Ground into the ground Part 2

We plow through the session, talking about my navigation planning for an imaginary cross country. TOI has useful tips on some slight changes I could make to how I set out my figures. Nothing I’ve done is wrong but I could make it more obvious as to what I have done.

We have a brief discussion on my altitude choice for the first leg. It’s a short one, so I’ve elected to fly at 3500ft.

TOI questions this.

My answer starts off well. I explain that because of my Magnetic Track I need to fly at odd +500 feet.

 I’ve picked 3500 because I don’t believe that the time taken to climb to 5500ft makes it an efficient choice.

He asks me the advantages of a higher altitude, I immediately reel off the benefits, navigation from both a visual and radio point of view, more choices if things go wrong and so on.

“So do you want to change your choice then?”

I still maintain that from a workload point of view it isn’t worth it. I go on to explain that I’ve actually flown to that airport, I know the route and I know that if I flew at 5500 it’d be all climb and descend with no en-route portion.

As I ramble on and on, TOI stops me.

“WMAP, the examiner is looking for two things in your decision; that it’s legal and that it’s within limits. Anything else is your choice and as Pilot in Command you are entitled to make that choice. Don’t be bullied into anything”

I nod, still a little overwhelmed by it all. His advice takes a while to sink in it seems as I pull exactly the same stunt with his next question.

He queries my choice of 2200rpm as a cruise setting. I point out that it gives a good balance of speed verses fuel burn. I could go faster but I’d burn through more fuel. I don’t consider it worth it.

“but you’d get there quicker”

“I’d burn more fuel,” I retort

“you pay by time not fuel” is his snappy reply, quick as anything.

I’m starting to get a bit rattled, “Yeah but no one ever dropped out of the sky because they ran out of time, fuel however….. Anyways I’m doing this for fun, time isn’t an issue for me” I add a little pathetically.

“Is that really a consideration, you’ve got full tanks?”

Finally he takes pity, showing me how to use the POH to prove that my choice is within cruise limits. Anything else is irrelevant.

The rest of the session disappears in a blur; we’ve been at this nearly an hour and a half. I talk my way through most stuff. Apologise for using a calculator for basic math but I lose numbers when I’m under pressure and don’t want to make a stupid mistake.

So how did I do?

Ok I think except for one stupid stupid thing. There are a certain number of speeds that you have to commit to memory. Most things can be looked up if you need to reference something but these are a deal breaker. I know that I lose numbers when I’m stressed and the figure for the best angle of climb simply escaped me.  Ironically I gave the answer that is true for 10 degrees of flap, the one I couldn’t remember last time Bob quizzed me.

If I’d have done that on my flight test it would have been game over. Before I’d even left the ground.

I honestly thought I knew it. Obviously not.

Short of tattooing it on my eyelids, I’m not sure what to do about that.  It worries me that I could fail on something so stupid.

But anyways, time to move on. I’m sure Bob and I will have lots to chat about before we fly again and before he writes me the letter of recommendation I need.

One step at a time. That ground session was useful, but grueling.

My next lesson (weather permitting) is going to be flying a full on mock flight test with TOI. That’s gonna be a whole different ball game.