FHi People,
an update, this time a real adventure…
Last Sunday, me and my Cessna 152 had a 150NM (nautical miles) flight on our schedule : “1st leg” being Ostend EBOS to Charlerio EBCI full stop, 2nd leg to Saint-Ghislain EBSG again for a full stop, and the 3rd leg of the flight was supposed to go back to Ostend.
Everything went super smoothly to Charleroi, coming in via Viktor, Whiskey, and then a nice landing with a right hand circuit on runway 25. After the necessary papers, take off, 1500ft and direction to VRP (= visual reference point) Thuin… but I missed this point
I was not sure what “Thuin” looked like, and chose to fly out 3 more minutes then calculated, after which I decided to set course to Saint-Ghislain. Then a series of events led to a rather undesirable situation. The 3 minutes fly out led to the fact that I was now heading in the direction of Valenciennes (not Mons/Saint-Ghislain !) Once over this city and matching the visual references, I thougt I was in the correct proximity… but this was not the case.
During this manoeuver I was continuously in contact with the designated airfield. When I was calling in that I had a visual on an airfield with runways 11 and 29, I was informed that I was above Chievres… wrong : I was above Valenciennes. Anyway, after trying & trying, and what I considered as corrective actions and not finding my target, I set course 320 degrees back to the coast of Belgium. Yeah right… course 320 is correct when you re in Belgium. But if you are above Valenciennes, course 320 leads you to… Lille international airport ! AAARGH
Once I was on this 320 course, I started verifying position with VOR & ADF (what I should have done long ago…) and concluded to call in on Brussels INFO telling them I was unaware of my position. After position squawk identification, I received radar vectoring instructions towards Ostend. My gratitude to the person assisting me in Brussels and the ATC of Lille for taking me into account.
There is a cooking program on Belgian television called “SOS Piet”. At the end, there is always a summary where the master-cook asks : and what did we learn today ??? Here come my 3 bullet points :
1) respect timings on your navigation, exceed no more then 1-2 mins
2) check your position with VOR & ADF aids, and believe what it is telling you
3) never just assume what you hear from ATC or Radio Comm, be critical and verify
This Saturday the flight is rescheduled, I will nail this. Success is for those who are committed, no more, no less.
As a teaser, an example of a more extreme situation : flying yes… but on 1 wing 
Check it out on http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a59_1184768707
GRTZ, Bart
http://www.blueskiesaviation.be/
