Helping Wings Flying Scholarship Flight III - Chakotay Wood
Today started out in very typical British fashion, it was overcast and periods of rain with high winds. Later that afternoon the weathered had cleared and the sun was glowing again. However the wind still remained very strong and gusty, we decided to go up and survey the current weather conditions.
I found that the varying weather conditions was of huge benefit towards gaining experience with different weather patterns. The moderate winds and gusts was far more significant on our light aircraft then that of commercial traffic, we were being thrown around everywhere as we flew into pockets of air. The gusts of air made the overall handling of the aircraft much more difficult, especially when it came to approach and landing. The increase of drag, slower speeds and the use of flaps gave the wind a larger surface area to grasp onto. The wind presented me with a larger challenge to get the plane back on the ground, it was almost an impossibility to keep a straight line as you were constantly thrown to the left and the right. The wind was extremely unpredictable as one minutes you’ve hit a pocket of resistance and the next absolutely nothing, this was the ideal conditions to test and improve a pilot’s reaction skills.
When you look up at an aircraft be it small or large (excluding military) you’ll perceive to be traveling at a slow speed however some people may not be aware that this is a trickery of the eye because you cannot calculate the scale and distance of the aircraft’s position and flight path in relation to the earth’s curvature. In reality the speed of the aircraft is in fact much faster otherwise there would be no way of being able to travel almost around the whole world in twenty-four hours.
At the end of another day the sun was going down and we had completed a few more circuits.
I look forward to the near approaching summer holidays and the extra time on my hands I will have in order to get back in the air.
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