Airbus A320 Full Flight Simulator Experience

Posted on 18 November, 2013 by Stan | 5 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I have lost my PPL licence. Just couldn’t find it anymore where it was. A total nightmare! Image somebody to cut your wings off; this is how I felt.
I made all the necessary paperwork, paid taxes and since 10 days I have my licence back! I am a person again. Couldn’t imagine that a “piece” of paper wuld be so important to me.

So I have scheduled a flight for next week, hopefully the weather will be good and I will be able to fly. In the meantime I was looking between my old pictures and found some from my experience in a Airbus A320 full flight simulator which I did I think some 4 years ago.

Really fantastic experience, worth of the money I have paid. It was not cheap, if I remember I have paid around 600€ for this one hour experience. Took of course my wife, my brother and his wife with me on the trip.

I have booked this flight through Proflight and we have travelled to the Lufhtansa flight training center in Vienna to live the experience. After a short briefing we have enter entered the training center, and there was the standing the Airbus A320 full flight simulator. Something like this I would like to have in my living room! The only problem is, the living room would be to small for this 😉 It looks like a space ship!

Airbus A320 full flight simulator

The cockpit is a copy of a real Airbus A320, even it has its tailnumber and the plane really exists. You could google its tailnumber to see the pictures, it is D-AIPA.

Inside the cockpit

Once on board I took the seat, the instructor has programmed the FMS and we were ready for takeoff from the Vienna Airport.

Lining up for departure

I still remember the details; I have pushed the thrust levers forward and I have been pushed into the seat and after a couple of moments we were airborne. It makes so much fun to fly the Airbus! After departure it was the left turn and to enjoy the “virtual reality”.

Banking the plane to the left

In the flight I have asked for some light turbulence, because I found it a little boring, so the instructor have pushed one button and it has started to be a little shaky. The we have tried the traffic alert, and it worked nice as well. Followed by couple of landings the hour was gone.

Approach to Innsbruck

Approach to Madeira Airport RWY 23

I still can here the engines roaring in my ears 😉 Viewing now all these pictures I think I should repeat this experience somewhere this Christmas! You can see here the video of my (not the best) landing at Madeira Airport (LPMA)… Following the pilot’s wisdom, this was an excellent landing: “A “good” landing is one which you can walk away from. A “great” landing is one which lets you use the airplane another time.” 😉 Safe landings!

Landing at La Gomera

Posted on 28 October, 2013 by Stan | 2 Comments

My last flight was to the island La Gomera. La Gomera is a small airport on the Canary Islands. When you approach the runway, it seems like you are going to land on an aircraft carrier (with a little imagination ;-)).

The runway is long enough to land with a Boeing 737, but the biggest planes landing there are from the local company called Binter usind ATR72 aircrafts.

The landings can be sometimes challenging, as the airport was built not on the best place (but there are no other options), so you can have a headwind over the threshold, 90 degree crosswind in the middle, and tailwind at the end of the runway.

So you have to take care when landing, otherwise the plane can suddenly drop down.

On this occasion the weather was quite nice, some crosswind, but the landing was pretty smooth.

Here is a short video of the approach and the landing from a wing wiev. I have mounted my gopro this time on the wing trying to capture the plane and the runway.

Touch and goes

Posted on 6 October, 2013 by Stan | 12 Comments

Sometimes I have the impression that if I am doing only cross country flights, navigate and do one landing, I am a little loosing the practice of stall recovery, emergency procedures, side slips, short traffic pattern landings, etc… Flying for a hour or two above the sea is sometimes boring, it is mucho more fun to make approaches, take offs, or landings…

So on my last flight last week with Piper P-28A Cherokee Archer ii (reg. EC-JMT), I have decided to practice stalls, touch and goes and some other manouvers and to have fun. The weather was perfect, wind calm and it was a very nice experience. And I feel safer again. I have made a lot of stalls, recovery with or without engine, steep turns and also a zero gravity flight.

One of the landings I wanted to practice was with short traffic pattern, and actually I was lucky, because after take-off there was some traffic that should be departing in the next moments, so I have been cleared for touch and go with short pattern. Descending to the field without flap I have passed a centerline a bit, but finally I have lined up with the runway centerline and touched down. This is the result:

After this take off the ATC has notified 3 planes arriving, so I have proceeded to the visual point November for manouvers. After some manouvers I came back to the airport for more touch and goes. In total I have made 5. My second landing was just a normal approach on the glideslope with 1 point flap.

The third one was planed with side slip. So I have stayed simply to hight on the downwind when turning on base and on final. Side slip consists of crossing the controls, yoke into the wing and the opposite rudder; this causes you drop faster without accelerating the plane. It is not my favourite manouver, since you approach the runway from the side, like with heavy crosswinds. The altimeter was showing a rate of descent of 1.000 feet/minute. Not bad 🙂 Here is the video:

The 4th touch and go was with full flap; I have decided to stay to high again in the pattern, and have performed a full flap landing. You can see it in the video, that I was to high. But with 3.400 meter long runway, there is enough of space to practice 🙂 This is the result:

Of course, normally nobody does this kind of landings with passengers 🙂 Safe landings!

Zero gravity flight

Posted on 29 September, 2013 by Stan | 5 Comments

My last flight was a little bit different. I do mostly crosscountry flights, so there is no time to make manouvers like stalls, touch and go’s, etc. Probably the passengers would get scared to death, lol ;-).

This time I have decided to spend the time in the air practicing stalls, turns, touch and go’s, with flaps, without flaps, slips, etc. I was lucky to have a perfect weather, almost no traffic and wind calm, so I was able to enjoy a really nice views and a flight without turbulence.

On the right downwind for RWY 12 at Tenerife North Airport

Flying 1000 feet above the Air Europa Airbus 330, holding short of runway 12

After departure I have proceed to a visual point November and where a bunch of stalls and turns a zero gravity flight was waiting on me. After a coupple of stalls, steap turns, slow flight, etc. I have decided to try again a zer gravity flight. It was a pretty long time ago that I have practiced this.

Holding over November Point, sea calm…

3.000 feet above the sea with fuel pump on I have lowered the nose to pick up the speed to approximately 120-130kts, then started to climb and pulled back down the nose to feel the zero gravity. It worked good out, but my Iphone flew on the backseat so I had to search it, otherwise i wouldn’t be able to make more pictures on this flight.

My second attempt was better: I took a pen, repeated once again the manouver and the pen was floating nice in the air. By the third attempt the pen flew away so there was nothing more to demonstrate the zero gravity. I have captured this with my gopro mounted inside the plane. Actually it was nice to practice this and I liked the feeling in my stomach as well, lol ;-). I think it would have been better to have some passenger on board who would have been busy with the pen while I would be flying 🙂

After the third one I have retourned back to the airport for more touch and go’s.

It was a nice day full of practice, I am sure I’ll repeat it again… Safe landings!

Piper P28A bounced landing at El Berriel Aerodrome, Gran Canaria

Posted on 27 August, 2013 by Stan | Leave a comment

Just a quick post over my landing at El Berriel aerodrome in Gran Canarias a couple of weeks ago… It has been a time ago that I have landed at this aerodrome, and it is famous for windshear, so my first attempt for landing was not succesfull and I had to made a go around for the second attempt.

On this day the gopro was mounted on the belly of the plane, so it offers a nice views of what is happening under us… On the following picture, you can see the views over the El Berriel aerodrome.

View over El Berriel aerodrome

During the second attempt I stayed sligtly to the right from the centerline, had to make some corrections, and finaly was a little faster than I should have been. As the field has only 800 mtrs., I didn’t wanted to spend more time flaring the plane and wanted to come down faster; so the result was a bounced landing: 3 landings at price of 1 ;-). As the gopro was mounted on the belly, you can count the number of landings by yourself 🙂

Safe landings! 🙂

Flight to Fuerteventura

Posted on 15 August, 2013 by Stan | 4 Comments

My last flight was to Fuerteventura. I like to fly there, because I spent living for 2 years on the island, love the beaches, the nature, it is very quite, and I enjoy the views from the bird’s perspective while flying.

Our route: Tenerife-Fuerteventura-Tenerife

My friend Daldo flew the first leg: Tenerife Norte to Fuerteventura. We have departed via visual E point (above Tenerife’s Las Teresitas beach), and have requested 5.500 feet. As there was calima (winds blowing from Sahara, normally with very poor visibility and hot air), by the temperatures of around 30 degrees we have been keeping an eye on the engine’s temperature to be sure everything is working fine. The problem by calima is, that there is inversion, so the temperature increases with the increasing altitude, so we have to take into consideration so the air cools the engine as it should.

Established on 5.500″ with practically no wind, the engine parameters were fine and we were able to continue on course.

Lining up on runway 12 at Tenerife North Airport

After approximately 1 hour we have reached the south of Fuerteventura and have requested to maintain below 1.000 feet, as well notified to make a low approach over the Punta de Jandia’s airfield, which I believe was used in the II. World war.

Punta de Jandia’s airfield at the south of Fuerteventura

Here is a short video of the low pass, in the video you can see that it was a little bumpy.

After the low pass we have continued along the coastline direction Morro Jable/Jandía.

Punta de Jandía

As you can see, arriving at Jandía, the white beaches are giving us a very warm welcome; with their longitude of 15 kilometers they stay on our left until Costa Calma.

Beach and Lighthouse Jandía

Continuing the coast line, we have reached lightouse La Entallada, one of my favourite places on the island…

Lighthouse “Faro La Entallada”

After another 15 minutes flight we have reached the Fuerteventura airfield, and Daldo have managed to land smoothly with some crosswind on the runway 01R.

Seconds before touchdown at Fuerteventura airport, RWY 01R

On the stand we have checked, whether our Gopro was still attached to the airplane, and luckily it was!!!

Gopro Hero placed on the wing

We have walked to the operations (it is nice that you may walk without having to pay expensive handling costs as for example in Lanzarote) and after that to the terminal to pick up our car we have hired previously. We have decided to go to a place called Casillas del Ángel, some 15-20 minutes from the airport, to taste the local speciality which is goat’s meat at the Restaurante el Labrador. Unfortunately they had no more goat’s meat (which would cost around 15€/plate), so we took as alternative escalope (for around 7-8€/ plate) with french fries (home made) and some home made tortilla, which was really tasty. The portion was huge, so in our stomach there was no more space left for dinner :-).

Short stay on a beach called “Playa Blanca” near Puerto del Rosario and back to the airport, return the car, pay the landing fees at the operations and walk to our Piper to make a outside check and all preparations necessary for the flight (including switching on our Gopro, should be a part of the plane’s checklist as well, lol).

I was flying today the second leg; Fuertevetura – Tenerife North. We have be cleard to taxi to the holding point of runway 01R, where we made the engine run-up and waited for the departure clearence.

Holding short of RWY 01R at E10

After departure we have continued on the runway heading below 1.000 feet until Corralejo in the north part of the island, to see the beaches and the volcanos as well.

Playa de Corralejo

Leaving the island Isla de Lobos on the right side we have continued our climb to 4.500 feet heading Tenerife North airport.

Isla de Lobos

After some 50 minutes we have reached Tenerife.

Heading to Tenerife or to the sun?

Descending over capital city Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Landing on the runway 30.

Now our Piper can rest to be ready for our next adventure trip 🙂

Piper P-28A Cherokee Archer II, reg. EC-JMT

Safe landings!

Glider flight

Posted on 30 July, 2013 by Stan | 2 Comments

The advantage of a glider is that you can’t experience an engine failure. So it seems, you avoid any bad surprises, and there is no safer way to fly than on a glider.

Flying a single engine airplane gives you the freedom, but there is always a risk of engine failure. In this case your plane turns into a glider with not the best performance, as it is heavier and it has not the same glide ratio as a glider.

Glider “Blaník”, reg. OM-2709

In my opinion, having some experience on a glider makes you a safer pilot, in the case you experience some problems with your engine, you are used to handle this situation with less stress (the engine failure is a part of a PPL training as well).

I took a couple of lessons on a glider and I really enjoyed them. This particular flight was made on Blanik, registration OM-2709, and the first difference you note is the silence. There is no engine, so you hear only the air soaring. Second advantage: the views… You feel like a F-16 pilot enjoying the views through the big canopy. 🙂

The views through the canopy are realy great!

There are some small differences between flying an plane and a glider, if you turn, you have to add some rudder. If you are sitted in the front, and you stall it, it feels different, as the nose is much shorter that in the plane. You also can’t apply the usual throttle, but the recovery is pretty fast.

If the thermal is sufficient, you can stay airborne for hours (in my case there was no thermal, so we went down pretty fast…), so don’t pay the fuel and the flight is cheaper!

Flying a glider, you can enjoy the views like this:

Getting towed into the skies, other Blaník in front of us (above the towing aircraft)

Letisko Očová – Očová Airfield

The units of measures are meters instead of feet and km/h instead of knots, but as the numbers serve as a reference, this is not a big problem.

Cockpit of Blaník

Here you have a short video as well of soaring in the skies.

Low pass over field “Pista El Revolcadero” at La Gomera

Posted on 12 May, 2013 by Stan | 2 Comments

Pista el Revolcadero was an privately owned airfield which entered service in 1959. Since 1995 La Gomera counts with a new airport, which was built only 2 km before the old field “El Revolcadero”.

El Revolcadero made me and still makes me very curious about its past.

Pista El Revolcadero, La Gomera

Sorry for the quality of this picture, but the frame just photographed our propeller as well :-).

La Gomera Airport is a pretty complicated airfield due to its location and wind conditions, and overflying the field is very bumpy. Today the weather conditions were very favorable; almost no wind: 4-5 kts), so after the take off from the La Gomera Airport (GMZ/GCGM) we have proceeded to El Revolcadero to make a low pass.

During the low pass we could spot the old hangar and the former tower (and the only one tree as well :-)). I am quite sure, that this short runway, and its surface turned every landing in the past in to a big challenge (and adventure)…

Tower and hangar on the “El Revolcadero” field

El Revolcadero’s Tower

On my next trip I would like to walk to the field to visit it closely. If you have heard any stories about the field, or you have some nice pics or recommendations, I’d be pleased to see them.

I will leave you a short video taken from the airplane, so enjoy the flight and experience together with us.

Happy landings!

Canaries from bird’s eye view…

Beeing a privat pilot gives you the wings to move free in the sky and see the earth and its beauties from a bird’s eye view… Here are some images taken during my flights in the Canaries…