27/10/13: Area Solo Check

A slight change of plan for my flight lesson today.... area solo check! 

I had assumed today was the Steep Turns lesson as advised by Mick last week, however my instructor today, David said he wanted me to show him I could fly out to the Eastern training area and back safely.  This would be my area solo check!  Bummer in a way as I had studied up on the steep turn manoeuvre but excited my first area solo is not far away.

As part of the area solo check, I would need to demonstrate competence in a simulated forced landing. 

I completed my pre-flight inspection on the J160 24-8229 and went back inside to brush up on my forced landing procedure notes whilst I waited for David to finish up with another student.

Took off, tracked about East (100 degrees) maintaining 1000ft until clear of the Class D control zone.  Tracking just to the left of Mt Cotton saw me heading towards the intersection of the Pacific and Gateway motorways passing QE II stadium and Mt Gravatt on my left. 

Now in Glass G airspace, I changed my transponder to squawk 1200 + ALT and set my COM radio to BNE Radar 125.7 then climbed to 1500ft.

Cruising along I thought it best to keep my eye out for potential forced landing areas - big, flat and open.  We passed a large area on my left and not long after passing it, David cut the throttle and said we have an engine failure.  I jumped straight into the checks and procedure (see last post for the details).

All went well and David said ok, let's go-around. I powered on and commenced a climbing turn.  Dave said its the best simulated forced landing he's seen in a good while  :-)

Dave asked me to check ATIS and head back to Archerfield.  Flying over the East inbound VFR reporting point, Target department store near Springwood, I made my inbound call.  Tower gave me circuit joining instructions to join downwind runway 10R.  This saw me aiming south of the airport.

I maintained 1500ft until in the Class D zone (3nm from airport), then started to descend to circuit altitude (1000ft) as I approached 10R downwind.

I set the transponder to 3000 + ALT and early downwind, completed my landing checks, then made my downwind radio call for a full stop landing on runway 10R.  Tower responded with a change to runway 10L so this meant I'd need to extend my base leg to get across.

Base leg and final approach were on the numbers and I touched down with one of my better landings and a slight right crosswind.

My area solo check flight path - small 360 turn was the simulated forced landing

Couple of take-away tips from this lesson... you can actually use BNE Radar 125.7 to make the MAYDAY call in the training area as its more readily monitored and I need to ensure my spacing from the runway is correct when joining the circuit.

Also used my new DC H10 13.4 headset today and it performed beautifully  :-)

Next Saturday, all going well I believe will be my first area solo.  Yikes!  :-)  My only concern at this point is getting lost and joining the circuit when coming back in.  I'll have the Visual Terminal Chart (VTC) and a few other "notes" with me for basic navigation.

Going forward from here, after my first area solo, I'll be doing more area solos in-between my remaining flight lessons.

Until next time, have fun and fly safe!  :-)