My Flying

The official flying at our club has drawn to a close as the holiday season approaches. Sadly though it has ended on a bad note for several of the members, but which more unfortunately summarises the whole year for our club.

The instructor was unable to make his duty and was unable to arrange for a replacement. Several members arrived early at the club for instruction, a good turn out by our standards, and had to leave disappointed. We are desperately short of active instructors, only three. Club politics has resulted in some of the instructors refusing to perform any duties and there has also been a very slow (read zero) take up of new instructors.

Fortunately for me later that afternoon, once most of the members had left, an off duty instructor arrived and allowed me to fly the Falke. The rules are that while you are solo and without your license an instructor must be present at the airfield while you fly.

I took the Falke for a 45 minute spin. The SE was blowing but I couldn't sustain at the ridge and powered up in search of some thermal lift. I found lots of large bumps over the mountains to the South of the sandy patches but was unable to find any that would keep me up. The engine was on all the time mainly to sustain my altitude or to crawl back that which I had lost.

After 25 minutes I headed back to the airfield to practice circuits which went off rather well. I enjoyed my touch 'n go circuits as I kept the circuit low and tight, I'm not sure the instructors will have been too happy but I made it back comfortably each time. I find keeping the circuit tight actually a bit easier than a proper long circuit as it makes it easier to judge the angles and distances.

So that was 45 minutes, mostly engine on at a pricey 197.00ZAR. Not going to be able to do too much more of this $$$$$