Flying Lessons Two and Three

Today was a double lesson and this time I was learning with Liam who will be taking me on most of my lessons from now on. I woke up around about 10minutes before I had to leave and so immediately dashed out of bed, jumped into the shower at break neck speed, shaved in record time as I knew we were going to take some press shots later, literally jumped into my clothes and drove at of course a ‘very’ responsible speed to the aerodrome.
Turned up not too late (almost on time actually!) and met up with Liam. I hadn’t met Liam before now and we hit it off immediately. He’s one of the younger instructors and so that definitely helped.

We went through into one of the briefing rooms that they have at Cabair and we sat down to go into detail about climbing and descending. Now that may not sound all too difficult to you guys but trust me there’s a lot more to it than the meets the eye. Being ‘landlubbers’ and not ‘air lubbers’ I imagine not many of us ever really think about it.

There are of course different rates of climb, the different angles one can climb, some are quicker, some are slower. One example would be, if you climb steeply then you don’t actually make as much distance over the ground to where you want to get to as you would if you climbed at a very gentle rate. At a max climb I was to find that around 65knots was the best we could make. At a cruising angle of climb, we would be making around 80knots so a lot better!

After the briefing, I went out to do a pre flight inspection of the aircraft. I’ve only done this a few times but and I’m happy to say it’s really starting to ingrain itself on my memory! After this I hopped in, did a systems check and Liam hopped in shortly after.

I started up the engines after running through the pre-start checklist and we taxied over to the runway. Final checks were made, final clearance was requested, then given, and we taxied out into position, applied full power, released the brakes and we were off!

At 65knots of airspeed, we lifted off and were soon up, up, and away! That initial feeling of losing the friction of the ground and getting up into the air never ceases the thrill me! We gained altitude up to 2000ft, and after getting ourselves a little bit of distance between the circuit, and us we began the fun!

Liam was excellent in showing me through the different rates of climb and how it is all affected and what it affects too. I practiced climbing and descending and was really intrigued how the aircraft handles when you push her into a really steep climb. I was surprised at just how much she wanted to yaw. After a while we turned around, headed back to base and touched down with a surprising amount of grace. Liam was seriously impressing me!
It was time for a quick break, a bite to eat, a drink to down and I was once again raring to get out there and go again! We had another little short briefing, this time about using flaps and the effects it has, but of course there’s only so much one can learn in a classroom and so we headed outside again, into the plane and after all the checks were once again completed we were soon airborne once again.

I found this lesson really interesting as I had never before really thought through or understood the effect that using flaps has to the way the plane behaves in the air. There are many things I can and have carried over from sailing to flying but this was certainly new ground for me. Liam also showed me other techniques to slow the aircraft down in the air such as using full rudder one way and the aileron the other. Before long we were down on the ground again after yet another smooth landing by Liam (credit to him!) and the lesson was over. I wanted another one right then!

I have to say, I’m really loving the freedom and excitement that flying brings. It’s also darn sexy too! I told one of my mates just casually yesterday that I was flying today and he didn’t believe me! I can’t wait until I can take him up on my own.

Mike