My Flying

The flying club phones me this afternoon, it turns out that I have passed. I duffed the last question badly, but still squeezed in with a 75%. I'm soo heppy! Just need to do the practical now, then a restricted radio license is mine.

Sunny day with some light clouds high up and a slight westerly wind strengthening. The Twin is walked to 26L and I accompany one of the members, in the backseat, for the check flight of the day. Air towed to about 1600ft AGL and we spent about 20 minutes in the air finding some very small, but strong, thermals.

The winch in not working again; dead battery again! So it's air tows for everyone. Next flight is up for 55 minutes, the one after that for 15 minutes. My turn with instructor F(3). He handles the take off and tow behind the tug, he releases at 1900 ft AGL to the north west of the airfield. This is new territory for me and we are almost out of sight of the airfield (7 minute tow).

I have the controls for a few minutes at a time, then he takes over trying to find some lift and so it goes on for 15 minutes. I do the downwind, base and final for the runway (all under instruction of course) and the instructor operates the air brakes. He takes over about 5 metres from the ground.

All in all I'm rather pleased with myself. Just the flying is too short and rather heavy on my budget. Flying 34.20ZAR and air tow 120ZAR. Enjoyed doing the landing part, the wind was almost straight down the runway which made it much easier.

Tuesday was a public holiday so I spent most the day learning. Also spent a few hours in the evenings.

Wrote the radio (restricted license) exam at the flying club this morning. Took me 2.5 hours. All was going well until the last question. Just checked my text book at home now, got it wrong! So that's 12 marks gone; and I need 75 out of 100 to pass. I should hear by Monday if I passed or not. Not looking good I'm afraid. Pretty disappointing.

Day doesn't look promising, overcast with cloud base at about 2500ft, northerly wind (no good for the ridge) and temperature of about 20ºC at 9:00am. Take a drive to the airfield anyway, very quiet.

The club's motorised Falke is in the air (info here). It was only recently purchased and is proving to be very popular. Costs are 4,50ZAR per minute with the engine on (2,00ZAR engine off), that's 270,00ZAR per hour which is actually very reasonable. Still darn expensive for me though. But, I drove all that way and an air tow costs 20,00ZAR per minute, ok, give me a half and hour.

So off I go with instructor F(1) on 26R. Man, did I enjoy that! I spent most the time at the controls doing turns and some straight and level flying. Turns much easier than the Twin and needs very little rudder. (I later find out that this is due to the engine upfront that helps to pull the plane around the turn.) Do the base leg and set her up finals, per instructions received from the instructor. He lands. Then we're off again, two touch and goes and the final landing. The instructor handled the takeoffs and the final parts of the final, flaring and touch down. So it's 19 minutes costing (93,00ZAR), money well spent.