All week it had been great, sunny and warm. But Thursday was cloudy, windy and rainy and Fridays forecast wasn't good. I had promised my daughter's boyfriend, Rob a local flight once I was signed off, so he was ready and waiting and praying for the weather. I warned him not to pay too much attention to the forecast as it was often wrong.
Sure enough, although Friday was forecast as rain, all it turned out to be was low-ish cloud with the odd spit of rain. Very little wind and reasonable visibility. So after work I picked Rob up and we headed off to the airfield. To save time at the airfield, I gave him part of the passenger brief in the car and finished that off in the plane with the aircraft specific bits. He had not been up in a small plane before.
I did the A-check - of course fuel needed - and pulled her out past the biz-jets that we share a hangar with. I sent Rob over to the pumps while I started up and taxi'd over. Once that was done, we buttoned up and requested taxi. Gloster gave me 04 with a wind of 050/05 - perfect!
The take-off was smooth and the plane climbed at it's customary 1000' fpm. Unfortunately, the METARs of 1800' cloudbase were optimistic as it was early evening and the cloudbase was starting to drop. The most I gor was 1500', but as we headed north, I was around 1200' with poor visibility. Still, it would be OK for a local as I know the area well.
I pulled a steep turn or two just to show Rob what it was like then let him handle the stick for a few munites. He did very well and didn't make the usual novice mistakes.
We flew around my village and took the mandatory photos of the house, the flew around the local secondary school where Rob works. I wandered over to Bredon hill and flew around the back of it, but with the top now in the cloudbase, I thought it prudent to head back to the airfield.
We scuttled back at 1200' and I was given a direct to downwind join for 04. The scheduled flight for the Isle of Man was getting ready to head out from Gloster.
A good approach to 04 as I called final and was given late clearance as the scheduled flight positioned for departure on 09. I got the approach speed right and flared, maybe a fraction too much with a slight baloon, but easily controlled for, though I say it myself, a very smooth landing - but then again, the conditions don't often come much better - 050 / 05 on runway 04. I did tell Rob that that was a good landing - not to brag, but to condition his expectations for future flights. I made that mistake once before when I pulled a near greaser a few years ago flying with Dan when I landed at Caen on one of my first flights with him - well he measured every other landing against that assuming my Caen landing was 'normal' - it took me years to convince him what was 'normal' in small plane!
Rob really enjoyed it and made it clear that he would very much like to go up again. He was amazed that we had been airborne for 30 minutes as it felt so short.
Nice to have an appreciative passenger who enjoys it so much, it really makes you feel pretty good too!
