Category: Flying

16th November 2013, Today’s lesson we continued to fly the circuit as per the previous few lessons, however due to the wind direction we were using runway 24 for the first time in my circuit training. There was very little wind which is a help while learning how to land, as it’s one thing less to think about and correct for. I taxied out and lined up on the runway, Mike explained that I would do the take-off and he would take over after flaps up (200ft) and show me the turning points.

I started my roll as normal and took to the sky with my normal slight wandering right and then left where I don’t put in enough rudder to compensate for the thrust and then end up putting in too much. We climbed up to 200ft where I put the flaps up; Mike took over the controls and flew the circuit pointing out the turning points for the given conditions and as normal the fact that we want to be good neighbours and not over fly the farm houses below. When on final Mike handed back control and I brought us down for a touch and go. I tend to not to keep the C42 flying for long enough to lose all the speed before touching down instead I let it touch down and then try to keep the nose up, I find my hand seems to freeze on the stick at the point when I should be pulling back more! So on my next time around I will keep this in mind. Full power and back up we go, yep I didn’t put enough rudder in again, it seems so easy when Mike does it and I know what I should be doing, but for some reason putting it together is an issue for me, I guess it’s just practice.

Circuit training Runway 24

200ft flaps up, 500ft fuel pump off, 700ft level out, allow speed to build to 70 knots, power back to around 4,000 rpm, fly passed the farm house and then turn on to cross wind aiming for the intersection of the drains, turn on to the downwind leg after clearing another farm house, check temperatures and pressures, check fuel, check harnesses, and make the downwind call. Turn on to the base leg and check there is no activity on the runway or any aeroplanes on approach, almost level with the runway power off hold the nose at the same attitude and watch the speed fall in to the white arc, Flaps to first stage and turn on to final, maintain speed and correct alignment with the runway centre line, I have a tendency to overturn and then need to correct it, another note to self not to do it next time! Continue decent and touch down, dame should have kept it flying longer, power on and around we go again. On the next approach Mike says we are going to stop on the runway, did I do something wrong? has he given up on me! Down we come, I keep it flying a bit longer, which I’m pleased with, but Mike asks what’s wrong with the other 2/3 of the runway on the right, I back track down the runway and we go around again, this time I got the take-off right not to little or too much rudder, even Mike comments on it and says “that’s much better, all your take-offs should now be like this”, around we go again for the last time this lesson. My last landing wasn’t to bad either, maybe, just maybe I’m improving! Time to taxi back and clean up the aeroplane on route, flaps up and transponder off, I park up outside the hanger and perform the mag check before shutting down.

Mike debriefs me on my flying and sets out what we are going to do next time. Next time we are going to work harder on losing the speed before touching down in the first half of the lesson and then in the second half we are going to use full flaps and see what difference it makes. I took this opportunity to mention to Mike that I have been revising my Air Law and thought I may be ready to try it so long as there was an option to retake it should I fail! Apparently you can retake the test 3 time at the club after that you need to go to the CAA at Gatwick, fingers crossed that doesn’t happen. Back in the clubhouse Mike asks Katie the AFI to test me on some of the signals and symbols and I do quite well as I made some flash card for these which were a great help in learning them. So with much trepidation on my part we decide that I should take the exam there and then.

Mike and I go into his office and I sit at the desk while Mike randomly pulls out a test paper and sets it on the desk next to the answer sheet and blank paper, Needless to say before taking the test Mike has me leave my phone, book and revision papers outside the office. The questions are multiple choice each with 3 choices and there is 20 question in total for the Air Law exam, you have a strict 30 mins to answer all the questions in. I did find some of the questions a bit ambiguous, but have decided not expand on these or what questions the paper contained, as there is only 3 papers and you need to know the subject for safe flying not just how to pass the exam. All except 2 where covered in the “The Microlight Pilot’s Handbook” 8th Edition by Brian Cosgrove in the Air Law chapter, these 2 may be elsewhere in the book or I may just have missed them. After around 20 mins I could do no more. One of the questions I knew the answer to, but for the life of me I could not remember and all the answers looked plausible, needless to say I guessed it wrong, but I still passed the exam with what I would say was a respectable percentage.

 

All in all a good day at the club.

 

 

 

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.

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!