A day after my 2nd navigation flight.. I won't say there were improvements, but there were new things to learn. I can safely say I'm better at maintaining set altitudes already, unless the up and downdrafts of the wind tends to get a little feisty then that's a different story. This time we traveled a little deeper inland to Kampung Kubu Datu for our navigation exercise, we were expecting to climb 8000 feet (2438.4 meters) as our cruising altitude but unfortunately we weren't able to due to low clouds and so we opted for 3000 feet (914 meters )instead. Navigation is all about map-ground referencing. If we were to climb above the clouds, the clouds will obviously block our view and hence be at risk of getting lost and disoriented ( of course we won't get lost that easily because we are equipped with a GPS in our aircraft, but still , at our current level we are training to fly using our eyes and maintaining visual reference points on the ground. ).
Anyway, here are a few pics from my flight. Photo taken from batch mate Ralph.
Describing visual reference to Instructor, Captain Afiq
An example of a reference point. Here's our second reporting point, we were over head Pasir Mas.
One has to describe to the instructor the prominent features of the reporting point.
Low clouds.. Trust me , you DON'T WANT to go in there.
Clouds clouds and more clouds.
There's a towering one..
En-route to our final destination: Kampung Kubu Datu.
And here's what our route looked like on the map.
At 3000 feet, this was how close we were to the clouds.
As for today, I back-sitted two flights with my batch mates flying, a coastal navigation route( Brandon ) and an Instrument Flying ( Ralph ) exercise.
Today's navigation route was suppose to be the same route I flew , but unfortunately, again due to very low clouds we had to divert. I'll show you in a bit how the clouds looked like..
Route diversions could happened anytime , whether it's because of incoming weather or low clouds , etc.. A pilot has to navigate his way around and try to divert to another route as soon as possible. Aside from reporting and letting the Air Traffic Control Tower know our intentions of diverting, while in flight, we have paper work to do too, and we'll have to draw out a new route as quickly and simple as we can on the map itself. Fortunately , I brought my own map and the necessary documents to fill-in in flight , luckily we didn't have to cancel our flight, we were able to proceed.
On another note: A cadet normally doesn't bring that much stuffs up in the air. But because of my inheritance of my father's habit of collecting and bringing things for 'JUST IN CASE' purposes , I brought up the necessary documents and a pre-flight drawn coastal route map in flight , and thankfully, we had what we needed..
Today's navigation route was suppose to be the same route I flew , but unfortunately, again due to very low clouds we had to divert. I'll show you in a bit how the clouds looked like..
Route diversions could happened anytime , whether it's because of incoming weather or low clouds , etc.. A pilot has to navigate his way around and try to divert to another route as soon as possible. Aside from reporting and letting the Air Traffic Control Tower know our intentions of diverting, while in flight, we have paper work to do too, and we'll have to draw out a new route as quickly and simple as we can on the map itself. Fortunately , I brought my own map and the necessary documents to fill-in in flight , luckily we didn't have to cancel our flight, we were able to proceed.
On another note: A cadet normally doesn't bring that much stuffs up in the air. But because of my inheritance of my father's habit of collecting and bringing things for 'JUST IN CASE' purposes , I brought up the necessary documents and a pre-flight drawn coastal route map in flight , and thankfully, we had what we needed..
Thanks Dad.. :)
Here are some shots on the flight:
Low Clouds, How now??
From the Captain's view, it looked like this.
From our view , it looked like THIS.
Our instructor took over control as Brandon does the plots on the map.
Diverting to Bachok, and then to .. Pulau Perhentian
What it looked like when we diverted... Looks like Mcd's Mcflurry or Sundae Ice Cream..
A sunny flight it was.
Approaching Pulau Perhentian.
Pulau Perhentian from above.
Can you see the resort?
Can you see it now?
How about now??
Transfering fuel from right wing to the left wing.
Contrails left by big jets.
Spot the military airbase.
Looking lovely from the coast.
Descending to 3000 feet from 5000 feet. Airfield in sight.
1000 feet.
Here's Kota Bharu from 1000 feet.
Turning final, to land
On Final, to land.
The sun.
Here are pictures from the 2nd flight i back sitted today.
Not alot of pictures, but here's one of the exercise, doing a Steep Turn with reference to the instruments in flight.
Hope noone's feeling dizzy yet.
Feel like falling?
Feel like you're flying?? Contrails again above us
And there ends our week in flying.
