Lesson: 36

10/XII/2013

• Lessons time: dual - 0.8h, solo - none


• Total time: 31.8h (1.1h solo)


• Location: EGAD


• Aircraft: G-UFCL (Tecnam 2002JF)

First of all, I was late Today. Again. Rodger was nice enough about that - but I knew I cocked up. 

It really is a bad idea to be late folks. You end up pushing the slots for people later on and generally you end up being labeled as a big stupid cock. Please don't do that (that's to you future Greg). To the guy who was next after me, sorry buddy. 

After having to apologise for being late, I went on to do my first preflight on my own. I took my time, but ended up skipping the engine stuff (oil, etc) - it's a new aircraft to me, and I need not to be late to do it with instructor properly before attempting to do it on my own. Somehow, despite being technically savvy (I did pull apart and put together a car engine before) - I'm afraid to touch the little donkey. Otherwise it went rather smoothly. 

Harness is a bit of a bummer in these aircraft, probably took me about 5 minutes to put it on. I'm serious. It's a four point harness, which makes it very secure, but not a breeze to put on. 

Rodger is very very patient and pretty much forced me to do stuff on my own (very good !). It's a rare gift/virtue of any instructor. So 10x slower then otherwise someone will do - but that's the only way to learn. 

It's amazing that I'd sometimes forget where I was (finger would slip on the check list, etc) in between things, there must be a better way to do checklists ! (like, one item per page, and different booklets per checklist ?). 

There was virtually no wind, which is so rare in NI, it should really be a day marked in calendar. But when something blew, it was in direction that suggested runway 04 (which is something like 035 deg in reality). Quick backtrack on the active to the run up area, all the checks done, and up we went. 

We departed circuit from base/downwind to do few turns and such. The plan was to do stall exercises so - so we had to get away from the circuit. 

Rodger asked me to practice few turns, with/without level changes, etc. All to do with the fact, that I am still trying to set the aircraft in the attitude I remember from C152. This one is much different. Half the weight of C172 (dunno how that corresponds to 152), low wing, etc. Normal flapless operation gives you very nose down attitude. In 152 I'd need to set flaps to 20 deg to get something similar. Feels odd, but gives you much better visibility - which is great. 

Turns out, that you can trim it for the cruise speed (105 kt) and that just makes altitude changes and turns a breeze. You level off from a manoeuvre and the aircraft is already trimmed, slick. With the stick reacting to inputs pretty much instantly and requiring little input movements - you don't have to trim when in ascend/descent ! I love it. 

Also, I'm starting to get the idea with rudder. This aircraft absolutely needs loads of rudder. C152 seems to be really bad that way. On the takeoff roll - you really need right rudder pretty much to the floor ! 

All in all, I think I did quite well. I was looking in too much, not being familiar with the aircraft. But otherwise, pretty good. Rodger's advice was to try set things up without checking the instruments and then only verify, adjust if necessary - etc. That way I was sure my head was looking out most of the time. 

We haven't done any stalls. For lesson like this, I really wished I booked 2 slots instead of one.

45 minutes have flown by very quickly (no pun intended), and it was time for before landing checks. By now I know where stuff is, mostly, so it wasn't that bad. 

I think I cocked up the descent, trying to keep the speed and so on and we ended up rather high - Rodger took over for a minute and sorted me out, leaving the actual landing to me. That aircraft pretty much lands on its own, apparently something all low wings have in common. Dunno, this is the only low wing aircraft I flew in. I'd love to hear your experiences !

On a calm day like Today, it was absolute breeze to fly. 

Oh, and I met someone who reads my posts in the club, so hello to you, if you're reading it :-)

Another lesson booked Tomorrow. So far booking/flying rate is 50%, so if that continues (albeit the sample size is small so far - 3 ) it means every second booking gets me up. Will see. Oh, and I booked 10:30 slot, altho my plan is to show up there before 9 - in case no one else took that slot.
But if someone booked it, and he's late.. I'll get back a bit of karma.

Here's the GPS track:

And few screenshots from club's webcam (I'm the bloke in the nice yellowish hat). 

The hat is courtesy my friend at http://jaynehat.co.uk . Please get one, they are hand crafted, look really cool and are wicked warm! :

• Route: EGAD->over peninsula->EGAD


• Milestones: Getting used to the new aircraft


• Exercises covered: 1-9 revision


• Weather: Brilliant, clear skies, perfect for flying !