Wings

20th April 202520th April 2025

Taking Flight: A Journey Through the GST with Ady Fletcher

Flying isn’t just about mastering the controls—it’s about perseverance, patience, and the exhilarating moment when everything clicks. Every pilot has a story, but some journeys stand out for their dedication and grit. In this guest post, we hear from Ady Fletcher, who navigated the highs and challenges of preparing for his General Skills Test (GST).

As Ady’s instructor, I had the privilege of watching his progression. His reflections capture the essence of learning to fly: the lessons, the mental preparation, and the thrill of conquering each new challenge. From decoding complex weather forecasts to rehearsing emergency manoeuvres, Ady’s experience highlights what it takes to pass a test and what it means to become a pilot.

So, buckle in and enjoy Ady’s recounting of his journey to earning his wings
Adi (CFI Get Your Wings)

There’s nothing like passing a test you’ve studied hard for many months!

My journey started with giving my Son a flying lesson as a well-done present for passing his exams; the next thing I knew, I was booking my own lessons and climbing into the cockpit of the modern, fast, yet forgiving C42C microlight.

Flying the C42C
Flying the C42C was inspiring; it’s very forgiving and given half a chance can almost recover from stalls automatically, certainly with minimal input. My favourite flying exercises were the ‘Unusual Attitudes’ where Adi of ‘Get Your Wings’, would take control for a few seconds, put the aircraft into a challenging orientation, and then I would recover to straight-and-level flight. There were several variations, so you never knew exactly what was coming next – it kept me on my toes and was great fun!

FRTOL
Flight Radiotelephony Operator’s Licence. While taking lessons in the microlight, I was also attending one-to-one radio telephony lessons with Ian, a very experienced Air Traffic Controller at Norwich Airport. Completing the FRTOL was a significant step for me, clearing the way for me to concentrate fully on the practical flying skills needed for the General Skills Test (GST) and flying in and out of Felthorpe, which is under Norwich Airport’s controlled airspace.

Weather
The weather is a big part of flying, so learning to read and understand forecasts is important. The Met Office is the primary source, providing forecasts that use a suite of aviation acronyms. Learning the multitude of acronyms (like those used for METARs and TAFs weather reports) can seem daunting. My approach was to regularly download forecasts, spend some time decoding them, and looking outside at the weather in question. After a few weeks of doing this, spending a few minutes per day, I soon started to find interpretation relatively straightforward.

Armchair Flying
After a reasonable number of hours flying, much studying at home, and a few classroom sessions, I reached a point where I felt as prepared as I could be, and we set the date for my General Skills Test (GST). Preparation leading up to the exam, other than GST revision in flight with Adi, involved armchair flying! This practice is a mental exercise (albeit often with books and my pilot’s kneeboard at the ready!) involving rehearsing the flight: carrying out the various checks, drills, manoeuvres, and radio calls involved in routine flight, as well as the various exercises usually reserved for performing with a flight instructor, such as those exciting unusual attitudes.

The Big Day

The preparation routine for the GST mirrored that of a normal flying day, though clearly with a heightened focus. I ensured I got a good night’s sleep beforehand and avoided drinking alcohol for 24 hours prior. This included checking the map was up to date and ensuring I was practiced in getting those crucial weather reports, METARs, and NOTAMs. I made sure I knew what fuel level to expect so that I prepared the weight and balance checks, and got my kneeboard set up as I wanted it with any plates, checklists, and helpful notes.

On the morning of the test, the first job of the day was getting a cuppa while checking the weather and NOTAMs, printing those out along with the weight and balance calculations and performance checks. Then it was a good breakfast and trying to relax!

Throughout the test, I was ‘Pilot in Command (under supervision)’ and therefore was responsible for performing all tasks, including the preparation of the aircraft for the flight. So, it was off to get the C42C out from the hangar and into position for the preflight checks.

The Test

To help reduce my stress levels on the day, I made sure I arrived in good time at the airfield. Once settled in, I then checked the windsock, the METAR, TAF, and mAdi sure all paperwork was ready for inspection, not forgetting my passport.

All too soon the examiner, Howard, arrived at the airfield. After some calming words from him, we got down to business, reviewing the paperwork for the plane and myself. We then reviewed my flight preparation, talking him through my analysis of the weather reports and NOTAMs.

The pre-flight inspection, a well-practised and vital task, was next. I was accompanied by Howard, who asked various technical questions as I worked my way methodically around the plane. All these questions I was fully prepared for, thanks to the ‘Get Your Wings’ book and C42C technical sheets.

The passenger briefing can be easy to overlook but is a legal requirement and just good practice. I worked through my pre-prepared spiel, treating the examiner as a novice passenger.

The Flight If there’s one thing to be aware of, it’s that the mistakes were mine to make. By this I mean, as long as I wasn’t doing anything immediately dangerous, the examiner would let me make the mistake and would not do anything to correct, comment, or critique during the exam itself. All aspects of the exam, good and not so good, were noted by the examiner and discussed afterwards over a well-earned cuppa.

The take-off roll was textbook. I checked the compass aligned with the runway (RW 05 for a crosswind take-off). Once full power was applied, I checked the RPM was greater than 5000 and the airspeed was rising on the indicator, climbing at 60 knots until above 300ft before raising flaps and then built speed up to 70 knots. Then into a climbing right-hand turn to come back around over the airfield while making the ‘airborne’ contact with Norwich Tower, and levelling out at 1000ft (as per the Felthorpe departure procedure) heading for the Swannington VRP.

While the weather was perfectly flyable in the robust C42C, it was also somewhat challenging with a stern breeze, changeable direction, and widespread moderate turbulence (as per the forecast, which I had highlighted with asterisks in my pre-flight briefing).

Once at the VRP, my first challenge came via the radio, Norwich Radar asked that we continue at 1000ft as they were vectoring in a commercial airliner. Normally, this would have been fine, but today with the turbulence, it was starting to become wearing. Howard suggested we seek to change heading, which would allow us to increase altitude, and thankfully, the air traffic controllers took mercy on us and approved the change.

Now flying in a northerly direction, we climbed to 3000ft and started to work through the list of exercises, a 270-degree turn with a bank angle of more than 45 degrees but less than 60 degrees. The horizon is used as a visual reference for these, and while the visibility wasn’t great, it was good enough, so these went very smoothly and stayed well inside +/-100ft.

Then it was straight on to stalls, a simple one at first. I wasn’t quite used to the way Howard worked and wasn’t sure when to recover (this was my fault, not the examiner’s!), but once I understood, the C42C was so easy to recover, it was the simplest of the exercises.

But then fear struck as I realised I had made a crucial mistake. I had gone from high bank turns (which I had practised as being part of the lookout checks) straight into the stalls without performing the essential HASELL checks (Height, Airframe, Security, Engine, Location, Lookout). I immediately put a hold on the exercise and admitted my omission!

HASELL checks complete, it was back to ‘stalls in the turn’, i.e. simulating a stall while turning base leg, and a stall in the approach configuration, followed by stalls at the incipient stage.

Then came the once-feared, now-enjoyed(!) ‘Unusual Attitudes’, where the examiner takes control and puts the aircraft into a situation with high speed, high attitude, or high bank and then says, “Recover,” followed by perhaps a dive with a high bank angle, and again, hands control over to me to recover. These can be intimidating at first, but once well-practised, I started to enjoy them! These all went as well as I could have hoped.

It should be noted that while I haven’t mentioned them explicitly so far, throughout the flight, the usual lookout scans and good airmanship checks were constantly being performed.

At times whilst we were flying straight and level, we talked through a few emergency drills, and the next thing I knew, Howard said, “Okay, so you’ve lost your engine,” and it was on to the well-practised forced landing (PFL). Fortunately, there was a huge field within gliding distance and into wind too, so I headed for that. Despite some wires at the end of the very long field, we both agreed it would likely have been a successful landing. I did make one mistake on this exercise, which I would only learn about during the post-exam wash-up, I forgot to brief the passenger on what was happening!.

So, we climbed away, and lo and behold, we had another engine failure – a simulated failure on take-off. I picked a field, adjusted my speed to best glide, performed my checks, sent a ‘Mayday’ call, and then Howard asked which field I was aiming for. Because there were at least ten within range I was struggling for a better description, I pointed at my chosen field and said, “That one!” The examiner responded, “Which one?” Rather aghast, I said, “Erm, the dark green one!”

Climbing back up, we talked through more potential problems, and again, surprise surprise, we now had an engine problem – low oil pressure – which led to another discussion and a decision to perform a precautionary landing. We flew at 800ft, seeking a suitable site to land, and headed for Gunton Park, which was close by. I performed a routine of flypasts and circuits to assess the site (there’s actually an airstrip there!). For exam purposes, I was talking through my thoughts, what I was seeing, and my reasoning for either selecting or rejecting the landing site. There was a large herd of deer nearby, telegraph poles, and trees, but none of which were a cause for concern, and of course, I selected it. I then performed a glide approach and aborted the landing before getting too low, climbing back to 1000ft.

You may be thinking that this all sounds very daunting, but because of the way Howard conducted the exam, I was completely at ease and Adi makes sure all these manoeuvres are well practised. I did, however, during a routine scan, I found the carb-heat had somehow been switched on (it is not normally used in the C42C, except in the case of actual carb icing), and I can only imagine its unusual position was a test of my routine checks.

I was then instructed to find my way back to Felthorpe. From training, this was a well-practised routine, and while use of Sky Demon made it easier to find the edge of controlled airspace, the plane almost knew its own way home. So, with the direction set, I set off to head for the prescribed Felthorpe re-entry altitude of 1200ft. Howard asked more questions, one being what I would do if the tablet, on which SkyDemon runs, stopped working. At this point, I realised I had made a mistake back on the ground: the laminated paper map I had got out was still sitting uselessly on the desk. I responded, “I would use my phone” but this was not the answer he was looking for…

With ATC clearance granted, it was back over to LenwAdi Lakes, switched to Norwich Tower, and joined overhead at Felthorpe. You will recall the weather that day was somewhat breezy, with moderate turbulence. As time went on, conditions were deteriorating, and as we descended to circuit height, it was clear things would become ‘interesting’.

Next on the menu was a ‘touch and go’. I commenced my downwind run, making the downwind call to Norwich Tower: “G-PE, downwind Felthorpe 16 touch and go.” It was at this point I should tell you, runway 16 at Felthorpe was not often used; it was an unusual wind direction, and until the previous day, I had neither taken off nor landed on the 436m strip.

The day before the GST, I was at work but kept a close eye on the forecast. Seeing the predicted wind speed and direction, where its strength would preclude a crosswind landing on a longer, better-practised runway, I was concerned. So concerned that I messaged Adi and asked if he had any free slots that afternoon for some extra pre-exam flying time. Thankfully he did; the wind was in a favourable direction for using runway 16, and I took an impromptu half-day’s holiday from work. We spent an hour ‘beasting’ the runway 16 circuit, followed by another hour of GST revision.

As it turned out, the previous day’s ‘cramming’ was a worthwhile investment. The wind on the day of the GST was more or less straight down runway 16, but conditions were challenging for me with a lot of turbulence at low-level.

Turning final was as planned, albeit a little late, and the call “G-PE, final Felthorpe 16 touch and go” was made to Norwich Tower. As we came over the wooded area and descended through the trees, we were being thrown around more than I’d previously experienced. As I started to flare the plane in ground effect, a gust of wind picked up the plane, and suddenly we were back up three metres above the ground. At that point, with the 436m runway quickly disappearing underneath, I knew this was not a landing that could be salvaged and chose to go around. It was at this point that Howard broke his rule and provided me some instantaneous feedback: “Good call!”

So, we were back in the 800ft circuit (which is actually just 680ft above ground level), being tossed around like a green salad. This time, my downwind leg went long, too long. I turned base not being able to see the runway, which was hidden behind the trees, and I was left guessing where to turn final. So it was no surprise when I did turn; it was too soon. The runway was nowhere to be seen, and I had to perform a lazy drift across until I found the runway’s centre line as it came into sight. Certainly not the best circuit I’ve ever flown.

In the last stages of the final leg, I held my breath as again, descending between the gap in the trees, the airspeed varied with the gusts, and I decided to add power and increase airspeed to help push through the turbulence. Carefully, I judged our height as we passed over the horse paddocks, aiming as tightly as I could at the nearest part of the runway. Now clear of the fence, engine to idle, I flared and continued to flare – going well, going well – the rear wheels smoothly touched down. I kept the nose high, pulling back, let the speed bleed off, pulled back, and eventually, the nose settled gently to the ground… phew! That was certainly the most challenging landing I’d had to perform.

Again, feedback from my examiner was surprisingly positive: “Well done, very well done!” …but the GST was not complete yet.

Flaps up, I pulled back on the stick to keep the weight off the nose wheel and taxied back to the hangar, where I performed the shutdown checks: radios and electrics off, and finally engine off, taking a note of the Hobbs time and the clock. Turning the master switch off, I was presented with Howard’s hand to shake. “Congratulations!”

I didn’t stop grinning for the rest of the day.

22nd June 201511th August 2017

GST day so possibly my last blog as a student pilot!

Sunday the 21^st June saw me turn up at the airfield for another double lesson, well it would have been if it were not for the weather. Mike and I set off for the first hour and with a strong wind from the West the runway choice was the seldom used 29. With the possibility of my GST the next day we flew a few circuits on Runway 29. We don’t often use this runway as it is shorter than the others and not as wide (well on paper it is as wide!) as there are cables and trees a little bit before the threshold and some bushes at the other end!

After my first take off we left the circuit and went to look at the stall speed VS0 and VS1 the book for our aircraft says VS1 (flaps up at full weight) is 41kts I stalled the C42 a few times and we noted the speed, which was a lot lower then what the book said, it was actually stalling at around 34kts so next we tried it at VS0 (full flaps) here the book has the stall speed at 32kts and the actual stall speed was around 28kts, it may be due to the aeroplane not being at full weight, but it’s nice to know we have a little extra wiggle room if needed in our aeroplane (it may not be the same in yours!).

I was then asked to fly us back to the airfield and to join the circuit for 29.

My landings weren’t great but were getting progressively better on each circuit. I was landing too far to the left on the runway, as Mike pointed out. On 29 the circuit is climb out and turn just before the road (A141), turn onto downwind at the second field before the drain, turn on to Base leg after you clear the 16 foot drain and turn on to final at the kink in the drain and just before the farm house.

I still don’t like 29 by at least I now feel I can use it when needed.

Back on the ground and in the clubhouse I was watching the wind speed increase, it started gusting to 24kts which is outside of limits and Mike confirmed it was now to windy for solo.

Monday and its GST Day

There are four mile stones in learning to fly a microlight

First solo
First solo navigation
Completing all the exams
Passing your GST (General Skills Test) and Aircraft technical part 2 the oral exam

I had completed the first 3 so only had number 4 to go. On Friday my GST for Monday had been cancelled due to the weather forecast, however come Sunday it was back on again and Sunday evening and night my nerves were getting to me, I did not sleep much, which is not good as I wanted to be alert! I got to the airfield in what I thought was good time, arriving at 08:30 my GST was due for 09:30. I unlocked the hanger and got the Keys for the club house that Katie had kindly left for me, I unlocked the clubhouse turned on the PC and radio, I went to walk back to the hanger to check out the aeroplane and noticed a C42 had just landed on runway 24. It was not one of ours as they were all in the hanger, it was the examiner Chris, I waited for him to taxi over and shunt down. While he was doing so I made him a cup of tea (well it couldn’t hurt!), I said I will just get our C42 out and do the walk around so it was ready for the test, but her said to wait as he will watch me do the check out, I was not expecting this but at the same time it was not a problem.

We finished our tea and went to the hanger, I burped the aeroplane and checked the oil, it was a little low so I put 100ml in, I checked all the cowling housing screws as it had been of the night before to allow us to fix an issue with a drip tray! I was around half way round when Mike my instructor arrived and he started to chat to Chris while I carried on. I pull the aeroplane out of the hanger and clear of runway 29. Next Chris briefed me on what to expect and checked we were using the same terminology e.g. if he asked for a standard stall recovery what would I do…

He said not to worry and treat it like I was flying with Mike, easily said not so easily done! It was time to take my test.

I started the aircraft up and checked the oil pressure, all was good, I ran through the remaining checks and I forgot to check the flaps while checking the controls (damn nerves), I realised my mistake and checked them a little late in the sequence, I pointed this out to Chris, no point in hiding it! He said you realised your mistake and put it right thus it’s not a problem! during the check list T is for trim and this “somehow” had been put up to the top, so I corrected it. Chris asked where I wanted to fly to take my test, over the drains was my reply, ok he said take-off and fly me out to the drains and we will do some flying at different speeds on the way.

Off we went with no issue, 200ft flaps up, 500ft fuel pump off, I turned to the left before the A141 and continued to climb, I turned onto downwind talking him through what I was doing all the time as he had asked in the briefing, I’m performing a lookout before executing a climbing turn to the left and will continue to climb and I asked him to look also. I levelled out at 2,000ft and called to say I was leaving the circuit, all good so far commented Chris, who could tell I was nervous! Now show me flying at 60 straight and level, I got us to 60 and he commented we appear to descending I powered on and climbed back up to 2,000ft and ask if it was ok to try again, it was, this time all was good, ok show me flying at 80kts, again all was ok and he said to return to our normal cruise speed, I took it back to 70kts and continued out to the drains. We were heading towards Ely and the start of RAF Lakenheath’s MATZ, so I said this to Chris and that I would like to turn 90° to my left and follow the drain, he said good, it’s your responsibility to keep us clear of airspace, was this part of the test too, I guess so! I remembered what Mike had said and made a point of checking the gauges and make sure he knew I had checked them I did this during the climb out also and every 5-10 mins during the test too. Ok show me a steep turn in either direction up to you, I made a small turn to the right and asked him to check for traffic, all was clear so I turned to the left adding power glancing at the VSI and ASI but mainly watching the horizon, I rolled the wings level and took the power back down, a quick check on the altimeter showed I was at almost the exact same height, good I’m happy with that said Chris. We were coming up on the start of RAF Marham’s MATZ so I said to Chris I’m going to do a descending turn to left as we are approaching a MATZ and there is cloud as well, he seemed pleased with this so a quick lookout and I commenced the turn. Ok he said show me a normal stall and recovery, OK before I do I will just perform a HASELL check, Height 1,500ft, I’m going to climbing back to 2,000ft now we are clear of cloud before I stall and without waiting for confirmation I climbed back to 2,000ft, Airframe I checked the flaps were up and all looked OK, Safety Hatch was still locked on both sides, harnesses both done up, I asked him to check his, all good he said, engine gauges all read ok, Location ABC (clear of Active Airfields, Built up areas, Clouds, crowds and Controlled airspace), Lookout, again I asked for him to look too as I performed a clearing turn both to the right and left, ok into the stall and power on nose down and recover to a climb, good, ok now show me a stall in a turn. A quick HELL check and I stalled it in the turn and recovered and then levelled the wings, good, ok now stall it in a glide descent with pitch only recovery. Another HELL check and into a glide descent we went, I pulled the nose up and stalled, nose down and back into the descent. OK climb back up and we will look at some dangerous and unusual attitudes! First he put it nose high and said recover power on and nose down, ok next was a spiral dive, stop the spin with the rudder ease the nose up and on with the power as the nose comes to the horizon. OK how did that go, he asked, I thought it had gone well, but from his tone I could tell it hadn’t. I was not sure, I said I was a little late on with the power, in fact he was referring to the nose high recovery and apparently I didn’t put any power on!!! (Shit, I have failed I thought, oh well) let’s try that again said Chris and this time he said very good. OK you have an engine failure and he closed the throttle, trim for 60kts, selecting a field, I have chosen that one it has some crop, but we will walk away ok I said, fuel pump on, check fuel tap is open, check mags are on, try restart, it has failed. Check we are still on track for the field, change radio to London Centre make a mayday call, turn on to final, leaving flaps off for now due to strong headwind, Ok I’m going to make the field first stage of flaps, all looking good and Chris says good go around. At around 1,700ft the engine failed again as before I went through the same procedure this time I was little higher so I had second stage of flap on, I was about to say committal checks when he said good go around, we were at about 200ft with a farm house coming up in front So I said I making a climbing turn so as to not over fly the farm house, good said Chris and at 2,000ft he says we only have fuel for 15mins! make a precautionary landing, oh shit what do I do, I can’t remember, then he said use that field over there, OK I said, I’m descending to 1,000ft to over fly it and check the terrain and for wires etc, I’m going to follow a circuit as if it was a normal runway, but will overfly it again at 200ft, good said Chris take me back to the airfield and land. OK I’m climbing back to 1,000ft and will fly us passed the drain so I can turn on to base leg and join, I could have joined on long final, but Mike teaches us a downwind or base leg join is safer and Chris agreed. I heard a radio call from another Microlight taking off on 29 and said although we won’t rely on it, it’s a good indication that the wind is still favouring 29, another good from Chris, I called 2 miles out. A little later and at circuit height I called joining base 29 and I asked him to confirm his harness was done up and his hatch was secured, fuel pump on, I turned on to final and landed on 29, again over to the left, I commented that I was to the left and corrected it. I back tracked 29 and cleaned up the aeroplane, strobe, fuel pump & transponder off, flaps up… I made a call that we were back tracking 29 and asked him to keep a joint look out for any inbound aircraft.

I parked up and he Chris said I had flown well, at this point I’m thinking as he didn’t say I had passed it was going to be a partial pass. Back in the clubhouse Mike said cup of tea here for you both, adding is a celebratory cup and Chris said it was and then started to ask me question about the aircraft. Explain the fuel system, its elements and the order they come in, I did so after nearly missing out the fuel tap! What would do if you had flames coming out of the engine, was another and what would I do if you smelt an electrical burning type of smell another, I answered these correctly. What is the service interval? That had me, 100hrs, I said, what would be check / changed, oil and filter I guessed adding, luckily for us Katie takes care of that, but I know the details are in the manual. He suggested I read up on the servicing. What could I have done to make my pre flight check safer? I thought about this, but could not come up with anything! after some prompting it transpired I burped the airplane without applying the handbrake. Chris then congratulated me on passing my GST, I had done it! I was totally shattered from the lack of sleep, nervous energy and metal energy, I stayed for a few cups of tea while Mike completed the paper work and to give my self-time to recover.

While Mike was doing the paperwork Alan arrived for his GST and I’m very pleased to say he passed too, it would have been awful if only one of us had passed.

I cannot fly other than under instruction until I have my license back and it’s all signed, the part I find odd is you can’t even fly under supervised solo until it comes back it’s instructed or nothing!

I guess I will need to change the blog title now too!

I will continue to blog about my continued learning and flying experiences and keep my journey to become a pilot on the internet in case it helps anyone else.

I would just like to say a public thank you to Mike & Katie of AAA Microlights for the help and support on the journey and to Chris the examiner for putting me at my ease and passing me!

26th October 201416th August 2017

Engine failures – GST revision Part 2 of X!

GST revision Part 2 of X! i’m not sure how many parts my GST revision will be in, I guess its down to the individual, I seem to be taking longer than I read it takes others, but it is all still flying!

Today should have been solo practice of the exercises in GST revision part 1, however the wind was gusting close to the maximum for the C42, thus Mike decided it would be better to move on to practicing engine failures. As I warmed the aeroplane up the wind was straight down runway 19 which is the widest and longest runway, but by the time we were ready it had shifted around a little and we were now to use runway 21. In the past I have had a lot of issues landing on 21 due to the trees on the threshold so I didn’t see this as a good start to the day!

We taxied out and departed from runway 21 without any issue, due to the wind we took off without any flaps and were soon airborne and climbing to our altitude, which today would be just 2,500ft so as to keep clear of cloud.

We turned east after climbing out and ended up to the west of March where I practiced engine failures, on each attempt I under estimated the strength of the wind and the progress we would make into it, this left me short each time and needing to select another field closer. The fundamental error I was making, as pointed out by Mike, was selecting a field to far away instead of one out of my window and below me, one where I could just orbit losing height. Mike demonstrated how to do it and I though the field selected was far to near and we would overshoot, but as normal Mike knew best and his example was text book. As he said you can always lose height but you can’t gain distance.

Time had all to soon gone and Mike asked “Where is the airfield from here?”, the words I hate as I seldom have much of a clue as I lose my bearings while doing the exercises, I replied glibly “a better question would be where are we!”, inevitably Mike asked “OK, Where are we?” I looked around and said “well I think that is March on our left “Mike prompted me some more “how can you tell, what features does March have?” The answer was it has prison and a large number of rail tracks next to the prison, from March I knew to follow the rail track south east out of March and it would lead me back to Chatteris airfield, if I crossed the drains I knew I had missed the airfield, but this did not happen. I spotted the airfield a little late, but in time to turn onto an extended final for runway 21.

My approach was not the best, I left it late putting on any flap, I had decided due to the wind I would only use a single stage of flap, which was fine with Mike, I took too long to get on to the centre line and then, there they were, the trees (See my old post the curse of the trees)! However we were over them and I was thinking I was too high and would possibly need to go around, but with the strong headwind we came down in plenty of time and made what Mike remarked as a very good landing. This was a good way to finish the day, but I was disappointed with not making the selected fields and will need to do a lot better for the GST and more importantly if I ever find myself in a real emergency.

5th October 2014

GST Revision Exercise 17C Part 1

Is it really October? The sun is shining the wind is almost non-existent, the clouds are high and scattered, all in all a perfect day to fly. It’s been three weeks since I have been at the controls of our C42 Microlight and I thought I may have forgotten a few things, but as it turns out it like riding a bike! Well the fundamentals that is, it would seem I have forgotten how to execute the various exercises to the standard required and to be honest I could not even remember having executed some of the manoeuvres, stalls in a glide descent for example!

So today’s lesson was take off and leave the circuit to the east climb to 6,000ft (the highest I have been) and then execute a stall with powered recovery, execute a stall within a turn and recover, execute a stall in a glide descent and recover without power, medium level turns and steep turns.

So we taxied out to runway 19 back tracking it, as we approached the take-off point Julie call down wind and as we could see she was nearly on base leg we turned off 19 to allow her to land. She landed and back tracked to a taxiway, by this time the parachute plane was ready and holding short so we lined up and took-off, I was a little late in switching the fuel pump off and taking the flaps up but other than this all was good with the take-off. Turning to the east I called that I was leaving the circuit and climbed to 6,000ft; the view is amazing and reminds me why I love flying, we could see for miles, RAF Marham, King’s Lynn and beyond it the Wash and many other places too.

First I did a HASELL check Height, Airframe (check the flaps etc), Security (harness and hatches), Engine (Ts & Ps), location & Lookout (turning one way and then the other), next the stall, as some may have read I could make it stall very well previously and Mike pointed out my mistake. Instead of trying to maintain altitude by keeping the stick moving back I was trying to keep the nose level! As normal by following Mike’s instructions I soon had it stalling every time, as for the recovery this was not too bad it should be nose down (but not too much) and power on to recover to a climb, my problem was lowering the nose too much and too quickly almost putting it in to a dive, however it did recover it!

It’s basically the same technique for each of the stalls, just without power in the glide descent.

Turning, well that should not be too bad I have done a few of these, or so I thought! Well my turns were too shallow and as I steepened them up to 30-45° for a medium turn and 45-60° for a steep turn, I found one way I lost height and the other I gained height, in fact I remember blogging about this, but still I had issue until Mike pointed out that I was using the nose on the horizon and not a point on the windscreen in front of me!

Time fly’s, if you excuse the pun, while flying so it was time to fly back and as I approached I saw the parachute plane just taking off and with no other traffic in the circuit I was straight down, I think I rounded out a little high, but the landing was ok.

And so ended another lesson, next week, weather permitting, it’s an hours solo to consolidate the stalling and turning.