Lesson 6, Sloooow Flight

The weather these last few days has been incredible, we have been having a heatwave with clear skies so I had my fingers crossed that it would hold till this morning. My past two lessons at the beginning of this week were excellent in these weather conditions so hoped to get another good day. Well I woke up this morning early again and took a look outside, it was still very warm even at 6am with high humidity but the clouds had started to move in, and these clouds had attitude! a bad attitude I should mention, you know when the skies go ominously dark in one direction and suggest that impending doom is coming (or is that just me that tends to think that?).

Anyway I decide to stick the roof down on the car and head to Blackbushe, glancing up at various intervals to see what’s happening over head. When I arrive it is apparent the weather is not playing fair, the winds are gusting strongly in a variable direction straight across the runway. The report is that there are thunderstorms some distance to the West and these are slowly creeping closer, but we have a three hour window so we go.

The lesson for today is more slow flight, focussing on understanding and experiencing how the plane feels flying slowly whilst maintaining altitude. We will try a few different configurations, without flaps, with one stage of flap and with full flaps at different air speeds.

The plane is pre-flighted with me taking more of an active part in this process, although it is far from committed to memory, I plan to read the manual for the Katana to start learning the checklists whilst in between lessons. We fill up with avgas and I taxi out to the runway after the run-up of the engine and prop. Antonio helps line up the Katana ready for take off, I hold the differential brakes and throttle to 2000rpm then release the brakes and start picking up speed.. increasing the throttle to full with a little right rudder to compensate for the prop revolution. Then suddenly I am being pushed to the left by a strong gust of wind, I overcorrect a touch and manage to get a weaving thing going on, I like to think of it as my pre-flight shimmy. Fortunately my mincing down the runway is brought under control by remembering to be light on the rudder and allowing the plane to find her "niche". Once under control we get into the air smoothly and all is right again...

..that is until the turbulence hits.

Actually it's not too bad, but quite bumpy and I find I have to concentrate a bit harder to just keep the wings level and the heading. We ascend to 2000 ASL and start practicing slow flight, first without flaps, holding 2000 ASL at 50knts air speed, this is more difficult than I anticipated! The task is made harder by the sudden drops in height from the turbulence but eventually I start getting into the right configuration. I am treated quite often during this process by the sound of the stall warning horn telling me I am about to die, which I ignore, safe in the knowledge that I will be reborn as a frog in my next life (which as I understand is a far more interesting existence than commonly believed). We go on to try different configurations and once again after some initial difficulties became a little easier. The important thing to learn in this lesson was feeling the aircraft, the controls become very sloppy at these low speeds and the ailerons cease to be so effective, in fact using them to turn tends to create more drag. I learn to just turn at slow speeds with the rudder.

I also get the opportunity to revise again some more steep angles of bank which is always fun, made more so with the air bumpiness. We then head back to Blackbushe, time passes too quick in the air I have decided. Under Antonio's direction I take her round the circuit and line her up with the runway, this will be a flapless landing due to strong crosswind which is just gusting all over the place. Antonio takes the controls a few feet before the runway and brings her down, he flares and she starts to drop.. crabbing down the runway.. but then a gust causes her to lift again and float for awhile before he smacks her down with humorous but unrepeatable comment. This was the first time I have experience anything other than a perfect landing, but it was obvious that the unpredictable wind was the cause rather than any CFI error.

Today’s lesson went fairly well despite the conditions and the mincing session upon take-off, but it has taught me I still have much to learn, Antonio expresses he is pleased with the lesson and informs me that next lesson (Monday) will be stalls. I am looking forward to it as usual.

One other point to mention before I end this innocuous post. So far I have flown two different Katanas, G-BWLS and G-BWEH. I have got it in my head that I prefer G-BWLS for some unknown reason (Antonio insists they fly the same). Therefore she is now my "lucky" plane, and I am aiming to try for most lessons with her, I perhaps should give her a name "BoWeLS" seems the most obvious name and probably describes my flying capabilities quite well, but I have decided to stick with just "Lima Sierra".