Another nice day to fly, a bit bumpy and a little breezy at times, but not as bad as it has been.
After a briefing on what happens to the aeroplane when in certain scenarios and asking some questioning of me as to what is the danger of and how to recover from each of the following: climbing to steeply e.g. above 45 degrees, descending at angles greater than 45 degrees, banking at more than 60 degrees and a combination of all of the above, all demonstrated with the aid of a model aeroplane we set off to experience this first-hand.
After the “all canopies down” call Pat taxied out to runway 06 and I followed. We lined up and took off without due delay as the parachute plane was also lining up to take off, but on a different runway.
We climbed out to the NNE and to a height of 3,000ft, having left the circuit and flown away Mike took the controls to demonstrate the first of the manoeuvres, however before we started he said if at any point I start to feel unwell to let him know! How very reassuring this is to someone who doesn’t travel very well!
Mike showed each of the manoeuvres and the corresponding recoveries, the only manoeuvre that made me feel a bit odd was the recovery from a steep descent, which you can feel the G force being excreted on your face. This attitude also gives the most disconcerting of all views, 45 degrees may not sound a lot, but when you are staring at the ground and it is rushing towards you at an ever increasing speed, it is!
Next Mike put the aeroplane in to each of the attitudes and asked me to recover from them, the only one which gave me a slight problem was the steep ascent, the recovery is easy enough, nose down and full power together until the nose is level with the horizon, however a few times I let it go passed the horizon before levelling out. Other than this I think the exercise today is really about experiencing these attitudes and the recovery of them to help ensure you don’t find yourself in the situation, but if you do it arms you with what you need to know to safely recover.
To help remember what to do if the nose is above the horizon power on, if it’s below the horizon power off. Correct the attitude before rolling the wings level if one has dropped.
There was just time to fly a circuit or three before the end of the lesson so I flew us back and we joined base leg 06, which is one of the smaller runways. My first attempt had us down with a bit of a bump so power on and around I went, my next attempt was still worse I had come in to low and was on a very shallow approach and again needed to go around, this time the approach was much better and so was the landing although I did bounce twice, they were small and we were down, on the roll after landing Mike asked where the stick was and I instantly knew I had not brought it all the way back! Mike explained that is why we bounced, as he has done before but for some reason I just stop moving the stick back (see my other blog entries).
But none the less another enjoyable days flying.
Mike mentioned my next lesson is going to be 16 forced landings!
