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Flying
Lessons
in an Ultra-light.
After
5 ½ hours 21st December 2002
After
about 3 ½ hours I was actually taking off myself, under
very close supervision of course.
Now here I am with nearly
6 hours under my belt and the take-off has become a
much less stressful event. What about my feet you
may well ask if
you read about my first lesson. Well
this is the bad part, it’s much less stressful but
that is only with there having been so many take-offs
you just get used to it. Being actually in control
of the aircraft is quiet another thing entirely.
In
fact I am
getting airborne with a
slight backwards
movement on the stick when the air speed reaches
50mph, but in control, no! The feet are not so much
of a problem with take-offs as it all happens so
quickly almost just leaving the pedals
alone will do the job but then I have not
encountered a strong side wind yet and that could
set the cat among the pigeons.
So, taking-off
goes something like this. Putting the aircraft in
the right place to begin with is all important.
Right on the number, the runway number that is, at
the very start
of the runway.
As the runway behind you is one of the three most
useless things a pilot can have, ie, the altitude
above him and the air in the fuel tank.
So getting back to the runway,
I am sitting there having completed the last checks
on the card and all is agreed. We
are ready to go - stick
back a little, push in the throttle as far as it
will go and in my case praying that I don’t have to
push those pedals much at all, at least not until we
are safely in the air.
There
I am tearing down the runway with the engine
screaming about 2 ½ feet in front of me. At this
point I have to watch two things, first and most
importantly, that I am going in a straight line
directly along
the runway, (the feet thing) then there is the air
speed. Once
reaching 50mph it’s a
slight pressure back and you are airborne. The next
thing to take care of
is the flaps. For
take-offs
and landings these are engaged at ½ on this type of
aircraft, releasing
the flaps with the lever
on the floor between your legs. This is like a kick
in the pants as the aircraft shoots
forward violently more often than not, making the
nose go up a little, well with me anyway.
After
this it’s just a matter of maintaining course and
keeping the air speed to 50mph, until I reach 500
feet which is the ceiling for ultra light aircraft -
well,
in Thailand anyway. Once
at 500 feet it’s time to push the stick slightly
forward to level off and reduce the engine revs. to
a cruising speed of about 4800rpm, giving
about 70 to 80mph, air-speed.
In
the air I seem
to be able to do most that has been asked of me so
far. Slow flight, which I explained in one of the
earlier chapters, turns,
gaining height, losing height, don’t seem
to be a problem. Picking
out a place to put down in the case of an emergency
landing is beyond me at the moment but I really
don’t think that Jim expects me to be up to scratch
on that yet. As it was, on my last failure on this
he finally really explained the
procedure.
I have
to remember the three G’s, Glide,
Grass, and Gas. With the engine at idling
speed I don’t think
anybody is crazy enough to really cut it at this
point. You have first to set up your glide i.e.,
maintain 50mph air speed, the aircraft is coming
down, you can do nothing
about that so you need to be able to travel as far
as possible
without putting it into
a stall.
This
comes to the next thing, Grass, i.e., where you are
going to be when the aircraft meets the ground. The
rule here is just about flat i.e., the best you can
see and because you should be constantly looking for
possible sites this may be just behind you. No trees
lamp-posts telegraph poles etc,. Having picked your
site you should now try to restart the engine. (This
is the Gas Bit). If
this fails you had better hope that you got the
first two right. OK
so we don’t actually land, doing so would more than
likely rip the undercarriage off and severely damage
the aircraft. It’s sufficient
to know that you can put it down and walk away. With
the end of this practice it’s just a matter of
engaging full throttle and regaining 500ft,
altitude.
My
main trouble at the moment is in the pattern
again I explained this in the second chapter. My
turns seem to go right out of the window especially
on turning
to the down wind leg. I really don’t know why this
should be because it’s the least stressful of all
the turns made while flying the pattern,
all I have to do here is maintain 500ft, and turn to
run parallel to the runway. Easy? Yes.
Yes, sure, but at this point I seem to concentrate
on maintaining
height and forget that dammed black ball.
This
is the indicator that tells you that you are making
a graduated turn. If, as I do, you just step on the
rudder
then this will turn you but it will also send this
ball way off to the side. The centrifugal force does
this because you have not banked into the turn. If
you just use the stick then you turn the aircraft on
it’s side but the ball will go to the other side of
the scale with the force of gravity. You have to
balance the two controls which I am not finding the
easiest thing to do right now,
while concentrating on maintaining height. It’s
simply this. You
need hours of practice, you need to be able to fly
this thing by the seat of your pants, which
I am a long way from doing.
Landing, OK.
I have done this with a great deal of help from Jim.
Having made the approach turn from base leg you
should be at 300ft, with the runway straight in
front of you. This
is the hard part for me, seemingly the dammed thing
keeps moving all of it’s own accord. I get it lined
up according to me, then
the wind throws me totally off course.
Jim says it’s me because there is no wind. Hmmm,
Never
mind it’s only about 5 ½ hours yet and I guess it will
come. When it comes to the final flare breaking the glide
at about 3 to 5ft, above
the runway I tend to over do it. I
also tend to cut the throttle too
much at this point making the landing heaver than necessary.
The
point being, as far as I can see, is to plant it on
the ground before the wrong
end of the runway comes up and the worst thing about
this at this point is that you can’t see the end of
the runway because having broken
your glide with
the flar, the nose is
slightly high so you can touch down on the main
undercarriage. So more of this on Monday, let’s hope
I can do a little better then on the things that I
have been taught. |
