Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Going solo.

Since Dave wasn't able to keep our booking for my mock flight test on Saturday, I went out on Sunday solo for some review. My flight was uneventful and I was able to practise all the basics.

I find that I still have a habit of coming in high on final during my precautionaries and forced approaches, I'm able to get down but I have to use forty degrees of flaps and a healthy forward slip. It's safe and fun, but probably not what the examiner will be looking for. My slow flight went much better this time, I was able to keep my A/S pegged at 60 mph and maintain my starting altitude without getting on the backside of the power curve.

A couple of things that I realized during my solo flight.

1) Flying alone is boring.

2) I must soon purchase a decent headset. The ones supplied by the school are free which is nice, but sometimes I end up with a crappy set which sucks. The headset that I had on today left me wondering afterwards if I had suffered permanent hearing lose. (The hum eventually went away).

I have rebooked my mock flight test for this upcoming Saturday, Dave's is booked up all week and this is the earliest I could get in.

This last part of my PPL training seems to be taking forever.

2 Comments:

At 6:56 PM, Blogger Paul Tomblin said...

I know it seems like a ridiculous price for a few wires and a couple of earplugs, but seriously consider those in-ear type headsets. I have the cheapest one, I can't remember the name of the maker, but it's pretty good. I suspect the higher priced ones like the Clarity Aloft or the Lightspeed Mach 1 are even better.

After years of flying with Dave Clamps, it's great to reach the destination and not feel that huge relief as you take off the headset.

If you don't want the in-ear ones, I loved the robustness and quality of my Dave Clark H10-13.4s. I bought them when I was a student in 1995, and put in a Headsets Inc ANR kit in 2003. I had to replace one of the gel ear seals once, and the mike muff once, which is pretty good for 12 years wear. Now my wife uses them and much prefers them to her old Flightcomms.

 
At 4:20 AM, Blogger Gary said...

I use the DC H10-13.4S also, nice headset and you can find then for under $220 on ebay. We just bought two pair of some off brand for our pax.

Hang in there Rob, the end of the journey is near. I remember those same thoughts when I was in the home stretch.

Look forward to you post on the checkride!

http://gmflightlog.blogspot.com/

 

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