welcome to my office...

Today I went to Arran and the weather was stunning...I was gutted to be working and not climbing...


Check out my office for the day! Absolutely beautiful. Not as glamorous as it first seems, however. The wind was bitter - windchill must have been below freezing and we were out in it all day. Plus the mud. Boy was it muddy. I was extremely grateful for my gore-tex walking boots...and Phil may hate me for the muddy trousers I will be putting in for washing...

progress

I'm currently sat in a hotel room in Scotland - tomorrow I head over to Lochranza on the Isle of Arran for the day, sadly working - I would love to come up here to climb on the island some time...

Anyway, I thought it was about time I posted a training progress report seeing as there have been a couple of developments since my last posting:

The green V5 project is done. Gone. Finished. As is the yellow V4. And what's more, I have repeated both of them and in the words of Scott, I 'pissed all over' them. Awesome.
Actually, when I repeated the green it really did feel easy - I felt really strong on the crux power moves.

On Saturday, Scott and I went to the Peak district so I could teach him all about trad - gear placement and ropework and stuff. Sadly the weather turned horrendous so we bailed without actually doing any routes - we did manage to do lots of useful gear bits though so it wasn't a total waste. I also had a proper look at 'Long Tall Sally' at Burbage North - an E1 5b that I really want to do. I can now confirm, having sussed the route out from the ground, that I genuinely believe I can climb it without any major difficulties - it's just a matter of getting up there and doing it. Scott is super psyched to follow so all is good (maybe we'll even get up there next weekend...)

Having bailed to a cafe in Hathersage, we decided to head into Sheffield and check out the Climbing Works (indoor bouldering wall). It is an awesome place! We must have spent a solid 3 hours climbing. We were both managing to flash Fb6B's and work what must have been 6C's and 6C+'s. Hell, we may even have managed 7A's (the gradings were in a band rather than individually graded problems - we were playing on problems in the 6B-7A band).
One problem involved a semi-dyno to a sloper that I just could not do. Lots of other guys were showing off doing the move, but falling higher up from a pinch - eventually I managed to find a static way of doing the move and then proceeded to cruise the rest of the moves - Scott was ecstatic, the other guys sat around all looked a bit gobsmacked. I think there's a bit of a show off buried within me because that felt awesome - the reactions of these strong guys being burnt off by a young lass ;)

I was really surprised to be flashing so many of the problems (5 or 6 graded at least 6B) - I guess my training must be working :)

flying solo

Oh yes. Uh huh. Yep.

Yesterday I finally did it - my first solo, and I have to say that it was one of the most fantastic experiences of my life. I still can't stop smiling about it a day later. Actually I think this smile will last quite a while.

It was a bit of a weird one actually, as I really didn't expect to be flying at all yesterday. When James called me at about a quarter to ten and asked if I still wanted to go solo I couldn't say no now could I? I was told to be at the airfield for 11 when one of the other instructors would fly with me and make sure I was safe to go solo (I think James still has some kind of restriction on his instruction so legally he couldn't just send me off for my first solo without someone else checking that I'm not likely to embed the aircraft in someone's front lawn...).
It wasn't all plane sailing (geddit? no? oh well...) as this guy wanted me to do some things 'his way' rather than the way I'd been taught - so I got progressively more stressed and less neat the longer I was flying with him, I mean, telling me to use an entirely different set of flap configurations for my base and final legs right before I was meant to go up on my own for the first time surely isn't the best of practices.
(When I landed and taxiied back to the hangar James asked me what had gone on and really wasn't pleased. It would seem that trying to teach a student different methods immdiately before sending them solo genuinely isn't good practice. Will be interesting to find out what the CFI says about it...)

Anyway, despite the stress and horror of the check flight (which included an Engine Failure After Take Off - EFATO, a flapless landing and a glide landing), I was left alone in the aeroplane, on the taxiway, with the engine still running. Oh my god. It felt weird, eerie even - the cockpit felt so empty - I couldn't stop grinning though.

Run through my power checks, pre-take off checks, spin around to check out the downwind, base and final legs of the circuit - make sure nobody else is around to hit, initial radio call "G-XXXX, ready for departure", listen out to see if anyone's on final - nothing. I'm nervous. I can hear my heart beating inside my headset. I'm nervous but elated, thrilled that I am, for the first time ever, the pilot-in-command of an aeroplane!
So no-one's on final - better take off then!
Radio call "G-XXXX, lining up and taking off". Taxi onto the runway - flaps down to 10degrees, line up, breathe...
Full throttle and we're rolling. She's alot quicker with only me in the cockpit. 55kts, pull back and we're airborne. This is it. I'm flying!

65kts, trimmed for the climb, wow - she climbs fast with so little weight on board. Turn over to the lake to follow the noise abatement route, we're at 300' already - lose the flaps...I'm over the lake now, turn back onto runway heading, still climbing. I can see my visual references - the road and the railway line. Start turning onto crosswind, still climbing, still 65kts. Now we're at 1000' - level out, throttle back, still turning. We're on crosswind - I can see the runway perpendicular to the right wing. Wow, I'm doing it, I'm really doing it!

Ok so I'm over the golf course and the runway is no longer visible over my shoulder. I'm trimmed perfectly, flying straight and level, altitude a stable 1000', engine rpm around 2200, I'm cruising between 85 and 90kts. Perfect. Time to turn downwind. Must maintain a level turn - don't lose or gain any altitude - I can do this. Yes, perfect. Ok I'm nearly level with the end of the runway, time for a radio call "G-XXXX downwind runway 26, to land". Now for the checks.

Brakes - yes there's pressure through the pedals. Slight wobble as I press them (they're the top half of the foot pedals, the bottom half are the rudder controls, hence the slight shimmy when I press them). Good. Undercarriage - they're permanently fixed so this is just a memory formality. Mixture - is fully rich because I haven't changed it at all since taking off. Good. Fuel, yep. Flaps - they're fully up just as they should be. Instruments - all looking good, serviceable, the DI (Direction Indicator) is still aligned with the compass, excellent. Carb heat - check this, the engine rpm should drop a little when I put this on - it does, good. Turn it off again - I don't need this until I cut the power on base/final. Hatches and harnesses, yep, everything's still fixed in. Ok - downwind checks done, we're all good!

I've been talking to myself pretty much the whole time - it helps me to think everything through.

Ok the end of the runway is on my wingtip, I need to think about turning base soon. Right, pull the power out - about 1700rpm should do. Carb heat on and I'm turning. Flaps down, airspeed down to 75kts and trimmed, I'm slowly descending now. Nice and stable. Right, time to turn final - pull more power out and get the airspeed down to 65kts. 20degrees of flap now. Line it up - the end of the runway is stable in my view, I'm trimmed and using the throttle to control my rate of descent.
I can see no-one else is ahead of me so I call final - "G-XXXX, final runway 26 to land". Cool. I'm stable, confident and smiling. Looking left out of the window for a second I see that I'm coming in with a glider as my wingman - he's landing on the glider side of the runway. He's close but everything's exactly as it should be. This feels amazing...

Ok the runway's getting bigger in my view now, time to cut the power right back. Nearly down now - it's time to flare - we float for a second then bang. I'm on the ground...

Braking, braking, rolling off to the left. I stop. I'm down. It's done. Breathe. Ok don't relax just yet - still got to get back to the hangar. Do the after-landing checks - flaps up, carb heat off, electrics off. Ok, time to taxi back.
One last radio call "G-XXXX crossing threshold, runway 08" - checking, looking, making sure no-one's landing or taking off while I cross. Ok I'm over. Back to the fuel pump.

Parked, engine idling, 1200rpm. Final electronics off. Radio off. Kill the throttle, lean the fuel mixture and wait for the engine to stop. Key out, master switches off, headset off (my ears can breathe again!)

I've done it. My first solo flight. James comes over and shakes my hand - I can't stop smiling. I guess now I can call myself a pilot...

gym training, part 2

I went to the gym again last night for a couple of hours to work through 'the plan' formulated previously. Now, whilst I did stick to it for the most part, there were a few differences with what I did last night:

The initial run - rather than doing 15mins with 1min fast intervals I ran for 20mins with the following fast intervals: 1min, 1min, 1.5mins, 2mins. Hard going, but not as hard as I may have originally imagined. I think in future I may try to up the basic speed (maybe try to run at 12km/hr rather than 11.5km/hr?), we shall see.

I also added a couple of sets of pull-ups before the lat pull-downs. I think I did a set of 10, then another set of 7. I felt rather self-conscious doing them but hey, it doesn't really matter now does it?

The last 10mins on the treadmill didn't happen - I did 2 mins before getting a horrendous stitch (too much water? not enough? too much ab work?) so I decided to go for a serious caning session on the cross-trainer instead. 12minutes of hell. Honestly, I thought I was going to pass out - I was obviously doing it right!!

7mins cooldown on the reclined bike and that was me done. All the other resistance exercises listed previously were carried out with no real differences.

It's going well I think. I feel like I'm making an effort and that it may well start to pay off soon - all is good!

tired

Saturday:
Phil and I went to pick up the new car. It's lovely. I'm actually really pleased - it may not be a good car, it may not be anywhere near new but, it has electronic central locking and actually starts when you turn the key in the ignition!!! I'm delighted. Simple things huh?

I also went to the gym for a couple of hours, and I followed 'the plan', I ended up totally knackered - I think it may be working!

Sunday:
I had a lay in. Until 1pm. Awesome. Then we went to pick Dave up and go to one of the big climbing walls for an afternoon session. It was good - I didn't think I would climb at all well seeing as the muscles in my arms ached really badly from my gym session the day before. How wrong I was - it was actually a rather good session - I managed to repeat the hard crimpy (English) 6a boulder problem I worked last time and flash another 6a! I've never flashed a problem of that grade before - ok so I don't think the problem actually warranted the 6a grade, 5c maybe, but still - I did feel good about it!
We also did some top-roping. I'm managing to get myself back into the route mentality and thought that trying to top-rope some hard ones might be fun (in truth, I couldn't be bothered to get the rope out).

Tried a 6b+ - couldn't get off the floor. Tried the 6b and then the 6a+ on the same panel - same problem. All three were set by the same person - hmm. The 6a on the panel was nice though, I did it clean, first go.
Next we moved on to a different panel where I settled on trying a 6c - I think I must be mad. Had lots of gos on it, getting further each time and making each move cleaner with each attempt. I didn't finish it but am pretty sure I could if I had a few more tries. I gave up because I think Dave was getting bored belaying me. We then did another 6a+ that was pretty horrible.
Had a quick campus - not feeling particularly strong on it, but I had just had a pretty heavy session so I guess it's understandable.

Today:
Today I am drinking far too much tea - we may have an interesting tea-o-meter reading tomorrow.
I am also seriously struggling to finish the report I was supposed to have finished days ago. Oh well.
I keep thinking about the contracting job I've applied for and am a bit worried that I may have gotten my hopes up too high. I only sent my CV off last week though so I just need to be patient I guess. I could really do with getting out of here...