My Flying

Nice clear morning with a gentle North Westerly blow. Arrive at the airfield at 9:30 and wait for the instructor to arrive. One of the Falke's wing wheels is flat and much time is spent getting it fixed.

Do a full pre-flight DI (daily inspection) with instructor F(1) and learn a few interesting things, such as what a magneto is and what it does.

Once it's my turn, after a walk around, we go though all the checks in the cockpit. Radios off, magnetos off, master switch to on, choke in (warm start), brakes on, magnetos to on, "clear prop", turn the ignition key and hit the starter switch. Fires first time. I taxi to the start of runway 26R where we do the routine CB SIT C BUF and then instructor gets us airborne.

At about 500 feet I take control and the instructor throttles the engine back to 2400 rpm. At 2000 feet we set the altimeters to QNH and reduce the revs to 2200 rpm, which is optimal cruising speed. I practice some medium turns and try out some thermaling. We watch as another glider is towed up to about 3500 feet where he releases and gives us a nice aerobatic display with a few loops and rolls.

After that the instructor demonstrates a tight turn to me. Took me a bit by surprise as it was at least 70° to the horizon and I could feel some nasty g's. I try a few, progressively getting tighter and tighter and remember to pull back on the stick and to keep the nose up.

He then demonstrates a power on and a power off stall and recovery, which I then also attempt. Went rather well. The plane reacts so calmly. Lift the nose about 20°, the speed bleeds off, at about 70 km/h it starts to gently vibrate, then the nose drops. Push the stick forward, get some speed and it's all over.

After about 25 minutes my motion sickness sets in and I head for home. The instructor talks me through the circuit, but he does most the work. I try the flaring part and it went off o'k, I just couldn't judge my height very well and it felt a lot higher than what it was.

All in all a very worthwhile ½ hour at about 155ZAR.