My Flying

Sunny day with some light clouds high up and a slight westerly wind strengthening. The Twin is walked to 26L and I accompany one of the members, in the backseat, for the check flight of the day. Air towed to about 1600ft AGL and we spent about 20 minutes in the air finding some very small, but strong, thermals.

The winch in not working again; dead battery again! So it's air tows for everyone. Next flight is up for 55 minutes, the one after that for 15 minutes. My turn with instructor F(3). He handles the take off and tow behind the tug, he releases at 1900 ft AGL to the north west of the airfield. This is new territory for me and we are almost out of sight of the airfield (7 minute tow).

I have the controls for a few minutes at a time, then he takes over trying to find some lift and so it goes on for 15 minutes. I do the downwind, base and final for the runway (all under instruction of course) and the instructor operates the air brakes. He takes over about 5 metres from the ground.

All in all I'm rather pleased with myself. Just the flying is too short and rather heavy on my budget. Flying 34.20ZAR and air tow 120ZAR. Enjoyed doing the landing part, the wind was almost straight down the runway which made it much easier.