Margaret River

After Rottnesst island, i went to Margaret River a few days later (solo flight)...also, another exciting sortie because of good scenery. It was a fun and easy flight because of the wonderful technology called 'GPS'.Eventhough we are not supposed to use it because our college find it too expensive to keep it updated. But still it is there and most of us are tempted to use it. So, heck the visual tracking, and follow the GPS:) I brought apple as snack, and consumed it enroute when i find it safe and ok to take my focus off for a while. The weather starting to get bad while approaching Margaret River, a band of low cloud was sighted staring at me up ahead base at abt 2600'. Realising the conseqence of flying into cloud and lose reference to ground and water features, i quickly decended onto 2400' and avoided the cloud. It was like a canopy covering me from above when i fly beneath the huge band of cloud, barely avoided them. But after a while, i was able to feel the sunray once again as i fly past underneath the cloud. Due to time constraint, i did not take a closer look at the light house at Augusta. But i will definitely do that when i go to Albany next time:) The whole journey took me abt 3 hours including the time back to Jandakot. Overall, it was fun and relaxing.

Rottnesst island...

Hi, one of our sorties is to fly to Rottnesst island and practise holding pattern and letdown procedures. To me it is one of the best flights ever because of the scenery as well as the feeling of flying over water. Before take off, i was told by my instructor to wear life jacket due to the fact tt we will be flying over water. After putting on the jacket, both of us clumsily squeezed into the a/c and get ready for take off. It was a Standard instrument departure (SID) and all i had to do was to follow the departure chart on Mental 1 departure and depart accordingly. It was fun because for once i felt like real pilot flying with the aid of ATC just like what i saw on TV. " BZM, track direct PIY ,climb to 1500',make right turn visual,clear for take off"...cool!! Haha, just to fantasize a bit on what happened. Enroute was busy because we had to deal with intructions from ATC as well as doing our CLEAROFF checks and the most important part- FLY THE AICRAFT!! It was overwhelming but most seniors said we will get used to it.After arriving overhead at Rottnesst island we started our airwork training. The wind was 330/40kts, so my holding pattern was like crap and never get to fly within tolerance, not even once because after calculation the drift i had to apply was approx 60 degrees on outbound leg.Well, since it was supposed to be a demo-flight, my instructor just let me continue with crap holding pattern and proceed with let down and then back to Jandakot. Overall it was fun and enjoyable since my instructor took over control on the way back and allowed me to enjoy the scenery.