Gorgeous weather today. I had, in my mind, an idea of what today’s lesson was going to be, namely some low level work (quick stops, autos and the like). It wasn’t to be, but I thoroughly enjoyed the alternative.

Steve suggested to maximise the weather and get a solo cross country in – Alnwick and back. Winds were mostly easterly and light – Runway 07 in use.

I plotted the course, and Steve went through the routing and features, which was helpful. 14 gallons of fuel required to allow for delays, taxi’ing, and I left with about 19 on board, so I was good to go.

I decided to use my iphone as the nav plan. It allowed me to easily time the legs and see when I should be arriving at the end of each leg.

Once we’d filled her up, we moved her well away from the bowser and other aircraft – a wise move !!! Actually, we’d have been ok for the liftoff, not so sure about the return bit though, but more on that later.

Permission to taxi to Foxtrot was granted with the clearance and I was asked to hold, which I did into the light wind. My first thought was to put it back down again on the ground, but then I thought that a bad idea as it’s good hover practice. After about a minute of waiting, I realised that I’d cocked up one of my checks. The door was open (my door). So, I had to put it down to close that. Silly me – done it before too. Need to ensure I do the checklists and don’t get carried away with the excitement of being solo.

With the door shut, Tower were on the blower asking me to perform a northerly departure straight away as they had an inbound. I was ready and I was off

2300 feet was the intended altitude and i’ve realised that if I want to hold a certain altitude and I concentrate on it, I can do it, but when I want some sight-seeing or to check the map, then it can drift off.

With only me in it, I was maintaining more than the 75knots on 21 manifold pressure, more like 80-85 knots, so I arrived early at Morpeth, and similarly early at Alnwick. It took about 15 minutes to Alnwick. Quite a calm, non-turbulent flight.

Once at Alnwick, I travelled west for a bit over the golfball radar thingamajig, and then back to Alnwick. Then I took up the heading back to Morpeth, and mosied on back.

On the way back, I noticed that the Oil Pressure had gone into the red. Steve had gone through what to do in loads of scenarios before I left.

Steve :- If the clutch light comes on and stays on for 8 seconds or more, pull the clutch fuse out, and land immediately

He went through a similar spiel for every possible scenario you could think of.

Apart from this one, sod’s law !!!!

But, I was high up, circa 2500 feet, and I had the time to think it through logically. My thought process went something like this….

David thinking :- ok, it’s something to do with the engine, so if that stops, it won’t stop the rotor going because of the sprag clutch. ok, ok……erm……Pressure is high, too much oil, nah, there was only 4.7 litres in. What’s the oil temperature ? It’s fine ! Oh, that’s good, maybe it’s a faulty instrument

At this point, I gave it a good bang. And nothing happened. But then about 20 seconds later, it came out of the red, and into the yellow, top of the green.

And relax……….

To be fair, I didn’t relax, and was on high alert for an engine failure just in case. I kept a very beady eye on the Oil Pressure. It did go back in the red again, but because the oil temperature was fine, I wasn’t overly concerned.

Steve had told me to ensure I was at least 2000 feet over Eschott (another smaller airfield). I was keeping my eyes peeled, and saw a light a/c (Cessna) which was quite close, but we’d seen each other, or at least I’d seen him/her, so there never felt like there was any danger there. Hopefully, that will be on the video that I’ll put up tomorrow.

I reported back to Tower once at Morpeth and was asked to join left base, which I did. I was number 1 to land, reporting finals. Before I had chance to report finals, I was cleared to land, but asked to expedite the landing as someone was on 4 miles final (behind me).

So, I kept the speed on and it ended up being a fast approach, 80/85 knots. I’d forgot to cancel carb heat, not drastic with just me on board, thankfully.

I ended up doing quite a high flare, with very little collective pulled and a 15 feet high taxi (should be 2 to 5 feet) to get out of the way of the incoming. Steve suggested that i was quite within my rights to say “negative” to the request to expedite my landing. I am definitely too polite at times.

Now, this is where it got messy (in my book). I knew where to park, Steve had told me and the taxi and turn went fine, but then I started doing my “fart around for a minute” landings. I think the fast “transition to taxi” had made me tense. I could sense I was holding the cyclic very tightly, never a good sign and not something I generally do any more, but obviously, I did today.

Well, as can be seen by the video that I’ll put up, it wasn’t pretty to look at, but it was safe. I was up and down like something that’s up and down a lot !!

Eventually, I was down. For a second, I thought I’m going to do that landing again, so I can end on a good note, but then I remembered the oil pressure issue and thought better of it.

So, really enjoyable flight. Next flight, next friday. I’ve booked one for wednesday too, but there’s an appointment with kp on wednesday, so I’ll need to cancel that one.