Not much new going on.

I have a spool flight tomorrow, the aim being to nail those forced approaches. Hopefully then Bob and I can move onto the other stuff I need some practice on. We have a dual flight on Saturday.

I’m slowly plugging my way through the sample ground briefing questions that Bob has slung my way. I know he’s not too concerned about that portion of the test. One thing I do have confidence in my ability to do, is reason my way through a problem.

For example last lesson Bob and I were poring over our charts, he was drawing my attention to some subtleties of airspace that had eluded me until that point. He asked me “so what if you were here and weather was closing in from the west, where are you going to go?”

“Oshawa” I replied without missing a beat.

“Ok just from the chart, what can you tell me about Oshawa?”

I dutifully reeled off the airport elevation (and thus circuit height) and max runway length. I also pointed out that on my charts I have marked in ATIS and tower frequencies. Of course you can also tell the airspace classification as well.

“What if your radio fails?”

I run through NORDO procedure, approach from the upwind side, blah de blah, look for the light signal (probably double check on my kneeboard that the light signal means what I think it does!)

“What if visibility drops below 3 miles?”

I request Special VFR of course

“What about 1 mile? And your radio is still kaput?”

Hmmm, I ponder this for a moment. “Weeeeellllll, if the weather is closing in that fast I need to land, technically I can’t request SVFR with no radio BUT safety rules here. I’m going to land at Oshawa and deal with the consequences when I’m on the ground because quite frankly better an airport than a field which is my only other option.”

Bob liked this answer!

I’m mildly confident that I can talk my way through most questions. I’m just making myself familiar with the kind of stuff they are going to ask me.

I need to review my emergency procedures for various things. The ones that I have to commit to memory. This is easier now than it was two years ago, when I resorted to my cue-cards-on-the-TTC method. With the flying experience and just general familiarity with the plane, there’s a new method to my memorising.

Rather than just memorise by rote a set of instructions, I’m thinking in terms of practicalities. Take fire for example. I know there are three things that fire needs; air, fuel and an ignition source. So you think of the emergency procedures in those terms.

First isolate the air supply, then the fuel, then electrics. A lot easier to remember because it makes more sense.

Really I have nothing new to learn at this stage. As has been pointed out to me. I just need to keep repeating the stuff that I know in the hope that it sticks and I get it right.

First time.