My Flying

It's been a long while since my flying has given me a sleepless night, but tonight has been one. I'm not really sure why, but sometimes you play things over and over in your head to try and understand and well, here I am, typing away well before sunrise.

The day started off well enough. The Twin was given some high speed testing by one of the instructors after a tow to 3000 ft. This was to ensure that the wing, that was damaged during last year's mishap, did not depart company with the rest of the aircraft under high G loadings. Thankfully, it didn't.

After more than a seven month break I was the lucky first person to take a dual flight in the "new" Twin with tug towing us from 16L into a slight cross-wind. In the mean time I have been flying the Blanik, both dual and solo, and to say those first five minutes after we released felt weird is an understatement. I felt like a fish out of water as the whole feel of the aircraft is very very different to the Blanik. The most noticeable being the heavier controls and the delayed response, especially on the roll axis.

We found some nice lift and I practiced some thermally where I was really sweating just to keep a decent and controlled bank. After about 10 minutes the instructor announces that if I get the landing right he will be happy if I solo on the club's Single Astir. No stress! The landing went off well enough into the 45˚ gusting cross wind, but to be honest I didn't feel entirely comfortable.

So now what to do, must I wait in a long queue for another check ride the Twin or brave the Single? I eventually decided that opportunities like this are very rare at FAUH and off I went to fetch the Single.

So now I'm in the plane and the tug is taking up slack and I'm noting to myself that this is only my 7th ever aero-tow and 3rd time I have even sat in this aeroplane. I of course have, on these previous two occasions, well acquainted myself with the plane's cockpit and its performance limits.
The ground run was a bit of a mess. The Single has a tail skid and the main wheel was pumped a little too hard and all this caused me to constantly bang my head on the inside of the canopy upsetting my concentrating for those first 10m or so. Once I was airborne all went well and I released at 2500 ft and set about exploring the aeroplane and getting used to its attitude, which was like somewhere around my toe tips - very unusual for me.

After a few failed attempts at finding lift and trying to figure out what the hell that electronic vario was trying to say, I practiced a few stalls and steep turns and headed back towards the airfield. The glider runway was occupied with the Twin about to be towed and I radio ground to find out the progress of the launch, "Taking up slack" I'm told. So I tried to time my landing for that runway, having the power runway as my alternate. As I got closer it became painfully obvious that no slack was being taken up and I immediately diverted for the power runway using a very modified "circuit".

The "circuit" went off well enough and I arrived just were I planed, but after that it was a huge mess. I discovered around about then just how sensitive the elevator was on the Single and on the flare I ballooned seriously. So I closed the brakes to settle things out, but when I opened them again, to about half, the plane just dropped and the nose went up again. So I closed the brakes a little and landed rather hard and too much off centre. The grass grabbed the wing a few metres into the ground run and next I'm heading off into the long grass and bushes.

I rather sheepishly walked the wing back to the launch point for the inevitable uit kak. My wonderful display was witnessed by all including three instructors. So anyway, later (much later) during the uit kak I was told just how bad my circuit was and how this lead to my poor landing. The thing is that though I never flew a proper circuit, I did have things very under control and it was the elevator that caught me out; reopening the brakes didn't help much either.

So what now? Later I ask this to the instructor and he says that there is really not much he can show me with a dual flight and that if I want, I can try again. Of course I need to get back on the horse, but this time I'm really nervous. The take off goes much better and I release at 1000ft to head straight into the circuit. The problem is that both the tug and I want the same runway. This was a hangar flight and generally we like to use the right-hand runway and to land deep, hence saving some walking time.

It feels like forever that the tug takes to land and all this time my circuit is fast not becoming a circuit anymore. I orbit twice on downwind and twice on base and eventually the tug is clear of the runway. During this process I lost some height and the wind pushed me back further than I expected. So I gun for the runway at speed and when I'm ready I slow down, pop the brakes and do a great landing, though just not deep enough. The instructor comes on the radio and says he's very happy with the landing and I, of course, feel extremely relieved.

Another expensive day at the airfield with three aero-tows, but well worth it as I now have two flights in the Single behind me.

The first official flying day of the new year and it was looking yeechh!

I arrived at the airfield at 9 am and the clouds were low and it was drizzling lightly.

Anyways, we put the Twin together again, after it's long trek down from Gauteng, and waited for a gap in the weather to test fly her.

At around 12 pm the rain stopped and the Twin was aerotowed for a quick test flight from 08L.

As we had a tug, tug pilot and a spare instructor we decided that this was too good an opportunity to waste and most of us got some good aerotow experience in with the Blanik. I went up dual for my fourth ever aerotow and it went off very well. Back on the ground I asked if I could go solo and after a short chit-chat amongst the instructors I was given the go ahead.

The wind was very light and the air pretty dead so the aerotow was a breeze. I released at 1400 ft and played with some weak lift over the ridge getting to 1600 ft. After I few minutes I remember that there was a queue of people behind me also wanting to fly and I headed back to 16R. The landing was interesting and I was rather chuffed with myself when I managed to avoid a small dog running down the runway just as I was about to flare. I closed the brakes and ballooned over him before touching down nicely on the other side.

So what did I learn today. Firstly stay below the tug during the tow and don't out climb the tug during the take off. Secondly before releasing from the tug pull up gently to get some tension on the rope then release, that way you help to avoid the rope come back and hitting the glider. Thirdly try to watch out for unexpected happenings on the runway during finals.

Excellent day at R60 for flying and R250 for aerotows.

I had checked the Aerosport's website earlier that morning and they had predicted really good thermal activity for Uitenhage at about 2pm. So I arranged with an instructor for permission to fly the Falke and met up with another club member in his own motor glider to explore the skies looking for thermal lift.

The temperature on the ground was 36˚C and to the North and to the West there where lots of puffy white CB clouds. We took off and I soon fell way behind the other faster aircraft. Climbing out a moderate revs the engine started to get really warm and after about 10 minutes I elected to turn back. I also throttled back and pushed the nose forward. During the trip "there" and back to the airfield I found basically zero lift and was very disappointed and confused. Was it me or was the lift simply not there?

Once back at the airfield I explored within gliding distance looking for lift and other than a few bumps I found nothing. I elected to call it a day and practiced two landings before finally landing. During the second landing I practiced my side slipping and it went off rather well.

So at the end of the day I was rather (very) disappointed. I was expecting some really good thermal lift and instead found nothing! Cost = 208,40ZAR.

I completed another small personnel aviation milestone today. I flew a dual cross country flight in the Motor Falke which consisted of three legs, a landing at another airfield and also a short venture into controlled airspace. It took 2.5 hours to complete the 220 km route flying into a headwind on two of the three legs >.

We took off from FAUH and climbed slowly to 5000 feet routing direct for Kareedouw (true bearing 259º) 103km away. Our IAS averaged 105 kph while the ground speed averaged about 80 kph. This took us 75 minutes.

At 5000 feet and with a clear blue day Kareedouw was easy enough to find. However once we had left the familiar mountains around Uitenhage and the roads and rivers became fewer and fewer I can quite easily understand how easy it is to get lost.

We then routed down the Langkloof Valley for Paradise Beach 58 km away on a true bearing of 107º. I pushed the nose down to loose the extra altitude so that we would arrive at 2000 ft. The average speed for this part of the journey was 140 kph for IAS and ground speed and this took us 25 minutes including the circuit and touchdown.

We joined on a left-hand circuit for runway 08 and I planned the circuit well enough but was still too high on finals and needed to doing some side slipping with full brakes to loose the extra altitude. The flare and touchdown was an absolute beaut. First I felt the tailwheel touch down lightly and never felt the main wheel touch. For a moment I wondered whether I was actually on the ground or simply floating just above it.

We hung around for a short while chatting the the Whisper factory guys and then headed out for FAUH routing behind Jeffreys Bay and then following the coast to Gamtoos River staying at 2000 ft. At Gamtoos I made my first ever contact with Approach and all went off without a hitch. At Van Standens we routed inland aiming for the eastern point of The Lady's Slipper.

We landed at Uitenhage on 08L at without any problems. This leg took us 45 minutes with an average airspeed of about 130 kph and a ground speed of 105 kph.

View the photos here!

All in all a very enjoyable flight with lots of time to admire the scenery and to take plenty of photographs. I am too scared to calculate the cost but I'm guessing it will be about 660ZAR.