My Flying

Easter weekend, so no flying today.

Morning starts off cloudless and about 20°C. Arrive at 9:30 am, things are quiet gliding-wise, but lots of chatting. Sky starts to look better and at 11:00 am I'm off in the Falke with instructor F(4). He takes off (16R) and I spend about 45 minutes in the air, mostly with the engine on. At one point we are over 3000ft AGL with clear visibility all the way to the coast.

Only problem is with the comms. The instructor's headset is not working well and communication not good, this spoilt things somewhat. I wanted to practice thermalling and do a few touch and goes. He was happy to let me cruise around practicing straight and level and coordinated turns.

Eventually got around to do two circuits with touch and goes. First one needed to be aborted, way too high. Second one was rather bumpy as I closed the airbrakes just as we were flaring and the plane climbed off the ground. The full stop went much better. Half the problem with this is not quite knowing what you are doing and what the instructor is doing. Anways, and hour in the air, with lots of good flying, a bit hard on the pocket at about 242,50ZAR which blows my budget for the month.

Rather small turnout for the AGM. For my troubles I get elected as the club's treasurer. Something about my accounting background, but actually because no one else wanted the job. So now I'm on the committee, as a student having been with the club for two months.

Overcast with a cloud ceiling of about 4000 ft and almost no wind. With no change in the weather I head to the airfield at about 09:45 SAST. When I arrive a half and hour later it is dead quiet, not one member is there, other than one guy who owns shares in two motor-gliders.

We chat, I help him with some things in his hanger and he offers me a flip in the Dimona. Like I'm going to say no. So we fly around the airfield for about a half an hour, including two touch and goes. An even greater bonus: I get a few minutes at the controls doing some straight and level flying and a few gentle turns. Very nice thank you!

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