My Flying

The day started off with the wind being all over the place and a weather prediction of a very strong South Westerly early in the afternoon.

After watching the Falke take-off at about 10:30 am I decided against trying to fly the Single. From about 200 feet up the wind look strong, even though it was lightly cross on the ground. The landings looked equally as tricky with serious crabbing and a bad wind gradient.

I decided that I needed some practice in these wind and unpredictable conditions and took an instructor with me in the Falke. By then the cross wind component had decreased some what but the wind was still strong higher up.

I practice four circuits and landings and they all went off well enough. I decided on a short high base leg which turned out to be what I needed as the base leg was almost directly into a moderate wind which resulted in a very low ground speed. The first circuit was a bit touch and go as I needed the motor to get me safely home. The head wind on base leg was a big surprise.

Due the high approaches and moderate winds the approach angle was very steep and twice I needed to tuck the brakes away even though I had the nose pointed well towards the ground dive bombing with a 100 kph IAS.

During one flare with full brakes I actually ran out of elevator authority. This was the first time this has ever happened to me. I flared and during the hold off just as she touched the ground I hit the stops. Was a weird feeling and just goes to show how steep the approaches were.

So it was a good 25 minutes of air time with four circuits and lots of good practice as it helped to build my confidence for gusty strongish winds; all at 99.80ZAR.