Circles in the sky

Another busy weekend with two flying lessons. Saturday was my FAA BFR in a plane I had never flown, with an instructor I didn’t know at an airfield I was unfamiliar with!

Sunday was more circuits in the RV6. The day looked ideal for it. Clear with a light and steady wind straight down runway 22.

Roly turned up his ever-cheerful self. I checked out the plane and hauled it out of the hangar that it shares with two large Citation business jets – sat tucked up in the corner like a little urchin who tries to stay out of the big boys dorm!

I am feeling a bit better finding things in the cockpit now, still not natural, but at least I know where to look. We started up and taxied out.

The take off was OK-ish, but I didn’t put enough right rudder in at the right time, so lurched a bit to the left of the runway. She climbs like a bat out of hell and I was at 1000’ on the upwind and turned while pulling the throttle and levelling out at the same time.

The circuit was reasonably quiet with only one other in and we were well spaced. Towards the end of the session, it started to get full with three and then four in the circuit, so I had to keep the speed well down on the downwind.

I all I did ten circuits and landed on the tenth at my request, mainly because I started to get tired!

The first few touch and go’s were not great. I only did one ‘bouncer’ and that wasn’t too bad. But I wasn’t holding off long enough and not putting right rudder in during the take-off.

However, in the last five or so, it started to come together, and the last two were very rewarding indeed.

Bottom line is that it was a very good session from my point of view, a real ‘learning experience’ with Roly allowing me to make the mistakes and correct them and learn from it. I think I am getting the hang of simple ‘slight wind straight down the runway’ taildragger landings, but I would like another full session doing the same just to cement them in. Then I expect he will want to take me onto the far more entertaining crosswind landings!

What a great aircraft. The range of speed it can operate over is amazing. Probably happiest at 150kts at one end but also quite content just ‘hanging there’ at 65kts trundling in on final. This is a real eye-opener for me. I can’t wait to do a bit of touring in it.