Short but sweet - The flight and this write up!

Hold 22

Lesson 4 today I thought would be a no go due to the weather, but we headed along to the club anyway as I wanted to buy a couple of things.  As the airfield came into sight I saw CG taking off and heading into a circuit so my hopes were raised but not by much as today's lesson was to be straight and level at different airspeeds.  A lesson that you need to have a horizon and from where I was there wasn't much of one!

I went into reception and asked Jan, the operations manager if they were flying.  She looked out the window, saw that CG was in circuits and declared a yes.  I then found my instructor, Gavin, and he was happy to go up and give it a go, so it was off into the classroom for the ground brief.

Ground brief done it was out to the aircraft with Gavin to go through the pre-flight checks.  I did these with the aid of my Pooleys check-list which I am still not overly happy with as it does not seem to flow and has, from seeing other check-lists (thanks to QSD from the Flyer forums), bits missed out.  One extra check we did that I haven't done before was to drain some of the fuel for inspection.  This is done from two drain points on each wing and one under the engine.  I was happy enough with this as this was one of the checks I used to have to do on the fuel bowsers when I was a groundie in the Army Air Corps.

Engine started, taxi to hold, powechecks done and off we went.  I was concious this time to keep my heels on the ground and the take off seemed a lot straighter.  I don't know if this was due to Gavin helping or down to me getting the hang of it.  I fear the former!  Janice, again waiting for me in the cafe, commented on my return that she too thought the take off looked better than previous.

As we gained height it became obvious that the weather was far from ideal for the lesson with a cloud base at about 2000 feet and 5 KM visibility with no real horizon.  Not great but just good enough.  So out over the peninsular we started the exercises.  Straight and level (S&L)at 70 knots, S&L at 120 knots, S&L with first stage of flaps and S&L with second stage of flaps.  It was difficult but not impossible to 'get the picture' in the windscreen at the different attitudes and speeds and after one attempt at each Gavin was happy enough I had grasped the principles.  He joked that I could count this as one of my instrument lessons!  With only twenty minutes gone we would have moved onto exercise seven which is climbing but as the cloud was so low it was not to be so we headed back and landed.  Total flight time twenty five minutes.

The one advantage to having a short flight is that the bill isn't as big!  It costs about £2.50 per minute for a lesson.  I'll let you do the maths!  And as I have already mentioned I wanted to buy a couple of things (club Cessna 172 check-list and the newest Air Law manual)the shorter lesson made this hit less.

Next lesson I plan to do on the 4th April and I have also volunteered myself to help out at the clubs 50th Anniversary Fly In on the 1st weekend in June.