The Ballards

Who turned the lights out?
.....we are to do night touch-and-gos, in an unfamiliar circuit pattern with, as it turns out, a decreasing number of aids. The first couple are normal landings which, staggeringly, I get spot-on and smooth. After that, it gets a little more difficult. First we try it without the landing light (well, that makes very little difference, as it turns out), so we try without the PAPI approach angle lights (well, I never use them anyway so that one's OK) and finally he turns out all the lights and puts the map in front of the instruments: "total electrical failure", he says. Er.......
It is possible to land a PA-28 at night, with no instruments whatsoever, but it is very scary. I find the trick is to listen to the wind noise around the aircraft. More by luck than judgement, I manage a reasonable approach and landing.
All evening, some girl who sounds about 12 has been chasing us around the circuit in a Cessna 172 doing some private training; now she sits right on the tail of one of our other aircraft on Final, and gets a serious bollocking from the Tower to the point where she is told in no uncertain terms to exit the circuit for a while. Quite right, too.
So, we do a quick taxi to the pumps and I'm just mentally winding down when my Instructor says "right, go off and do one on your own". I'm not quite expecting this, I suppose in the back of my mind I assumed that at some point I'd have to night fly alone, but not tonight!
So, he hops out, I taxy out, backtrack, power check, take off and start the circuit. At which point the Tower clears a business jet for a straight-in approach, checks that I can see him and asks me for an orbit. A night orbit, ay? This could be interesting. Stick to the rules, keep the speed up, right hand circuit so right hand orbit, lose the runway half way round, a moment of panic, but keep on going round until I'm heading North again, but he's still only just passing me so I'll extend North and give him plenty of room to land, slow down and leave the runway, and for his wake turbulence to dissipate.
By the time I turn for the runway I'm in a completely different position from any of the night approaches I've ever done (I later discover that this is precisely the scenario that resulted in the original power-line strike that put the aircraft out of action for so long). Oh well, wing it again....
A nice long, steady approach, the Tower clears me for landing, I fly some of the approach hands off it's so smooth, gently down to my aiming point, watch the end of the runway float upwards and flare.... gentle arrival on the centreline, roll out, taxy in and shut down.
It's cold putting the cover on the aircraft, and I'm absolutely shattered. But what a fantastic day's flying.
And I'm now officially over 100 hours.

Painless
I've a flight booked for Saturday in the Cherokee 180 so need to complete my checkout. The weather conditions could not be more different from the previous attempt: cold, sunny and calm.
We check out and do circuits as the light fades and the runways lights go on. At the end of the first circuit the aircraft ahead still hasn't vacated the runway, so we go round, then just slot back in to the old circuits groove. My circuits start out a little long, maybe I've been doing too much night training, anyway it soon settles down and we consistently hit the tarmac at the same point, on the centreline, with little drama. On one circuit we are a little high on the approach as we turn Final, and he suggests I get at least one red on the PAPIs, which is fair enough except that I deliberately don't fly by the PAPIs because not all runways have them, and anyway I find them a distraction.
As we descend in to the imaginary approach cone we get first one, then two reds and he goes to sleep in the corner. He's so quiet I can't help thinking I must be doing something terribly wrong, but after a few circuits and as we hit official Night he suggests we land, and reckons I've got the hang of it. All pretty painless really, and anyway as I learned a long time ago, no circuit is ever a wasted circuit......

Offset approach
Today Stephen and I are off to Popham for a little Mutual PPL flying: I'll fly out, he'll fly back. It's cold checking the aircraft, and the sky looks hazy. It being first thing Saturday morning, every PFT aircraft is being started up at once, it feels like a WWII Spitfire scramble as we all taxy out, jockeying for position. The 180 has a good heater and within a couple of minutes we're warm again.
We climb towards our planned altitude of 3,000ft as we head South but Oxford disappears in the murk at 2,700ft so we elect to fly at 2,500ft where we can see a bit more. South over West Oxford, pick up the Compton VOR, change to Farnborough Radar and cruise South at 115Kts. We see two other aircraft which both cross our path a little close for comfort: everyone is flying at the cloudbase so we descend a little and turn all the lights on.

Shouldn't you be looking out the front?

Within a few minutes we are within sight of Popham so we switch to their radio and ask for an overhead Join for 08 left hand. Descending in to their 800ft QFE circuit we start to look for all the places the maps say we must avoid. Popham has weird and wonderful circuits and approaches due to complaining neighbours, and we thread our way around the no-go areas before executing an offset approach, my first. We can, after all, always go round, but we descend and it looks OK all the way down, I get a bit high but we're on 2 stages of flap and with idle power that soon corrects itself. As we reach the end of the grass runway I turn in to it, flare and we drop on to the muddy grass neatly, letting it roll and not, as requested, using any brakes before taxying over to the Clubhouse and shutting down. Time for a coffee and a bacon butty, I think.
Popham are very friendly and I will definitely come back. We are the first landing of the day but soon the clubhouse is full of pilots. I'll bet this gets very busy in the summer.

We're cleared to take off on 03, which is not very used and after some discussion that nearly has us using the taxiway to take off from, and some interesting power-checks-while-sliding, Stephen performs a neat take-off and we pootle back towards Oxford. A Northbound Army Gazelle spots us on climb out and drops below us, but we don't see any other aircraft as we pass Newbury for some sight-seeing and photo taking at his house and my friend George's strip, which looks considerably more inviting from the air than it does from the ground, before returning to the increasingly busy Oxford circuit.

Cleared in to the overhead, the harassed-sounding Approach asks us to orbit with IFR traffic descending from the OX Hold above us (it's runway 01, he's on the 100 procedure, so he's off to the West of us), and a busy-sounding circuit below. After a couple of rotations we're cleared down and Stephen flies it exactly as I would have flown it, gently on to the tarmac then rolling out. We vacate on to 11 then right turn to grass 23 and taxy home. What a super morning.

Ice Ice Baby
Four weeks on, it's a New Year and I've had 2 weeks in Egypt diving, so will I have forgotten how to do this? Staggeringly, (it rained yesterday and it will rain again tomorrow) the weather is perfect: CAVOK, winds calm, no clouds. Arriving late, in the dark, I feel harassed, the worst possible state of mind to be in to go flying. Deep, slow breaths....
We are to do a couple of circuits dual, then I'll do some more night solo circuits and then, provided it doesn't get foggy, I'll bimble off for an hour somewhere and my Night Rating will be complete.
Taking a deep breath and 5 minutes to get organised, I repeat the mantra "do...not...be...rushed", preflight the aircraft and after a long take-off run (no wind) we rotate in to the calmest skies I've ever known. Turn Base, throttle back, carb heat on, check the speed, two stages of flap and nail the speed. On Final, I leave the call quite late and the Tower is so busy chatting to another aircraft we can't get a word in edgeways so we elect to go around, taking an early turn. By now I'm beginning to relax and we really nail the speed and heights, float a little and perform a very undramatic landing. Clean up, carb heat off and round we go again.
I find the PAPI lights a distraction: although having them is useful and it's nice to know whether they think you're on the right approach path, the temptation is to rely on them, so I fly what I think is the right approach path and if they agree, well that's just fine and dandy. If I see 4 reds I'll follow their advice, but otherwise they are just pretty lights. Having said that, I find we tend to agree most of the time, with my path tending to be slightly high until about 100 feet, no bad thing.
This time we stop, my Instructor hops out and says to do 3 more on my own, shuts the door and I pootle off again. Mentally review what's going to happen: aircraft will be more responsive, quicker to climb to circuit height and will require less throttle on the approach.
Power check, then get take off clearance and roll. Immediately I rotate a dreadful rattling begins from the right wing: my Instructor has managed to trap the seat belt in the bottom of the door and it's banging against the wing in the slipstream. Bugger.
Mental discussion: live with it and risk damage, fix it in flight (maybe not...) or land and fix it? So on to the Tower, explain the situation, ask for a full stop, backtrack and a stop at Charlie for a little adjustment. That's fine, so it's time to test the brakes out. Touch down on the aiming point, yoke back to unload the front wheel, and serious brakes. Ooh, isn't there a lot of runway left? Confirm backtrack is OK (I am the only one flying, after all), Hooligan 180° and back up the runway, Hooligan right turn, stop at Charlie, handbrake on, and sort this bloody seatbelt out. Can I get the door shut again? Takes me 3 goes. Cleared for take-off again, and now it's really relaxing. Lovely.
It's got colder and there's a little layer, about 10ft thick, of freezing fog just above the runway. Visibility is unaffected, but it's obviously freezing so after 2 circuits I call it a day and taxy in. Park on the grass, shut down and put the cover on the now slightly slippery aircraft. I could have flown around all night, but for the damned ice. Never mind, one more session and I'm Night Rated.

Fly by Night
Another clear night in January: must be a record: it will apparently rain later and the clouds are already over Gloucester heading this way. Best get on with things....
The major switches across the front of the PA-28 cockpit are sometimes hard to recognise, as the markings get worn off, and at night it's a real pain to get the torch out and check, but from left to right they read FLAP:
F....Fuel pump
L....Landing light
A....Anti-collision light
P....Pitot Heat
which is handy for pre-flight checks.

One circuit with an Instructor during which I don't forget to announce my intentions when calling Final (a naughty habit he picked up on last time); he pronounces himself satisfied so we stop and he jumps out. I make absolutely sure that this time his seatbelt is not dangling over the wing, and head out again 1 PoB.
It's rougher tonight, and there's a bit of a crosswind, which is more representative of real world conditions, and very good night landing practise. The approaches are more difficult, and require more adjustment, but that's fine: I can get it in the right place and land it smoothly every time, so my confidence is boosted.
I need to get 0.9 hours so I start to experiment with tight circuits, loose circuits, short and extended downwind legs, high and low approaches. Each time I can get it in to the approach cone with no drama, this is all doable. I would feel happy landing anywhere at night now, always assuming they have lights.
I am alone for a while, then joined by two other Night students and we have to jockey the circuit to fit in with each others' touch-and-gos. I'm enjoying myself hugely now (and to think I once hated doing Circuits) and reluctant to stop but must get home for supper so finally announce my intention to land. The clouds have arrived and are hovering at circuit height, so it's probably time to go home anyway.
On Final, I have another PA-28 close behind me and I am determined not to make him go around, so I land, clean up and scoot along the runway at nearly take-off speed then brake heavily and turn off quickly, which garners a grateful "neatly done, Golf Oscar" from the Tower and a successful touch-and-go from my colleague. Taxy in and put the aircraft to bed. The wind fights with the aircraft cover, but it is possible to put them on single-handedly.
Job done: Night Rating achieved.

Further adventures in IMC may be found here...