My Flying

A nice thing about having your own blog is that you can say pretty much what you want about who you want. Of course the other side is that some people do actually read this blog, so saying too much might not be wise.

In South Africa we have a nice word; kak. It basically means shit in English, but carries much more weight. This word describes very well the know-it-all attitude of someone who frequents the airfield regularly. I can think of another word, it starts with an A and has a hole in it, but I'd better stop now. Wanker! >

Back to flying. Very interesting and different day with one of the more adventurous instructors, F(2). My three take offs and landings went very well and I'm rather chuffed with myself.

The wind was very light and all three takeoffs from 26L had a slight cross and tail wind component. This resulted in a longer ground run and very mediocre launch heights. For the first two landings I landed downwind on 08R and the third was on 16L, no right, ok definitely left.

With all three landings the instructor made me close the brakes so that we floated way down the runway. Then on touch down, we free-wheeled all the way back to the launch point. I found this very educational as it required lots of control in keeping the plane off the runway, the wings level and keeping it going straight as well as judging the distance to go.

During the last two flights we were scrapping along the ridge trying to find basically non existent lift. Most of this time we spent flying between 500 and 700 feet AGL (the ridge is about 600 feet high). Unfortunately for me, the instructor did most of this flying as we were too low and slow for me to be sitting to close to the ridge. So that was three launches and 42 minutes costing 181ZAR. Money well spent as I learned lots today.

I arrived at the airfield nice and early for a quick celebratory breakfast. After that there was an hour long lecture (the first of three) on cross country flying, the preparations and regulations. Handy stuff, though I'm not sure that I'm going to be using it anytime soon.

Then it was three short flights with instructor F(4) from 16L. The ridge was working slightly during the second flight and we soared there for a few minutes before the instructor directed me to land. Unfortunately the predicted fresh South-Westerly did not arrive. I thought the landings and takeoffs went very well and I'm starting to feel much more confident. The only part I'm still really battling with is judging when to turn base. So that's arrival at 8:30 and departure at 5:30 equalling 132ZAR.

Ditto on the studying post below.

Today is a self imposed no fly day. I need to study for an important exam in two weeks time, so I will be skipping this Sunday and next.

The weather forecast also looks like it might be a marginal day with a 60% chance of moderate afternoon showers.