My Flying

Rather an amazing day for me. Why? - Because today, for the first time, I flew three different aircraft on the same day. This may not sound like much, but I consider it to be rather an impressive achievement and a first for me. Not only this, the lift was good enough to keep us aloft and my paperwork for my glider pilot's license has been signed off.

The day started off windless and I took the Motor Falke for a short spin to practice some circuits as I hadn't flown her in about a month. The first landing was a greaser and right on the numbers; and I was rather chuffed. This feeling was however short lived as during my second landing I doubt that I was concentrating as much as I should have and accomplished another, this time unpleasant first, in that I managed to get the Falke to bounce rather high into the air on touchdown. I think that I was coming in too fast and didn't round out and flare properly and use enough air brakes as I bounced high. I quickly opened the throttle, as we have been taught and was ready to do a go-around but observed that there was still plenty of runway ahead, so I closed the throttle, pointed the nose down and opened the air brakes for a much much better touchdown and landing.

So what next? The wind changed to a light South-Easterly and this meant that our ridge should work rather nicely. We moved our operation from runway 08 to 16 and the first few flights by others in the Twin showed that the ridge was working. With this good news we (I actually had help this time) went off to fetch the Single. The launch was good and I really enjoyed my hour flight on the ridge. Most the time while I was up there, I was there with the Twin and I really enjoyed the challenge in making sure that I climbed and stayed higher than it. It was hard work and the ridge was only working in certain areas. I also managed to find two areas of good lift and circled up in this lift from low over the ridge to about 900 feet above the ridge peak. This really felt good. I returned and landed the aircraft with a really nice landing as another member wanted to fly.

After I landed the Twin was ready for its next flight, but there was so much indecision amongst those there as to who wanted to fly: "no you fly", "no you fly", "no, what about so and so" that I hoped in the backseat with an assistant instructor up front. Today I was going try flying the Twin from the back. Just to be safe and to get used to things, the instructor did the take off and I took over during the climb. I headed straight for the ridge and was joined later by the Single. Again I enjoyed myself and using the knowledge of the previous flight I managed to stay just slightly higher than the Single. After about 30 minutes I set the plane up for finals and handed over the controls for the landing.

So how does it feel to fly from the back? Well my first impressions are as follows (after only being a backseat pax twice before):

• You lie down much more than the front seat, but this was fine as it is similar to the Single.
• The controls feel pretty much the same, but you can't adjust the rudder peddles so my knees were a bit high.
• The climb out with the winch feels rather steep when compared to flying front seat.
• Visibility forward is ok, but not good. But not because of the head of the person in from of you, but because of distortions in the canopy.
• Visibility sideways and down is poor as the wing is in your way.
• The controls feels identical as up front.
• The landing approach is the same, but the timing to flare feels horrible as it feels like you will stick the nose of the plane into the runway.

So that's three planes in one day, but wait, there is more.
As the CFI was at the airfield I remembered that I still needed to get my flight test out the way for my GPL License. So I had a quick flight with him from the front seat of the Twin. Flying from the front seat qualifies as another plane in my books, so let's say four aircraft in one day. Nice hey!

Now that my flight test has been signed off I have crossed the last hurdle on my way to my GPL. It's been a long and sometimes (often, especially in the beginning) frustrating journey that has taken just over three years to complete. This all adds up to 397.50ZAR, which sounds a bit pricey, but does include 118 minutes if flying and three winch launches.