My Flying

I arranged with one of the instructors to do a cross country flight today as it is one of the requirements for a touring motor glider licence. Yesterday I did all the route planning using my map and calculated distances, bearings, times and so on.

Unfortunately it was not to be. Due to various circumstances including a sudden change in the weather around 11 am the flight was cancelled. Hugely frustrating!!!

All that I basically still require for my touring motor glider license is a cross country flight, a two hour engine off soar and then some theory. So damn close.

It's holidays and there will be no official flying until mid January.

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 $$$$$

Summer is on the way, and it's going to be hot, real hot. The temperature was hitting the early 30's but fortunately there was a nice fresh breeze from the E, no SE, wait S, no no E, no rather SE; well it just couldn't make up it's mind.

Our old Skylark 3B that has not been flown in over two years was stripped down and given the full treatment for it's airworthy certificate. This will be the next plane I fly as it apparently flies much more like the Blanik than does the club's single Astir CS Jeans.

So of course I gave the cockpit a try. Nice and snug to say the least. The place-card had some really interesting numbers, like a maximum winch launch speed of 100 kph and a Vne of 180 kph, mmmhhhh?

Ok, so let's start flying. It was then that we discovered that our trusty winch was kaput (again). Someone had left the radio on during the week and the battery was very much pap. To make things worse it seems as if the alternator may no longer be functioning quite as an alternator should.

Fortunately the Motor Falke is back in action and the instructor gave me the go ahead for a flight. A quick look at my logbook showed that so far I have had 14 solo flights and the last one was 9 September this year, just before it's prop strike (not me!!!). So that's well, eeeerr, carry the two, ok, 3 months since my last flight. I was a little apprehensive, especially regards that all important landing bit. But once I was back in the cockpit it all came right back to me. My first circuit was short and low but it went off well enough.

I then headed for the ridge and with the Easterly blowing I was hoping for some lift; nothing. I scrapped around there with the engine on idle for about 15 minutes before I ventured elsewhere for lift. I found some nice thermals to the north of the ridge near the sandy patches and managed to thermal up to 2000 ft. I was then joined by a Lambada motor glider and it was fun.

I returned to the airfield for a touch and go then a full stop landing. When I filling the logbooks I was surprised to notice that I had been away for 75 minutes. How time flies when you are having fun. Going to be a bit tough on the bank balance though at 274,20ZAR.