Coaching corner
Coaching Corner… ell I certainly got ahead of myself when I started writing in the April issue! There I was suggesting we would all be pushing ourselves to get airborne after a ‘winter of discontent’ when along came COVID-19. For any who have been struck down by the virus, my sincere best wishes for a speedy recovery. I am delighted that thanks in part to hard work carried out by the LAA, the case has been made to allow solo continuity flying to resume. However, that won’t allow a Coach to come along and provide the refresher training which we really need after a long winter lay-off, which I was recommending in April. We shall need to be especially careful when we eventually do manage to fly normally again, and if you decide to regain your currency by flying solo, PLEASE remember you are not as good as you were before the lay-off. Carry out more careful pre-flight checks than usual, including engine run-ups, and refuse to accept suspicious indications. Work up your flying slowly from
David Cockburn, PCS Head of Training, discusses the planning and preparation to get back into the air safely… benign conditions, avoid challenging navigation routes (especially those close to notified airspace), and don’t take passengers until you’re absolutely sure you’re back in practice – and currently only those from your own household. Avoid tricky crosswinds, low cloud bases, poor visibility and marginal runway lengths and widths – and be ready for it all to go wrong. A go-around, or even a diversion to a more suitable airfield, is vastly preferable to a broken aircraft.
W
Bluebirds over the White Cliffs? Below GPS Nav systems, like Garmin’s new aera 760, are ever more capable, pilots need to be as well if they are going to get the best out of them.
However, while we’re spending more time at home, we can use it to plan for trips in the future. If we’ve always hankered after a flight to foreign parts, or the more distant parts of our own islands, this could be an ideal time to prepare ourselves. We should of course start with a current chart of the route either paper or electronic, but remember, although the CAA regards a current electronic chart as meeting
34 | LIGHT AVIATION | June 2020
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