Sortie 3: Completed

Weather: 8km visibility, Few clouds at 1800 feet and 4000 feet. Light turbulence
20 Sept 2012
T/O time: 1130 . Delayed by 2hours, 45 mins.
Sortie 3.
9V-YFF
Instructor: Toh BH
Flight time: 1hour
 My sortie was delayed into the 2nd wave due to poor visibility at 0845(1.5km).

Checks were excellent and the taxy today was good too!! :)

Soon after takeoff, there was turbulence until we land. We operated in Area Alpha low at 1500 feet due to clouds at 2000 feet. The winds were around 7-8 knots. Exercise started- Straight and level.

The exercise was good, considering that it was done in turbulent conditions. I managed to keep flying to a reference point despite the wind. (I was using the ailerons to keep the plane flying straight)
The level part of the exercise was tricky. This was due to the fact that the plane is always moving up and down- leading to me having to keep on constantly trimming the plane. The plane also sinked to 1200 feet after catching a downdraft.

When i was rejoining Seletar, 9V_YFL suddenly appeared in front and below my plane. I pulled back on the stick to increase the rate of climb to 2500 feet for the rejoin. Flew  the plane onto base nicely and Mr Toh took controls for the landing. Taxying back was good. Exited runway via W3.

Overall, the sortie was done quite well.... except for the minor fact that due to turbulence, I really cannot maintain level flight, i.e. Vertical Speed: 0 feet/min.


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