Lesson number 5, exercises 7 & 8 (i) climbing and descending. Again with another instructor, Daniel. But as with the rest of them thoroughly excellent. Also had my oldest boy Owen (11) in the back. Even though he wont admit it to me ("Did you enjoy that Son?" - "Yeah, it was alright, humphhh") Janice tells me that he told her it was one of the best things he has ever done. He even ditched his XBox for an hour or so after we got home to 'fly' on my FSX flight simulator.
The day started off not so well as five minutes into the drive to the airfield I realised that I had left my debit card at home. A vital piece of equipment when learning to fly! So a quick about turn to go back and get it. The result of this made me a few minutes late for my lesson. I hate being late for anything, preferring to arrive ten to fifteen minutes early, so therefore I was a tad flustered. The weather also was playing on my mind on the journey there. It was a beautiful day but there was quite a haze therefore I was worried about there not being any horizon. Another vital piece of 'equipment'.
Anyway we got there and met up with Daniel and went into the ground brief. All good as I had read up on the exercises and had a sound understanding of the principles. Then armed with my new club check list I went out to Charlie Golf, threw Owen in the back and carried out the pre flight checks. Still all good. Daniel jumped in and I did the engine start, radio calls, taxi to the hold and the power checks. Good, good, good and good. Then things started to come unstuck!
After the power checks when you are ready to enter the runway you do a turn in the direction of the airfield circuit in order to check for any other aircraft. During the turn I felt as if I was sitting too far back and didn't have enough control of the rudder so I stopped, asked Daniel to take control and moved my seat forward a touch. Daniel informed me that after having called entry to the runway on the radio I should not have stopped. One to remember for next time. Then on take off them $*£$*^& rudder peddles again or more to the point, nothing wrong with the rudder peddles ..... it was $^$$%%£ me! I forgot to put my heals on the floor again which resulted in a massive yaw to the left. A quick 'oops' omitted from my mouth (remember Owen was in the back ... great control on my behalf ... unlike my take off!), yaw corrected and off up into the hazy yonder we went. I was to have 'issues' with the rudder all lesson be it either under or over use. Maybe because there was no horizon and nothing obvious to stick the nose on or maybe it just me. Something to work on. I'm not going to beat myself up too much over this as after all its only my fifth lesson and I'm still in the general handling phase. It will come.
The planned exercises were carried out without any major dramas which I and Daniel were happy with then it was time to head back. In previous lessons I have been instructed to fly towards the downwind leg of the circuit then the instructor has taken over and flown the downwind, base and final legs and landed with me following through on the controls. This time Daniel came over the intercom "Ok Jeff you are going to do this landing. Have you landed before?" "Ermm no!" An excited smile spread across my face.
Daniel pointed me in the general direction and indicated where I was to turn to join the downwind leg and told me to descend to 1000 feet. I reached the turning point and started a right turn, looked out of the left hand window and levelled out when I was flying parallel to the runway. The turning point for the base leg was pointed out and upon reaching that I started a left turn. The issue when flying a left hand circuit in an over-wing aircraft is that when you turn left onto base the wing obscures where the runway is. Luckily I remembered that ahead of me were some warehouses that roughly marked the turning point for finals so I levelled out with the nose pointing at them. A look out of the window revealed that we were indeed perpendicular to the runway. I reduced the power to start a descent while Daniel took care of the flaps.
Upon reaching the warehouses I turned onto finals and gave a call on the radio. Got the numbers on the runway, as previously instructed, onto a fixed point in my 'picture' and attempted to keep them there. They weren't moving about so all was good. Down we went till about twenty foot from the ground I changed my view from the numbers to a point at the far end of the runway and started to round out. I was happy that I was now flying along above the runway and was pulling back on the yoke waiting for the stall warner to sound and to sink onto the ground but it wasn't happening. Then ... bump! and back up into the air we went. A sharp but calm 'my control' from Daniel and we were back down. Did I mention that I did the landing .... well sort of.....
A bit of wacky racing taxing (it was a busy day at the airfield ) to get back to the apron, shut down and then de-brief. Pretty much as I expected, work on rudder control and more of a flare when landing otherwise all good.
Another much enjoyed lesson and I look forward to the next one. Exercises 7 & 8 (ii) climbing and descending with flaps.
No comments:
Post a Comment