kevmusic
24th Mar 2011, 19:57
I have gradually come to feel ready for that first dual, and some solo flying. I duly booked out the Tiger Club's Jodel D150 and arrived today, a glorious early Spring day, looking forward to getting airborne again.
I fuelled up and did the walk-round, noticing a small un-filed nick in the leading edge of a prop blade. I pointed this out to my check pilot, who said he'd get it sorted after we landed, and top marks to me for finding it. As we settled in I pointed out that I'd lost my checklist for the Jodel ages ago. "Good", he said. "Prefer you not to use them". Okay. So going from memory, logic and some prompting I did the pre-start and start-up checks and the engine burbled in to life in short order.
The flight proceeded well and comfortably: I'd elected to go south, up to about 2,500', to do some general handling with steep turns and stalls. Come the first stall I did the HASELL check then set up idle power with carb heat, gradually pulling back on the stick, alert for the signs of the impending stall. We were quite nose-up when it happened: the nose dropped......and the engine died. Engine failure!
The prop was still turning, so I lowered the nose a little further to increase the revolutions, added a whisker of throttle - and she burst back into life!
Something about that manouevre stalled the engine.......or could it have been carb ice? My check pilot didn't know either. At any rate we went for another stall (the engine still running sweetly) this time with about 1,000 revs; there were no further problems.
I wasn't particularly worried - there was something about the way the donk stopped that made me think she might start again, and we were at 2.5k over good forced-landing country, where we'd both been many times before (local practice area).
So we went on to circuits. They were a bit ragged at first but I tidied them up and was offered a couple solo, so I went for it. It was great! Just a couple of circiuts of a grass field on a beautiful day, and I began to feel good.
I got off the runway, did my post-landing checks and taxied to the clubhouse, trying to remember the shutdown checks. I parked to position myself by hand, rather than use coarse power settings to manouevre close to the clubhouse. I thought I did everything in the correct sequence, remembering the mag check before ICO. Silence, except for the gyros winding down, and I found myself being moved around and pushed back while still in the cockpit.
And then I did something very foolish. I unstrapped and was taking off my headset when I heard a voice from upfront by the prop. My check pilot had said something - a query, by the look on his face - with a thumbs down. My mistake was to assume he'd asked if everything was off. I gave him a nod and a thumbs up.
Master switch!! Too late - he was turning the prop by hand just as I pulled the forgotten master! Well, nothing happened. He and the engineer inspected the nicked blade and a file appeared. I made a note of the tacho reading and made my exit.
All in all, a good day, but one in which I learned thoughtful lessons about not to assume someone has said something when I wasn't really sure, and not being sure when is a good time to be giving up checklists (ever?), plus there's nothing like knowing that those HASELL checks really do help keep you safe.
Finally, I loved to talk to Mrs. Km about my flying, but I'm not so sure she'd have wanted to hear all the details of this one.
I fuelled up and did the walk-round, noticing a small un-filed nick in the leading edge of a prop blade. I pointed this out to my check pilot, who said he'd get it sorted after we landed, and top marks to me for finding it. As we settled in I pointed out that I'd lost my checklist for the Jodel ages ago. "Good", he said. "Prefer you not to use them". Okay. So going from memory, logic and some prompting I did the pre-start and start-up checks and the engine burbled in to life in short order.
The flight proceeded well and comfortably: I'd elected to go south, up to about 2,500', to do some general handling with steep turns and stalls. Come the first stall I did the HASELL check then set up idle power with carb heat, gradually pulling back on the stick, alert for the signs of the impending stall. We were quite nose-up when it happened: the nose dropped......and the engine died. Engine failure!
The prop was still turning, so I lowered the nose a little further to increase the revolutions, added a whisker of throttle - and she burst back into life!
Something about that manouevre stalled the engine.......or could it have been carb ice? My check pilot didn't know either. At any rate we went for another stall (the engine still running sweetly) this time with about 1,000 revs; there were no further problems.
I wasn't particularly worried - there was something about the way the donk stopped that made me think she might start again, and we were at 2.5k over good forced-landing country, where we'd both been many times before (local practice area).
So we went on to circuits. They were a bit ragged at first but I tidied them up and was offered a couple solo, so I went for it. It was great! Just a couple of circiuts of a grass field on a beautiful day, and I began to feel good.
I got off the runway, did my post-landing checks and taxied to the clubhouse, trying to remember the shutdown checks. I parked to position myself by hand, rather than use coarse power settings to manouevre close to the clubhouse. I thought I did everything in the correct sequence, remembering the mag check before ICO. Silence, except for the gyros winding down, and I found myself being moved around and pushed back while still in the cockpit.
And then I did something very foolish. I unstrapped and was taking off my headset when I heard a voice from upfront by the prop. My check pilot had said something - a query, by the look on his face - with a thumbs down. My mistake was to assume he'd asked if everything was off. I gave him a nod and a thumbs up.
Master switch!! Too late - he was turning the prop by hand just as I pulled the forgotten master! Well, nothing happened. He and the engineer inspected the nicked blade and a file appeared. I made a note of the tacho reading and made my exit.
All in all, a good day, but one in which I learned thoughtful lessons about not to assume someone has said something when I wasn't really sure, and not being sure when is a good time to be giving up checklists (ever?), plus there's nothing like knowing that those HASELL checks really do help keep you safe.
Finally, I loved to talk to Mrs. Km about my flying, but I'm not so sure she'd have wanted to hear all the details of this one.