Flying Archives - Page 7 of 11 - Get Your Wings

18th January 2015

It’s foggy, but not at the airfield!

Its foggy outside as I walk my dog, I don’t hurry as there is no way I will be flying today let alone solo! This is the frustration of learning to fly microlights, I even read on either Twitter or Facebook just a few days ago someone who was querying if microlight flying was the sport for them, due to having their lesson cancelled again, in fairness to them in the weather report they included it looked like great flying weather to me, but I’m sure there was a good and valid reason for their cancellation.

Looking at the METAR for the local airbases RAF Marham, Lakenheath, Norwich international… the best I could see was MVFR (Marginal Visual Flight Rules) at Lakenheath. Oh well I guess I will be getting a call soon to say no flying today, AAA Microlights are normally good at letting you know.

With no call and nothing else planned for the day I decided to take a drive over to the club if nothing else I could have a cup of tea and hopefully some cake! I have been timing it wrong lately and missing out on the cake assuming there has been some; however I have high hopes for next week when my lesson follows Alan’s!!!

As I drove over to the club the skies got brighter and brighter and by the time I got there, it was clear blue skies with some haze. My syndicate aeroplane was out as was my instructor in the clubs aeroplane, so I would not be going anywhere until both were back, time for a cup of tea. Both Mike and Stuart had a delayed start to their day’s flying and thus were running late, it can’t be helped you can’t control the weather.

So I sat drinking tea when a new potential student arrived, it must have been the clear blue skies and the calm wind as a little while later another new potential student turned up and both decided to learn to fly with the club.

By now Stuart had returned with G-CEGL, so now I had an aeroplane, but still no instructor, it wasn’t long before Mike was back with his student so my flying was ready to begin.

Today was solo GST revision, I asked Mike if it was ok to take my Skydemon with me and he agreed, so I checked out the aeroplane and had my briefing from Mike, which included instruction to only use the second half of runway 01 due the bad state of the first half and to do a go around if needed due to the shortened runway. Fly out to the south (not the east as I normally do) so I can see the airfield better through the haze as the sun will be behind me on my return.

So I taxied to the midpoint of 01, full power and off I went, I followed the circuit climbing out on the downwind leg to my chosen height of 2,800ft, as I’m sure many of you know the difference between height and altitude is that altitude is measured in feet above sea level and height is feet above the ground. While flying around I trimmed for different speeds, first 70kts then 60 back up to 70 and then up to 80 all seemed to go well, so on to steep turns first to the left and then to the right, all still looking good so time for a stall and that to seemed fine! Time to turn around and try a practice engine failure, yep I would have got into the field, oh what a day and to think, I thought I would not be flying! Time to head back towards the airfield and I saw another light aircraft flying a lot faster off to my right and 500ft or so higher, I let him go by before trying some more steep turns. Turns to the right were ok but now when turning to the left I was gaining speed and losing altitude, I tried again same thing! Not how I wanted to end the day, but time was running out. I checked my distance from Chatteris on Skydemon and mad my inbound call at 4 miles, I got on to the extended centreline as shown on Skydemon at the same time and as I got near to the circuit I made my joining call. Now where did Mike say to land! Ok I can see the rough bit midway; I’m a little low so I would be touching down just before it, on with a little power and I touched down just after it, thinking to myself that seemed like a good landing.

Back in the clubhouse as I walked through the door Pat asked what was up with my landing, oh know what did I do wrong I thought to myself and my heart sank a little. So I asked why, it seemed ok to me, Pat said it was a good landing nice and gentle and no bounce so I must have done something wrong!!! Katie and Pete also complimented me on my landing and explained the person who landed a few minutes before me had bounced and touched down in the rough.

I love flying with my Skydemon normally I worry when it’s time to turn back, thoughts of where is the airfield, how far out am I and how to orientate myself with the runway all banished by Skydemon.

I discussed my steep turn issue with Mike who pointed out that I would have been using the nose as the reference instead of looking out at the horizon, in my defence for about 30% of the turn I could not see the horizon due to the sun, but Mike was not accepting of my excuse and nor was I truth be told.

The only real downside of today’s flight is that I recently always seem to be the last person to fly our aeroplane, so I have to wash the mud off and there was a lot of it and it was very cold too. I don’t mind cleaning it, but I was slipping in the mud while doing so, which was not a lot of fun; still next week as it stands I’m not the last to fly her.

You haven’t seen a tree until you’ve seen its shadow from the sky. ~Amelia Earhart

11th January 201523rd December 2023

Triple First

Today Sunday the 11 Jan 2015 was triple first for me as it was my first flight in 2015, my first flight in a microlight over my home and my first flight using Skydemon to navigate!

On arriving at the club I met Alan who was just leaving and had not been able to fly, thus I thought this would be the fourth consecutive week the weather would stop me from flying too!

After the normal greetings etc. Mike ask what would I Like to do, normally I reply whatever you think I should be doing to work towards my GST, however today I had some new toys with me, over Christmas I had got a Garmin Glo satellite receiver and a Skydemon subscription, I had a little play with these at home, but not flown with them, so I asked Mike if we could fly using them and plot a route over my house and back, he agreed.

So the first task was to install the partly homemade iPad Mini 2 bracket. I’m using a homemade one as we have a Garmin satnav bracket in the aeroplane and I therefore needed to adapt a Garmin arm to take an iPad mini. This was made from a sheet of 3mm Perspex I had ordered and then cut to size and bent to shape using a heat gun, this was a lot easier then it may sound! An existing Garmin mount arm and ball and socket purchased online for around £5.00 the lot, some nuts, bolts and a circle of aluminium provided and assembled by a friend. The end result can be seen below.

The GPS mount was a universal phone suction mount that my son no longer uses, purchased online for around £3.00.

This post is not meant to be a review of Skydemon or the Garmin Glo, which I plan to do later, once I have got to know them better, however I will give my first impression of them both.

First Mike showed me how to remove the inadvertent waypoints I had added which was simply a case of dragging them to the next point, or the origin, or destination.

He next showed me pulling the compass up and out to reveal the HSI display, but the collapsed view is preferred.

Now with it all installed it was time to go flying, it was windy again so no flaps for take-off! We departed on runway 24 and flew the circuit leaving on the downwind leg to converge on the course shown on Skydemon, the first thing I noticed and liked is you could roll out on the heading as there is no over or undershoot, and the display shows you the direction you are travelling and the direction you need and when you are within a few degrees it turns green. It made it very easy to fly accurately, I just can’t see myself flying without it once I have my license the way it calculates the direction means you don’t need to allow for drift as it does this for you too!

We flew out to just south of King’s Lynn, then turned east over Bawsey Lakes and on to the village where I Live Gayton.

The Garmin Glo had a rock solid fix throughout so there is not much to say re this it just does what it says it does!

Flying back, Mike did his normal of, ok take me back, but this time I could use Skydemon and I flew us back without issue I used the extended centre line shown on the Skydemon map to line up on the runway very early. As I was about to touch down a gust of wind caused us to balloon, but I held it on the stick and made a very soft touch down, Mike complimented me on the land too!

This is what flying should be like, well for me anyway!!!

Back on the ground and with the aeroplane refuelled I was about to go home when Stuart asked if I would like to go for a fly with him, I did not turn him down! We stayed local as he flew a few circuits and then around the drains and back for some more circuits. It was very interesting to see how someone else flies, the main difference being he comes in much higher than I on the landings. I think I may have picked up a few tips from watching him fly.

21st December 201415th August 2017

Training Fix

Twas the lesson before Christmas, when all through the hanger not a microlight was stirring apart from Mick’s which was out!

OK so I’m no poet! But it was my last lesson before Christmas and it was to be solo revision, but with low cloud base and gusty winds, it was decided to make it a dual lesson.

I was not expecting to go flying this week due to having been poorly most of the week with a heavy cold, however I was feeling a bit better so I decided to drive over and see.

The aeroplane was in the hanger, but when I went to burp it I could feel the engine was warm and on checking I found it had already been out so no need to burp it today.

I pulled it out of the hanger and on to the grass where Mike and I climbed aboard, I ran through the pre-flight checks and I decided with the wind being strong and gusting to take off without flaps. We called Runway 21, but as re reached the threshold of 24 we could see the wind had changed a little so we decided to change to runway 24 and we lined up ready to take off.

As we rolled down 24 we were very soon airborne and climbing rapidly, 500ft and I switch off the fuel pump, 1,500ft and we levelled out due to cloud, to the south west there was a large gap in the clouds so we changed heading and flew towards it. We climbed above the first layer of clouds and reached 3,000ft, the view was spectacular, it was the first time I had flown above the broken clouds like this in a microlight and it reminded me of my first long-haul flight and why I love flying, it was also a lot smoother at this height. We flew around the hole in the clouds for a little while and I was wondering what today’s lesson would be or if it would just be a pleasant, but bumpy flight, then Mike uttered the words I dread! “Where are we” as usual I was not sure so Mike said to get the map out, which I did, I looked around for things I could recognise, a small town or village in front of me a large town or city at 2 O’clock and a runway in the distance just off my nose, but what did all this mean, I know it means I’m lost! After some prompting and be reminded to also factor in the direction we were flying I guessed that given the rough direction we had been flying the City was Peterborough and then all the other pieces fell into place the small village was Ramsey and the runway was Conington. I then spotter two more runways to our left and I should have kept quiet as Mike said “ok what are they?” After some searching and guessing they were identified as Alconbury and Upwood.

I made comment that this why I want to buy and fly with Skydemon, but as Mike said although Skydemon is very good what happens when the GPS doesn’t work, then you need to know how to identify where you are and fly from the map.

For some reason whenever Mike asks me the question “where are we?” I seem to panic and feel I must give an immediate answer when in the real world I could just obit or even ask for a training fix. I said this to Mike and he agreed and then had me use the radio to get a training fix, we had done this once before, but this time I was to do it! So I changed the radio to London central 121.50 and listened for 30 seconds to ensure they were not dealing with a real emergency and then made the call “Training Fix, Training fix, London Central, G-CEGL, request training fix” Back came the reply which I could not understand and I turned to Mike who had not caught it either, Mike said calmly just say “Say a gain G-GL” which I did and the operator repeated, he was requesting our current heading which we gave and then after about 20 seconds back came our location I replied “Roger G-GL” and they asking if I required any other assistance, I replied “Negative, Thanks for your help, Switching to Chatteris 129 decimal 9” this was for some reason very nerve-racking (I guess as I didn’t want to get it wrong or waste their time), but also very re assuring that there is a network of professional people just a radio call away that could help if needed and I had made the call myself, well with Mike coaching me.

Mike then said “fly us back to the airfield”, I knew if I turned on to an Easterly heading it should take us back to the airfield so that’s what I did, in the distance I could see a large river which concerned me as there is not one there if we were indeed where I thought we were! We flow over a railway track which I turned to follow as it should have been the line out of March which runs down to Ely crossing the drains and this would put the airfield on my right. After a few minutes I spotted the airfield and the river was in fact that drains which have flooded filling the area between them. My last challenge of the day was to land the C42 into the gusting wind, just as we rounded out a gust wind saw us rise and balloon up, Mike said to give it a little power then to take it off and keep the stick coming back which I did and we landed OK, I said to Mike I was about to go around and he said that normally or if I was on my own I should have gone around, but in these condition it probable would do the same again, I guess this is an advance technique to be mastered a lot later in my flying!

7th December 201415th August 2017

A roller coaster of a ride!

It had been 4 weeks since I last flew and I wondered how much I could forget in such a short space of time, well the answer seems to be quite a bit! First off was the order of the checklist, it took a little prompting from Mike, but it was in there somewhere and soon came back!

During the 4 weeks the C42 has had its BRS (Ballistic Recovery System) removed and sent away to have the parachute repacked, to be able to fly it we had to have a new weight and balance done as the allowed flying weight drops from 472.5Kg to 450Kg without the chute in a microlight. We also had an oil thermostat fitted so it will warm up quicker and hold its temperature better, hopefully it will help prolong engine life too.

The aeroplane had not been flow today so was cold, however with the oil thermostat fitted it warmed up very quickly and I was able to do the power check almost by the time I got to it on the check list!

The weather was looking ok and within limits however the wind was blowing directly down runway 29; I have never flown from or landed on 29, it’s a lot shorter and narrower than our other runways and for good measure there are some cables on the approach too!

Take off was no problem and with the wind we gained height very quickly, we flew out to the west and over March and then turned towards Whittlesey while practicing trimming for 70, 80 and 60 knots, I struggled with this as I knew that for 70 the trim should be neutral and the power set to 4,200 rpm, however this was not working and it took me a while to figure out it was down to the balance of the aeroplane without the chute had changes and therefore I needed some extra trim. After some practice and some initial faffing around this was ok, but needs to be polished in a future solo. Next came unusual and dangerous attitudes, Mike took the controls with me lightly holding the stick and first put the aeroplane in a steep ascent and then said “you have control recover”, the recovery is easy enough, nose down and full power together until the nose is level with the horizon. Next Mike put it into a spiral dive, again this in my mind was OK power off, level the wings ease back on the stick and power on as the speed drops ones back in a climb, only problem I had was I closed the throttle, but not all the way so speed was building fast!

High rate turns was last on the agenda for today and I was pleased that I maintained altitude, however in the first turn I would have failed due to not performing the look out before the manoeuvre and my turn to the other direction I rolled out to soon, it should have been 360 and I rolled out at 270 degrees, in my defence I did spot another aircraft as we were through 180, but that was not an acceptable excuse!

Now it was time to return to the airfield and we were make slow progress at 3,000ft, Mike asked what I estimated the wind speed at and I guessed 60kn, he then said “well if its 60 up here will it be less or more at 1,500ft”, “less due to the friction of the earth” I said, Mike replied “good, so lets descend to 1,500ft and fly back at 80kn”. At 80 knots it was very bumpy, there was also a light rain storm just off to our left and as we came into land on 29 I was all over the show, it was like being in a roller coaster and I don’t like roller coasters! So we went around, the second attempt was more composed and the storm had moved away so the conditions were better too and we landed ok, it left me feeling quite shattered, but it’s all good experience!

Back on the ground I had with me a replacement bulb for our non-working MR16 halogen landing light. The replacement was a 9W LED and I fitted this after washing the aeroplane down, it’s a lot whiter light and brighter than the old one so long as it lasts, it’s a cheap, easy and good upgrade!

23rd November 2014

The BMAA Flying Show 2014

This year the flying show was held at Telford which for me is further to travel, on arriving at the show we saw a sign for “PATS Open day” but continued on as the Satnav said too and there was no mention of the flying show, however at the roundabout there was a flying show sign directing us back to where we had just come from! Parking at the show this year was more reasonable at £4.00 last year at the NEC we paid £10.00, the walk from the car park was also a lot shorter.

Our first stop was the careering area at the back of the hall where we all had a breakfast roll and coffee.

The show filled the hall where as at the NEC there was space left. Two notable absences from the show this year were no Eurostars EV-97’s on display and no flying area for models.

This year eGo was at the show, which is an interesting SSDR, which I have mentioned in other posts, it has recently gone into production with the first production build aircraft said to be due soon. The display model was a little battered in places, but as the sign next to it read “I May not look my best at the moment, but I am a hard-working development and test aircraft” we chatted a little while with Adrian Hillcoat, Chief Executive Officer and Director at eGo who talked about the glass cockpit, the handling of eGo and the easy of flying it and how they will help owners transition to the eGo. It looked a lot small then I expected but a lot of fun too, I look forward to seeing them flying around.

We moved on looking at many stands and talking to many people, too many to include all of them here! We spoke for a while with the guys at CFS Aero who have recently been appointed a Rotax distributer, We asked them about a recent post I did relating to turning the engine backwards and the potential damage it could cause, they said they will investigate and let us know, so I hope to be able to update that blog soon!

We stopped to look at the C42s on display by Red-Air UK and spoke to Malcolm Stewart, we took the opportunity ask if when keying the mic all C42’s trim and or fuel gauge displays alter, he explained that many do, some more than others and if we wanted to lessen the problem we should separate the white and coloured wires running under the stick area as its normally caused by RFI. Moving over to G-KTOW the C42 glider tug and talking to Jonathan who’s C42 is kitted out with 2 EMSIS monitors replacing the need for many gauges, Jonathan kindly switched on the master switch and showed us them working, they seemed very impressive and created a lot of room on the dash too! I would love to get some for our C42 at some point…

We look at Skydemon too as all three of us are getting ever closer to taking our GST and would like to fly with a tool that will keep us on track and out of controlled airspace, at our club the majority who use a moving map use Skydemon in their microlights. Rob from Skydemon was happy to show us their software and answer any questions we had. My only concern with using Skydemon is using the inbuilt GPS in either an Apple or Android device people in the club have reported not having a GPS signal at times. I raised this question to Rob who suggested the use of a Garmin Glo as it has a much faster refresh rate (10 reports per second) and is not an “assisted” GPS, it also supports Glonass removing the dependency on a single satellite network. I think this is the route all three of us will probably go once we have our licences.

Overall we enjoyed the show and will probably go again, but still feel it could have more 3 axis microlights, as we did last year and without the Eurostar probably even more so!

9th November 201416th August 2017

Solo Practice

The sun was shining and the overnight rain had stopped, the ground was soft and by the time I arrived at the flying club the car which I had cleaned less than 24 hours before was now covered in mud!

I arrived a few minutes late today, mainly due to a large number of caravans on the road. In the clubhouse Mike had made us all a cup of tea and there was some cake of a new variety left over from Saturday, I’m not sure what it was called, I think Katie said it was a Lumberjack cake, it was good whatever it was, but my favourite cake at the club remains the upside down cake that Alan’s wife makes.

In the hanger Dave was fitting a brand new landing light a 15W (3x5W) LED light to his C42, although I did not see him coming in to land those who did said they could see his light a long way out, long before they saw the C42!

As I dunk my tea Mike and I discussed today’s lesson which was to flight out solo over to the drains and practice steep turns, stalls, and engine failures.

Checks complete, I taxied out to runway 24 and took off turned to the east and climbing to 2,500ft once over the drains I started with the stalls and found following the refresher a couple of weeks or so earlier I was able to make the aeroplane stall each and every time; my recoveries seemed a little aggressive, in that I tent to put the stick forward to quickly and too far, but on each attempt my height loss was less than 100ft with my best attempt being around 70ft. Next I tried steep turns and these seemed ok, I even hit my own wake turbulence a couple of times! So on to the practice engine failures, I pre-selected a field each time to ensure I was away from houses etc and using the constant aspect ratio method I would have made it into each and every field, which is a great improvement, the only issue I have with this method is I find it gives me a very short final approach and I’m too low to convert to a normal final.

Time goes to fast while I’m flying and it was time to return to the airfield, I joined on downwind 24 and making the call, I also asked for confirmation that all canopies were down and got the reply that they were. By now I could also see the parachute plane backtracking runway 19. He lined up ready for take-off as I turned onto base leg and duly took-off. For some reason I flew straight passed the centreline for 24 and was heading for 19, I guess subconsciously my mind was following the parachute plane, I made a couple of turns and quickly got back on track for 24, the landing was light, but the plane seemed to float a long way down the runway before touching down due to the lack of a headwind. When I was having problems with circuits I think this was a worry for me and maybe why I failed to keep it flying and made it touch down! This time as I floated along I recalled one of Mike’s maxims and I paraphrase “If you have not touched down then you are still flying, so simply put the power on and go around if you run out of runway” this was nearly always followed up with “no one has ever crashed into the sky!”.

Our C42 is out of action now for the next 3 weeks as every 5 years the ballistic parachute has to be removed and sent a way to have a new rocket motor and the parachute repacked.

Next Saturday most if not all of the syndicate are planning to get together and clean her as well as doing any little jobs that are needed, I’m looking forward to us all meeting up for the first time!

2nd November 201416th August 2017

Lesson 16A – Forced landings, constant aspect method

As I set off for the airfield today there was no way I would be flying it was windy, low cloud and rainy, unlike the day before when my friend Simon had posted on Facebook a picture from our C42 of clear blue skies with a comment of “a beautiful day for flying…” what a difference 24 hours make!

A beautiful day for flying… by Simon Read

My lesson was scheduled to start at 12:00 and I walked through the clubhouse door just before, all the aeroplanes where in the hanger and the ground was wet with the path flooded in places, it had stopped raining and the cloud base had lifted probably to around 1,000ft. I sat in the club house with a cup of tea and Mike asked “what should we do today”, “drink tea” I replied adding “it’s too wet and windy and the cloud base is too low to fly” Mike agreed but added “as soon as the weather has moved through it should be ok!”.

I raised a point that Katie, Pat and I had discussed the previous week about the damage you can do by rotating a Rotax engine backwards by hand and showed a Rotax bulletin which related to it (I will write a separate blog about this) the conversation moved on to forced landings and the various methods of approaching the fields. Mike teaches to plan the approach hitting certain heights at certain places; this has the advantage of making it feel almost like a normal landing. Then in the microlight book there is the beat and turn and constant aspect approaches to forced landings also. I had re read the book and wanted to know more about the constant aspect method, Mike obliged and drew out the principle on the white board. He added it is difficult to use this method in an unfamiliar aeroplane hence why he teaches the planned method. Mike is always happy to accommodate his students and as the weather had improved Mike suggested we go and try it and see how it works for me! As we sat warming the C42 up it started to rain again but this soon passed and we managed to get up to 2,500ft and still be clear of clouds, Mike demonstrated the constant Aspect approach with his normal precision, then it was my turn and I got it down too! The cloud base was dropping so we flew to a brighter area and I had another two goes each time reaching the intended field on my next attempt I was a little short, but not by much. Finding another area where we could reach 2,500ft I had another two goes including all the drills and reached the fields each time. As we returned to the airfield a shower was overhead and we flow through this and attempted another forced landing back on runway 19, but this time I would have overshot the field and we went around, I did find it distracting flying in rain previously I have only flown in very light showers! I flew a normal circuit in the rain which was lacking precision and height in places on final, but still managed to land nicely.

We had been pre selecting fields before setting the engine to idle, but the method seemed to work for me and next time we are going to try it with Mike randomly calling engine failure! I think Katie’s tip in the comments on my last blog will help with the selection of a field also, so I’m looking forward to putting it all together.

The constant aspect approach is described in the Microlight exercise book and by many websites, one such website which I found helpful is http://www.gremline.com/index_files/page0035.htm however in its essence it is vary simply described:

Select your Initial aiming point (IAP) while gliding along side your chosen field, or sooner if possible, and mentally note or picture the angle down to it with reference to the horizon, this is known as the Sight Line Angle (SLA). If this SLA begins to steepen then you are OVERSHOOTING your IAP. If the SLA begins to lessen then you are UNDERSHOOTING your IAP. you correct the IPA by moving closer or further away by making tighter or wider turns as needed.

Back on the ground the weather had suddenly changed again and it was now a beautiful day, typical!

26th October 201416th August 2017

Engine failures – GST revision Part 2 of X!

GST revision Part 2 of X! i’m not sure how many parts my GST revision will be in, I guess its down to the individual, I seem to be taking longer than I read it takes others, but it is all still flying!

Today should have been solo practice of the exercises in GST revision part 1, however the wind was gusting close to the maximum for the C42, thus Mike decided it would be better to move on to practicing engine failures. As I warmed the aeroplane up the wind was straight down runway 19 which is the widest and longest runway, but by the time we were ready it had shifted around a little and we were now to use runway 21. In the past I have had a lot of issues landing on 21 due to the trees on the threshold so I didn’t see this as a good start to the day!

We taxied out and departed from runway 21 without any issue, due to the wind we took off without any flaps and were soon airborne and climbing to our altitude, which today would be just 2,500ft so as to keep clear of cloud.

We turned east after climbing out and ended up to the west of March where I practiced engine failures, on each attempt I under estimated the strength of the wind and the progress we would make into it, this left me short each time and needing to select another field closer. The fundamental error I was making, as pointed out by Mike, was selecting a field to far away instead of one out of my window and below me, one where I could just orbit losing height. Mike demonstrated how to do it and I though the field selected was far to near and we would overshoot, but as normal Mike knew best and his example was text book. As he said you can always lose height but you can’t gain distance.

Time had all to soon gone and Mike asked “Where is the airfield from here?”, the words I hate as I seldom have much of a clue as I lose my bearings while doing the exercises, I replied glibly “a better question would be where are we!”, inevitably Mike asked “OK, Where are we?” I looked around and said “well I think that is March on our left “Mike prompted me some more “how can you tell, what features does March have?” The answer was it has prison and a large number of rail tracks next to the prison, from March I knew to follow the rail track south east out of March and it would lead me back to Chatteris airfield, if I crossed the drains I knew I had missed the airfield, but this did not happen. I spotted the airfield a little late, but in time to turn onto an extended final for runway 21.

My approach was not the best, I left it late putting on any flap, I had decided due to the wind I would only use a single stage of flap, which was fine with Mike, I took too long to get on to the centre line and then, there they were, the trees (See my old post the curse of the trees)! However we were over them and I was thinking I was too high and would possibly need to go around, but with the strong headwind we came down in plenty of time and made what Mike remarked as a very good landing. This was a good way to finish the day, but I was disappointed with not making the selected fields and will need to do a lot better for the GST and more importantly if I ever find myself in a real emergency.

5th October 2014

GST Revision Exercise 17C Part 1

Is it really October? The sun is shining the wind is almost non-existent, the clouds are high and scattered, all in all a perfect day to fly. It’s been three weeks since I have been at the controls of our C42 Microlight and I thought I may have forgotten a few things, but as it turns out it like riding a bike! Well the fundamentals that is, it would seem I have forgotten how to execute the various exercises to the standard required and to be honest I could not even remember having executed some of the manoeuvres, stalls in a glide descent for example!

So today’s lesson was take off and leave the circuit to the east climb to 6,000ft (the highest I have been) and then execute a stall with powered recovery, execute a stall within a turn and recover, execute a stall in a glide descent and recover without power, medium level turns and steep turns.

So we taxied out to runway 19 back tracking it, as we approached the take-off point Julie call down wind and as we could see she was nearly on base leg we turned off 19 to allow her to land. She landed and back tracked to a taxiway, by this time the parachute plane was ready and holding short so we lined up and took-off, I was a little late in switching the fuel pump off and taking the flaps up but other than this all was good with the take-off. Turning to the east I called that I was leaving the circuit and climbed to 6,000ft; the view is amazing and reminds me why I love flying, we could see for miles, RAF Marham, King’s Lynn and beyond it the Wash and many other places too.

First I did a HASELL check Height, Airframe (check the flaps etc), Security (harness and hatches), Engine (Ts & Ps), location & Lookout (turning one way and then the other), next the stall, as some may have read I could make it stall very well previously and Mike pointed out my mistake. Instead of trying to maintain altitude by keeping the stick moving back I was trying to keep the nose level! As normal by following Mike’s instructions I soon had it stalling every time, as for the recovery this was not too bad it should be nose down (but not too much) and power on to recover to a climb, my problem was lowering the nose too much and too quickly almost putting it in to a dive, however it did recover it!

It’s basically the same technique for each of the stalls, just without power in the glide descent.

Turning, well that should not be too bad I have done a few of these, or so I thought! Well my turns were too shallow and as I steepened them up to 30-45° for a medium turn and 45-60° for a steep turn, I found one way I lost height and the other I gained height, in fact I remember blogging about this, but still I had issue until Mike pointed out that I was using the nose on the horizon and not a point on the windscreen in front of me!

Time fly’s, if you excuse the pun, while flying so it was time to fly back and as I approached I saw the parachute plane just taking off and with no other traffic in the circuit I was straight down, I think I rounded out a little high, but the landing was ok.

And so ended another lesson, next week, weather permitting, it’s an hours solo to consolidate the stalling and turning.

8th September 201416th August 2017

When two becomes one!

It was a lovely day to fly at Chatteris on Sunday low wind, sun and few clouds to give the sky some context!

Today I was to complete my 7^th hour of solo by flying out over the drains, practicing straight and level flight at different speed and trimming for those speeds, I was also to practice stalls and the recovery from them!

The aeroplane had not been flow before that day so I started out burping it and checking the oil level which was 1/3 up the stick, it tends to read a little low when cold so the level was fine.

I sat with the engine running waiting for the oil temperature to reach 50c so I could do a power check before take-off. Katie was in the main training aeroplane ahead of me and was waiting for the parachutists to come down. On days with little wind or when the wind sits between 2 runways it’s not uncommon to see people use different runways. The parachute plane was using a combination of 24 and 01, I think Colin had used 29 and I was going to use 01. In some way I think it would be better if the was an authority at the airfield who could say runway XX is in use, it would save any confusion.

Anyway once out over the drains I flew along the right of the drains keeping them on my left until I was practising stalling, which I thought we had previously done over them, so for these I flew between the drains.

The straight a level was to be flown at 60kts 70kts and 80kts I did this trimming the aircraft for each speed and noted the power setting for each for 60kts I had set 3,700rpm, for 70kts 4,200 rpm and 80kts 4,500rpm. Which once back on the ground I showed my note to Mike and he said that is what he would have expected.

Stalling I found more difficult, I ended up flying at an unusually nose high attitude at a low speed and not stalling, remembering what Mike had said about keeping the stick coming back I tried again this time the nose did go over and I had (I think) stalled the aeroplane, the recovery in a C42 is much easier than making it stall! As I found out as my next two attempts failed to make it stall.

The hour was over and flew back to Chatteris conscious of my previous weeks landing and wanting to make a “quiet” landing so as not to incur the comments of last week, I returned and approached runway 01 as I came in I kept the stick coming back and the aeroplane fly as long as I could, I touched down not a light as some, but no bounce and not hard.

Once back at the clubhouse I went over to Mike who was sitting outside in the sun, we talked about the exercise, I asked him to critique my landing, he said it was good, but I had rounded out a little high at around 24 inches and that I should try to get lower.

I went inside the clubhouse to make a cup of tea and Katie asked if I had seen the C42 over the drains flying at a funny attitude and not following the drains to the right! She said that I should not fly between them and that I should treat the two drains as one feature when flying.

And so ended today’s lesson, a lesson that saw me now complete all mandatory solo hours for the restricted license.