Introduction to Lima Sierra

One of the group members kindly offered to take time out of his day to give me the introduction to Lima Sierra today. The introduction basically involved covering all the flying duties such as pre-flight inspection and using the onboard RNAV and other Nav aids. The whole process was thorough and informative.

The weather this week has been terrible with low cloud, strong winds and heavy rain, however today the skies brightened and cloud lifted. The wind was fairly strong at 25knts gusting 30knts but with only a little crosswind component therefore flyable. I was to fly from the left hand seat as P2 with D flying the take-off and landing as P1. In the air I spent some time trying to get used to the visual picture of the horizon during climbing, descending and straight & level flight, this was made a little tricky due to the very rough flying conditions. We went from updraft to downdraft frequently, at one point we were amused when the VSI was indicating 1400fpm climbing with rapidly increasing airspeed, this from straight & level!

Despite the rough air the visibility was good and the flight was fun, with D taking control of the radio allowing me to have fun just flying and getting used to the aircraft. There are somethings I need to get used to, the sound of the prop increasing speed is strange to me having been used to a constant speed (variable) prop. The aircraft however is lovely to fly, very easy and amazingly easy to keep co-ordinated, much more so than the Katana or AA5. Flying a bird which I partly own is also a very sweet experience.

I am due to fly again with an instructor on Tuesday morning to begin the type check-out for C172's, I just hope the weather holds.