My Flying

I spent an hour this Saturday morning doing a little work on the club's Single Astir. As the plane was due for its next airworthiness inspection, it was decided, during the week, to spend a little time fixing some of the nasty scrape marks and small cracks on the belly of the plane ahead of the main (fixed) wheel.

While I was at the airfield I took the Motor Falke for a short spin. Unfortunately for me my time was very short and I didn't have time to explore the few very nice thermals that I found. Shortly after takeoff I found a thermal and was climbing at about 1.5 m/s with the engine on idle – oh well, there is always next time.

Due to some work commitments I won’t be at the airfield this Sunday, a bit sad as I haven't missed a Sunday in over a year. Cost of the flight, about 87.00ZAR for 18 minutes.

From the start of the day the gliding weather was never really going to happen, and well, it didn't.

We had a good crew on duty plus two spare hands and most of us worked our tails off.
I had two short 10 minutes flights in the Single doing my damndest to stay aloft and to survive in the weak lift.

I however did have two interesting moments:

Moment #1 : During the first flight I was scrapping for lift over 26 (active runway was 16) at about 900 ft. So this Cessna (who will remain anonymous so as not to name and shame the smuck involved) joins the circuit and I let him know where I am and what I'm doing. So there I am, starting to loose the battle with that graceful hand that tries to keep me away from the hard ground below and at 700 ft, over 26, I decide it's time to abandon all further attempts and to head home.

By this time the Cessna has announced he is downwind for a left hand circuit to 16R. Before I called my runway I spotted the cable retrieval vehicle halfway down 16L (the "glider" runway) and not wishing to play chicken with a beach buggy I transmit my intentions for a downwind to 16R. Silence from the Cessna. So I turn based and transmit. While I'm on finals he transmits base for the same runway. I land and the glider stops nicely in the middle of the runway. Before I disembark I transmit that I'm sitting on the runway, the Cessna now calls finals and I watch as he gets closer with full flaps. Anyways at about 150 ft he powers up and goes around.

Fine you may say, but the oke could have at least let everyone know that he had me visual and thus reduce the stress factor and improve the airmanship factor. Smuck!!!

Moment #2 : During the launch the glider accelerated rapidly as normal, I keep her nice and straight and as the plane starts to fly I gently pull her into the climb. But then, suddenly, I feel the power drop and I push the nose forward to keep the speed up and I’m about 50 feet up. So now what, signal that I'm too slow with runway disappearing quickly, or pull the plug? In a split second, I yank the cable and give about half brakes, next thing here's this parachute next to my nose on the left. I skrik and close the brakes to try and climb above it, which worked. I then settle the plane and land uneventfully ahead. Interesting, but also a nice confidence booster as I did everything right.

What I did find slightly tricky was pushing the nose down and pull brakes to close to the ground as the attitude of the aircraft does change quite dramatically. It took my brain a second or two to compute what had to be done, but after all that I still landed with just under half the runway left.

So, some more really good lessons learnt at 130.70ZAR.

I spent the best part of Saturday morning at the airfield re-doing some of the wiring on the single. At the same time I did some neatened up behind the panel and under the seat where wires and vacuum hoses lay in some apparent bazaar and entangled multiple serpent mating orgy.

The gliding weather looked really yech, sorry YECH, but as I was at the airfield and hadn't flown the motor-glider for a good month, I decided to take it for a spin and at the same time become a little more acquainted with the navigational aspects of my new gliding software and PDA.

I flew down the Elands River Valley, or the Rocklands Valley in power plane speak, covering the ground at a decent 100 kph following the little arrows on the PDA towards my destination, a little private airstrip at the far end of the valley. I was climbing slowly, over rising ground, at a mind blowing 0.5 to 1 m/s at 2000 rpm and arrived over the airstrip at about 4000 ft MSL.

I then made a U-turn and headed back, this time playing with the final glide computer. Bearing in mind that it could not calculate wind, do to my straight flying and it was programmed with the polar for the Astir CS, I selected the time I thought good to shut the power and to try to glide back. The arrival altitude started at about 600m and kept slowing dropping to 200m by the time I arrived, after a 25 km final glide. Not bad for a first attempt I though. Of course the Limbach up front added a large amount of comfort.

I then practiced and performed three really creppy circuits onto 26L into a slight cross-wind.

The flight was a little boring, but some decent knowledge was gained at a rather pricey 533.00ZAR.

Another interesting weather day. On the way to the airfield the low stratus cloud started moving in at after the first launch in the Twin it started to rain lightly. The old hands at the airfield suggested that we wait, as the sky would soon start to open up. Also the wind was moving onto the ridge and that would open up some ridge soaring possibilities.

Once I realised that the planes were staying up, I headed off to the hangar to fetch the Single. I had a very nice winch launch from 16L and found some very weak lift just after the launch which carried me nicely all the way to the ridge.

I spent the next 1.5 hours messing around on the ridge and even finding a few thermals to exploit. As the day progressed the ridge began to work better and better. I would have stayed up longer, but that’s another story Mr NO!!!

The circuit went well enough and I loved the flare and landing. So that's another 202.80ZAR well spent. I think it's time to start thing about getting my own plane.