Day 17 Getting better at it.

7th April 2009

Sorry to be so long getting this one up. But work has been hectic and in order to afford to go flying, first I have to get the dollars in.

The nav-ex on Tues the 7th was from Lynfield to Leyburn (over-fly) and back to Warwick. Then from Warwick back home to Lynfield.

I was determined I was going to be more prepared and try to reduce my workload while flying the nav. I did everything I thought I could do to have myself more prepared and it helped. It didn't make it easy, but it did make it a little easier.

The first leg out to Leyburn went well and was right on track on the check points, with Leyburn right on the nose when we got there. I then set a course for Warwick and it was right in front of us when we got there.

I was feeling good at this stage and felt that I had got the hang of this Navigation thing, well for short nav's anyway.

The next leg from Warwick back home is mostly mountainous tiger country. The wind had increased and was a south easterly and our track was 031*, so I set a heading for home on 135*. With not much on the ground for checks, I just had to fly by the compass and keep an eye on the watch for estimates of our position, until I could get some form of fix. Then we flew over what appeared to be the largest mountain in the range. If it was the mountain I thought it was I was a little off course, because it should have been two miles off our starboard beam. But there was some scattered clouds around covering some of the mountains, so I could not be 100% sure it was the mountain I thought it was.

I decided to take note of that and keep to the compass heading, until I could get something on the ground that I could get a better fix on. Then on the horizon about eleven o'clock I could barely make out a mountain that looked like Mt Hallan. Now if that was Mt Hallan I was off course because we should be heading straight for it. Again I decided to stick to my compass heading until I could get a better fix, or could see what looked like Mt Hallan more clearly.

As we cleared the last large mountain I could see a town with a silo on a rail line. I was relieved I could get a decent fix because I was a little uncertain about the mountain on the horizon, as it had disappeared behind clouds again. But when I checked the chart it appeared we were not where I thought we were because there was not any town in this area that had a silo.

Kevin asked me where we were and I told him I did not know. He asked me what I was going to do. I did not answer him straight away as I wanted to think about it, but then I started to recognise some things on the ground and believed we were where I thought we were. I made a course change to head for where I believed Lynfield was, but that silo still had me worried. But it wasn't long before I knew, where we were was where I thought we were. Now I could relax and stop sweating and stressing.

But the thing that had me stressing was that damn silo, and it's not on any of the charts. On top of that, because of the stress brought on by that silo, I forgot to do the ten mile inbound call and the down wind checks. And that got me into trouble.

Oh well it looks like I still need more time.

T/T 21.6 (x/c total 5.6)