I picked an early morning lesson this week - the weather forecast wasn't so good later in the day. In the briefing and cup of tea beforehand we discussed the previous lesson (climbing and descending) along with today's lesson 9a - medium level turns. Stuart touched on Ve and Vne which are rapid descents used in an emergency for cabin and engine fires respectively. Medium level turns covered turning at 30º. The workflow for this was lookout, attitude, instruments. Lookout is a big lookout from tail to tail - all the way round. Attitude includes keeping the nose up since the tendency is to descend and to keep the turn angle consistent. For instuments we cycle through the artificial horizon, altimeter, balence ball, directional indicator and vertical speed indicator.
Stu got me to A-Check my PA28 G-PSRT. For some reason I have a soft spot for Romeo Tango and was happy to. I must get a better handle on this long check though!
The flight itself was fantastic! A very clear day with a few blobs of cloud at around 3000ft. Stuart demonstrated the Vne descent - OMG! Definately the most dramatic ride I've ever had in an aircraft. The idea is to blow out any engine fire and we decended 2000 feet in what felt like 10 seconds with sideslip and nose down. Stu then asked me if I wanted to try the manouver - I think we'll leave that until I have a little more confidence.
Next came mid level turns. I wasn't too bad, a bit slow leaving the turn. The target should be 15º before the target and as usual so much to think about. Several times though I missed the Lookout at the start of the manouver. Most important considering the crash at Coventry this week.
Finally we flew back to Kemble. I flew the approach, final turn and Stu made the landing. It was a shame the lesson seemed so short!
Lots of radio work for me this week, including various acknowledgements repeating the airport information back to the control tower.
Still so much to learn!
Sunday 24 August 2008
Monday 11 August 2008
Sunny Weekend
Well another fine British summer weekend meant no flying this weekend. So I thought I'd post a few pix from my trip to the aviation museum at Duxford in July. I wish I'd had more time to watch everything that was going on, I'll just have to go back. Here are one or two of my absolute favourites. I'd love to fly any of these!
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| Duxford |
Monday 4 August 2008
Climbing, Descending, Descending and Climbing
British summer must be over. I had two lessons this weekend making four in seven days without bad weather. This week's lessons were both in PA28s. G-AXZF is a PA28-180E and G-BFDK is a PA28-161. The flying club's C152's are still unavailable, but I'm liking the PA28s more and more.
Saturday started cloudy but cleared to scattered cloud by the time my lesson came. I taxied and did the takeoff which I think was worse than my first. The lesson covered climbing and descending. Climbing is once again Power, Attitude and Trim as with increasing power in straight and level flight, but today we have Stuart's own acronym - DABLE that is Direction, Attitude, Balance, Lookout and Engine. Direction - are we heading for our reference point; Attitude - does the aircraft have the right attitude and therefore speed; Balance - is the aircraft yawing; Lookout - are we away from trouble. Remembering of course that we use full power for the climb and set carburettor heat to cold. Every 500ft or so we check for other aircraft by making clearing turns. Finally we anticipate reaching our chosen altitude by 10% of the climb rate and level off with APT. So much to remember.
Then we set about the gliding descent. Once again we see PAT in action. This involves reducing the power to the engine, setting the correct pitch to glide and trimming out the forces. Carburettor heat is of course hot for this and we warmed the engine every thousand feet.
Golf Zulu Foxtrot is a PA28-180E - by far the most powerful aircraft I've flown. I really noticed just how quickly we arrived at my normal reference points and just how quickly we got back to Kemble! It may have been a function of the head winds, but we were climbing at over a hundred knots.
Sunday's weather looked more shaky. The day got cloudier and darker. Zoe from the flying club called - there was an opportunity to have an earlier lesson since Stu had had some cancellations. Dashing to the airfield the weather picked up as I got closer - all was well! A couple of botched radio calls for me, followed by a heavy footed take-off left me feeling a bit low.
We ran over yesterday's lesson quickly. Then on to climbing with flaps, descending with flaps and we touched on side slipping with crossed controls to descend more quickly. Flaps are used in a climb to increase lift and usually used to shorten take-off though we forgot to deploy this time!
More complicated was the gliding descent with flaps. This is used on final approach and landing. The flaps increase drag, slowing us down and provide more lift which allows us to floy more slowly. We did some practice aiming for fields to demonstrate approach angles and heights. I think I see my own landings in the distant future! I was rather heavy handed with the controls today - another habit to break. The important lesson, Stuart tells me, is that power controls ascent and attitude controls speed.
I'm not sure I enjoyed these lessons quite so much. I seemed to be a bit poor on everything I tried - possibly because I was feeling a bit under the weather. I really hope for some improvement next week.
Saturday started cloudy but cleared to scattered cloud by the time my lesson came. I taxied and did the takeoff which I think was worse than my first. The lesson covered climbing and descending. Climbing is once again Power, Attitude and Trim as with increasing power in straight and level flight, but today we have Stuart's own acronym - DABLE that is Direction, Attitude, Balance, Lookout and Engine. Direction - are we heading for our reference point; Attitude - does the aircraft have the right attitude and therefore speed; Balance - is the aircraft yawing; Lookout - are we away from trouble. Remembering of course that we use full power for the climb and set carburettor heat to cold. Every 500ft or so we check for other aircraft by making clearing turns. Finally we anticipate reaching our chosen altitude by 10% of the climb rate and level off with APT. So much to remember.
Then we set about the gliding descent. Once again we see PAT in action. This involves reducing the power to the engine, setting the correct pitch to glide and trimming out the forces. Carburettor heat is of course hot for this and we warmed the engine every thousand feet.
Golf Zulu Foxtrot is a PA28-180E - by far the most powerful aircraft I've flown. I really noticed just how quickly we arrived at my normal reference points and just how quickly we got back to Kemble! It may have been a function of the head winds, but we were climbing at over a hundred knots.
Sunday's weather looked more shaky. The day got cloudier and darker. Zoe from the flying club called - there was an opportunity to have an earlier lesson since Stu had had some cancellations. Dashing to the airfield the weather picked up as I got closer - all was well! A couple of botched radio calls for me, followed by a heavy footed take-off left me feeling a bit low.
We ran over yesterday's lesson quickly. Then on to climbing with flaps, descending with flaps and we touched on side slipping with crossed controls to descend more quickly. Flaps are used in a climb to increase lift and usually used to shorten take-off though we forgot to deploy this time!
More complicated was the gliding descent with flaps. This is used on final approach and landing. The flaps increase drag, slowing us down and provide more lift which allows us to floy more slowly. We did some practice aiming for fields to demonstrate approach angles and heights. I think I see my own landings in the distant future! I was rather heavy handed with the controls today - another habit to break. The important lesson, Stuart tells me, is that power controls ascent and attitude controls speed.
I'm not sure I enjoyed these lessons quite so much. I seemed to be a bit poor on everything I tried - possibly because I was feeling a bit under the weather. I really hope for some improvement next week.
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