I am working towards my Instrument Rating at the moment; and for my less acquainted readers, this is essentially what is required for flying in clouds; flying with opaque screens over the windows. Having spent the past four weeks in a simulator practicing my instrument flying we had got to a stage where we were forgetting what it was like to fly a real plane (having been 7 weeks since last being in a real cockpit); our instructor was adamant that we would be aviating this week.
Monday started in this vain with back to back flights with my flying partner.
Today, mine was the first flight of the day on an aircraft returned from Maintenance; so in theory this aircraft should be fine. A walk-around and pre-flight check confirmed that she was fit to fly.
Before takeoff the IF screens were up and I was to fly by instrument, shortly after departure we were well on our route to the first waypoint. After being handed off to airfield approach frequency I got a questionable read-back. We were just practicing in the local area, so it wasn't much of a concern. A few (perfect) laps around the hold later we were outbound to the next beacon for a hold. I relayed our intentions to our ATC ground unit.
- "OXxx leaving BOTLY heading WCO, maintaining Altitude 3,500ft"
- No reply...
I looked across at my instructor with a confused and somewhat concerned look
- "Did you hear a read-back to acknowledge our message?"
He shook his head and languidly replied
- "No, it's fine."
Approaching the hold at the next beacon saw me set up in the approach configuration and attempt to obtain the aerodrome ATIS (weather); no luck. So I entered the hold while my increasingly concerned instructor began requesting radio checks from every station on the ground in our vicinity.
I continued the hold as per planned; my instructor shortly looked across at me and calmly said
- "Right, so our radios are buggered, what is the procedure?"
My flying partner and I promptly brainstormed over the aircraft intercom and decided on our plan of action. Here it was;
- Squawk 7600.
- Head towards the airfield above the circuit altitude whilst making blind transmissions.
- Observe the traffic situation in the circuit.
- Descend to circuit altitude joining in a gap in the traffic.
- Perform a low pass of the runway flashing landing lights to indicate our intention to land.
- Go around and perform a visual circuit to land.
I was the pilot flying and the instructor took control of the radios.
We continued towards the airfield whilst making blind transmissions. Once we had the field in sight, we joined the circuit and found a safe leg to descend into. We were now going to do a low pass of the runway flashing the landing lights.
[This is something which you read about in the theory textbooks and don't think you will ever have to do; I was excited and could barely contain the grin which was erupting on my face.]
Flashing on and off the landing lights frantically as we passed overhead the centreline and climbed out again to circuit altitude. As we continued our visual circuit and arrived abeam the tower we heard a crackling transmission giving us a landing clearance.
- "Cleared to land, Runway 01, there is a fire engine waiting for you and will follow you once on the ground"
Two whites, two reds, a nice soft landing to taxi back to the ramp.
As we climbed out of the cockpit my instructor looked across at me with a smile and said
- "That's a first for me..!"
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