Today we decided to fly LN-NRF, a Cessna 172SP from 2005. I love that airplane, and compared to the Piper Cherokee I usually fly it’s a rocket! It’s got a 180 horsepower engine, climbs around 30% faster than the plane I usually fly, and cruises at 120kts, compared to the 100kts I’m used to. It’s also fairly new, less than 4 years old, so if you put your nose really close to the seat back, you can almost get a wiff of that new leather scent! It’s super stable, and when you get to cruise, you can pretty much trim her out, and she flies herself. She’s also equiped with a 2 axis autopilot which flies by GPS (or NAV), so she’ll even get you we’re you’re going without to much hassle.

The weather today was not very good. There was rain, some low clouds and reduced visibility in certain areas. The cloudbase however was pretty high up, around 4200 feet, so we decided to take off and check conditions once we got off the ground. We took off and got good climb performance, around 1000 feet pr. minute, so we quickly got up to 2000 feet. We saw that the weather was ok for airwork, and we continued south to our designated training area overhead Lake Øyeren, just south of Lillestrøm. The clouds we’re getting thicker and lower at the end of the lake, which mean that we had to stay closer to the northern end.

The lesson today was the final D-block lesson, meaning IFR flying. For those not familiar with this term, IFR is short for Instrument Flight Rules, and means that we simulate IFR flight by me flying with a pair of view blocking goggles that only allows me to see the instrument panel. This excercise is designed to familirize the student with flying when there are no visual reference points to fly by, meaning no visible horizon, and no visible navigational landmarks.

The plane is equiped with a GPS, so navigating was fairly easy, but coordinating the plane without visual reference point however isn’t! The danger of flying in IFR conditions is that your mind tricks you into beliving that your airplane is at a different angle than you think, and you end up flipping over or going into a spin. It really is hard to trust only the instruments, and I’ve experience vertigo several times under “the hood”.

We ended the flight with a short trip over Oslo, and the flew back to our base at Kjeller airport.

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Nedre Romerrike Flyklubb (Lower Romerrike Flying club, NRFK) which I’m a member of has the is responcible for the Oslo and Akershus county fire watches. We fly a route which normally takes around 2 hours, stretching from Mjøsa in the north east to Drammen in the south west. It’s a beautiful flight on a nice day, and the good thing about the fire watches is that they’re usually flown when the weather’s dry, thus usually very good.

I flew this flight with Kjetil Kintel. He was the Pilot in Charge (PIC) and I was the observer and had the right seat, the radio and the camera. We got some very good pictures from this flight, and even though it’s basically unpaid work, it really is a nice way to spend a couple of hours. It also looks good both on my CV and in a photo album, as shown here:

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We didn’t see any actual fires this time, but I got to familirize myself with the route, and all free flying is a great thing in my book!

I have to admit I was really nervous before this flight. Previously I had only done solo flights in the close proximity to the airport, doing airwork, landing excercises etc. This flight was a round trip to Stafsberg at Hamar, an airport a little over 60nm or 110km from Kjeller, my home base.

I the a brief with my instructor, looking over my operational navigation plans, and the flightplans I had submittet prior to the flight to be assured rescue services if I for some reason shouldn’t make it to my destination without beeing to announce distress.

I got in the plane, started the engine, did the checklists and taxi’d onto the tarmac. At the end of runway 12 I looked across the straight line of pavement reaching some 1100m in front of me and then pushed the throttle to full. I went through the takeoff checklist and called out «RPM >2350, airspeed increasing, airspeed 55kts: rotate». I was airborne…

I set the course for Sørum, my outbound reporting point. As I crossed the border to outside local airspace I felt nervous and quickly had to decide whether or not to proceed. I decided to not let my uncertainty get the best of me, to suck it up and fly!

As I established cruise I did the cruise checklists. I calculated Estimated Time Overhead (ETO) to know at what time I could expect to be at each navpoint in my navplan and I contacted Oslo Approach on the radio to open my flight plan. No response… I called out again «Oslo Approach, student Lima November November Alfa Romeo», but again I got no response. I decided to proceed regardless, and to alert nearby traffic of my presence, so I tuned the radio to 123.500 which is the frequency used outside controlled airspace almost everywhere in Norway, and on a lot of unmanned airfields as well.

I passed Wormsund and turned slight north by northwest up Vorma. Even through I had three navpoints along that stretch of river, I decided to focus on the last one, Minnesund which I had barely in sight. I flew up the river and got to Minnesund exactly on my ETO. I then tried contacting Oslo Approach again, and finally got through.

Even though I was now over half way in my flight I still decided to open my flightplan. Oslo approach said they had heard me earlier but that they didn’t get any callback on their responses. I opened the flightplan and continued over lake Mjøsa. By the way, Mjøsa Norways largest inland lake.

As I got to Stange I had Hamar in sight. I still didn’t see the airport but I had been there before so I had a general idea of where it was relative to the city core. I closed my flightplan with Oslo Approach and reported in on Hamar Traffic. There we’re no other planes in the circuit, so I did a low pass over the airport at 1000 feet, noted the wind direction and approximate speed (which was next to none), and got on downwind parallel to the landing strip.

As I landed I felt great! Seriously, there is no greater feeling of accomplishment than when you beat your fears and push through, and I did just that. To add to it the weather along the route was overcast with some rain and quite heavy wind shears in some areas. For instance, on my return flight I was looking from something in the backseat, and a wind shear knocked me into a 45 degree tilt, and I had to fight pretty hard to get back into level flight! I did however manage to return unscathed, and I did get some nice picture along the way as well. Take a look:

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