Realizing that the longer days were coming fast and I better re-start my night rating soon, I booked a flight with the same instructor that started my night rating and got me hooked on it by flying over downtown Toronto.
The Wx was crappy in the days coming to my booking, but cleared few hours before we were to take off. The plane was available and even had all the lights working and I surprised myself by remembering all the radio procedures, so we were off to a good start. As we took off and climbed, I only had a brief chance to admire the brightly lit outline of the downtown Toronto as my instructor took control and handed me the hood as I still needed over an hour of simulated instrument time.
For the next hour we flew to and from the Simcoe VOR as I was trying to keep the plane straight and level while chasing the needle on the instrument. It mostly worked. During that hour, I had flown a few 280 to full 360 degree turns and noticed the leans a few times when, as I returned the airplane into straight and level, it felt like I was initiating the turn instead. First time caught me by surprise and I started to correct a perceived turn that my brain was telling me I was in, only to look at perfectly straight airplane on the panel. Next time I watched for the effect and, fully knowing I was straight and level, was still surprised that my body was telling me I was turning. Here’s the FAA document with pictures that explains the effect known as a subset of Spatial Disorientation.
http://www.faa.gov/pilots/safety/pilotsafetybrochures/media/SpatialD.pdf
Eventually, it was time to go back to the airport and I got to enjoy the view a bit as hood came off as soon as we got into the zone. As we got closer, we listened to the tower radio and determined that it was a relatively quiet night with only one other airplane in the circuit and one controller working both tower and ground frequencies.
My radio calls up to that point were all without a hitch, so no one was more surprised than myself when I keyed my mike to report OYR (the plane we were in) passing a reporting point and called ourselves VLD instead. There was a pause on the other end of the radio and then controller cleared us into the right downwind “assuming we were an OYR”. He then proceeded to tell the other plane to taxi Echo instead of Bravo, at which point everyone had a good laugh and the crews of the two planes were invited to visit the tower when we were done our circuits.
More on that in the next post.
