Fun in, and on, the air...

Autumn has got off to a rough start this year, with very windy conditions coming to hold sway over North Wales.

But yesterday brought a very calm, warm day, ahead of Storm Francis, although that particular storm is just bringing a very windy day, rather than anything particularly bad this time around.

So, my daughter and I took advantage of the fine weather ahead of Francis by taking our monthly 'fix' of aviation.  Being quite busy at the airport, we were allocated a PA-28-180, somewhat (but noticeably) more powerful than the usual PA-28-140 we fly. 

Next generation pilot.  A lovely day at the airport.

 

Aircraft are aircraft, but their instruments can vary from very basic radio stacks and navigation receivers to extremely complex, fully computerised systems.  The AM radio worked OK, but was incredibly noisy such that I was slowly going deaf!  After a  minute or so, I figured out the very small button that was the squelch operation of the radio, which made things a little more tolerable!  

Flying can sometimes be demanding on the brain's resources, and one is left wondering why radios in aircraft are not designed to be much simpler to operate than some of them are.  Just like amateur radio, purchase price is one factor that can sometimes lead to less-than-ideal radio devices inside cockpits.

Whilst calling the local RAF base, I had to then quickly work out the secondary radar transponder, where a 4-number code sent by the radar operator, so that a aircraft is uniquely identified on his/her screen, has to be entered into the transponder panel.  Usually, this is just a process of punching in the numbers on a 0-9 keypad, and maybe a final 'enter' on some units.  But this one had no such numbers, instead having a rotary encoder and a few buttons.  Well, that took me about 30 seconds - which felt a lot longer - to figure out, such that there was no delay in entering the 3720 transponder code issued to me.  Again, a very poor design which I have never seen in any other aircraft.

After all that, we much enjoyed looking down at the very crowded Welsh beaches, and laughing at the thought of how they would all be fighting with wind-battered tents and caravans in just a few hours' time!