My ‘big tour’ this year is one I have planned for a while now. This is a visit to my buddy in Ottawa in August to hire a plane and fly from:
1. Ottawa to New York (Westchester / White Plains) via Massena to visit my sister,
2. New York low level city trip, then Niagara Falls and Toronto City Airport,
3. Toronto City to Ottawa.
As part of the preparations, on my last visit in February this year, I had lined up the paperwork and medicals etc. for a written test to get a full Canadian PPL based on my standalone FAA PPL.
This was a mini-performance in itself which I have already written about. Suffice to say that it didn’t end in February and I had to actively chase Transport Canada to persuade them to chase the FAA for an answer to a very simple question (which I was sure the FAA had overlooked – and so it turned out). Anyway, I finally got my Canadian PPL in early June – precisely four months after applying for it.
While I was in Ottawa in February, as part of the preparations, I visited my preferred flying club (where I had flown on a P U/T ‘trial flight’ basis the year before), Rockcliffe and introduced myself to one of the Senior FI’s there. I explained my plan and asked if I could hire one of their C172’s. He agreed in principle (subject to a check ride – of course) and even talked about the relatively complex and fiddly Canada to USA border clearance procedures and where to read up on them (I am a Canadian passport holder, so easier for me to get into the USA than a Brit). He said that he couldn’t actually book a plane for me there and then as their system didn’t load dates that far in advance and advised that I should contact them 8-10 weeks before the trip. So far so good. I had previously checked Rockcliffe out on the internet and noted that they had several write ups on trips their members took to US destinations and made various recommendations for US destinations.
So having done what I thought was ‘all the right things’, including personally introducing myself to a senior Flying Instructor at Rockcliffe, once the actual licence arrived in early June, I called the same FI at Rockcliffe and re-introduced myself and explained again my plans and asked to book a plane for a check ride followed by my planned trip.
There was something in the vague and non-committal way he was responding that made me wonder. It told him about my flying experience (not vast at 400 hours TT, but hardly a beginner either) and again he sounded a bit vague but promised to get back to me. I was left with a somewhat uneasy feeling, but put it down to the fact that English wasn’t his first language (Ottawa is probably the most bi-lingual city in Canada). Two days later I got an email from him saying that he had now spoken to the club CFI (……hmmmmm……that sounds ominous…) who wanted to ‘keep trips to the USA down this year’ and wasn’t keen to rent to ‘someone they don’t know’ to make such a trip!
OK – not happy now! So I emailed back and politely pointed out that I had flown with them before, met their FI in February when he raised no objections at the time. I would be flying with my buddy who lives in Ottawa and was a long-serving member of the Canadian Armed Forces and he would be happy to ‘vouch’ for me. This didn’t cut much (i.e. any!) ice with them and they responded that the USA was out, but they would be happy to rent to me ‘provided I passed the check ride’ (they mentioned this every time and I was getting bored with the repetition). They also asked for copies of both the Canadian and FAA licences (why the FAA one I don’t know), copies of my last few logbook pages (fair do’s) and a note of recent touring and experience in the C172 (OK – fair enough).
I had already carefully planned my trip to New York, bought the maps, marked the routes up, prepared the PLOG’s, prepared flight plans, made enquiries about the trickier stuff (New York low-level city route, Niagara Falls traffic patterns etc.) only to be told that although I had discussed it with them in February, that they would not now rent me the plane for the trip, but I could change plans and do something else purely within Canada – NOT HAPPY! Had they told me this in February, I would probably have gone along with it and planned something else, but now I feel a call to other clubs coming on.
I tentatively booked with Rockcliffe anyway and sent the information requested while at the same time emailing my buddy with the news and suggesting alternatives along the lines of:
- Check with other flying clubs in Ottawa / Montreal / Kingston and see if they all had similar concerns and restrictions – if so then it must be a general rule
- Drive to Massena in the USA and hire an FAA aircraft from there and stay in the USA.
- Do alternative tours in Canada only – like Ottawa to Quebec City or maybe the Bay of Fundy etc.
Well, my buddy is a resourceful kind of guy who sees ‘no’ as the first step on the road to a ‘yes’. He made a few calls and spoke to some other clubs. If I know him, he probably ‘talked me up’ and made me sound like a cross between Charles Lindberg and Chuck Yeager – I hope not! Anyway, the good news is that ‘the other club’ in Ottawa were happy to hire a C172, subject to a checkride (of course!) for the planned trip. They want a substantial deposit on account (I have seen this before when I trained with a school in the US – they are a long established club, so I am not too worried), but it looks like a go-er.
So I will be speaking to this other flying club and sending them no doubt much the same information and a substantial deposit ‘on account’.
What I don’t understand is what I could possibly have done differently and why people say one thing then do another. With hindsight, I suspect that I should have made a point of speaking to the CFI. Needless to say, I will not be doing future business with Rockcliffe Flying Club.
I am hoping to arrange a similar flying holiday next year in the summer. But this should be easier (note ‘should be’) as I hope to fly with my bother-in-law’s brother, who lives in Texas (he is an aircraft owner and an FAA Instructor) and maybe my sister (who lives in New York) and my buddy (who could fly down from Canada). The trip could be entirely in the USA around Texas, New Mexico, Nevada etc. My contact in Texas could easily arrange a rental for me and even do the checkride / combined FAA BFR. Sounds strange to be looking forward to next years trip before I have done this years, but that’s what GA touring is about I guess.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Taking the 'War Department' flying!
It had to happen! The wife wanted a trip in my 'new' plane now that I had taken others up and not actually managed to kill them or myself!
Well, I had the plane booked for a local on Saturday afternoon and the weather was excellent. So of course I had to oblige. I was hoping to do a 'landaway', but as one of the other group members booked the plane after me, it didn't leave enough time, so a local it had to be.
She know how long the 'boring bit' takes as I check the aircraft out, book out etc. so brought a book and sat reading it in the hangar while I toiled away! I announced we were ready and she helped me manouevre the aircraft out of the hangar.
I gave her the safety brief, especially the harnesses and canopy opening - she knows the rest already, then away we went.
Gloucester were giving runway 36 with the wind 330 / 05 variable - fine. It is amazing how obsessed you get with the wind in a taildragger - when I flew nosewheels it was 'yeah whatever' unless it was howling a gale!
And yes, it is a snug fit in an RV6 - she was chuckling at how cosy me and the neighbour must be (he is a bit bigger than the wife!).
Off we went on 36 with the aircraft skipping along happily, then flying itself off. Up to about 3800 and I followed my now 'time honoured' local route of the Malverns, Defford, Bredon Hill, Winchcombe, Gotherington then back in the Gloucester - with of course a few turns and steep turns thrown in for fun.
She is an excellent passenger, but wasn't going to take the stick any time soon.
Rejoining, we were still on 36 as I was given a standard overhead join. This was fine, but 36 is narrower than the other runways and the base to final leg heads straight for a hill, so it focuses the mind somewhat.
I was high (as I usually am on 36 for some reason), so side-slipped the height off. My wife has seen me do this before, so was not unduly alarmed by the aircraft sliding sideways.
Good approach gradiant now on short final with the required speed. Over the threshold and roundout. Fly level and back, back, back - no baloon and minimal crosswind. Stall warner chirping, now constant, back more and we touch and stay touched - whoppee - no bounce or hop! I see the wife give a 'startle reflex' as we land - it was a good landing, but the tailwheel makes it noisier and a bit bumpier than the Arrow or the Beech Bonanza she was previously used to - I guess I should have warned her. No matter, she is fine.
She enjoyed the flight and now has a feel for the plane and the touring I have planned withb her to France should go fine.
Another lovely flight. I really want to go touring or at least 'airfield collecting' next time - maybe Southend or Bournemouth, not been there yet.
Well, I had the plane booked for a local on Saturday afternoon and the weather was excellent. So of course I had to oblige. I was hoping to do a 'landaway', but as one of the other group members booked the plane after me, it didn't leave enough time, so a local it had to be.
She know how long the 'boring bit' takes as I check the aircraft out, book out etc. so brought a book and sat reading it in the hangar while I toiled away! I announced we were ready and she helped me manouevre the aircraft out of the hangar.
I gave her the safety brief, especially the harnesses and canopy opening - she knows the rest already, then away we went.
Gloucester were giving runway 36 with the wind 330 / 05 variable - fine. It is amazing how obsessed you get with the wind in a taildragger - when I flew nosewheels it was 'yeah whatever' unless it was howling a gale!
And yes, it is a snug fit in an RV6 - she was chuckling at how cosy me and the neighbour must be (he is a bit bigger than the wife!).
Off we went on 36 with the aircraft skipping along happily, then flying itself off. Up to about 3800 and I followed my now 'time honoured' local route of the Malverns, Defford, Bredon Hill, Winchcombe, Gotherington then back in the Gloucester - with of course a few turns and steep turns thrown in for fun.
She is an excellent passenger, but wasn't going to take the stick any time soon.
Rejoining, we were still on 36 as I was given a standard overhead join. This was fine, but 36 is narrower than the other runways and the base to final leg heads straight for a hill, so it focuses the mind somewhat.
I was high (as I usually am on 36 for some reason), so side-slipped the height off. My wife has seen me do this before, so was not unduly alarmed by the aircraft sliding sideways.
Good approach gradiant now on short final with the required speed. Over the threshold and roundout. Fly level and back, back, back - no baloon and minimal crosswind. Stall warner chirping, now constant, back more and we touch and stay touched - whoppee - no bounce or hop! I see the wife give a 'startle reflex' as we land - it was a good landing, but the tailwheel makes it noisier and a bit bumpier than the Arrow or the Beech Bonanza she was previously used to - I guess I should have warned her. No matter, she is fine.
She enjoyed the flight and now has a feel for the plane and the touring I have planned withb her to France should go fine.
Another lovely flight. I really want to go touring or at least 'airfield collecting' next time - maybe Southend or Bournemouth, not been there yet.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Pleasant evening bimble
On checking the bookings for the plane, it seems that June is pretty popular, with a booking for every weekend now. So I thought I would get in early for July as I am planning on a couple of trips to France. Even so, a couple of weekends in July had already ‘gone’, so I booked two that were left, one for a Caen trip with my neighbour and another for a trip to Honfleur with the wife.
The Caen trip is on the same weekend as the huge RIAT Airshow at Fairford. That’s a pain because they will create a bloody great big RAT (Restricted Airspace) in a huge upside-down layer-cake arrangement directly between Gloucester and the south coast (where I need to head). No matter - a quick look at the charts and I will head south towards the ‘gap’ between Bristol and Lyneham, then coast out at Portland (if the Danger Areas are closed) routing to Cherbourg, then along the east coast of the Cotentin peninsula overflying the invasion beaches headed for Caen – should work nicely.
With the June weekends being heavily booked and things at work being very busy (with a one week business trip to India in early June), I decided to keep my newly-minted taildragger skills up to date with a quick local of an evening after work (blessed be the long summer evenings!).
The weather on Wednesday was pretty good – a bit like to opening sequence of the Simpsons – odd puffy clouds and light winds. Despite the forecast for rain by late afternoon, this had not happened by 15:00, so I checked the on-line booking and booked the plane for the evening. A quick trip back home to see if anyone wanted to come with me as self-loading ballast and my daughter’s boyfriend volunteered.
Drove the 20 minutes to the airfield and parked up. Quick check of the NOTAMS (can’t be too careful, even on a local, especially in the summer – I would hate to blunder into a Red Arrows display).
I booked out and checked the plane out. Amazingly, it had nearly full tanks – great, no trip to the pumps. The plane was in good order and I noted that the brakes had been serviced from the tech log.
Pulled the plane out and got in. Gave Rob another safety brief (he had one last time, but I wanted to go through the key safety points again, especially the seat belts and canopy opening / jettison). Started up and lit up the panel. The ATIS said basically that all runways except 27 were closed due to grass cutting and that the winds were 220 / 10 knots. OK, could be a crosswind here, but I am happy with 10 knots, so we set off.
The brakes were noticeable ‘rumbly’, but we had be warned that this might be so, so no drama.
Power checks OK and I was cleared for take off on 27. The windsock showed very little wind, so the wind had dropped since the ATIS, but be aware of a possible crosswind from the left, so a bit of left aileron and read with right rudder during the take off run. In the event, I didn’t seem to need any more than normal. The tail came up quickly and the RV started hopping merrily down the runway like an excited toddler heading towards the beach. I let her climb gently away which she did with the usual aplomb.
We turned on track to the north west and continued the climb to 3200’ (I always like to avoid round 1000’s and 500’s) and levelled out there. Top of climb checks and lean the mixture. Before I knew it, we were over the Malverns. Time for a few normal and steep turns! The RV handles steep turns really well and is a pleasure to fly.
I let Rob try a ‘normal’ angle of bank turn for a full 360 degrees. He is a keen Flight Simulator ‘pilot’ and it showed! He had his eyes glued to the instruments, especially the altimeter most of the time. I explained visual reference flying to him. I made a similar mistake when I was learning and was ‘rewarded’ by my instructor sticking a piece of paper over all the instruments and making me do a couple of manoeuvres purely visually, only to be rewarded by the ‘reveal’ when he took the paper away to see that I had only lost 100’ – so it can be done!
The visibility was much better than last time and Rob got some much better photographs.
Despite Gloucester being very quiet, I was spotting several aircraft in flight. None close enough to worry, but then if you can see them at all, it is a worry!
Over to Bredon Hill to check it is still there and I played ‘spot Croft Farm’ from a safe 4200’. We spotted it and heard at least two aircraft heading in to Croft Farm. While orbiting Croft Farm, we spotted to twin about 500’ above heading in a Brize Norton direction.
Over to my home village to ‘buzz the town’ (of course from the correct legal altitude – besides the village is so small, I have to turn around the outside). More pictures as I set course to the North East and climbed while getting the latest Gloucester ATIS. Winds had dropped and were minimal and variable (that’s what I like to hear).
Suitably organised, I headed back to base and called for rejoin over Gretton. The airfield had not combined TWR and APP frequencies and were very quiet (apart from turning around the scheduled Dornier commercial flight from the Isle of Man). I was given a direct long final join for 27.
I misjudged the height a bit and was too high and too fast over the racecourse – the RV is very slippery. So I pulled to power and held altitude to slow the plane. Once closed, I put some power in and started a sideslip. Managed to get to a sensible height over the distinctive ‘doughnut’ shaped office building (about 2 mile final). Called final and cleared to land. Speed slowed to flap limiting speed and dropped the flaps. Got 80kts and decayed this to the desired 70kts. I ran through the landing in my mind.
Good approach path, good speed, windsock hanging with the odd flicker at the bottom to show it was still alive – but barely – my kind of wind! Cleared to land and backtrack (they really ARE quiet). Over the hedge for 27, past the displaced threshold. Power off, fly level. Edge back on the stick, tiny movements as the elevators are powerful and sensitive. No balloon, back more, a bit more, stall warner starting to chirp, back more, more, wheels touch – bit of a small hop, back more, touch again and we stay down, stick fully back to anchor the tailwheel. We are down – good landing – pleased with that.
Carefully slowed the aircraft, gentle braking. Now going very slowly, carefully turn the plane around for the backtrack. I am possibly being too careful about this, but rather that than an embarrassing pirouette! Taxied back and shut down.
Lovely flight in good weather. I can’t wait to go touring now. I have two weekends booked in July, both for trips to France (weather permitting of course).
And no Manuel – I didn’t grease the fuel caps!
The Caen trip is on the same weekend as the huge RIAT Airshow at Fairford. That’s a pain because they will create a bloody great big RAT (Restricted Airspace) in a huge upside-down layer-cake arrangement directly between Gloucester and the south coast (where I need to head). No matter - a quick look at the charts and I will head south towards the ‘gap’ between Bristol and Lyneham, then coast out at Portland (if the Danger Areas are closed) routing to Cherbourg, then along the east coast of the Cotentin peninsula overflying the invasion beaches headed for Caen – should work nicely.
With the June weekends being heavily booked and things at work being very busy (with a one week business trip to India in early June), I decided to keep my newly-minted taildragger skills up to date with a quick local of an evening after work (blessed be the long summer evenings!).
The weather on Wednesday was pretty good – a bit like to opening sequence of the Simpsons – odd puffy clouds and light winds. Despite the forecast for rain by late afternoon, this had not happened by 15:00, so I checked the on-line booking and booked the plane for the evening. A quick trip back home to see if anyone wanted to come with me as self-loading ballast and my daughter’s boyfriend volunteered.
Drove the 20 minutes to the airfield and parked up. Quick check of the NOTAMS (can’t be too careful, even on a local, especially in the summer – I would hate to blunder into a Red Arrows display).
I booked out and checked the plane out. Amazingly, it had nearly full tanks – great, no trip to the pumps. The plane was in good order and I noted that the brakes had been serviced from the tech log.
Pulled the plane out and got in. Gave Rob another safety brief (he had one last time, but I wanted to go through the key safety points again, especially the seat belts and canopy opening / jettison). Started up and lit up the panel. The ATIS said basically that all runways except 27 were closed due to grass cutting and that the winds were 220 / 10 knots. OK, could be a crosswind here, but I am happy with 10 knots, so we set off.
The brakes were noticeable ‘rumbly’, but we had be warned that this might be so, so no drama.
Power checks OK and I was cleared for take off on 27. The windsock showed very little wind, so the wind had dropped since the ATIS, but be aware of a possible crosswind from the left, so a bit of left aileron and read with right rudder during the take off run. In the event, I didn’t seem to need any more than normal. The tail came up quickly and the RV started hopping merrily down the runway like an excited toddler heading towards the beach. I let her climb gently away which she did with the usual aplomb.
We turned on track to the north west and continued the climb to 3200’ (I always like to avoid round 1000’s and 500’s) and levelled out there. Top of climb checks and lean the mixture. Before I knew it, we were over the Malverns. Time for a few normal and steep turns! The RV handles steep turns really well and is a pleasure to fly.
I let Rob try a ‘normal’ angle of bank turn for a full 360 degrees. He is a keen Flight Simulator ‘pilot’ and it showed! He had his eyes glued to the instruments, especially the altimeter most of the time. I explained visual reference flying to him. I made a similar mistake when I was learning and was ‘rewarded’ by my instructor sticking a piece of paper over all the instruments and making me do a couple of manoeuvres purely visually, only to be rewarded by the ‘reveal’ when he took the paper away to see that I had only lost 100’ – so it can be done!
The visibility was much better than last time and Rob got some much better photographs.
Despite Gloucester being very quiet, I was spotting several aircraft in flight. None close enough to worry, but then if you can see them at all, it is a worry!
Over to Bredon Hill to check it is still there and I played ‘spot Croft Farm’ from a safe 4200’. We spotted it and heard at least two aircraft heading in to Croft Farm. While orbiting Croft Farm, we spotted to twin about 500’ above heading in a Brize Norton direction.
Over to my home village to ‘buzz the town’ (of course from the correct legal altitude – besides the village is so small, I have to turn around the outside). More pictures as I set course to the North East and climbed while getting the latest Gloucester ATIS. Winds had dropped and were minimal and variable (that’s what I like to hear).
Suitably organised, I headed back to base and called for rejoin over Gretton. The airfield had not combined TWR and APP frequencies and were very quiet (apart from turning around the scheduled Dornier commercial flight from the Isle of Man). I was given a direct long final join for 27.
I misjudged the height a bit and was too high and too fast over the racecourse – the RV is very slippery. So I pulled to power and held altitude to slow the plane. Once closed, I put some power in and started a sideslip. Managed to get to a sensible height over the distinctive ‘doughnut’ shaped office building (about 2 mile final). Called final and cleared to land. Speed slowed to flap limiting speed and dropped the flaps. Got 80kts and decayed this to the desired 70kts. I ran through the landing in my mind.
Good approach path, good speed, windsock hanging with the odd flicker at the bottom to show it was still alive – but barely – my kind of wind! Cleared to land and backtrack (they really ARE quiet). Over the hedge for 27, past the displaced threshold. Power off, fly level. Edge back on the stick, tiny movements as the elevators are powerful and sensitive. No balloon, back more, a bit more, stall warner starting to chirp, back more, more, wheels touch – bit of a small hop, back more, touch again and we stay down, stick fully back to anchor the tailwheel. We are down – good landing – pleased with that.
Carefully slowed the aircraft, gentle braking. Now going very slowly, carefully turn the plane around for the backtrack. I am possibly being too careful about this, but rather that than an embarrassing pirouette! Taxied back and shut down.
Lovely flight in good weather. I can’t wait to go touring now. I have two weekends booked in July, both for trips to France (weather permitting of course).
And no Manuel – I didn’t grease the fuel caps!
Monday, May 19, 2008
Yet more locals!
Surprisingly, the aircraft wasn’t booked at all over the weekend, until that is it was booked late in the week for Saturday for its 25 hour service. Sunday was a great day weather-wise – sunny and warm with scattered ‘fair-weather cumulus’. Unfortunately, I had flown it on Friday evening and had to paint the front window. However, I did this in short order and my thoughts turned to flying again at about mid-afternoon. A quick check of the booking system showed it was booked for one hour between 16:00 and 17:00 with a note to say the person wasn’t going to fly, but just wanted to take the GPS unit out of the plane and home so he could program the flight plans for a coming trip.
Great, so I booked it for 2 hours from 17:15! I gave Mark, my neighbour a shout to see if he was interested in a local as he hasn’t flown in this plane yet (and I owe him a trip to the D-Day beaches). He was up for it, so we piled in the car and off for the 20 minute drive to the airfield.
We got there about 16:30 and there was no trace of the other group member and the GPS was still in place. No matter, I checked the plane over in the hangar then pulled it out onto the ramp. I gave Mark the safety brief, especially how the canopy releases and seat belts worked. It was approaching 17:00, but to while away the time, Mark and I watched someone at the pumps trying to ‘hand-prop’ start a biplane. He was having a few problems with a couple of trips to look under the engine covers and tinker. What surprised me was that he was doing all this without anyone in the cockpit (I thought it was a ‘golden rule’ to have someone competent at the controls?). I guess if I was a gentleman, I would have walked the 100 m or so and helped out? Well, he got it going eventually, but I suspect he was a bit hot and bothered.
Hmmmmm…..17:00 and still no show by the guy who wanted the GPS. I wasn’t certain how to remove it. Managed to pull it out, but it had a serial port connector (which I could easily take off) and a brass connector that looked like it was screwed in – well that was too much for me, so rather than tinker with something I wasn’t certain about, I refitted it and assumed it was a ‘no show’ by the earlier booking. Just in case, I left a note on the locker and booked the plane out.
Of course it needed more fuel, so we refuelled and added some 64 litres. By now it was 17:20. I checked the hangar and still no show by the other group member, so we mounted up and called for taxi clearance. It was runway 04, so off to B1 for 04 crossing 36.
I pointed out to Mark the restricted forward view while taxying and that I could just see forward without having to resort to weaving. We pulled up to B1 as I did the power checks. The plane was fine and all readings were as expected. I called ‘ready for departure’.
I had previously explained to Mark about the differences between taildraggers and the nosewheel aircraft he had previously flown with me in. I checked the windsock, minimal wind, maybe a little from the right, then I applied power, stick slightly forward of neutral to raise the tail. Tail up, modest dance on the pedals and the plane started to ‘skip’ happily along the runway – she was getting ready to fly. Ease back a bit and off she went, happily climbing away at 1000 fpm with two big guys and a decent fuel load. Mark was amazed at how little ground run it needed.
I flew straight ahead until past the noise-sensitive Staverton village (I kid you not, there is a lady there that sits outside with a clock and binoculars recording the registration of every aircraft that overflies the village and sends the list into the airfield as a noise complaint!), then set course to see if the Malverns were still there. We climbed to about 4000’ then set the plane up for the cruise as I allowed the speed to build, pulled the throttle back to cruise and leaned the mixture. This gave a very reasonable 23 lph and 135 kts airspeed.
I showed Mark a few normal turns then a few steep turns. He flies model aircraft, so has some idea of the forces involved and what is going on. I gave him the controls and he managed straight and level and some modest turns. He quickly adapted to the very sensitive controls and immediately declared it ‘like a fighter’.
We flew down the Wye Valley at 3000’ and checked that the two Severn bridges were still there – they were! Then we headed back to the airfield IFR (I Follow the River) up the Severn. I got the ATIS and called Gloster Approach overhead Lydney. They gave me a straight-in approach to long final for 04 and asked me to report at 4 miles.
Overhead the bends in the Servern, a helicopter called and reported at the same position as me. I didn’t catch his altitude, so asked Gloster – it was fine, he was only at 1000’ and shortly he reported visual with me.
I played with the GPS and for fun set ‘direct to’ Gloster – well, it would also give me the range so I could accurately report my 4 miles. I do find this unit not as easy as the Garmin 430’s I am used to, but I will have to get use to it I guess.
I had a cruise descent on, but was still pretty high. I reported 4 miles and was cleared to land – circuit not busy then! I was way high and fast, so power back and started side-slipping. This worked well as I unwound from the sideslip and brought the speed back by flying level with the throttle close. Once in flap limiting speed, dropped one stage of flap, then the second and set up for about 80 kts. Two mile final now. At one mile, brought the speed back to 70kts. Good altitude now with one pinky red and one white from the PAPI’s. Tower reported wind agreed with the windsock – 050 / 05 kts – almost perfect!
I had earlier briefed Mark on what to expect on landing and not only NOT to be alarmed if the stall warner went off before we touched, but to be alarmed if it didn’t – coz it would mean we could well bounce! Fortunately, he is an experience passenger and used to my dry humour!
Rounded out and flew level as she eased down. Gently back on the stick, back a bit more, a bit more, more yet….. chirp of the stall warner, back more, stall warner now constant, more yet and the wheels touch – and stay touched! Back more on the stick to nail the tailwheel – stick fully back, ride the landing roll with the pedals (not much needed and she slows to an easy taxi without any braking (I find I rarely use brakes with this aircraft, only really for engine start, occasional turns and power checks).
A good landing and again I say as much to Mark – not to brag, but to ‘condition his expectations’ for future landings in less than ideal conditions like today.
Taxi in and shut down. The other group member has turned up and is quite understanding that I took the plane after his booking slot. He shows me how to undo the GPS unit (which of course is simplicity itself) and heads off with it to program in his flight plans for a Scotland trip starting tomorrow.
Mark thoroughly enjoyed the flight and the handling of the aircraft. I remind him that he needs to come back to me with one or two weekends that he is free for this D-Day beaches trip so I can book the plane.
Well, another good flight in near ideal conditions. I am now looking forward to ‘breaking out’ of the local area. Maybe I should book a weekend for myself and the wife for one of my long overdue trips with her to one of the channel ports – this time either Etaples or Honfleur.
Great, so I booked it for 2 hours from 17:15! I gave Mark, my neighbour a shout to see if he was interested in a local as he hasn’t flown in this plane yet (and I owe him a trip to the D-Day beaches). He was up for it, so we piled in the car and off for the 20 minute drive to the airfield.
We got there about 16:30 and there was no trace of the other group member and the GPS was still in place. No matter, I checked the plane over in the hangar then pulled it out onto the ramp. I gave Mark the safety brief, especially how the canopy releases and seat belts worked. It was approaching 17:00, but to while away the time, Mark and I watched someone at the pumps trying to ‘hand-prop’ start a biplane. He was having a few problems with a couple of trips to look under the engine covers and tinker. What surprised me was that he was doing all this without anyone in the cockpit (I thought it was a ‘golden rule’ to have someone competent at the controls?). I guess if I was a gentleman, I would have walked the 100 m or so and helped out? Well, he got it going eventually, but I suspect he was a bit hot and bothered.
Hmmmmm…..17:00 and still no show by the guy who wanted the GPS. I wasn’t certain how to remove it. Managed to pull it out, but it had a serial port connector (which I could easily take off) and a brass connector that looked like it was screwed in – well that was too much for me, so rather than tinker with something I wasn’t certain about, I refitted it and assumed it was a ‘no show’ by the earlier booking. Just in case, I left a note on the locker and booked the plane out.
Of course it needed more fuel, so we refuelled and added some 64 litres. By now it was 17:20. I checked the hangar and still no show by the other group member, so we mounted up and called for taxi clearance. It was runway 04, so off to B1 for 04 crossing 36.
I pointed out to Mark the restricted forward view while taxying and that I could just see forward without having to resort to weaving. We pulled up to B1 as I did the power checks. The plane was fine and all readings were as expected. I called ‘ready for departure’.
I had previously explained to Mark about the differences between taildraggers and the nosewheel aircraft he had previously flown with me in. I checked the windsock, minimal wind, maybe a little from the right, then I applied power, stick slightly forward of neutral to raise the tail. Tail up, modest dance on the pedals and the plane started to ‘skip’ happily along the runway – she was getting ready to fly. Ease back a bit and off she went, happily climbing away at 1000 fpm with two big guys and a decent fuel load. Mark was amazed at how little ground run it needed.
I flew straight ahead until past the noise-sensitive Staverton village (I kid you not, there is a lady there that sits outside with a clock and binoculars recording the registration of every aircraft that overflies the village and sends the list into the airfield as a noise complaint!), then set course to see if the Malverns were still there. We climbed to about 4000’ then set the plane up for the cruise as I allowed the speed to build, pulled the throttle back to cruise and leaned the mixture. This gave a very reasonable 23 lph and 135 kts airspeed.
I showed Mark a few normal turns then a few steep turns. He flies model aircraft, so has some idea of the forces involved and what is going on. I gave him the controls and he managed straight and level and some modest turns. He quickly adapted to the very sensitive controls and immediately declared it ‘like a fighter’.
We flew down the Wye Valley at 3000’ and checked that the two Severn bridges were still there – they were! Then we headed back to the airfield IFR (I Follow the River) up the Severn. I got the ATIS and called Gloster Approach overhead Lydney. They gave me a straight-in approach to long final for 04 and asked me to report at 4 miles.
Overhead the bends in the Servern, a helicopter called and reported at the same position as me. I didn’t catch his altitude, so asked Gloster – it was fine, he was only at 1000’ and shortly he reported visual with me.
I played with the GPS and for fun set ‘direct to’ Gloster – well, it would also give me the range so I could accurately report my 4 miles. I do find this unit not as easy as the Garmin 430’s I am used to, but I will have to get use to it I guess.
I had a cruise descent on, but was still pretty high. I reported 4 miles and was cleared to land – circuit not busy then! I was way high and fast, so power back and started side-slipping. This worked well as I unwound from the sideslip and brought the speed back by flying level with the throttle close. Once in flap limiting speed, dropped one stage of flap, then the second and set up for about 80 kts. Two mile final now. At one mile, brought the speed back to 70kts. Good altitude now with one pinky red and one white from the PAPI’s. Tower reported wind agreed with the windsock – 050 / 05 kts – almost perfect!
I had earlier briefed Mark on what to expect on landing and not only NOT to be alarmed if the stall warner went off before we touched, but to be alarmed if it didn’t – coz it would mean we could well bounce! Fortunately, he is an experience passenger and used to my dry humour!
Rounded out and flew level as she eased down. Gently back on the stick, back a bit more, a bit more, more yet….. chirp of the stall warner, back more, stall warner now constant, more yet and the wheels touch – and stay touched! Back more on the stick to nail the tailwheel – stick fully back, ride the landing roll with the pedals (not much needed and she slows to an easy taxi without any braking (I find I rarely use brakes with this aircraft, only really for engine start, occasional turns and power checks).
A good landing and again I say as much to Mark – not to brag, but to ‘condition his expectations’ for future landings in less than ideal conditions like today.
Taxi in and shut down. The other group member has turned up and is quite understanding that I took the plane after his booking slot. He shows me how to undo the GPS unit (which of course is simplicity itself) and heads off with it to program in his flight plans for a Scotland trip starting tomorrow.
Mark thoroughly enjoyed the flight and the handling of the aircraft. I remind him that he needs to come back to me with one or two weekends that he is free for this D-Day beaches trip so I can book the plane.
Well, another good flight in near ideal conditions. I am now looking forward to ‘breaking out’ of the local area. Maybe I should book a weekend for myself and the wife for one of my long overdue trips with her to one of the channel ports – this time either Etaples or Honfleur.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Flying with passengers again
Since I am now signed off, I retained the additional booking I had for Friday late afternoon / early evening so I could go for a bimble if the weather was OK.
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!
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!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Taildragger sign off!
It seemed pretty odd to be looking out of the window on Monday hoping for a decent wind, but that is exactly what I was doing! What I really need now is a nice 10-15kt wind so I can do crosswind tailwheel circuits as the final part of my tailwheel complexity sign-off.
I called the airfield at 15:00 and they confirmed a wind of 050 / 12kts. Now I wasn’t scheduled to fly until 18:00 and the wind typically dies down of an evening, but it was enough for me to at least turn up and expect to fly. So it turned out. The wind was still reasonable at 18:00, so Phil agreed we did crosswind circuits.
I booked out and told the tower we wanted crosswind, so they advised that although 04 was in use, that they would put me on 09 with left hand circuits – oh great – the ‘long march of death’ again on a very warm, sunny day under the RV’s bubble canopy!
Away we trundled as I carefully positioned the stick according to the wind position for the taxi. Lined up at 09 and did a crosswind take off, with the crosswind coming from the left (so even more right rudder than normal once the tail came up). Take off was OK, a bit too much into wind aileron, so we started to turn once I got airborne, but soon corrected that and climbed away.
Did four landings on 09 (with right rudder and left aileron), the last one was fun as Phil realised that we didn’t have time for a normal height circuit before the scheduled metroliner flight to IOM wanted to take off and we would end up being held, so he took control and with tower consent, did a VERY low level circuit and handed back to me on a normal looking approach on short final for 09 – you know, he could have asked me to do the low level circuit, but NO – he wants to have all the fun himself!! Spoilsport! (well, it isn’t much fun for an instructor otherwise is it?).
Then we switched to 36 so the wind was from the right – so left rudder and right aileron (it is preferable to have the wind from this side as you have more rudder authority – not that the moderate crosswind of 12kts was taxing this).
Did four landings on 36.
One or two of the landings were good with very little, if any bounce and the rest had a modest bounce or two, but of course it was my job and good training to control and cope with this, which I guess I did do. I think it is fair to say my movements aren’t entirely fluid, but I do know what I am trying to do and I do it, but obviously not as fluidly as Phil or Roly.
Phil’s comments were that I know what I am doing and that I am safe, but not expert and that I need is to do crosswind landings myself now and build my confidence and personal limits. To my great pleasure, he signed me off for tailwheel in the logbook.
So now I am fully signed off – at long last! It will be nice because from now on, my monthly group bills for landing fees will be less than the bill for the hourly rates! I can’t wait to ‘catch-up’ on the ‘backlog’ of flying I want to do. I already have passengers chomping at the bit for one or two locals and a promised weekend in Caen – not to mention weekend breaks in Honfleur with the wife.
Well, better get on with it then!
I called the airfield at 15:00 and they confirmed a wind of 050 / 12kts. Now I wasn’t scheduled to fly until 18:00 and the wind typically dies down of an evening, but it was enough for me to at least turn up and expect to fly. So it turned out. The wind was still reasonable at 18:00, so Phil agreed we did crosswind circuits.
I booked out and told the tower we wanted crosswind, so they advised that although 04 was in use, that they would put me on 09 with left hand circuits – oh great – the ‘long march of death’ again on a very warm, sunny day under the RV’s bubble canopy!
Away we trundled as I carefully positioned the stick according to the wind position for the taxi. Lined up at 09 and did a crosswind take off, with the crosswind coming from the left (so even more right rudder than normal once the tail came up). Take off was OK, a bit too much into wind aileron, so we started to turn once I got airborne, but soon corrected that and climbed away.
Did four landings on 09 (with right rudder and left aileron), the last one was fun as Phil realised that we didn’t have time for a normal height circuit before the scheduled metroliner flight to IOM wanted to take off and we would end up being held, so he took control and with tower consent, did a VERY low level circuit and handed back to me on a normal looking approach on short final for 09 – you know, he could have asked me to do the low level circuit, but NO – he wants to have all the fun himself!! Spoilsport! (well, it isn’t much fun for an instructor otherwise is it?).
Then we switched to 36 so the wind was from the right – so left rudder and right aileron (it is preferable to have the wind from this side as you have more rudder authority – not that the moderate crosswind of 12kts was taxing this).
Did four landings on 36.
One or two of the landings were good with very little, if any bounce and the rest had a modest bounce or two, but of course it was my job and good training to control and cope with this, which I guess I did do. I think it is fair to say my movements aren’t entirely fluid, but I do know what I am trying to do and I do it, but obviously not as fluidly as Phil or Roly.
Phil’s comments were that I know what I am doing and that I am safe, but not expert and that I need is to do crosswind landings myself now and build my confidence and personal limits. To my great pleasure, he signed me off for tailwheel in the logbook.
So now I am fully signed off – at long last! It will be nice because from now on, my monthly group bills for landing fees will be less than the bill for the hourly rates! I can’t wait to ‘catch-up’ on the ‘backlog’ of flying I want to do. I already have passengers chomping at the bit for one or two locals and a promised weekend in Caen – not to mention weekend breaks in Honfleur with the wife.
Well, better get on with it then!
Monday, May 12, 2008
Pray for bad weather!
With a nasty combination of pilot availability, instructor availability, aircraft availability and weather, I am still trying to get signed off on my tailwheel complexity for the RV6. Last time, I found out my instructor was off on a three week holiday and not back until 19th May. Well, that was too much, so I contacted the CFI at Cotswold and Phil was astonished that I wasn’t yet signed off and was happy to take up the reins. So I booked three sessions with him, the first on Saturday 10th May.
I am OK with ‘into wind’ landings, so I was looking for a decent wind so we could do crosswind landings. But again the weather was ‘unkind’ – by that I mean it was a lovely, sunny day, warm and without a breath of wind – ideal flying weather, except when you want to do crosswind training!
I bumped into Phil inbound from one of his lessons as I was checking the plane over. He asked if I still wanted to go. I said yes, may as well refresh myself (and demonstrate to Phil) with a few normal landings.
Listening to the tower in the clubhouse I was astounded. The guy in the tower could barely take a breath and there were people ‘stepping on’ each other with multiple transmissions. The circuit was full and people were going around – it sounded like Heathrow on a bad day! What the hell was going on – was it really just the weather? Phil advised me that it was the LAA ‘Young Eagles’ day where pilots volunteer to give youngsters their first taste of small aircraft flying – OK that explains it – hope they still allow us to book out for circuits!
They did and we set off. Unfortunately we were on runway 09, which mans the long march from the apron around to the other side of the airfield – all that with the bubble canopy of the RV buttoned up – so we were getting warm pretty quickly!
We seemed to have hit a quiet patch as I took off for circuits. The take-off was good and we climbed away. With the warmer air and a heavier instructor (my other instructor is quite small and light), I noticed the difference in performance and it occurred to me that this aircraft was very weight sensitive compared to the production aircraft I was used to, where weight seems to make little difference.
My first landing was at the same airspeed as I use with my lighter instructor and the plane definitely had a higher stalling speed this time. Still a good landing, but not so much time to fly level and bleed the speed back. Phil suggested I try for 70kts next time and that worked fine as I held off for longer and was rewarded with another good landing.
Basically, after three good and one (dare I say it) very good landing, Phil suggested we call it a day as I he agreed, I really needed crosswind and wasn’t particularly learning anything in these conditions.
On my final circuit, there was a Robin flying a VERY close circuit (I swear he was flying along the runway centre-line), so with ATC permission, I turned the long way around onto base. As I was joining base, I could see a TB20 on converging course from downwind – so a quick reduction in power and we passed safely underneath him – no drama, definitely not danger close, but could have been interesting if we didn’t have our wits about us.
Good approach and in view of the traffic behind us, I did try to land ‘long’ (which we did), but the runway is still so long and I really needed a slowly taxying aircraft to steer off the end of the runway, that I had to slow on the runway to walking pace. The tower were switched on and gave the TB20 a ‘land after’. This didn’t bother either me or him as the runway is plenty long enough and I was very close to the turnoff.
Well, a good session. What I learned today was that the RV is very sensitive to weight which in turn affects stall and therefore approach speeds. This explains why when flying solo and using the same ‘numbers’, the aircraft still has waaayyyy too much energy. Now we all know that from our flying exams, but it is the first time I have actually experienced it in practice – but then this is by far the lightest aircraft I have flown, so maybe no surprise. I am now confident of nil or into wind landings.
Well, pray for windy weather – next session booked for Monday 12th May after work.
I am OK with ‘into wind’ landings, so I was looking for a decent wind so we could do crosswind landings. But again the weather was ‘unkind’ – by that I mean it was a lovely, sunny day, warm and without a breath of wind – ideal flying weather, except when you want to do crosswind training!
I bumped into Phil inbound from one of his lessons as I was checking the plane over. He asked if I still wanted to go. I said yes, may as well refresh myself (and demonstrate to Phil) with a few normal landings.
Listening to the tower in the clubhouse I was astounded. The guy in the tower could barely take a breath and there were people ‘stepping on’ each other with multiple transmissions. The circuit was full and people were going around – it sounded like Heathrow on a bad day! What the hell was going on – was it really just the weather? Phil advised me that it was the LAA ‘Young Eagles’ day where pilots volunteer to give youngsters their first taste of small aircraft flying – OK that explains it – hope they still allow us to book out for circuits!
They did and we set off. Unfortunately we were on runway 09, which mans the long march from the apron around to the other side of the airfield – all that with the bubble canopy of the RV buttoned up – so we were getting warm pretty quickly!
We seemed to have hit a quiet patch as I took off for circuits. The take-off was good and we climbed away. With the warmer air and a heavier instructor (my other instructor is quite small and light), I noticed the difference in performance and it occurred to me that this aircraft was very weight sensitive compared to the production aircraft I was used to, where weight seems to make little difference.
My first landing was at the same airspeed as I use with my lighter instructor and the plane definitely had a higher stalling speed this time. Still a good landing, but not so much time to fly level and bleed the speed back. Phil suggested I try for 70kts next time and that worked fine as I held off for longer and was rewarded with another good landing.
Basically, after three good and one (dare I say it) very good landing, Phil suggested we call it a day as I he agreed, I really needed crosswind and wasn’t particularly learning anything in these conditions.
On my final circuit, there was a Robin flying a VERY close circuit (I swear he was flying along the runway centre-line), so with ATC permission, I turned the long way around onto base. As I was joining base, I could see a TB20 on converging course from downwind – so a quick reduction in power and we passed safely underneath him – no drama, definitely not danger close, but could have been interesting if we didn’t have our wits about us.
Good approach and in view of the traffic behind us, I did try to land ‘long’ (which we did), but the runway is still so long and I really needed a slowly taxying aircraft to steer off the end of the runway, that I had to slow on the runway to walking pace. The tower were switched on and gave the TB20 a ‘land after’. This didn’t bother either me or him as the runway is plenty long enough and I was very close to the turnoff.
Well, a good session. What I learned today was that the RV is very sensitive to weight which in turn affects stall and therefore approach speeds. This explains why when flying solo and using the same ‘numbers’, the aircraft still has waaayyyy too much energy. Now we all know that from our flying exams, but it is the first time I have actually experienced it in practice – but then this is by far the lightest aircraft I have flown, so maybe no surprise. I am now confident of nil or into wind landings.
Well, pray for windy weather – next session booked for Monday 12th May after work.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Solo Taildragging
With my instructor now off on holiday for three weeks, I decided to keep my hand in and do some solo general handling and a couple of circuits.
The weather was OK, low pressure with cumulus and scattered Cumulo-Nimbus with attendant showers. Needless to say as I was setting off to the airport from work that evening, the mother of all CuNim’s came across – it was huge and looked like something from the film ‘Independence Day’, just at the bit where the mother saucers burst our of the cloud! However, I carried on as it would soon clear.
Checked the aircraft out in the hangar as the showers blew over. The wind was within the limits set for me, so I booked out.
Fuelled up and took off from runway 27 heading IFR (I Follow the River) to the south west. The RV6 was agreeably sprightly with only one person on board and before I knew it I was at 3000’ over the bends in the river. I wrote out a list of things I wanted to do, among them was playing with the avionics. So I tuned the VOR to BCN and tracked in for a bit. Then I played with the GPS and the ‘goto’ function. By this time, I was over Ross on Wye and could see another shower ahead, so I turned and headed towards the Malverns.
Around the Malverns, I started with the steep turns. The RV absolutely loves them! Before long, I was poling 70 – 80 degree angles of bank with a couple of G to maintain altitude. The plane really does love it (and so do I!).
The showers seemed to start to close in. It was annoying because I just knew that by sunset, the clouds would disappear for a lovely clear night (exactly what happened), but that is not now. So I decided discretion to be the better part of valour and around Bredon Hill, contacted Gloster Approach for rejoin (I didn’t want to chance gusty and variable direction winds with a limited sign-off on a taildragger.
I was given direct in to final for 22. I had trouble spotting the airfield in all the shadow, although I knew where it was from the surrounding landmarks. I flew through a small shower, just enough to give the canopy a nice ‘power shower’! The wind wasn’t a problem, at about 240/08. My approach was OK (not great, but OK). I rounded out, pulled the power and started to flare. I touched earlier than I wanted (slightly misjudged my height), but very gently and tried to ease back on the stick to bleed the speed off and fly level. But the RV is very sensitive in pitch and I ballooned it a bit. I recovered this, but bounced on the next touch – that’s it, I’m out of here! Power on for a go-around – maybe I could have landed off that, but what’s the hurry and why press the position?
Next approach was better, but I still didn’t get all of the flying out of her before we touched and was punished with another bounce. I recovered this, added a blip of power before touching down again and held her on this time.
Why is it that with the instructor, I can punch the into wind landings out like shelling peas, but by myself it is not so good (could be the lighter weight of course)? Maybe I need a blow up dummy in the right seat, maybe I’ll ask him for a picture – that would work!
She is an absolute pleasure to fly, and I think that solo practice and landing consolidation is called for. I am sure I have got a few lessons ahead on crosswind landings once my instructor returns from holiday in mid-May. No hurry – I’ll get there and undoubtedly be a better pilot for it.
The weather was OK, low pressure with cumulus and scattered Cumulo-Nimbus with attendant showers. Needless to say as I was setting off to the airport from work that evening, the mother of all CuNim’s came across – it was huge and looked like something from the film ‘Independence Day’, just at the bit where the mother saucers burst our of the cloud! However, I carried on as it would soon clear.
Checked the aircraft out in the hangar as the showers blew over. The wind was within the limits set for me, so I booked out.
Fuelled up and took off from runway 27 heading IFR (I Follow the River) to the south west. The RV6 was agreeably sprightly with only one person on board and before I knew it I was at 3000’ over the bends in the river. I wrote out a list of things I wanted to do, among them was playing with the avionics. So I tuned the VOR to BCN and tracked in for a bit. Then I played with the GPS and the ‘goto’ function. By this time, I was over Ross on Wye and could see another shower ahead, so I turned and headed towards the Malverns.
Around the Malverns, I started with the steep turns. The RV absolutely loves them! Before long, I was poling 70 – 80 degree angles of bank with a couple of G to maintain altitude. The plane really does love it (and so do I!).
The showers seemed to start to close in. It was annoying because I just knew that by sunset, the clouds would disappear for a lovely clear night (exactly what happened), but that is not now. So I decided discretion to be the better part of valour and around Bredon Hill, contacted Gloster Approach for rejoin (I didn’t want to chance gusty and variable direction winds with a limited sign-off on a taildragger.
I was given direct in to final for 22. I had trouble spotting the airfield in all the shadow, although I knew where it was from the surrounding landmarks. I flew through a small shower, just enough to give the canopy a nice ‘power shower’! The wind wasn’t a problem, at about 240/08. My approach was OK (not great, but OK). I rounded out, pulled the power and started to flare. I touched earlier than I wanted (slightly misjudged my height), but very gently and tried to ease back on the stick to bleed the speed off and fly level. But the RV is very sensitive in pitch and I ballooned it a bit. I recovered this, but bounced on the next touch – that’s it, I’m out of here! Power on for a go-around – maybe I could have landed off that, but what’s the hurry and why press the position?
Next approach was better, but I still didn’t get all of the flying out of her before we touched and was punished with another bounce. I recovered this, added a blip of power before touching down again and held her on this time.
Why is it that with the instructor, I can punch the into wind landings out like shelling peas, but by myself it is not so good (could be the lighter weight of course)? Maybe I need a blow up dummy in the right seat, maybe I’ll ask him for a picture – that would work!
She is an absolute pleasure to fly, and I think that solo practice and landing consolidation is called for. I am sure I have got a few lessons ahead on crosswind landings once my instructor returns from holiday in mid-May. No hurry – I’ll get there and undoubtedly be a better pilot for it.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Crosswind Circuits
With a ‘perfect storm’ combination of:
• The aircraft being out of commission (500 hour magneto check and big bill for new magneto distributor disks),
• Really crappy weather,
• Lack of an instructor (he is Saturday and weekday evenings only),
• Personal injury (bruised ribs from a dramatic fall while finding new and exciting ways of not stopping while ice skating),
I have not been flying for five weeks, despite being close to the end of my now very protracted taildragger training.
I have got the general handling and into-wind landings sorted, but really need crosswind landings yet for full sign off. So in hope, I booked Monday evening for both the plane and the instructor.
The previous Saturday and Sunday had been really poor weather. A mixture of poorly defined stratus cloud and mist with some drizzly rain and very poor visibility. Monday dawned little better, but from my office window I seemed to imagine it improving (i.e. getting not as bad) slowly through the day to something that might permit at least circuits from 17:00. The wind was good for crosswind, not too gusty, but a steady 10-15 kts.
By the time I set out for the airfield, I was confident of flying as the cloud had lifted considerably.
I rocked up at 16:30 and started checking the plane out. That complete, Roly turned up and we agreed to meet at the pumps as I wanted a bit more fuel on board.
I started her up working carefully through the checklist. With taxy clearance, I started out for the pumps, being careful to keep the stick position correct for the wind direction. Since my training by Roly, he has reconsidered his advice on stick positions and it now accords with what I had read and have been advised by other group members. It is another thing you have to think carefully about in a taildragger that you pay scant attention to in a tricycle gear plane.
I parked into wind and put about 20 litres in each tank. Then the ‘long march’ to B1 for 04 for a few into wind refresher circuits first (I hadn’t flown to five weeks). Again, I was careful to keep the correct stick position during taxi and keep the speed down (rather than zoom around like a go-kart as you see some of the tricycle gear pilots doing).
Power checks complete, we took off from 04 for left hand circuits. The take off run went well as I got the tail up early, danced on the pedals (although not much dancing was required as the wind was pretty much straight down the runway) and before I knew it she was flying. The RV6 really has bags of power and get airborne very quickly, even close to MAUW.
We climbed away and were careful to turn before Staverton village (noise sensitive area). I did the usual downwind checks and calls – I was the only one in the circuit and I think the Tower could barely conceal their boredom. Turned base and pulled the power back. Maintained height to bleed the speed off to within flap limiting speed and pulled flaps on.
Set up for a reasonable approach to 04, wind sock pointed directly at us, so right down the runway and tower reporting 040/13. The approach was OK as I crossed the numbers and pulled the power. She settled as I started to pull back slowly on the stick and fly level just off the ground. I could just feel the mains just kissing the ground, but continued to pull back, and back until the stall warner chirped and we touched for good. Well, that was a close as I suspect I may ever come to pulling a ‘greaser’ in a taildragger! Roly was pleased as he said ‘they don’t come much better than that’. I was well chuffed as I dropped the flaps and gunned the engine and got airborne again.
The next circuit was again pretty good though I say it myself – not great, but good.
The third was a really great approach - I was feeling terribly pleased with myself for a nice, stable approach where I didn't have to touch the power or muck around with airspeed, while I was congratulating myself, the tower interrupted with a 'clear touch and go' as I was on very short final - nothing odd about that except that I had totally forgotten to call final myself - OOOPPPSSS! (Tower thinking what a numpty I am - pride comes before a fall and all that good stuff - I guess we have all been there!). Mind you, the landing was good as well. All of this surprised me as I was five weeks out of practice and the previous solo effort wasn’t as good.
So we agreed to progress to crosswind circuits. I requested runway 36, with the wind at 050 / 13G17 – not heavy, but plenty sporting enough for my first attempts in a taildragger.
The first one went very well, but that is where it ended. The rest varied from OK to ‘not too good’ – firm but fair, with a bounce or two, but nothing so bad that a go-around was in order.
The bottom line is that I was making the novice error of applying the movements as three separate inputs – rudder / into wind aileron / pull back to fly level - almost like a military drill rather than as fluid, combined movements. However, the last one went reasonably, so I finished on a high note. I did find it fun holding the plane straight along the runway by dancing on the rudder bars as I controlled the landing and subsequent take-off.
So 12 circuits in total that session, three into wind and nine crosswind. I would guess that I will probably need one or two more sessions with Roly on crosswind. Unfortunately, Roly is away on holiday for two weeks, so it will have to wait for his return, probably more evenings as he is block booked well in advance on Saturdays.
He is happy for me to fly solo into a steady wind, so I will do this to get really comfortable until his return from holiday, then launch into crosswind.
I now have about 7.5 hours on the RV since I bought into the group in December. This is dragging on, but I suspect that anyone who has been trying to fly anything VFR since December may have had a pretty torrid time of it.
• The aircraft being out of commission (500 hour magneto check and big bill for new magneto distributor disks),
• Really crappy weather,
• Lack of an instructor (he is Saturday and weekday evenings only),
• Personal injury (bruised ribs from a dramatic fall while finding new and exciting ways of not stopping while ice skating),
I have not been flying for five weeks, despite being close to the end of my now very protracted taildragger training.
I have got the general handling and into-wind landings sorted, but really need crosswind landings yet for full sign off. So in hope, I booked Monday evening for both the plane and the instructor.
The previous Saturday and Sunday had been really poor weather. A mixture of poorly defined stratus cloud and mist with some drizzly rain and very poor visibility. Monday dawned little better, but from my office window I seemed to imagine it improving (i.e. getting not as bad) slowly through the day to something that might permit at least circuits from 17:00. The wind was good for crosswind, not too gusty, but a steady 10-15 kts.
By the time I set out for the airfield, I was confident of flying as the cloud had lifted considerably.
I rocked up at 16:30 and started checking the plane out. That complete, Roly turned up and we agreed to meet at the pumps as I wanted a bit more fuel on board.
I started her up working carefully through the checklist. With taxy clearance, I started out for the pumps, being careful to keep the stick position correct for the wind direction. Since my training by Roly, he has reconsidered his advice on stick positions and it now accords with what I had read and have been advised by other group members. It is another thing you have to think carefully about in a taildragger that you pay scant attention to in a tricycle gear plane.
I parked into wind and put about 20 litres in each tank. Then the ‘long march’ to B1 for 04 for a few into wind refresher circuits first (I hadn’t flown to five weeks). Again, I was careful to keep the correct stick position during taxi and keep the speed down (rather than zoom around like a go-kart as you see some of the tricycle gear pilots doing).
Power checks complete, we took off from 04 for left hand circuits. The take off run went well as I got the tail up early, danced on the pedals (although not much dancing was required as the wind was pretty much straight down the runway) and before I knew it she was flying. The RV6 really has bags of power and get airborne very quickly, even close to MAUW.
We climbed away and were careful to turn before Staverton village (noise sensitive area). I did the usual downwind checks and calls – I was the only one in the circuit and I think the Tower could barely conceal their boredom. Turned base and pulled the power back. Maintained height to bleed the speed off to within flap limiting speed and pulled flaps on.
Set up for a reasonable approach to 04, wind sock pointed directly at us, so right down the runway and tower reporting 040/13. The approach was OK as I crossed the numbers and pulled the power. She settled as I started to pull back slowly on the stick and fly level just off the ground. I could just feel the mains just kissing the ground, but continued to pull back, and back until the stall warner chirped and we touched for good. Well, that was a close as I suspect I may ever come to pulling a ‘greaser’ in a taildragger! Roly was pleased as he said ‘they don’t come much better than that’. I was well chuffed as I dropped the flaps and gunned the engine and got airborne again.
The next circuit was again pretty good though I say it myself – not great, but good.
The third was a really great approach - I was feeling terribly pleased with myself for a nice, stable approach where I didn't have to touch the power or muck around with airspeed, while I was congratulating myself, the tower interrupted with a 'clear touch and go' as I was on very short final - nothing odd about that except that I had totally forgotten to call final myself - OOOPPPSSS! (Tower thinking what a numpty I am - pride comes before a fall and all that good stuff - I guess we have all been there!). Mind you, the landing was good as well. All of this surprised me as I was five weeks out of practice and the previous solo effort wasn’t as good.
So we agreed to progress to crosswind circuits. I requested runway 36, with the wind at 050 / 13G17 – not heavy, but plenty sporting enough for my first attempts in a taildragger.
The first one went very well, but that is where it ended. The rest varied from OK to ‘not too good’ – firm but fair, with a bounce or two, but nothing so bad that a go-around was in order.
The bottom line is that I was making the novice error of applying the movements as three separate inputs – rudder / into wind aileron / pull back to fly level - almost like a military drill rather than as fluid, combined movements. However, the last one went reasonably, so I finished on a high note. I did find it fun holding the plane straight along the runway by dancing on the rudder bars as I controlled the landing and subsequent take-off.
So 12 circuits in total that session, three into wind and nine crosswind. I would guess that I will probably need one or two more sessions with Roly on crosswind. Unfortunately, Roly is away on holiday for two weeks, so it will have to wait for his return, probably more evenings as he is block booked well in advance on Saturdays.
He is happy for me to fly solo into a steady wind, so I will do this to get really comfortable until his return from holiday, then launch into crosswind.
I now have about 7.5 hours on the RV since I bought into the group in December. This is dragging on, but I suspect that anyone who has been trying to fly anything VFR since December may have had a pretty torrid time of it.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks!
Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks!
This tailwheel sign-off business is proving to be very frustrating. I have been part of the group since late December and for various reasons, have only managed 6.5 hours flying (and 41 landings mind you!). Combination of weather (mainly), plane going tech, holiday, lack of instructor etc.
For the last three weeks, I have been hoping for evening lessons to do crosswind landings for full sign-off, but the plane has been tech (magneto 500 hour check revealed we needed new distributor disks - no I don't know what these are either!). It is hard looking out of the window at perfect flying weather with no plane.
Magnetos sorted last week and finally got the plane back in commission last Saturday. So booked tonight with the instructor.
Being careful, I checked my voicemail on the mobile about an hour before setting out - great, no messages.
Headed off to the airfield and of course the weather was fine - too fine, only a breath of wind with a pretty weedy crosswind. Never mind, I'll take what I can get.
I get to the club to be intercepted by the efficient administrator at Cotswold who seems upset that I didn't get the message from one of the other owners that when he turned up to fly at lunchtime, the right tyre was completely flat!
Sure enough - flat as a pancake and no one around at this time to look at it.
So another session cancelled.
Well, try again for one or two evening next week, but God! This is an exercise in frustration! Well, wlecome to the joys of aircraft ownership and flying in this country I guess! Still pissed off, but I feel a bit better for this rant!
This tailwheel sign-off business is proving to be very frustrating. I have been part of the group since late December and for various reasons, have only managed 6.5 hours flying (and 41 landings mind you!). Combination of weather (mainly), plane going tech, holiday, lack of instructor etc.
For the last three weeks, I have been hoping for evening lessons to do crosswind landings for full sign-off, but the plane has been tech (magneto 500 hour check revealed we needed new distributor disks - no I don't know what these are either!). It is hard looking out of the window at perfect flying weather with no plane.
Magnetos sorted last week and finally got the plane back in commission last Saturday. So booked tonight with the instructor.
Being careful, I checked my voicemail on the mobile about an hour before setting out - great, no messages.
Headed off to the airfield and of course the weather was fine - too fine, only a breath of wind with a pretty weedy crosswind. Never mind, I'll take what I can get.
I get to the club to be intercepted by the efficient administrator at Cotswold who seems upset that I didn't get the message from one of the other owners that when he turned up to fly at lunchtime, the right tyre was completely flat!
Sure enough - flat as a pancake and no one around at this time to look at it.
So another session cancelled.
Well, try again for one or two evening next week, but God! This is an exercise in frustration! Well, wlecome to the joys of aircraft ownership and flying in this country I guess! Still pissed off, but I feel a bit better for this rant!
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Maintenance!
I have been having rotten luck in the last four weeks since my solo circuits. Every time I have booked the plane, the weather was poor or blowing strong gusts - outside the 'limits' set for me on solo circuits until I get full sign off.
Then of course the clocks changed - great I thought - lovely, still evening circuits after work! No - the plane was due a 50 hour check AND a 500 hour magneto check. Then it turned out the magnetos needed two new distributor disks (as if I knew what one of those was!) and of course they had to be ordered. Bottom line was nearly two weeks of ideal evening weather and no plane. So I booked with an instructor for this Saturday, hoping to do my crosswind circuits and hoping the plane would be ready.
It turned out that it needed final checks and the repaired spat and engine cowling put back on, I was hoping it would be a mornings work and OK for a lesson at 13:00. I turned up to lend whatever help I could, givem my complete lack of knowledge about anything to do with mechanics and engines.
Manuel was working away and Lyndon was refitting the spat. I was handing Manuel screws and bits like a nurse in an operating theatre.
'Washer?'
'Washer'
'Crinkly washer?'
Crinkly washer'
'Coffee?'
'OK, I'll go!'
Meanwhile, Lyndon was attaching the now repaired spat (damaged in a disagreement with a rut on a grass runway - not me I hasten to add).
"How many bloody screws hold this thing on???!!!"
It wasn't looking good for midday and when the instructor appeared he too decided it was no go and took another student up. I could still try for solo circuits later. About 14:00 it was all back together except the cowling as Manuel took it outside for a test run of the engine.
"I'm sure there was something else I meant to do!"
That worked fine, so back in the hangar for the fiddly process of fitting the cowling with thin wire rods through an array of piano hinges. This was not intuitive stuff.
That complete, Lyndon left and we broke for lunch at the Aviator prior to a test flight. I thought I would salvage something of the day so offered to act as 'self-loading ballast' for the flight.
After lunch we went up, the the ATIS warning of shower, hail, strong winds and plagues of locusts and the black death (OK, maybe not locusts and black death!). It was the classic unstable atmosphere, chunky cumulus with clear bits. Off we went and climbed to about FL90, playing in and around the tops of all but the higher cumulus - needleass to say, I couldn't reach my camera! It was a very enjoyable flight and Manuel was having a good play with some nice steep turns - this plane cries out to be rated as aerobatic (as is now possible in the UK on an aircraft by aircraft basis).
The plane was fine, but the winds were outside the limits I am under, so I decided to try for circuits with the instructor during the week next week in the evenings.
I wandered back into the flying club and grabbed on the new charts and paid my annual subs. I was aware that I was a lot later than my wife expected so headed home thinking she might be starting to get concerned. I arrived back to find he stretched out on the sofa reading her latest book as she registered my appearance with a casual glance up and a 'how was you day' as she looked back at the book before I could reply.
Hmmmm.... maybe not too concerned!
....Oh yes - still waiting for the Canadian licence - two and a half months and counting.
Then of course the clocks changed - great I thought - lovely, still evening circuits after work! No - the plane was due a 50 hour check AND a 500 hour magneto check. Then it turned out the magnetos needed two new distributor disks (as if I knew what one of those was!) and of course they had to be ordered. Bottom line was nearly two weeks of ideal evening weather and no plane. So I booked with an instructor for this Saturday, hoping to do my crosswind circuits and hoping the plane would be ready.
It turned out that it needed final checks and the repaired spat and engine cowling put back on, I was hoping it would be a mornings work and OK for a lesson at 13:00. I turned up to lend whatever help I could, givem my complete lack of knowledge about anything to do with mechanics and engines.
Manuel was working away and Lyndon was refitting the spat. I was handing Manuel screws and bits like a nurse in an operating theatre.
'Washer?'
'Washer'
'Crinkly washer?'
Crinkly washer'
'Coffee?'
'OK, I'll go!'
Meanwhile, Lyndon was attaching the now repaired spat (damaged in a disagreement with a rut on a grass runway - not me I hasten to add).
"How many bloody screws hold this thing on???!!!"
It wasn't looking good for midday and when the instructor appeared he too decided it was no go and took another student up. I could still try for solo circuits later. About 14:00 it was all back together except the cowling as Manuel took it outside for a test run of the engine.
"I'm sure there was something else I meant to do!"
That worked fine, so back in the hangar for the fiddly process of fitting the cowling with thin wire rods through an array of piano hinges. This was not intuitive stuff.
That complete, Lyndon left and we broke for lunch at the Aviator prior to a test flight. I thought I would salvage something of the day so offered to act as 'self-loading ballast' for the flight.
After lunch we went up, the the ATIS warning of shower, hail, strong winds and plagues of locusts and the black death (OK, maybe not locusts and black death!). It was the classic unstable atmosphere, chunky cumulus with clear bits. Off we went and climbed to about FL90, playing in and around the tops of all but the higher cumulus - needleass to say, I couldn't reach my camera! It was a very enjoyable flight and Manuel was having a good play with some nice steep turns - this plane cries out to be rated as aerobatic (as is now possible in the UK on an aircraft by aircraft basis).
The plane was fine, but the winds were outside the limits I am under, so I decided to try for circuits with the instructor during the week next week in the evenings.
I wandered back into the flying club and grabbed on the new charts and paid my annual subs. I was aware that I was a lot later than my wife expected so headed home thinking she might be starting to get concerned. I arrived back to find he stretched out on the sofa reading her latest book as she registered my appearance with a casual glance up and a 'how was you day' as she looked back at the book before I could reply.
Hmmmm.... maybe not too concerned!
....Oh yes - still waiting for the Canadian licence - two and a half months and counting.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Solo taildragger circuits
After trying to fly every weekend since being given 'partial sign-off', althought eh forecast was for solid rain, the morning looked OK, murky, but little wind and easily 1000' cloudbase. Plus I had an email from one of the other group members who said he would probably finish earlier than his booking.
So I set off for the airfield hoping for at least a session of solo circuits.
As it turned out, the other member was out of currency according to group rules and was having a refresher session with 'my' instructor. I had a quick chat as they shut down. Roly confirmed it was good enough for me for circuits, so off I went. For once there was also plenty of fuel.
However, the wind was 130/9kts on runway 09, so some crosswind, but it was a steady wind. But runway 09 meant the 'long march of death' around to C1 for 09 - the other side of the airfield. So I carefully taxied around, taking care to keep the stick in the right position for the wind as I navigated the taxiways.
Line up and start the take off run. Allow into wind aileron and remember that I am lighter than I have ever been, so the plane will be a lot more sprightly. It was and the tail came up quickly, but I caught it in time and got enough rudder in to stop the swing. Before I knew it we were up and flying - you really don't rotate in the RV6, it tells you when it wants to fly and you'd better go along with it!
I am now getting used to the rapid rate of climb and we quickly gained the 1000' circuit height as I swung around crosswind for 09 with left hand circuits. I was behind one of the flight schools PA28's so held the revs back to somethin like 1700 rpm to keep a nice sedate circuit speed so I didn't chew his tail off in front.
I though about what I needed to do and did the downwind checks. Power right back and allow the aircraft to slow so I can get flaps on. Two stages in and 80 kts IAS on final. Let the speed bleed back, a bit high, less power, speed maybe 70-75 - damn, I wanted 65. Plane pointed a bit right to allow for the crosswind. Over the hedge. I was a bit fast and left the power on a bit too long. Round out, kick straight, feels like I am level, 3-point position and we touch - not hard, but a bit of a 'Spitfire bounce', control it and down again, bigger bounce this time - I don't like this - rather than risk a third and even bigger bounce, I push the throttle and the RV responds immediately as I do a go-around.
As I climb out I call 'go around' and clean up. Climbing out to circuit height, I figure what went wrong. Too much energy - a bit too fast, left the throttle on too long and didn't fly level long enough (or at all really?) to bleed the surplus off. OK, lesson learned, truy again.
Next time, better approach and speed, but again a bounce, and another, not as bad and probably could have controlled the third one, but decided to power up and 'get out of Dodge' again.
OK, getting boring now! Analyse what yiou are doing wrong and deal with it - you know what to do, why aren't you doing it? Tried not to beat myself up and vowed to make this a good one. Just get the airspeed right, fly level and the plane will settle itself - you know how to do this!
Third approach was better and speed was good. Fly level and hold off, hold off, three point attitude and we touch. She doesn't bounce this time, but I feel the tail wheel starting to bounce - damn, c'mon Steve, anchor the stick back in your nuts - you know better than to let the tail flap like that. I get it back in my nuts and sure enough, the tail stays stuck! Clean up and off we go again.
This time, the tower issues a general broadcast as the clag closes in even more and light rain starts to spatter the canopy. This isn't a passing cloud, this is the steady claggy rain that was predicted. I am very keen to get a few circuits in now no that I have cleared the cobwebs. I debate about a couple more circuits but decide against it and tell Gloucester on the downwind that this will be to land as I am starting to get wet up here. The last thing I want is to worry about the weather, crosswinds and landing - too many risk factors at this stage.
I set up for landing and manage another good one (not great, but good). I roll all the way to the end and vacate at A2.
What a bummer, I was just getting into that.
Once again, I realise just how important it is to consolidate your learning with solo flying as you don't realise just how much feedback you are getting from your instructor even when he is saying and doing nothing - that in itself is of course feedback!!! Of course what I must develop is my own internal voice advising me.
All in all a good session and I learned a lot. I think I will need at least two more serious solo sessions in suitable weather and wind to really nail simple landings and get the consistent and develop my own internal voice, before going back to Roly for 'the crosswind challenge'!
Monday, March 10, 2008
Weather rant and big trip plannng
Taildragging
Having now received ‘limited sign-off’ for the taildragger, my instructor wanted me to ‘do a few hours’ by myself to get comfortable with the RV6, then go back to him for some ‘serious crosswind training and full sign-off’. By limited, he means winds 10 kts or less and no more than 30 degrees off the runway heading.
So of course I booked a slot for the very next weekend. At the appointed time, the weather looks good, but the winds are well outside the prescribed limit. I didn’t even have to look them up on the METAR’s, just looking out of my bedroom window said 15G25!
So of course I booked a slot for the very next weekend. At the appointed time ……… well, you get the picture!
I have now booked a slot for this coming Saturday. I am praying to the weather goods for their favour. This will be the Saturday that all the Irish will be heading home from the Cheltenham Gold Cup, so it might be a bit busy with Biz Jets!
Not that the weather was particularly bad. Had I been flying a nosewheel aircraft, I would certainly have flown and not been worried about it at all. To be fair, once I have been fully signed-off and have confidence in crosswind landings, I would also ‘probably’ have flown the RV, especially as Gloucester airport has three runways and the wind cannot be more than 30 degrees off the runway heading anyway. But I can see that wind is a far bigger factor with tailwheel aircraft than with nosewheel and I will have to think quite carefully about wind at some of the large, single runway French airports (and particularly about alternates with more favourably aligned runways).
Planning for the Big Flying Trip 2008
On another subject, I have been planning and thinking through the ‘Big Flying Trip’ I am planning for August 2008. Actually, not a very ‘big’ trip at all due to serious constraints on holiday this year (just changed jobs, lower year 1 entitlement etc.).
I am planning a visit to see my buddy in Ottawa, then hire a C172 and fly for a four day tour to New York City then back via NY low level city tour, Niagara Falls and Toronto City Airport.
As I am not a hairy-ars*d sky god who thinks that planning is for students or low hour clear-sky-only wimps or who cares what Jeremy Clarkson thinks - I have been getting all the maps and AFD’s together and planning the routes and airfields etc. Yes, I know it’s in August and ages away, but for me the planning is fun and adds to the anticipation and makes sure I don’t miss out on anything.
Although I have flown in the USA, that was mainly training and I have not done any touring as such. So although I have read-up on radio procedures and flight services, I have not actually used the likes of Flight Following – so this will be something of another first for me. I have asked a few detailed questions of my American brother-in-law’s brother, who is an FAA instructor.
One thing I have noticed is how much clearer the UK maps are than the FAA ones and how much better the UK internet airfield facility is than the AFD paper books you have to buy. I know that there is an element of ‘what you are used to’, but even so! The Canadian and USA maps are a bit like Jeppesen VFR maps, the land is always tinted green or other colours to indicate relief.
UK maps have land below 500’ as white and only tint for land above that altitude or for forests etc. (of course tinting for forests in Canada and USA would lead to maps almost entirely green anyway!). Its just that I find it a bit harder to mark up my track – I have taken to using pencil and marking the track with four parallel lines on the US maps, otherwise the track isn’t immediately obvious – for CAA maps, I use a medium ‘permanent’ marker in black and it stands out a treat.
I also like to mark ‘balloons’ on the map to indicate actions I need to take at various points along the track, like altitude changes, who to speak to on the radio etc. In this way, I really don’t need a PLOG at all (although I usually do one, I find I rarely refer to it). The only way I have found of making this work on the US charts with sufficient clarity is to cut out the sticky part of post-it notes and stick that on the maps at the appropriate point. It works fine, it’s just a bit more fiddly, that’s all. I suppose on the upside, US maps cost a fraction of the UK ones.
Anyway, the planning is going well and I have all the routes and airports planned, marked up, printed out and in a folder etc. Flyer Forum has again been a wonderful source of information and I never cease to be amazed at where the forum members have flown – I swear if I planned to fly around Tibet, there would be a person on the forum who has already done so and is willing to provide valuable tips!
What I will do now is to double check everything, programme the waypoints in on my backup Garmin Pilot 3 backup GPS and start to figure out what happens after I shutdown with transport, hotels and the like.
And yes – I am already thinking about 2009! Maybe a trip around southern USA, or maybe the Baltic countries.
Having now received ‘limited sign-off’ for the taildragger, my instructor wanted me to ‘do a few hours’ by myself to get comfortable with the RV6, then go back to him for some ‘serious crosswind training and full sign-off’. By limited, he means winds 10 kts or less and no more than 30 degrees off the runway heading.
So of course I booked a slot for the very next weekend. At the appointed time, the weather looks good, but the winds are well outside the prescribed limit. I didn’t even have to look them up on the METAR’s, just looking out of my bedroom window said 15G25!
So of course I booked a slot for the very next weekend. At the appointed time ……… well, you get the picture!
I have now booked a slot for this coming Saturday. I am praying to the weather goods for their favour. This will be the Saturday that all the Irish will be heading home from the Cheltenham Gold Cup, so it might be a bit busy with Biz Jets!
Not that the weather was particularly bad. Had I been flying a nosewheel aircraft, I would certainly have flown and not been worried about it at all. To be fair, once I have been fully signed-off and have confidence in crosswind landings, I would also ‘probably’ have flown the RV, especially as Gloucester airport has three runways and the wind cannot be more than 30 degrees off the runway heading anyway. But I can see that wind is a far bigger factor with tailwheel aircraft than with nosewheel and I will have to think quite carefully about wind at some of the large, single runway French airports (and particularly about alternates with more favourably aligned runways).
Planning for the Big Flying Trip 2008
On another subject, I have been planning and thinking through the ‘Big Flying Trip’ I am planning for August 2008. Actually, not a very ‘big’ trip at all due to serious constraints on holiday this year (just changed jobs, lower year 1 entitlement etc.).
I am planning a visit to see my buddy in Ottawa, then hire a C172 and fly for a four day tour to New York City then back via NY low level city tour, Niagara Falls and Toronto City Airport.
As I am not a hairy-ars*d sky god who thinks that planning is for students or low hour clear-sky-only wimps or who cares what Jeremy Clarkson thinks - I have been getting all the maps and AFD’s together and planning the routes and airfields etc. Yes, I know it’s in August and ages away, but for me the planning is fun and adds to the anticipation and makes sure I don’t miss out on anything.
Although I have flown in the USA, that was mainly training and I have not done any touring as such. So although I have read-up on radio procedures and flight services, I have not actually used the likes of Flight Following – so this will be something of another first for me. I have asked a few detailed questions of my American brother-in-law’s brother, who is an FAA instructor.
One thing I have noticed is how much clearer the UK maps are than the FAA ones and how much better the UK internet airfield facility is than the AFD paper books you have to buy. I know that there is an element of ‘what you are used to’, but even so! The Canadian and USA maps are a bit like Jeppesen VFR maps, the land is always tinted green or other colours to indicate relief.
UK maps have land below 500’ as white and only tint for land above that altitude or for forests etc. (of course tinting for forests in Canada and USA would lead to maps almost entirely green anyway!). Its just that I find it a bit harder to mark up my track – I have taken to using pencil and marking the track with four parallel lines on the US maps, otherwise the track isn’t immediately obvious – for CAA maps, I use a medium ‘permanent’ marker in black and it stands out a treat.
I also like to mark ‘balloons’ on the map to indicate actions I need to take at various points along the track, like altitude changes, who to speak to on the radio etc. In this way, I really don’t need a PLOG at all (although I usually do one, I find I rarely refer to it). The only way I have found of making this work on the US charts with sufficient clarity is to cut out the sticky part of post-it notes and stick that on the maps at the appropriate point. It works fine, it’s just a bit more fiddly, that’s all. I suppose on the upside, US maps cost a fraction of the UK ones.
Anyway, the planning is going well and I have all the routes and airports planned, marked up, printed out and in a folder etc. Flyer Forum has again been a wonderful source of information and I never cease to be amazed at where the forum members have flown – I swear if I planned to fly around Tibet, there would be a person on the forum who has already done so and is willing to provide valuable tips!
What I will do now is to double check everything, programme the waypoints in on my backup Garmin Pilot 3 backup GPS and start to figure out what happens after I shutdown with transport, hotels and the like.
And yes – I am already thinking about 2009! Maybe a trip around southern USA, or maybe the Baltic countries.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Taildragger circuits
I have had a bit of a break in my taildragger training. Last time I flew was the end of January. Then I went on a one week holiday in Canada and wrestled with Transport Canada to get one of their PPL’s issued on the back of my FAA ticket.
Following all of this, after my return from Canada, I got a nasty cold and have only now shaken it – probably not a good idea to get into taildragger circuits with a snotty nose.
So I had a lesson on Saturday. Check the plane out and of course it needed fuel. That and the ground tug unit had been left bolted to the towbar connected to the Citation jet in the hangar and blocking the exit so I couldn’t pull out the diminutive RV6. So I asked the firecrew if they knew how to move it and they obliged.
The weather wasn’t great. Started off as I was driving to the airfield at about 900’ cloudbase with I would guess 5km visibility and a breeze. By the time I was ready for start-up, the cloudbase had ‘solidified’ and apart from visible shower patches, was now 1200’ with 10km visibility.
So I started up and taxied to the pumps. My instructor met me there and as I started to taxi in, he indicated that I went around the other way – then it dawned on me why – always point the nose into the wind with taildragger, regardless of how they are lined up at the pumps. Lesson well learned.
I filled up and we practiced synchronised breathing to get in the cramped confines of the cockpit and get strapped in.
We were given good old 22 with right hand circuits, so off I trundled, taking great care to keep the stick at the opposite side to the wind (i.e. if the wind is blowing from the front left quarter, stick back at bottom right quarter etc. Especially important to push it fully forward when the wind is coming from behind to try to stop the wind lifting the tail and dumping it on its nose.
We lined up and took off. The wind was about 200/10, not particularly gusty, but keep an eye on the showers as they would be preceded by gusty conditions and variable wind direction.
In summary, the first few landings went pretty well. I still need to anticipate and get right rudder in when lifting the tail on take-off, but I was getting there. The last few were still OK, but I was tending to flare a bit too high (Roly said nothing to worry about, probably only three feet or so too high.
On one occasion, I noted we were descending rather quickly, so I tried to arrest the rate of descent with a pull back on the stick, but of course the powerful pitch control of the RV caught me out and I over-cooked it so that we ballooned a bit. But I just set myself up gain for a second landing and flare and made an OK landing. Roly was impressed, not that I had screwed it up but how I recovered and still did a good landing.
On the last landing, I touched down, got the tail nailed then next thing I knew, we were back up into the air. Handled the second landing and asked Roly what I had done wrong. ‘Nothing’ he said, ‘you got hit by a gust just after you got the tail nailed which sent you up again’. Almost certainly wouldn’t have happened on a nosewheel aircraft because of the level attitude, whereas of course with a taildragger, there is a very nose-high attitude.
There really is a lot to get used to landing and particularly ground-handling a taildragger. My bad habits of ‘switching off’ in a tricycle gear aircraft once the nosewheel is down and ‘driving it like a car’ with perfunctory attention to wind direction and strength (other than in a howling gale) have now been well and truly excised. Don’t get me wrong – I am not trying to say that it requires super-human skill to learn to fly, land and ground handle a taildragger, but it does show up any bad habits you may have acquired flying tricycle gear aircraft. Tricycle gear must have revolutionised crosswind landings and ground handling when it was introduced in the 1940’s.
The thing it has taught me is to have an obsession for wind strength and direction ALL OF THE TIME, especially on the ground. Always check the windsock, don’t just rely on the tower reported wind, check it with your own eyes.
Anyway, Roly now confirms that I have ‘partial sign-off’ and can fly without an instructor, but only with a wind of less than 10kts and wind direction no more than 30 degrees off the runway. Basically, get comfortable with the plane and do a few landings until I fell that I have got it pegged, then come back to him for crosswind landing training and full sign-off.
So next week, solo general handling in the local area. Play with the avionics and back for maybe three or four circuits. I suspect I will repeat this for a few flights, then go back to Roly in April for some really sweaty crosswind landings then full sign off in time for the ‘season’. A few weekends in France now ‘backed-up’ and in need of flying!
Following all of this, after my return from Canada, I got a nasty cold and have only now shaken it – probably not a good idea to get into taildragger circuits with a snotty nose.
So I had a lesson on Saturday. Check the plane out and of course it needed fuel. That and the ground tug unit had been left bolted to the towbar connected to the Citation jet in the hangar and blocking the exit so I couldn’t pull out the diminutive RV6. So I asked the firecrew if they knew how to move it and they obliged.
The weather wasn’t great. Started off as I was driving to the airfield at about 900’ cloudbase with I would guess 5km visibility and a breeze. By the time I was ready for start-up, the cloudbase had ‘solidified’ and apart from visible shower patches, was now 1200’ with 10km visibility.
So I started up and taxied to the pumps. My instructor met me there and as I started to taxi in, he indicated that I went around the other way – then it dawned on me why – always point the nose into the wind with taildragger, regardless of how they are lined up at the pumps. Lesson well learned.
I filled up and we practiced synchronised breathing to get in the cramped confines of the cockpit and get strapped in.
We were given good old 22 with right hand circuits, so off I trundled, taking great care to keep the stick at the opposite side to the wind (i.e. if the wind is blowing from the front left quarter, stick back at bottom right quarter etc. Especially important to push it fully forward when the wind is coming from behind to try to stop the wind lifting the tail and dumping it on its nose.
We lined up and took off. The wind was about 200/10, not particularly gusty, but keep an eye on the showers as they would be preceded by gusty conditions and variable wind direction.
In summary, the first few landings went pretty well. I still need to anticipate and get right rudder in when lifting the tail on take-off, but I was getting there. The last few were still OK, but I was tending to flare a bit too high (Roly said nothing to worry about, probably only three feet or so too high.
On one occasion, I noted we were descending rather quickly, so I tried to arrest the rate of descent with a pull back on the stick, but of course the powerful pitch control of the RV caught me out and I over-cooked it so that we ballooned a bit. But I just set myself up gain for a second landing and flare and made an OK landing. Roly was impressed, not that I had screwed it up but how I recovered and still did a good landing.
On the last landing, I touched down, got the tail nailed then next thing I knew, we were back up into the air. Handled the second landing and asked Roly what I had done wrong. ‘Nothing’ he said, ‘you got hit by a gust just after you got the tail nailed which sent you up again’. Almost certainly wouldn’t have happened on a nosewheel aircraft because of the level attitude, whereas of course with a taildragger, there is a very nose-high attitude.
There really is a lot to get used to landing and particularly ground-handling a taildragger. My bad habits of ‘switching off’ in a tricycle gear aircraft once the nosewheel is down and ‘driving it like a car’ with perfunctory attention to wind direction and strength (other than in a howling gale) have now been well and truly excised. Don’t get me wrong – I am not trying to say that it requires super-human skill to learn to fly, land and ground handle a taildragger, but it does show up any bad habits you may have acquired flying tricycle gear aircraft. Tricycle gear must have revolutionised crosswind landings and ground handling when it was introduced in the 1940’s.
The thing it has taught me is to have an obsession for wind strength and direction ALL OF THE TIME, especially on the ground. Always check the windsock, don’t just rely on the tower reported wind, check it with your own eyes.
Anyway, Roly now confirms that I have ‘partial sign-off’ and can fly without an instructor, but only with a wind of less than 10kts and wind direction no more than 30 degrees off the runway. Basically, get comfortable with the plane and do a few landings until I fell that I have got it pegged, then come back to him for crosswind landing training and full sign-off.
So next week, solo general handling in the local area. Play with the avionics and back for maybe three or four circuits. I suspect I will repeat this for a few flights, then go back to Roly in April for some really sweaty crosswind landings then full sign off in time for the ‘season’. A few weekends in France now ‘backed-up’ and in need of flying!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Canadian licence based on FAA PPL
I asked about on Flyer Forum how best to go about getting a Canadian licence. They do provide temporary and time limited licences for JAA licences, but I wanted a permanent Canadian licence as I plan to fly there a few time in the next few years.
Given that I have both a JAA and a full FAA licence (i.e. NOT an FAA licence issued on the back of the JAA one), the responses indicated that there was a ‘simple’ way if getting a full Canadian licence issued on the basis of a FULL FAA licence (i.e. you can’t get a Canadian licence issued on the strength of an FAA licence which was issued linked to a JAA licence).
Apparently, this was a relatively new arrangement which involved taking a Canadian air law ‘difference’ exam and completing an application form. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Of course nothing is as simple as it sounds, especially not with Canadian red tape!
FAA Licence
As already mentioned, this has to be a full and independent FAA licence (i.e. not one issued via the paper validation route ‘on the back of’ a JAA or CAA licence). Mine was an independent licence that I got by going five hours flight training on an ‘N’ registered aircraft with an FAA instructor, then doing the full FAA multi-choice written exam and a full FAA flight test with an FAA examiner. I did this in Florida in 2004 as I planned to fly in the USA at some point and thought I may as well get the full licence while I was over there. Good decision as it turns out.
The Canadian paperwork was all on the internet, including guidelines and forms. These stated that it must be a full FAA licence with a current FAA medical. I have a current FAA medical. With the FAA, the licence does not expire, but you need to have completed a Biannual Flight Review (BFR) within the last two years in order to fly. The Canadian application didn’t say anything about having a current BFR, but I assumed that is what they would need. Of course, I am one year out of date, so I decided to arrange for a BFR in the UK before I went to Canada in February. I did this with Bill Tollett in Oxford where I rented a PA28 from a flying school in Oxford. All very straightforward and my logbook was suitably endorsed in January.
Canadian Medical
The application said that I needed a Canadian medical (of course Canadian humans are completed different from FAA and JAA humans, so of course a separate examination is required – Grrrr!). I decided that although it would be very much cheaper to have the exam in Canada, it would eat too much into my planned one week holiday and made it all a bit too much of a rush, so I decided to have the medical with a Canadian qualified doctor in the UK – good job that I did as it turned out! There is an internet search facility for Transport Canada authorised doctors and I found the list for the UK. The nearest to me was in Leamington Spa – one hours drive, so not too bad. I arranged the medical for 23rd December.
It was the same as all the other medicals and I passed. I was expecting the Doctor to tear off the top of the multi-part sheet he was completing and give it to me as my medical certificate there and then (like they do for the FAA medical, or a separate form that they give you for JAA). OH NO!!!! That would be far too easy wouldn’t it! The Canadian system is different. First, I couldn’t actually apply for anything in Canada without a number that was only allocated on receipt of a valid medical. For the first Canadian medical, he had to send all the forms off to Ottawa in Canada, where they would process them and send me back a medical ‘card’ with this precious number and room for AME stamps for subsequent medicals.
How long would all this take? He said 6-8 weeks! Great, its now just before Christmas (and we know how prompt the post office and government departments are over the Christmas and New Years break) and I plan to be in Canada on 1st February – tight given that I needed this precious medical card back in my hand before I went.
I gave it until 19th January before I chased then. I spoke to a very helpful lady in the end who seemed to know what she was talking about. She said the card had been printed and mailed on 16th January and should be with me within two weeks. If not, it was all on their system and all they had to do at the Ottawa exam centre was print one off locally. In the event, the medical certificate arrived on 23rd January, so just in time.
Transport Canada Application Form
This is a PDF that is readily available on the internet for local completion and printing- so far I am impressed! Of course it must have the precious number from the Canadian medical. The form was one page and very easy to complete. I summarised my flying times to date with the breakdown they required.
It does state that I need to hand it in in person at the nearest Transport Canada aviation centre. In my case as I was visiting Ottawa, it was the one in Ottawa near the international airport in Nepean. I also stated that I needed to provide:
• Proof of id, name and age (passport),
• Proof of flying experience (logbook),
• Proof of FAA licence (the FAA credit card style licence)
• Current FAA medical (how many medicals do you need)
• Current Canadian medical certificate.
To do both this and my Air Law ‘difference’ exam, I had to book an appointment. I did this in early November and was given 10:00 Monday 4th February. Here the saga really starts, but see below.
Transport Canada Difference Examination
I knew they wanted you to take a multi-choice test of 20 questions on areas of difference between the FAA and Canada. Seems reasonable. Although when I spoke to Transport Canada in Nepean they seemed vague and said ‘oh no, its 25 questions’. When I pointed them to the relevant entry on their own web site, they said ‘oh, that wrong, its 25’. Now I couldn’t care less if it’s 20 or 50, but it does worry you that Transport Canada didn’t seem to know!
Of course I thought I could do the exam at a flying club, like you can with both JAA and FAA. But oh no! In Canada, it must be done in one of the regional Transport Canada centres by appointment only (why oh why can’t we all do the same thing!). On the up side, I could do this in the same office I needed to hand the application form in t and it could all be one appointment. So far so good, if a pain.
The appointment
Here is where the fun started. When I booked the appointment in November, they confirmed it, but said they needed the precious number allocated on the medical for their system. I called them back with this on 24th January. They immediately said ‘Oh Mr H, haven’t you got any of our messages? We’ve been trying to contact you’. They said they couldn’t do Monday anymore as the person who would oversee the exam wasn’t in. I wasn’t happy at all and explained that I had arranged my entire one week holiday around this date and unless they could make the weekend, I didn’t have a spare day. They reluctantly agreed to get someone in from another office to cover so I could keep the original appointment. I was amazed, was I dealing with a Canadian government department or a Mom and Pop hardware store in Medicine Bend?
Then on the day before I was due to leave on the flight to Canada, I got another call saying again that they had been trying to contact me and they definitely couldn’t make Monday. I was even less happy than before and said you had already agreed to leave it on Monday. They said yes, but that now the relief person wasn’t available. They eventually escalated the story to say that now the entire office would be closed on both Monday and Tuesday. Of course there were no alternatives in Ottawa and the nearest alternative centres were in either Montreal or Toronto. I left it that I would speak with my buddy when I got to Canada and see where we could make a hole in the schedule. They agreed that I could call and make an appointment anytime on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday that week and they would fit me in. They said they felt bad about it, but nowhere near as bad as I did.
I spoke to Dan and he agreed that we could make it Thursday morning and leave for the hockey game in Montreal later in the day (it was on that evening). So I called and left a message on the answerphone on Monday asking for a 10:00 Thursday appointment. I called again on Wednesday morning once we got a signal on the mobile (I was in the wilds of Quebec on a snowmobile trip at the time) and they confirmed the date and time were OK.
On the day
I handed over the completed application form and all the documents they specified. They wanted to keep my logbook and said I could pick it up in a week. I explained I lived in the UK and couldn’t very well pick it up. They offered to mail it. I explained how valuable to books was and that I would not trust it to the mail. The lady disappeared and confirmed they could photocopy all of the pages there and then and work from copies – some element of sanity at last!
I asked them to confirm that they had seen everything they wanted as I would not be able to come back later on if they forgot anything. I suggested they take photocopies of everything just in case. When she saw the credit card style FAA licence she asked where the rest of the licence was. I had to spend some time assuring here that that was all there was. It seemed clear to me that she had not seen one before, a fact that she later confirmed when she said ‘we don’t do many of these’ – why am I not surprised!
I paid the fees for both the application itself ($CAN55) and the multi-choice examination ($CAN35), of course they had to put these through as two separate amounts – at least they took credit cards.
Paperwork formalities dealt with, she set me up for my exam. It is basically an abbreviated air law exam based on the differences between FAA and Canadian air law. And yes, it turned out to be 20 multi-choice questions in 1.5 hours (not the 25 they insisted earlier). They showed me into a separate room set up with about six desks and computer screens. My time started when I hit the OK button at my allotted screen.
Well I had revised for this. When I was last in Canada (March 2007) I bought the Canadian equivalent of the PPL confuser. It was on a CD and I answered the 163 question bank for Canadian air law many times over and very recently. I was regularly getting 98 – 100%. I knew every question and answer pretty much by heart so I was pretty confident.
Needless to say, my timing was my undoing. A new question set had been released since then but was not available on CD yet. So I was faced with a completely different set of questions and as I hadn’t actually studied the base material, a number of them I simply didn’t understand (I still don’t know what an ‘MF Area’ is!). That’ll teach me to try to take the short cut and not read the base material!
Well, I did the best I could. Some of them were obvious and easy, others not so much and some I simply didn’t get at all. Well, you either know the answer of you don’t, no amount of going through them for hours on end would make that any different. I ended up ‘belting’ through the exam in 18 minutes flat. I left the room with a feeling of dread – had I really come this far and gone to this much trouble to flunk a silly exam? What was their policy on re-takes and was I about to discover some silly rule saying that I had to wait a week before I could do a re-take?
I asked the lady how I did. She was astonished that I was so quick, but confirmed that I had passed – PHEW! I made the mistake of asking her my score – 65%! Well, the Canadian pass mark is 60% so I passed, but I felt really bad and embarrassed about it – what an idiot! Anyway, she printed off the exam results and gave me a copy. My advice? Read the f*cking source book and don't try the short cut!
That’s it. All done. Now all I have to do is wait while the red tape grinds into action and Canada liaises with the USA regarding my FAA licence etc. The form says it will take 90 days and the lady behind the desk didn’t hold out much hope that it would be any quicker. Not that this bothers me as I don’t plan to fly in Canada until August, so hopefully all will be OK.
So now I am keeping my fingers crossed that they didn’t forget or overlook anything.
For something that was meant to be an easy route, I found it far from easy and very frustrating. I never cease to be hacked off by the stupid differences between every country and their licensing authorities. You can present an English licence and drive a car anywhere in the world – why on earth can’t you do the same with flying? Why does each countries aviation authority have a different way of doing things and insist on their own medicals? Maybe to keep civil servants in jobs – surely not!
Flying is easy – it’s all the paperwork that’s hard!
Given that I have both a JAA and a full FAA licence (i.e. NOT an FAA licence issued on the back of the JAA one), the responses indicated that there was a ‘simple’ way if getting a full Canadian licence issued on the basis of a FULL FAA licence (i.e. you can’t get a Canadian licence issued on the strength of an FAA licence which was issued linked to a JAA licence).
Apparently, this was a relatively new arrangement which involved taking a Canadian air law ‘difference’ exam and completing an application form. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Of course nothing is as simple as it sounds, especially not with Canadian red tape!
FAA Licence
As already mentioned, this has to be a full and independent FAA licence (i.e. not one issued via the paper validation route ‘on the back of’ a JAA or CAA licence). Mine was an independent licence that I got by going five hours flight training on an ‘N’ registered aircraft with an FAA instructor, then doing the full FAA multi-choice written exam and a full FAA flight test with an FAA examiner. I did this in Florida in 2004 as I planned to fly in the USA at some point and thought I may as well get the full licence while I was over there. Good decision as it turns out.
The Canadian paperwork was all on the internet, including guidelines and forms. These stated that it must be a full FAA licence with a current FAA medical. I have a current FAA medical. With the FAA, the licence does not expire, but you need to have completed a Biannual Flight Review (BFR) within the last two years in order to fly. The Canadian application didn’t say anything about having a current BFR, but I assumed that is what they would need. Of course, I am one year out of date, so I decided to arrange for a BFR in the UK before I went to Canada in February. I did this with Bill Tollett in Oxford where I rented a PA28 from a flying school in Oxford. All very straightforward and my logbook was suitably endorsed in January.
Canadian Medical
The application said that I needed a Canadian medical (of course Canadian humans are completed different from FAA and JAA humans, so of course a separate examination is required – Grrrr!). I decided that although it would be very much cheaper to have the exam in Canada, it would eat too much into my planned one week holiday and made it all a bit too much of a rush, so I decided to have the medical with a Canadian qualified doctor in the UK – good job that I did as it turned out! There is an internet search facility for Transport Canada authorised doctors and I found the list for the UK. The nearest to me was in Leamington Spa – one hours drive, so not too bad. I arranged the medical for 23rd December.
It was the same as all the other medicals and I passed. I was expecting the Doctor to tear off the top of the multi-part sheet he was completing and give it to me as my medical certificate there and then (like they do for the FAA medical, or a separate form that they give you for JAA). OH NO!!!! That would be far too easy wouldn’t it! The Canadian system is different. First, I couldn’t actually apply for anything in Canada without a number that was only allocated on receipt of a valid medical. For the first Canadian medical, he had to send all the forms off to Ottawa in Canada, where they would process them and send me back a medical ‘card’ with this precious number and room for AME stamps for subsequent medicals.
How long would all this take? He said 6-8 weeks! Great, its now just before Christmas (and we know how prompt the post office and government departments are over the Christmas and New Years break) and I plan to be in Canada on 1st February – tight given that I needed this precious medical card back in my hand before I went.
I gave it until 19th January before I chased then. I spoke to a very helpful lady in the end who seemed to know what she was talking about. She said the card had been printed and mailed on 16th January and should be with me within two weeks. If not, it was all on their system and all they had to do at the Ottawa exam centre was print one off locally. In the event, the medical certificate arrived on 23rd January, so just in time.
Transport Canada Application Form
This is a PDF that is readily available on the internet for local completion and printing- so far I am impressed! Of course it must have the precious number from the Canadian medical. The form was one page and very easy to complete. I summarised my flying times to date with the breakdown they required.
It does state that I need to hand it in in person at the nearest Transport Canada aviation centre. In my case as I was visiting Ottawa, it was the one in Ottawa near the international airport in Nepean. I also stated that I needed to provide:
• Proof of id, name and age (passport),
• Proof of flying experience (logbook),
• Proof of FAA licence (the FAA credit card style licence)
• Current FAA medical (how many medicals do you need)
• Current Canadian medical certificate.
To do both this and my Air Law ‘difference’ exam, I had to book an appointment. I did this in early November and was given 10:00 Monday 4th February. Here the saga really starts, but see below.
Transport Canada Difference Examination
I knew they wanted you to take a multi-choice test of 20 questions on areas of difference between the FAA and Canada. Seems reasonable. Although when I spoke to Transport Canada in Nepean they seemed vague and said ‘oh no, its 25 questions’. When I pointed them to the relevant entry on their own web site, they said ‘oh, that wrong, its 25’. Now I couldn’t care less if it’s 20 or 50, but it does worry you that Transport Canada didn’t seem to know!
Of course I thought I could do the exam at a flying club, like you can with both JAA and FAA. But oh no! In Canada, it must be done in one of the regional Transport Canada centres by appointment only (why oh why can’t we all do the same thing!). On the up side, I could do this in the same office I needed to hand the application form in t and it could all be one appointment. So far so good, if a pain.
The appointment
Here is where the fun started. When I booked the appointment in November, they confirmed it, but said they needed the precious number allocated on the medical for their system. I called them back with this on 24th January. They immediately said ‘Oh Mr H, haven’t you got any of our messages? We’ve been trying to contact you’. They said they couldn’t do Monday anymore as the person who would oversee the exam wasn’t in. I wasn’t happy at all and explained that I had arranged my entire one week holiday around this date and unless they could make the weekend, I didn’t have a spare day. They reluctantly agreed to get someone in from another office to cover so I could keep the original appointment. I was amazed, was I dealing with a Canadian government department or a Mom and Pop hardware store in Medicine Bend?
Then on the day before I was due to leave on the flight to Canada, I got another call saying again that they had been trying to contact me and they definitely couldn’t make Monday. I was even less happy than before and said you had already agreed to leave it on Monday. They said yes, but that now the relief person wasn’t available. They eventually escalated the story to say that now the entire office would be closed on both Monday and Tuesday. Of course there were no alternatives in Ottawa and the nearest alternative centres were in either Montreal or Toronto. I left it that I would speak with my buddy when I got to Canada and see where we could make a hole in the schedule. They agreed that I could call and make an appointment anytime on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday that week and they would fit me in. They said they felt bad about it, but nowhere near as bad as I did.
I spoke to Dan and he agreed that we could make it Thursday morning and leave for the hockey game in Montreal later in the day (it was on that evening). So I called and left a message on the answerphone on Monday asking for a 10:00 Thursday appointment. I called again on Wednesday morning once we got a signal on the mobile (I was in the wilds of Quebec on a snowmobile trip at the time) and they confirmed the date and time were OK.
On the day
I handed over the completed application form and all the documents they specified. They wanted to keep my logbook and said I could pick it up in a week. I explained I lived in the UK and couldn’t very well pick it up. They offered to mail it. I explained how valuable to books was and that I would not trust it to the mail. The lady disappeared and confirmed they could photocopy all of the pages there and then and work from copies – some element of sanity at last!
I asked them to confirm that they had seen everything they wanted as I would not be able to come back later on if they forgot anything. I suggested they take photocopies of everything just in case. When she saw the credit card style FAA licence she asked where the rest of the licence was. I had to spend some time assuring here that that was all there was. It seemed clear to me that she had not seen one before, a fact that she later confirmed when she said ‘we don’t do many of these’ – why am I not surprised!
I paid the fees for both the application itself ($CAN55) and the multi-choice examination ($CAN35), of course they had to put these through as two separate amounts – at least they took credit cards.
Paperwork formalities dealt with, she set me up for my exam. It is basically an abbreviated air law exam based on the differences between FAA and Canadian air law. And yes, it turned out to be 20 multi-choice questions in 1.5 hours (not the 25 they insisted earlier). They showed me into a separate room set up with about six desks and computer screens. My time started when I hit the OK button at my allotted screen.
Well I had revised for this. When I was last in Canada (March 2007) I bought the Canadian equivalent of the PPL confuser. It was on a CD and I answered the 163 question bank for Canadian air law many times over and very recently. I was regularly getting 98 – 100%. I knew every question and answer pretty much by heart so I was pretty confident.
Needless to say, my timing was my undoing. A new question set had been released since then but was not available on CD yet. So I was faced with a completely different set of questions and as I hadn’t actually studied the base material, a number of them I simply didn’t understand (I still don’t know what an ‘MF Area’ is!). That’ll teach me to try to take the short cut and not read the base material!
Well, I did the best I could. Some of them were obvious and easy, others not so much and some I simply didn’t get at all. Well, you either know the answer of you don’t, no amount of going through them for hours on end would make that any different. I ended up ‘belting’ through the exam in 18 minutes flat. I left the room with a feeling of dread – had I really come this far and gone to this much trouble to flunk a silly exam? What was their policy on re-takes and was I about to discover some silly rule saying that I had to wait a week before I could do a re-take?
I asked the lady how I did. She was astonished that I was so quick, but confirmed that I had passed – PHEW! I made the mistake of asking her my score – 65%! Well, the Canadian pass mark is 60% so I passed, but I felt really bad and embarrassed about it – what an idiot! Anyway, she printed off the exam results and gave me a copy. My advice? Read the f*cking source book and don't try the short cut!
That’s it. All done. Now all I have to do is wait while the red tape grinds into action and Canada liaises with the USA regarding my FAA licence etc. The form says it will take 90 days and the lady behind the desk didn’t hold out much hope that it would be any quicker. Not that this bothers me as I don’t plan to fly in Canada until August, so hopefully all will be OK.
So now I am keeping my fingers crossed that they didn’t forget or overlook anything.
For something that was meant to be an easy route, I found it far from easy and very frustrating. I never cease to be hacked off by the stupid differences between every country and their licensing authorities. You can present an English licence and drive a car anywhere in the world – why on earth can’t you do the same with flying? Why does each countries aviation authority have a different way of doing things and insist on their own medicals? Maybe to keep civil servants in jobs – surely not!
Flying is easy – it’s all the paperwork that’s hard!
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Rockcliffe Airfield - Ottawa
On a recent trip to Ottawa, Canada to see my buddy, Dan, we wandered over to Rockcliffe Airfield to speak to the flying club about renting a plane for a mini-tour around Canada and the USA in the summer.
Spoke to the local club there - aptly named the Rockcliffe Flying Club. The airfield is based right next to the Outaouais River that runs through Ottawa. On the other side of the airfield is the excellent national aviation museum.
It was a typical, balmy Canadian winters day - snow, slight breeze and -8 degrees centigrade!
Couldn't resist the following photos. Write up on how my application for a Canadian licence based on my FAA licence went is to follow, when I get over my jet lag.
Rockcliffe Airfield is in this picture somewhere!
Runway boards barely visible above the snow drifts
Might be a good idea to check for snow and ice contamination before flying anywhere!
Well I haven't seen it before! A Citabria fitted with arctic tyres and skis. I had a chat with the owner who was getting ready for a flight with a destination on a frozen lake 400km north of Ottawa - If you know anything about Canadian geography, there is nothing 400km north of Ottawa!! Talk about living away from it all!! He also did a bit of mountain flying in France and Switzerland.
Spoke to the local club there - aptly named the Rockcliffe Flying Club. The airfield is based right next to the Outaouais River that runs through Ottawa. On the other side of the airfield is the excellent national aviation museum.
It was a typical, balmy Canadian winters day - snow, slight breeze and -8 degrees centigrade!
Couldn't resist the following photos. Write up on how my application for a Canadian licence based on my FAA licence went is to follow, when I get over my jet lag.
Rockcliffe Airfield is in this picture somewhere!
Runway boards barely visible above the snow drifts
Might be a good idea to check for snow and ice contamination before flying anywhere!
Well I haven't seen it before! A Citabria fitted with arctic tyres and skis. I had a chat with the owner who was getting ready for a flight with a destination on a frozen lake 400km north of Ottawa - If you know anything about Canadian geography, there is nothing 400km north of Ottawa!! Talk about living away from it all!! He also did a bit of mountain flying in France and Switzerland.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Energy is the key!
‘So – whaddya learn today Abner?’
‘Well Maw, seems enegy’s whur-its at flyin them thar planes wit the lil wheel doohicky at the back an all’
‘Y’mean yoo bin flyin all this time an you ain’t figgurd that aht yet?’
‘No Maw, guess I’m not real smart lahk’
OK – so that sums up my lesson flying circuits in the RV6 taildragger. The weather was good, with about 10 kts just slightly off the runway of 22 at Gloucester. Of course as I took off a large nasty cloud appeared and kicked up some gusts. The tower gave me a running commentary on the weather on my first final. It started with.
‘Wind 230 at 12 gusting 30’
Then as if that wasn’t enough to get my attention,
‘Caution, turbulence reported over the buildings on short final’
OK – wide awake now! The first two T&G’s were tentative and workmanlike, but OK I guess. Controlling the roll was better as were the subsequent takes offs.
The next few were one good and one not so good. But on the not so good ones, Roly asked me what happened and I told him. I know what I am doing wrong and at least do correct it.
Well in the end, I guess I just ran out of different ways of screwing up the landings and started to do good ones fairly consistently. It helped that the nasty black cloud had moved off and at least the wind had died down.
I learned that energy is the key and that the RV6 is happiest landing at 65kts and that there is a huge difference between 65 and 70 kts. That extra five knots will have you holding off for quite some time at the mercy of every crazy gust of wind.
In the end, after 11 circuits, Roly offered to jump out (I think he planned to do this when we had stopped on the ground!) and let me do a couple of solo circuits. I was sorely tempted, but as I am going on holiday to Canada shortly, then moving house on the weekend I get back, all this means I won’t fly again until 23 February at the earliest, so I declined, saying I preferred to do this again in late February and take it from there when I know I can fly most weekends.
So the drill is to do some decent landings with Roly in simple wind conditions, then fly off myself a few times in winds of 10 kts or less and no more than 30 degrees off the runway to build my confidence, then come back to him for serious crosswind training and full sign off.
Sounds good and I can’t wait. My wife is starting to wince at landing and instructor fees!
‘Well Maw, seems enegy’s whur-its at flyin them thar planes wit the lil wheel doohicky at the back an all’
‘Y’mean yoo bin flyin all this time an you ain’t figgurd that aht yet?’
‘No Maw, guess I’m not real smart lahk’
OK – so that sums up my lesson flying circuits in the RV6 taildragger. The weather was good, with about 10 kts just slightly off the runway of 22 at Gloucester. Of course as I took off a large nasty cloud appeared and kicked up some gusts. The tower gave me a running commentary on the weather on my first final. It started with.
‘Wind 230 at 12 gusting 30’
Then as if that wasn’t enough to get my attention,
‘Caution, turbulence reported over the buildings on short final’
OK – wide awake now! The first two T&G’s were tentative and workmanlike, but OK I guess. Controlling the roll was better as were the subsequent takes offs.
The next few were one good and one not so good. But on the not so good ones, Roly asked me what happened and I told him. I know what I am doing wrong and at least do correct it.
Well in the end, I guess I just ran out of different ways of screwing up the landings and started to do good ones fairly consistently. It helped that the nasty black cloud had moved off and at least the wind had died down.
I learned that energy is the key and that the RV6 is happiest landing at 65kts and that there is a huge difference between 65 and 70 kts. That extra five knots will have you holding off for quite some time at the mercy of every crazy gust of wind.
In the end, after 11 circuits, Roly offered to jump out (I think he planned to do this when we had stopped on the ground!) and let me do a couple of solo circuits. I was sorely tempted, but as I am going on holiday to Canada shortly, then moving house on the weekend I get back, all this means I won’t fly again until 23 February at the earliest, so I declined, saying I preferred to do this again in late February and take it from there when I know I can fly most weekends.
So the drill is to do some decent landings with Roly in simple wind conditions, then fly off myself a few times in winds of 10 kts or less and no more than 30 degrees off the runway to build my confidence, then come back to him for serious crosswind training and full sign off.
Sounds good and I can’t wait. My wife is starting to wince at landing and instructor fees!
Sunday, January 06, 2008
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.
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.
FAA BFR
Having established that it is easier to get a Canadian licence based on an FAA licence, the next hurdle was to get an FAA BFR to bring my FAA licence back into validity. I got my standalone FAA ticket just over three years ago and have not yet done the BFR that is due every two years.
Fortunately, there is an FAA instructor that lives in Oxford, so I can do it there. Next snag is that I am not signed off for tailwheel differences, so I couldn’t use the RV6 I have a share in. So I arranged to hire an old Piper Cherokee 180 from Pilot Flight Training at Oxford.
The day was fairly clear with good visibility and cold. There was a bit of a wind and at 240 / 15 it made for a nice crosswind on runway 19 at Oxford.
Bill Tollett turned up after I checked the aircraft and while it was being refuelled. So we had a briefing.
FAA BFR’s are merely flight reviews where you have to do a couple of hours review of the FAA Regulations and air law and then one hours flying training. There is no pass or fail, it is merely proof that you have had one hours flying instruction. I handed Bill the written questions he emailed me a few weeks ago with the answers and FAR / AIM references clearly indicated. One of them was a swine as for a long time, I couldn’t find where it listed the maintenance tasks a pilot was allowed to do – I knew it was in there, but could I find it? Could I buffalo! I did eventually find it tucked away.
Bill suggested we do the usual upper air work, steep turns, stalls etc. Including the US speciality – the departure stall! This is a fun one – you clean the aircraft up into take-off configuration, stuff in full power and nose up and up and up until it stalls at quite a steep climb angle. The upper airwork was fine. I find the contrast between the PA28 and the RV6 very stark indeed, but the PA28 felt like an old friend as I had trained on it and flown an Arrow for a while.
He gave me a simulated engine failure around Enstone and radioed for a landing on the northside grass. I went through the drill and must have been a bit dopey as I lined up downwind in the wrong direction! Bill didn’t say anything until fairly late when he realised I really hadn’t twigged that landing with a tailwind wasn’t a good idea! He did mention it though and I felt a perfect idiot and turned hard to line up for a more conventional approach. I thought the height was good, pulled on one stage of flaps, but obviously misjudged the headwind as I had to take the flap off as it was touch and go whether we would make it or not. Bill decided on a go-around as we may have made it but may also have taken the aerial off the control tower that stood between me and the threshold of the northside grass! CONCENTRATE STEVE!
We headed back to Oxford for a few circuits in various configurations. First was a normal approach and landing. The circuit height at Oxford is 1200’ QFE and left myself quite high and I probably cut too short a final. I got the height off with a sideslip and landed for a touch and go.
Next up a flapless. Again, left myself too high (what’s wrong with me today?), but got it off with sideslip and did a pretty fair crosswind flapless landing. I remembered from my training that I always seemed to do better flapless landings in the PA28’s than conventional landings for some reason.
Then the US favourite, landing with the wheels touching on a particular spot on the runway. In this case, the intersection of the two runways. I was determined to hit this. Handled it well and at low speed I was just over the spot but still a couple of feet up so I cheated and nudged the yoke down slightly then up again. We touched sure enough – not hard, but there was no doubt we were down! I apologised for cheating!
The final one was a glide approach with me pulling the power when I felt I could get in. While on the downwind leg a medivac Beech twin overtook us and had priority landing clearance with a vehicle following him down the runway. I don’t think there was anything wrong with the plane, but perhaps the passenger. So we extended a bit. Once that was clear I approached final and was pretty close and high. I could almost feel Bill biting his tongue thinking ‘pull the power, pull the power….’, I did pull it and yep – waaaayyyy too high. But this time I was determined not the cut it fine like I had at Enstone.
Full flaps, best glide, still way too high. So into a full sideslip as we started to hurtle down. This was doing the trick. I held the slip in until about 50’, then unwound it with an airspeed of 75kts and dropped to the flare and just flew level until the airspeed dropped. Made a reasonable landing of it in the crosswind, which I felt may have made up for the poor height judgement.
Back to the flight school and Bill signed the BFR off. The feedback was that apart from just missing at Enstone, my checks were a bit fast and he advised me to slow down and be more deliberate. Also he said my landings were good, but my circuits were a bit scrappy and the approaches were not great, the fact that I could land well off of such approaches didn’t disguise the average circuits. Thinking on it I do see what he means and vow to make amends in future. It is always good to have a variety of different instructor’s views – you never quite know what they will spot that you could do better.
Anyway, job done and FAA BFR in the book.
Fortunately, there is an FAA instructor that lives in Oxford, so I can do it there. Next snag is that I am not signed off for tailwheel differences, so I couldn’t use the RV6 I have a share in. So I arranged to hire an old Piper Cherokee 180 from Pilot Flight Training at Oxford.
The day was fairly clear with good visibility and cold. There was a bit of a wind and at 240 / 15 it made for a nice crosswind on runway 19 at Oxford.
Bill Tollett turned up after I checked the aircraft and while it was being refuelled. So we had a briefing.
FAA BFR’s are merely flight reviews where you have to do a couple of hours review of the FAA Regulations and air law and then one hours flying training. There is no pass or fail, it is merely proof that you have had one hours flying instruction. I handed Bill the written questions he emailed me a few weeks ago with the answers and FAR / AIM references clearly indicated. One of them was a swine as for a long time, I couldn’t find where it listed the maintenance tasks a pilot was allowed to do – I knew it was in there, but could I find it? Could I buffalo! I did eventually find it tucked away.
Bill suggested we do the usual upper air work, steep turns, stalls etc. Including the US speciality – the departure stall! This is a fun one – you clean the aircraft up into take-off configuration, stuff in full power and nose up and up and up until it stalls at quite a steep climb angle. The upper airwork was fine. I find the contrast between the PA28 and the RV6 very stark indeed, but the PA28 felt like an old friend as I had trained on it and flown an Arrow for a while.
He gave me a simulated engine failure around Enstone and radioed for a landing on the northside grass. I went through the drill and must have been a bit dopey as I lined up downwind in the wrong direction! Bill didn’t say anything until fairly late when he realised I really hadn’t twigged that landing with a tailwind wasn’t a good idea! He did mention it though and I felt a perfect idiot and turned hard to line up for a more conventional approach. I thought the height was good, pulled on one stage of flaps, but obviously misjudged the headwind as I had to take the flap off as it was touch and go whether we would make it or not. Bill decided on a go-around as we may have made it but may also have taken the aerial off the control tower that stood between me and the threshold of the northside grass! CONCENTRATE STEVE!
We headed back to Oxford for a few circuits in various configurations. First was a normal approach and landing. The circuit height at Oxford is 1200’ QFE and left myself quite high and I probably cut too short a final. I got the height off with a sideslip and landed for a touch and go.
Next up a flapless. Again, left myself too high (what’s wrong with me today?), but got it off with sideslip and did a pretty fair crosswind flapless landing. I remembered from my training that I always seemed to do better flapless landings in the PA28’s than conventional landings for some reason.
Then the US favourite, landing with the wheels touching on a particular spot on the runway. In this case, the intersection of the two runways. I was determined to hit this. Handled it well and at low speed I was just over the spot but still a couple of feet up so I cheated and nudged the yoke down slightly then up again. We touched sure enough – not hard, but there was no doubt we were down! I apologised for cheating!
The final one was a glide approach with me pulling the power when I felt I could get in. While on the downwind leg a medivac Beech twin overtook us and had priority landing clearance with a vehicle following him down the runway. I don’t think there was anything wrong with the plane, but perhaps the passenger. So we extended a bit. Once that was clear I approached final and was pretty close and high. I could almost feel Bill biting his tongue thinking ‘pull the power, pull the power….’, I did pull it and yep – waaaayyyy too high. But this time I was determined not the cut it fine like I had at Enstone.
Full flaps, best glide, still way too high. So into a full sideslip as we started to hurtle down. This was doing the trick. I held the slip in until about 50’, then unwound it with an airspeed of 75kts and dropped to the flare and just flew level until the airspeed dropped. Made a reasonable landing of it in the crosswind, which I felt may have made up for the poor height judgement.
Back to the flight school and Bill signed the BFR off. The feedback was that apart from just missing at Enstone, my checks were a bit fast and he advised me to slow down and be more deliberate. Also he said my landings were good, but my circuits were a bit scrappy and the approaches were not great, the fact that I could land well off of such approaches didn’t disguise the average circuits. Thinking on it I do see what he means and vow to make amends in future. It is always good to have a variety of different instructor’s views – you never quite know what they will spot that you could do better.
Anyway, job done and FAA BFR in the book.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Solo aerobatics
On my last aerobatics lesson, my instructor, Max, had verbally ‘signed me off’ for solo aerobatics limited to loops and rolls only. His advice was to do four or five hours by myself until I got them really ‘off pat’ with no more than 5 weeks between sessions, then come back to him to polish up on stall turns and to do more complex aerobatics that required speeds and throttle control much closer to the margins for the versatile Robin.
So this was to be my first solo aerobatics session.
The weather looked OK, broken and thin cloud, hard to tell how high, but I envisaged climbing ‘on top’ and doing aerobatics up there with the cloud undercast as the ‘hard deck’.
I turned up at the airfield first thing in the morning, so no first hand advice on cloud height. Nevertheless, I checked the Robin out. It needs a careful check before solo aerobatics as I emptied my pockets, ditched the loose items in the aircraft and discovered a spare torch and a pen clip in the pilot foot well – accidents waiting to happen! I also strapped up and secured the passenger side five point harness – you don’t want to get smacked in the mouth by a flailing strap at the top of a loop!
Hmmm…. fuel just below the second mark. Given that I was solo (so less weight) and the cloud could close in beneath me and mean perhaps a hold and an NDB / DME let down, I opted to put a bit more fuel in. So I taxied over to the pumps and squirted a further 25 litres in – making me feel more comfortable – I don’t want a blinking fuel light if I have an instrument let down to do!
I lined up and took off and climbed to my stomping ground between Bredon Hill and Wellesborne Mountford airfield. At 3800’ I was scraping my head on the bottom of the clouds – drat – it is right at the height I don’t want it to be at. I could go above, but the undercast would probably be at 4200’, meaning I would have to be doing the manoeuvres between 5500’ and 4300’ – not a good altitude for the Robin as it is decidedly asthmatic much above 4500’. So I decided to start at 3700’ with the usual 3000’ as the hard deck.
Check and HASELL check complete, I popped 7004 into the transponder, turned the electric fuel pump on and turned on every light the plane had.
I started with rolls to both the left and right, with a ‘push’ while inverted to flatten out the bottom of the sacred circle. As I guess I expected, the first one or two to each side were not great (but OK-ish). After that, I have to say I found them pretty straightforward and I seem to have got the hang of when and how much to push, when to stop etc. Although the roll rate to the left is quicker than to the right, I seem to find rolling to the right a little better for me. I did about nine rolls to both sides (i.e. 18 in total), interspersed between some loops.
The loops were a bit different. The first three of four weren’t that good, in fact two of these were definitely dodgy! One was very lopsided (I must have pulled back crooked) and the other – well, suffice to say I lost a fair bit of altitude! Its odd how much you miss the visual and verbal clues you pick up on when the instructor is there, but then I guess that is what solo is all about, developing your own ‘inner voice’.
I think my own ‘inner voice’ started to come on-stream and I was working the loops much better towards the end of the session and losing much less altitude with a better float over the top. I think I got there by the end of the session, finishing off with what felt like two good loops. All in all, I probably did nine loops.
I checked the time and found I was already out for 1 hours and ten minutes – time to head back.
I composed myself and allowed the adrenaline to die down about and headed back at the leisurely 90 knots that the Robin does in the cruise. I had to wait for a gap in the combined tower and approach frequency, with the controller patiently trying to sort out what sounded like students all cutting in on each other (wait for a gap in transmissions then blurt your message despite the fact that the controller was expecting a read-back from the last transmission). The controller politely but firmly pointed out the error and why the offender was wrong, not to chastise, but to inform – nicely done I thought.
I go a standard overhead join for 22 with right hand circuits. I slotted in behind a Gloucester based yellow Slingsby and followed her onto final. Flaps down, I was given late clearance and put in a reasonable landing.
Parked up, shutdown and put all the loose stuff back in the aircraft. A good session and one that I badly needed to do solo to develop my ‘inner voice’. An hour and twenty in the end as P1 – the first P1 that I have done since August!
I booked another session for mid-January and will aim to do one of these every three weeks or month interspersed with training on the RV6.
However, next up is an overdue FAA BFR checkride, hopefully on Saturday 5th January at Oxford with Bill Tollett in a PA28 that I will hire from Oxford.
So this was to be my first solo aerobatics session.
The weather looked OK, broken and thin cloud, hard to tell how high, but I envisaged climbing ‘on top’ and doing aerobatics up there with the cloud undercast as the ‘hard deck’.
I turned up at the airfield first thing in the morning, so no first hand advice on cloud height. Nevertheless, I checked the Robin out. It needs a careful check before solo aerobatics as I emptied my pockets, ditched the loose items in the aircraft and discovered a spare torch and a pen clip in the pilot foot well – accidents waiting to happen! I also strapped up and secured the passenger side five point harness – you don’t want to get smacked in the mouth by a flailing strap at the top of a loop!
Hmmm…. fuel just below the second mark. Given that I was solo (so less weight) and the cloud could close in beneath me and mean perhaps a hold and an NDB / DME let down, I opted to put a bit more fuel in. So I taxied over to the pumps and squirted a further 25 litres in – making me feel more comfortable – I don’t want a blinking fuel light if I have an instrument let down to do!
I lined up and took off and climbed to my stomping ground between Bredon Hill and Wellesborne Mountford airfield. At 3800’ I was scraping my head on the bottom of the clouds – drat – it is right at the height I don’t want it to be at. I could go above, but the undercast would probably be at 4200’, meaning I would have to be doing the manoeuvres between 5500’ and 4300’ – not a good altitude for the Robin as it is decidedly asthmatic much above 4500’. So I decided to start at 3700’ with the usual 3000’ as the hard deck.
Check and HASELL check complete, I popped 7004 into the transponder, turned the electric fuel pump on and turned on every light the plane had.
I started with rolls to both the left and right, with a ‘push’ while inverted to flatten out the bottom of the sacred circle. As I guess I expected, the first one or two to each side were not great (but OK-ish). After that, I have to say I found them pretty straightforward and I seem to have got the hang of when and how much to push, when to stop etc. Although the roll rate to the left is quicker than to the right, I seem to find rolling to the right a little better for me. I did about nine rolls to both sides (i.e. 18 in total), interspersed between some loops.
The loops were a bit different. The first three of four weren’t that good, in fact two of these were definitely dodgy! One was very lopsided (I must have pulled back crooked) and the other – well, suffice to say I lost a fair bit of altitude! Its odd how much you miss the visual and verbal clues you pick up on when the instructor is there, but then I guess that is what solo is all about, developing your own ‘inner voice’.
I think my own ‘inner voice’ started to come on-stream and I was working the loops much better towards the end of the session and losing much less altitude with a better float over the top. I think I got there by the end of the session, finishing off with what felt like two good loops. All in all, I probably did nine loops.
I checked the time and found I was already out for 1 hours and ten minutes – time to head back.
I composed myself and allowed the adrenaline to die down about and headed back at the leisurely 90 knots that the Robin does in the cruise. I had to wait for a gap in the combined tower and approach frequency, with the controller patiently trying to sort out what sounded like students all cutting in on each other (wait for a gap in transmissions then blurt your message despite the fact that the controller was expecting a read-back from the last transmission). The controller politely but firmly pointed out the error and why the offender was wrong, not to chastise, but to inform – nicely done I thought.
I go a standard overhead join for 22 with right hand circuits. I slotted in behind a Gloucester based yellow Slingsby and followed her onto final. Flaps down, I was given late clearance and put in a reasonable landing.
Parked up, shutdown and put all the loose stuff back in the aircraft. A good session and one that I badly needed to do solo to develop my ‘inner voice’. An hour and twenty in the end as P1 – the first P1 that I have done since August!
I booked another session for mid-January and will aim to do one of these every three weeks or month interspersed with training on the RV6.
However, next up is an overdue FAA BFR checkride, hopefully on Saturday 5th January at Oxford with Bill Tollett in a PA28 that I will hire from Oxford.
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