DAY 13
After a hard weekend spanking a Ferrari & Lamborghini round a track it was back in the Arrow for some more general handling...
We mainly practised all the stalls... clean, base to final, final
Pretty much nothing to report apart from "I must not use ailerons, I must not use ailerons, I must not........"
As the afternoons flight was a couple of hours away I settled down in the clubhouse for lunch - Roast pork with veg, gravy (obviously!), stuffing, roast potatoes- Yum!!
In the afternoon it was emergencies (fires, practise forced landings, engine failure after take off)
Fire drills were pretty standard, go through the drill, ask if the prop has stopped and if the fire is out, if not then do something about it!
Putting the arrow into a 100kt dive is always fun but if that doesn't get the fire out....
After that you need to pick a field for the PFL (as the fire has killed your engine you need to land!)
Once I got used to how quickly the Arrow sinks with gear down, it became a lot easier to pick my field etc - alongside with some superb tips from Bob!
However when instructed to go around by Bob I was making a stupid mistake.
The go around procedure is;
Power - apply full power and prop fully forward
Roll - roll wings level
Pitch - Pitch for 80 kts
Flap - 3rd stage off immediately
Gear - Once you have a +ve rate of climb gear up
Flap - 2nd stage off keeping +ve rate of climb
Flap - 1st stage off keeping +ve rate of climb
The mistake I was making was pretty simple to correct thankfully...
As I had just done a PFL, and as the Arrow sank like a brick, I didnt use all 3 stages of flap, sometimes only 2 and here lay my problem!
Instead of 'flap gear flap flap' (if you used 3 stages flap) for 2 stages of flap it is obviously 'gear flap flap'
Thanks to me brainfarting I was about to do the former....
To rectify I decided to call out the stages of flap as I was putting them in - just a little reminder to myself how many stages I had used and hey presto problem solved!
DAY 14
We flew over to Southend today for some circuits and glide approaches
I wasn't too nervous due to the fact of flying out of Sanford in Florida and out of Cranfield, but I was not prepared for the difference in workload!
Southend is controlled so obviously radio calls are different, clearances need to be written down and read back, noise abatement procedures must be complied with among other things!
Unfortunately the PAPI's weren't working - I was looking forward to using them again!
Well after breaking out into a good sweat (thank you deodorant!), you could feel the concentration in the plane! after I nailed the circuits we did a couple of glide approches....
Again - my, how the Arrow sinks!
First one was a little ropey, but the second much better...
After that we decided to head back to Stapleford - I was ever thankful!