When you get to lesson AP64, you have an ‘introduction to
holding’ brief and sim. It’s fair to say I felt completely lost and couldn't
recall a thing about the hold entries we learnt in Air Law. Thankfully,
Bryan had a few ways to make it simple and enough patience to go through it
properly with me. It made a lot more sense actually flying it than it did
studying it in ground school (I've found that with quite a few of the topics we
learnt now). It did, however, take quite a while to figure out the type of
entry I needed to use to get into the hold and I practised a lot of these
questions with my house mate. For some reason I always guess ‘direct’, but I've
gotten the hang of it now and can figure it out in a second using my house mates
method of placing the CDI needle on the hold axis and just looking at where the
tail is, as well as Lee’s POD method. Works every time! I also drew little
diagrams to stick on my knee-board to use as reference. In Air Law we learnt 3
entries, there are 5 according to Oxford, I can see why but at the moment it
just needs more to learn. 
The standards for PT4 are to get the holds within +/- 12
seconds of 3 minutes which is easy in null wind conditions but a little
trickier if you have to correct for the wind. Luckily, we had lots of practice
flights doing these and in real life it’s rarely calm, especially in the
turbulent desert air. There are only two holds we do out here; Stanfield and
Buckeye, we practice with them so it’s a bit of a head start for the PT and
also gets us used to using the approach plates which, upon first glance, looks like a different language, with practice they do become easier to read though,
I promise. The Casa Grande (Stanfield) approach is quite a simple one and the easiest way to do everything correctly is to brief the approach early and set up the cockpit beforehand so you only have to fly the plane (not fuss about setting minimums or frequencies last minute). Again, the RT takes a little getting used to but I'm a lot less
nervous speaking now.
The sims were always good fun and really good at getting
used to the theory, briefing and plates with a few surprise emergencies thrown
in and ‘moderate turbulence’ given by Bryan grabbing the back of my seat. He
was due to take leave so decided he’d squeeze me and Josh in with quite a few
flights that week to get us ready to take our test during his time off instead
of having a long break. This meant more early starts and double lessons, which
does get so tiring after a couple of days.
I also completed my Cross-country qualifier. This is a
necessity for gaining a license, and includes a landing at Ryan then Goodyear
before arriving back at Falcon, the trip is approximately 420nm and took 5
hours. The navigation is important and it’s important to stick with your due
back time, however at this stage I knew the area so well it’s more a case of
pointing the nose on my turning points and then relaxing, talking on the
practice area frequency with my course mates and tuning in Disney FM on the
ADF. I really enjoyed myself, though it was tiring and nearly unbearably hot in
the cockpit; I was even starting to feel nostalgic that I didn't have many
Archer flights remaining, I love how confident I felt with the plane, feeling I
could do anything with it and it’s such a huge jump from how I felt only a few
months before. I feel like a real pilot and I'm proud of myself.
PT4 time! I had a few days off before the test but I felt pretty confident
going into it, which was a first. I was with Amanda again and as I’d already
flown with her before she gave me the option of Buckeye or Stanfield and said
we could have a practice landing at one first before doing the assessed hold. I
picked Buckeye for the hold as I preferred the circle-to-land approach and
generally it tends to be a bit quieter (less radio for me!) than the Stanfield
VOR which is always incredibly busy in the afternoon. I did the hold and
approach to Stanfield pretty well, it was one of the best holds I’d ever flown
so I was happy.
We then didn't have time to get all the way over to Buckeye so
created a GPS way point over Maricopa Mountain to simulate the Buckeye VOR and
did the hold and approach over that instead. Maybe not the best idea as I got
an up-draft from the thermal coming off the little mountain on every ‘inbound’
leg of the hold. On the whole it went pretty well; on the way back we did the
Chandler arrival which I had to amend slightly to avoid traffic who thought
they’d cut a corner on the approach. Not naming any names but I know exactly
who it was and of course let them know back on the ground. Amanda was joking
about it, saying they thought they could get away with it because there were
two women flying. The test couldn't have
gone better, meaning I was finished with the Archer (apart from one last solo
navigation) and ready to gain another engine and start my Seminole flying! I was
also the first in my class to take PT4 so one up for the girls!
I had another few days off after that which felt so good to
chill out and catch up on sleep from all the early mornings. Josh took his test
the day after mine so we mostly stayed in, watched Sherlock and played Call of
Duty, it’s too hot to even go and stay by the pool for too long and most other
people were still in school.
As it was 4th of July which is a huge deal in
America we were doing the most American thing possible and going to a
Diamondbacks baseball game. We wore red, white and blue and decided we’d learn
the national anthem so we could sing a long at the opening of the game. I’d
been to a baseball game before in Chicago but this one was a lot more fun,
probably due to the occasion (and the fact that I'm over 21 this time!).
Diamondbacks won! After the game the stadium roof opened up and we could see
the fireworks display over Phoenix, it was a great night and I was very glad I
didn't have to get up early the next morning as Oskar did.
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