Flying Archives - Page 11 of 11 - Get Your Wings

26th August 2013

Little Gransden Air Show 2013

25th August 2013, a day I will remember for a long time, no it was not the day of my first solo that is still to come, in fact I was not long into my training on the 25th. This was the day I first got to fly into an air show, although the day did not look promising to start with. The plan was to get to Chatteris at around 10:00 and then fly over to Little Gransden Air show. On the day I was quite excited about this, so I got to the club about 90 mins early, but it was a very grey day and it was looking unlikely that we would be able to fly to the show. As time went by the cloud began to lift and we got the aeroplanes out of the hanger. It was the first time I had been early enough to take part in this, I normally opt for an afternoon lesson. Once we got the Microlights out Mike talked me through doing the oil check and burping the engine on the training one. They have a dry sump so before the first flight of the day you need to turn the engine over on the propeller by hand to get some oil in to the engine, as you do so you get the gurgling/burping sound that tells you have done enough rotations.

Now with the aeroplane checked out and burped it was a waiting game to see if the cloud would continue to lift, while we waited Mike showed me the route we would be flying and how to read a weather chart, Mick was on his phone to someone near or at the show and they said it was OK their end. At around 11:00 Mike said lets go and we all flew out, three C42’s and a thruster all flying the short journey. We got airborne at 11:15 and the flight was uneventful, we flew higher and fast then Hazel’s thruster and I remember seeing it bellow and to one side as we went passed.

Mike took the controls as we turned on to base leg and flew us in, shortly after parking up a Yak 52 landed behind which was great to see.

As we walked around to the reporting point a number of the crowd asked about our aeroplanes and where we were from. As we walked by the display aeroplanes Mike stopped to talk to most of the pilots, it seems everyone knows Mike!

The show itself went off well and was a day to remember after all it’s not every day you can fly into an air show!

28th July 2013

My next few lessons

My next few lessons built on the things we covered in the first lesson and introduced Climbing, Descending and Medium level turns. There is not too much to say about these, other than a lot focus is given to learning the correct attitude of the aeroplane for each. When climbing like in the straight and level lesson you are taught look at where the horizon cuts across the windscreen and maintain this, which gives a consistent attitude of climb. Importantly you also need to ensure the airspeed is maintained at the optimum for the climb. We climb on full power and at the correct attitude our speed is 60 Knots.

What I do remember about the lesson on turning was when banking without using the rudder the aeroplane rolls and then the nose moves in the opposite or wrong direction before coming back to where you want it, this was explained as “adverse yawl” and given as the reason we add rudder whenever we use the ailerons which will keep the plain in balance.

Adverse yawl I found interesting as when we were back in the club house Mike got out his whiteboard pens and explained what was happening. It went something like this:

Adverse yaw is a secondary effect of the ailerons. When the ailerons are moved, one of its effects is increase lift on one wing and to decrease lift on the other which is why the aeroplane rolls. However the secondary effect of increasing lift is to increase drag, this slows the wing and causes the aeroplane to yaw towards the wing generating the lift and most drag. The result is that when rolling an aircraft for a turn, the aircraft will have a tendency to want to yaw in the opposite direction of the roll. This is corrected by feeding in some rudder in the direction of the turn.

18th July 2013

First Lesson

The day of my first microlight flight arrived (18 July 2013) so around an hour beforehand I set off to Chatteris, feeling both excited and nervous. I arrived at the club and met Mike & Katie, Mike discussed what we would be doing. The first lesson is normally flight familiarisation, but as I had had a 60 minute lesson in a Piper not long ago it was decided we would go straight to lessons 4,5 and 6 Effects of controls, Taxiing and Straight and level respectively.

Mike spoke about each control and how they worked and then we went out to the C42 and looked at the control surfaces and the construction of the airplane.

The C42 has a large aluminum tube running the length of the airplane and all the main structures bolt back to this tube as does the engine, a Rotax 912s 80bhp. The body is fiberglass and wing and tail plane are aluminum frames covered in GT-foil. It doesn’t have the traditional yoke, instead it has a center mounted stick to control the ailerons and elevator, attached to the stick is a leaver which controls the brakes and three buttons which are elevator trim up and down and push to talk button for the radio.

Cowling off on the C42

The Rotax engine in a C42

C42 Microlight

C42 Cockpit

We sat inside the microlight and Mike took me through the pre start check list STAMPR, CHIEFTWRAP and FST (more on the check lists here), which at the time of writing this blog I have just about committed to memory!)

We taxied out to the runway and Mike took us up, it seemed to only require a very short amount of time before we were airborne and climbing high into the sky. We leveled off at around 4,000ft where Mike demonstrated the effect of each control in turn, and then the bit I was waiting for I got to have a go!!! I have a tendency to watch the flight instruments which makes it hard to keep it flying straight and level as you are always reacting to an event that has already happened, Mike soon saw this and got me looking to the horizon and things improved.

The landing was interesting as the microlights come in to land a lot steeper then light airplanes such as the piper, so the ground appears to rush up to meet you the first time you land in one.

Somehow flying in a small light airplane seems safer than the larger commercial jets, I guess it’s because you can actually feel the microlight flying, it’s difficult to put in to words, take a trial lesson and you will know what I mean!