Sunday 1st July - its not quite midsummer but luckily the clouds have moved away a bit so there is a decent ceiling of around 3500 ft which is perfect for our stalling practice. This is probably what people worry about the most when flying and I was quite nervous as we taxied out to 22 and took off.
I needn't have been. The first time we stalled, my instructor took the controls, eased off the power and held the nose up as the speed dropped from our cruise of 110 kts down to the stall speed of around 40kts. Despite holding the yoke right back, as we got down to the stall speed with the Warner blaring in our ears the nose of the aircraft suddenly pitched down. The recovery was so simple, just pitch the aircraft down with the yoke and immediately the airspeed begins to build and the stall ends.
My turn next, I was surprised by how difficult it was to actually stall it. The aircraft wants to pitch down when the speed drops and you have to really fight it to keep the controls back. Once again as soon as the nose dropped I pushed forwards and the airspeed began to build. With power it was even easier with only a couple of 100 feet of altitude lost.
Finished the lesson with a couple more circuits and 2 very good landings in blustery cross wind conditions, including one wing drop at 300ft: thank God for the stalling practice we'd just done as I instinctively pitched down and recovered it for a smooth touch down.
Sunday, 8 July 2012
Saturday, 7 July 2012
Lazy blogger
I've had a few more sessions since my last post.
Sunday 17th June
Longest flight yet, almost two hours up around the circuit and practising slow flight, as the name suggests flying slowly with flap at around 55-60 knots. Annoyingly the stall warner in the aircraft today was set a bit high so it really meant an hour of screeching in my ear. Lots of circuits followed with another 6 take off and landings in total, a couple of which were very smooth IMHO.
Sunday 24th June
A very brief early trip up to Stapleford in pretty poor weather. Arrived around 8.30 and had to wait for a couple of aircraft to come in so that they could advise on the cloud level. 1400ft so just high enough to get in a couple of circuits but no where near enough to be able to do the stalling practice I have to do before going solo. Blustery conditions and a bit of a crosswind put paid to our lesson after just half an hour although we managed one flapless landing.
Sunday 17th June
Longest flight yet, almost two hours up around the circuit and practising slow flight, as the name suggests flying slowly with flap at around 55-60 knots. Annoyingly the stall warner in the aircraft today was set a bit high so it really meant an hour of screeching in my ear. Lots of circuits followed with another 6 take off and landings in total, a couple of which were very smooth IMHO.
Sunday 24th June
A very brief early trip up to Stapleford in pretty poor weather. Arrived around 8.30 and had to wait for a couple of aircraft to come in so that they could advise on the cloud level. 1400ft so just high enough to get in a couple of circuits but no where near enough to be able to do the stalling practice I have to do before going solo. Blustery conditions and a bit of a crosswind put paid to our lesson after just half an hour although we managed one flapless landing.
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