Flight #4 - Shoreham - Flying at different speeds and attitudes

The morning after my third lesson I had my fourth. It was a Sunday early morning lesson at 9am, so I woke up at 7am so that I could check my blood sugar levels at least 2 hours before flight as required by the CAA. My blood sugar was 4.2 which is lowish but would normally be okay. However, as the CAA require a blood sugar of at least 5 I had a biscuit with my morning tea while I wrote up blog for Flight #3. I didn't want to inject insulin before flying so skipped breakfast until after the flight.

I got to the airfield at 8.30 and had a refreshing coffee in the lovely restaurant while I waited for the flying school to open. I checked my blood sugars again. The value was 8.7 showing the biscuit and even the milk in my drinks had topped up my blood sugar.

My Flying Instructor (FI) greeted me and gave me a copy of the Standard Checklist for a Piper PA28 Warrior III aircraft. This is an A5 sized, wire bound book with shiny cardboard pages that's easy to hold open on any given section - useful if it's balanced on your knee. Today we would do our first external pre-flight inspection of the aircraft, I would do my first Before Engine Start check, I would get to taxi the aircraft for the first time, and I would do the Power Check and Before Take Off checks.

Here's a video of me doing the Power Check and Before Take Off check...

With the FI doing the flying we took off on runway 07 and turned right to fly over the coast and out to sea. Turning left back into the wind we climbed to 4,600 ft and headed along the coast towards Eastbourne.

Today I was going to learn about flying straight and level at different speeds and attitudes. To be honest I wasn't great and adapting to a new speed and found myself relying too much on instruments and not enough on picking an attitude out of the window using clouds and horizon as reference and only momentarily glancing at instruments as I scanned and did my FREDA checks (see flight #3) so as a result did a bit of oscillation.

Here's a video of me going to full power, keeping the nose down, and getting the aircraft stable at 110 kts; then dropping the power, lifting the nose, and getting the aircraft stable at 75 kts; then a slow-speed turn 180 degrees to head back towards Beachy Head...

So a fun lesson but I'm frustrated that I relied too heavily on instruments. I won't make that mistake again, and need to be much more visual outside the aircraft and trust my ears sensing engine RPM etc much more.

Here's a chart of our flight...

Weather...
- EGKA 140750Z 05009KT 7000 FEW018 16/14 Q1022
- At 07:50 GMT on 14th (September) wind 50 degrees at 9 kt, visibility 7 km with a few clouds at 1,800 ft. Temp 16 degrees, dew point 14 degrees. Barometric pressure 1022 hPa.

Blood sugar readings...
> 2 hours before flight: 4.2 (ate a biscuit to raise them above lower limit of 5.0 for flying)
< 30 mins before flight: 8.7
Landing: I didn't test before landing as I wasn't doing the flying for this part of the flight

Flying hours...
This flight: 1h 0m
Accumulated: 4h 0m