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.

The day started off early with a nice lecture on Human Limitations and I found the 'class room' environment and formal reading material very informative. This type of instruction is unfortunately very rare in our training and more, much more, is really needed.

As the Twin was not yet serviceable only the Falke and Single could be flown. I took the third (and last) winch launch in the Single. The launch went off well enough even though I was rather nervous as the winch driver gave the first two pilots very fast launches.

I headed straight for the ridge because the SE was blowing. My launch height was not good and I reached the launch at my abort-and-return altitude. Fortunately just as I arrived I found some stong lift. I spent just over a half an hour playing on the ridge and having lots of fun. It was very hard work as there were only a few bubbles of very strong lift. However just a strong as the lift was, there were many areas of bad sink so I spent quite some time discovering and mapping these areas.

After a half hour I decided to head in to land as I imagined that the others also wanted a turn to fly. On landing I discovered that this was not the case so I unfortunately lost out on some good ridge time. I was determined to make a high approach landing and not to come in scrapping over any fence like last time. Thus I landed deeper than normal, but not more than a 1/3 down the runway. I was only really not happy with my flare, which was again too high (1/2 brakes) so I needed to let the plane float along and sink a little by not holding the nose too high. Cost = 96.05ZAR.

Our Twin has been fitted with a new CoG release but unfortunately the release cable has started to fray. I spent quite some time that morning helping to strip the front cockpit so that we could gain access to all the bits and pieces; and what a job it was getting to the cable mechanism.

Later that morning I took a short 41 minute flight in the Falke. First I tried my luck on the ridge with the SE blowing, but I didn't fare to well. I experimented with altitudes to leave the ridge and head back for 16L and determined that 500 feet was doing-able, though air-brakes needed only be applied once over the fence. For my third landing I practiced a high steep approach and once again realised that the Falke actually does fairly good steep approaches with full brakes and 100 kph indicated. I'm always cautious to push the speed up a bit as a near the ground to help counter any wind gradient that might be down there. Cost = 185.54ZAR.

What a day!!!

I was determined to fly this Sunday and arranged, at short notice, during the week for a new aerial to be made for the winch so that I could at least be winched launched. The weather was slightly overcast when I arrived early at the airfield to fit the new aerial, so I wasn't too hopeful, though the weather forecast had predicted a good soaring day. Members started to arrive, including the tug driver, and things started to look promising.

At 12pm the Twin was the first aero tow of the day and I was next inline. The tug arrived back at the airfield and reported that the air was active. I took my tow and was towed to 3000ft well west of the airfield. This was the first time that I had been so far away from the airfield by myself and I was just a little apprehensive. My idea was to scout around for a few minutes for lift and then head back to the safety of the airfield.

It didn't take me long to find some decent lift and I spent the next hour and three quarters exploring some really good lift. The northerly wind kept pushing me towards controlled airspace and on more than one occasion I need to abandon a perfectly good thermal and head on out of dodge. I spent a lot of time learning, practising and exploring as I basically have very little thermaling experience.

Many of the thermals were so strong that they were hard to miss. I'm sure that my technique needs LOTS of practice as I'm pretty certain that I centred very few of my thermals. In some cases I was wrestling the aircraft just to try and keep her in the lift as the thermal just wanted to push me out. I learnt a TON today, mostly about thermaling, flying slow, learning the sounds and feel of the Single and figuring out that top rudder is required when thermaling, which really started to be a big pain in the legs, literally.

After almost two hours in the air I was exhausted. My legs were tired and I was starting to dehydrate as the temperate in the cockpit was about 35°C and my shirt was socked in sweat. I spent about 10 minutes gliding down from 4000 ft over the airfield and used the altitude to practice some steep turns, stalls and even side slips. I discovered that the Single is actually rather easy to side slip and I will need to practice this on an approach one day soon.

The circuit when off well but I timed the final turn wrong and even though I was at 700 ft and not far out at all I some how ran out of height very quickly. Pretty soon I realised that full airbrakes was not a good thing and glided the rest of the approach with no brakes and came in over the fence way too low. This was the first time ever that I needed to flare and float a glider without airbrakes, but I had learnt from past experience not to make any major changes with the brakes during the landing. I did however try to open them just a little after straightening the plane on to the runway as I had managed to drift well off the centre line. I flared a little high but as I had plenty of speed I just held it there with the nose a little in the air and it soon drifted down by its self and I landed nicely, just a little deep and off centre.

So what an amazing day. I learnt so much in those two hours and also realised that there is still so much to be learnt. Flying days like this a very rare here and I glad that I was lucky enough to be able to make full use of it. Flying was R201.30 and about R175.00 for the tow, so a pricey day but well worth it.