Late afternoon aerobatics

Some you win and some you lose! This particular lesson I lost – that is to say I didn’t have a great lesson! Having said that, you learn more from your mistakes, so on that basis, I learned a lot! But to be fair to myself (we can all be our own worst critics), it wasn’t all bad.

The weather was fine, if breezy around midday, but my lesson was for 15:00. By then, the very scattered and high cloud had been replaced by broken at 2300’ with tops at about 4000’ and still breezy, but with some holes.

Had a briefing about vertical recovery, so that was clearly the plan. Max commented that it was far more genuine if I cocked things up, then used the recovery techniques to sort myself out (thinks…. I’m sure I can oblige!).

Off we went and headed to the SW. We climbed past the low stuff into a hole around ‘bends in the river’ and headed up to 5000’. The Robin clawed its way skyward at about 3-400 fpm. I levelled off in what was a smallish hole – probably too small - but a bigger one beckoned to the east, so we headed over around Badminton, but clear of Lyneham into a much bigger hole.

Max wanted me to start with a stall-turn – hmmm…. So I think it through first (and the recovery technique), then down we go to ‘standard entry’ to get the 110 kts speed and attitude. Stabilise at 110 kts attitude, check wings level and……PULL….FULL POWER…..PULL to vertical, check forward to hold vertical, start to feed in right rudder…oh hell, I feel I am past vertical (probably didn’t check forward enough) and the port wing is way too high, so we are canted over…..oh heck here it comes……. WHACK – flick stall into a hammerhead. Get on with the recovery – stick back and steady, centralise, throttle closed at the same time, ground filling the windscreen so we are vertically down and pull back to recover. Well, the bad news is that I cocked the stall-turn up big time (in both pitch and yaw – tres bon!), but I knew what was coming and managed the recovery feeling pretty calm.

After a debrief (too slow at feeding in right rudder, too hesitant at whacking to left rudder, didn’t check the pull and pulled past vertical – apart from that fine :-). I try again. This time, much better and although Max gave me the word to switch rudder, I was about to do so, so my timing is coming on. Only mistake was that I centralised rudder and aileron just before the ‘knife’ position (the nose going back through the horizon), when I should be doing it at or just after.

Then onto just one loop IIRC. It went pretty well, certainly managed to get around and I am sure we went through our own wake as I felt that distinctive ‘speed bump’. However, Max commented (quite correctly) that I was a ‘mechanical’ on the stick easing back into the float and didn’t allow it to float long enough – it should be a smooth movement on the stick in pitch. Now that I can get it around and carry out all control and throttle movements by myself, Max is obviously now trying to ‘clean up’ points he hasn’t pulled me up on until now for fear of overloading me, so that must be progress right?

I climbed back up to 4500’ or at least tried to! I had full power on, a definitely climb attitude, then engine rpm was normal (no MP readout), but we were either not climbing at all or had a ‘negative-climb’ (i.e. descent!) going on! I pointed this out to Max and it seemed we were in a down-wave of airmass. Turned 30 degree and started a very modest 200 fpm climb.

We did a fair few rolls to the left and right. But despite my best efforts and definitely getting the plane to 30 degrees pitch, we kept coming out more nose down than we should. Max thought it was me pulling back a bit once I put the ailerons across. I wasn’t aware of doing this, but they weren’t a crisp as previous lessons. Max tried one and I have to say, he was pretty nose down on exit as well, but maybe not as much as me. I’ll take on board that I must have been sub-consciously pulling a bit, but I have to say, I think there were other factors at play today – heavier on the fuel load, down-draft, higher than usual etc. It sounds like excuses, but I don’t think it is – we’ll see next time.

The wind was picking up and as we headed in the Gloucester direction, the DME showed a groundspeed of 25 kts! We had a chat about those absurd situations where a pilot can be in such a strong headwind in such a modestly performing aircraft, that they can pull the power back a bit and have a zero groundspeed and ‘hover’ over the same patch of ground, or indeed be positively blown backwards!

Anyway, rather than get ‘caught out’ playing in this hole and getting blown further and further south east, we went VMC on-top at 5000’ heading back towards the airfield looking for another hole.

By now, the sun was starting to get very low and picked up some lovely reds and oranges in the clouds. We were VMC on-top and I was struck with how peaceful and picturesque it all was and how lucky I was to be there at precisely this moment – it really was one of those ‘wooOOOOwwwww’ moments! No camera of course – what a pity.

We chased what looked to be holes at the edge of the next ridge of clouds for several ridges – a bit like the numerous false crests you see while hill walking in the lake district! It dawned on us that with the light fading and with no holes materialising, this was the end of the lesson and we turned a hunt for holes nearer the airfield into a route back to the circuit.

One slight issue though - we were VMC on-top with no holes, so we had to either find a hole or do a let down through the clouds of some sort. The ATIS gave the cloudbase as 3000’ and with an MSA in the area of 2800’ Max asked if I was happy to do a let down on the current heading of due north (i.e. not shoot the NDB/DME approach for Gloucester). I was happy enough as I do have a current IMC rating, although I haven’t used it in anger for several months and even then, never with a ‘stick’ aircraft, so it should be fun. I checked the AI which was now stable and functioning correctly (after having toppled several times during aerobatics). Synchronised the DI with the compass, pitot heat on and down we went and into the clag.

I kept my eyes firmly on the AI with the usual ‘T-shaped’ instrument scan, but of course studiously avoiding the temptation to try to get visual clues from outside the canopy. OK – forgot to turn off the strobes which were going off like flashbulbs in the cloud, but it didn’t distract too much, although Max kindly flicked them off anyway. I held the heading and kept a sensible rate of descent. At about 3400’ I could ‘sense’ darker patches (i.e. breaks through the cloud to the now dark clear sky below the cloudbase) with peripheral vision. I managed to avoid the temptation to switch prematurely to visual and we finally broke out ‘properly’ at around 2800’.

It was getting pretty dark now as we radioed for a direct join if possible. Given left base join for 27. Headed for the ‘doughnut’ building and turned final. The runway lights are on and if it isn’t official night, then it is doing a pretty good impersonation of it!

Good approach and I thought a pretty fair landing – it may not have been ‘official night’ but it was for all intents and purposes. Taxy back and shut down.

All in all, a bit of a disappointment – but strangely, I feel OK about it. I know what I did wrong (except for the rolls that is!), I know what to do to get it right and I know what to do when it goes pear-shaped and get on and do it.

Booked another lesson for next weekend of course! Wouldn’t it be nice to have one of those clear, crisp high-pressure, ‘good-to-be-alive’ days next Saturday!!