Which taildragger? Chipmunk of course!

[AerBabe]

Part Two

My second day flying the Chipmunk got off to a much better start. As I got to within a few miles of Hus Bos I could see gliders circling above me, like a shoal of white fish, occasionally splitting up to let the shark-like tugs come flying through. There was a 300km junior gliding competition taking place, and they were getting everyone airborne ready for the start.

John was still out tugging, so I bought some lunch and sat outside in the sun to read a couple of taildragging books, and enjoy the atmosphere. The reading never got done, because I ended up chatting to the guy I was sharing the bench with. He was the weather forecaster for the gliding club, and was rather pleased with himself at having chosen such a nice day! He was muttering about the cirrus though, which was starting to appear in the West, saying that it would reduce the thermals.

Finally we heard the gliders start to call out their start times, and soon after John appeared, so I joined him in the club house for a brief. Things made much more sense this time round, and I was even able to ask some sensible questions!

The Chipmunk had been out flying all morning, so the pre-flight check was a lot quicker than last time. It was a very steep learning curve, with John making a point of saying nothing as I did the walk round, and then the internal checks. It was surprising how much I could remember, but it still seemed to take a long time. There were the usual mutterings of “It’s getting dark” from the back… but you learn to ignore that! Finally I was ready to start up, but pressing the starter button did absolutely nothing. I read down the checks again and decided that although I didn’t have a ground crewman to call “Breech inserted” I should still be able to start the engine. Then I realised that although the checklist said to make sure the rear switches were on, there was nothing about the front switches… At least it was nothing sinister!

Taxiing was a lot more of an obstacle course, with more Chipmunks, a Polish tug aircraft of some sort, and numerous gliders, and SLMGs spotted around. But I found controlling the aircraft much more natural, and managed not to hit anything. Most people had gone in for lunch, so there was no traffic to avoid on the strip itself.

The take off went almost perfectly! I was a lot more confident on the throttle, and the accompanying rudder input kept me almost dead straight. I pushed the stick forward just before I was told, and got us flying without any fuss. How satisfying to get up and away from the airfield with no vocal or physical inputs from John, and on my first take off of the day! We flew northwest towards Bruntingthorpe, away from where most of the gliding was taking place, and climbed to 2000 ft.

Although it was a glorious, almost cloud-less day, the horizon was blurred with haze. So it was back to using patches of cloud… and Corby… as markers. How romantic. Corby of all places! I started off with two normal 360 degree turns – 20 degrees of bank, one to the right, and one to the left. Then we did steeper turns, first at 45 degrees, and then 60 degrees of bank. I lost no height, and kept the ball in the middle (and it wasn’t stuck), so then we moved on to rolling the aeroplane, coordinating rudder and aileron input to keep Corby on the nose. We built up to steeper and steeper rolls, then the same, but allowing the nose to move 20 degrees to the right, then 20 degrees to the left. Next it was onto something which reminded me of emergency stops during driving lessons… aircraft avoidance! “Okay, when I say ‘now’ I want you to imagine there’s an aircraft coming straight towards you”. Fortunately I remembered air law correctly, and turned to the right. John wasn’t happy with a turn though… he wanted action! So the next time I did a nice steep turn, with lots of rudder of course, but he still wasn’t happy! “I’ll demonstrate” and suddenly we were on our side, and he had turned about 90 degrees in a blink! “Right” I said. “Ready… NOW”, so I slammed the stick to the right, stuck in a boot full of rudder, and round we went. “Perfect!” Ah, what a joy this machine is to fly!

Now it was time to try climbing and staying on heading. I selected a cloud, hoped that it wouldn’t move too much, and put in full power. And without seeming to do anything I kept us exactly on course! Then we did the same, but with no rudder, and we turned about 90 degrees for every 500 ft we climbed. Then we took the power off, and descended, again using rudder to keep heading. I was rather pleased that I was using rudder input without really thinking about it.

We were now at 3500ft, so it was time to try some stalling. Power off, carb heat on, nose up, wait for what feels like ages, and finally we feel really clear buffet. Gently push the stick forward, and instantly we’re flying again. Then climb back up for stall recovery with power. Again, a nice clear buffet, the aircraft responding immediately to rudder input to keep the wings level, and then flying the second the throttle is moved. To end we did some high speed stalling, flying steep turns, but without adding power.

Next it was time to head back down for some circuits, but we knew Hus Bos was likely to be busy. John called up Bruntingthorpe, and they cleared us to use their grass strip. Not exactly standard R/T with John saying “All right mate, it’s John in the blue Chipmunk”

We were now at 2000 ft in their overhead, and John wanted me to do a PFL onto the field. So off with the throttle, on with carb heat, trim for 70 kt, and try desperately to remember where to be at what height! Fortunately the Chipmunk glides surprisingly well, which meant that I had lots of time to position myself. The approach was spot on, but I’d forgotten to account for the cross wind, and closed in on the field. John told me to go round, rather than weave around to lose height. He wasn’t testing my PFLs, just showing me how well the Chippie glides. So back up to 1000 ft, and this time a normal approach. It was only on final that I realised how narrow normal strips are, and although my land landings at Hus Bos hadn’t taken up too much width, my take offs certainly had! No time to worry about that now though, I had to concentrate on getting the landing right. John talked me through from the flare, and I remembered most of it from my last lesson. We bounced once, but I managed to avoid veering off to one side as we touched down… keeping the stick back while I felt for the brake and gently brought us to a stop. Phew!

Now was the real test. The grass strip was 800 m long, but very narrow… and all my take offs, apart from the last, had ended up being 20 degrees to the right of where they started. At least I had John in the back to keep us alive! We lined up, I took a deep breath, and then pushed the throttle fully forward. I used a little more left rudder than usual, and we didn’t hit anything! Again I took off a lot earlier than I had during my last lesson, but it worked. We built speed close to the ground, and then climbed away, still a little to the right, but it was coming together nicely! We did one more circuit, and on this one I greased the landing. We felt the two bumps of first the main wheels, and then the tailwheel touching down. How proud was I? I still had to take off again though. But again I kept over the strip, managed to correct for the drift to the right as we lifted, and then climbed away with a huge sigh of relief.

Hus Bos seemed fairly quiet when we got back, but as we turned base a glider appeared right in front of us, and we had to orbit while he landed. We heard another call final, soorbited again. Then another called to say he was just minutes away, so John quickly lined us up on final, and talked me through the approach and landing. We had cleared the runway and turned round just in time to see the glider land in front of us. What a great view!

Then we refuelled the Chipmunk, and ourselves, and debriefed. John had been really pleased with my progress (although not nearly as pleased as I was), and was keen for me to do two more circuits. He’s the boss, so back out we headed. This was a big mistake. Everyone knows that you should quit while you’re winning. None of this consolidation rubbish, just stop, go home, and fly again another day. My first, and second landings were absolutely awful. Worse than the first time I had tried to land the Chipmunk. John must have thought he was on some kind of manic flying seesaw as we did bigger and bigger bounces down the field. How frustrating! I’d done two spot on landings at Bruntingthorpe with John sitting quietly in the back. Why couldn’t I do it now? I wasn’t going to stop on a bad one, so back out we went. This time we tried approaching a few knots slower, and it was fine again! Wanting to prove this wasn’t just luck I opted for another circuit, and, thankfully, this time everything came together. Time to definitely call it a day!

Overall I was really pleased with how quickly I’m making progress. John was sitting quietly for most of the flight, only making the odd noise “To show you I’m not asleep”. I was downhearted about the two bad landings at Hus Bos, but John said that was pretty silly, considering I have only been doing this for just over 3 and a half hours now. Mind you, I think I’ll make sure I read the books before my next lesson…!