![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Phew.
Just got back from my mandatory two hour mountain flight. Not to teach me how to really fly in the valleys, y'understand, but to give me a feel for it in case I ever get into trouble. (On reflection, this makes it sound a bit like being strapped into a chair and told I will appreciate the mountains!)
When we got to the foothills, the instructor asked me which way the wind was blowing. North-easterly, I ventured, given that was what it had been on the ground? Bzzzzt! Thank you for playing. That was on the plains some 50km away. Here was in the mountains, the wind was doing its usual thing of flowing over the hills from the west. He went on to demonstrate just how predictably different the wind is; it flows rather like water, and his local knowledge took us to some different effects. All the while we were flying up and down valleys, below the level of the (sometimes cloud-shrouded) mountain tops on either side, getting much closer to the cumulus granitus than I have ever been before...! I kept instinctively wanting to fly up the centres of the valleys, that being as far away from the sharp pointy bits as possible, but that is usually the wrong thing to do; you fly on one side, so that if you should decide that you need to turn around, you have the full width of the valley to play with. There were optical illusions aplenty; the flattish valley floors often misled me into thinking they were level, underlining the need to keep on top of where the real horizon would be.
Next step will be my BFR, and then I'll be able to apply for my NZ license!
Just got back from my mandatory two hour mountain flight. Not to teach me how to really fly in the valleys, y'understand, but to give me a feel for it in case I ever get into trouble. (On reflection, this makes it sound a bit like being strapped into a chair and told I will appreciate the mountains!)
When we got to the foothills, the instructor asked me which way the wind was blowing. North-easterly, I ventured, given that was what it had been on the ground? Bzzzzt! Thank you for playing. That was on the plains some 50km away. Here was in the mountains, the wind was doing its usual thing of flowing over the hills from the west. He went on to demonstrate just how predictably different the wind is; it flows rather like water, and his local knowledge took us to some different effects. All the while we were flying up and down valleys, below the level of the (sometimes cloud-shrouded) mountain tops on either side, getting much closer to the cumulus granitus than I have ever been before...! I kept instinctively wanting to fly up the centres of the valleys, that being as far away from the sharp pointy bits as possible, but that is usually the wrong thing to do; you fly on one side, so that if you should decide that you need to turn around, you have the full width of the valley to play with. There were optical illusions aplenty; the flattish valley floors often misled me into thinking they were level, underlining the need to keep on top of where the real horizon would be.
Next step will be my BFR, and then I'll be able to apply for my NZ license!