As I hinted in my previous post, it's been raining a bit in Warwickshire, but fortunately the field at HusBos is well drained, and the weather was much better yesterday. The day didn't start off too well though, as I couldn't get hold of my instructor to check he was still good to go. I eventually tracked down his home number, with a little help from PW (sorry for waking you up so early after your late shift
) and he admitted to having slept in. We agreed to meet at the field at 11 am, and I was pleasantly surprised when he turned up only 15 minutes late.... Not at all bad by John's standards. Excellent instructor he may be, but famous for not turning up for lessons because he's forgotten, and gone flying somewhere.
First things first, we went to the hangar to pre-flight the aircraft. There were three chippies tightly packed in, and his was at the back. Neither of us wanted to wriggle her out and find she wasn't fit to fly. As we checked her over John asked me when I last flew with him. He went very quiet, and found an interesting rivet when I said "Last September". When I said I'd done less than 7 hours P1 time since, he just said "Ah".
The check showed no problems, so we manouevred her out of the hangar into the sunshine. We then found out there was a national gliding competition at the field, and they were all due to launch in the next half hour. We went for tea.
Once all the gliders were away and the field had got quieter, we ventured back outside. We had the usual rigmarole of getting the right combination of cushions so I could see, and the right combination of headsets so we could hear each other. Then moving the rudder pedals forward so I could actually reach them.
Finally we were ready to start the engine. It took a stupidly long time to do the checks. Some of the switches had different names, some weren't used, I couldn't remember where any of them were anyway, and most of the labels had worn off.
Once she was running, we taxied fairly directly behind the rows of gliders, towards the top of the field. It wasn't my aimless meandering of my very first lesson, but it wasn't exactly tidy. There were some tug aircraft coming back to land, so we finished our checks while we waited. Then, the quick dash across the field ready to line up and wait for a gap in traffic.
It all felt fairly familiar and comfortable. Perhaps like trying on a favourite pair of shoes, but not quite remembering how to do them up, or how to walk in them without falling over.
My first take off surprised both of us I think (in a pleasant way). I managed to keep fairly straight, didn't need too much prompting of what to do with the stick when, and didn't hit anything. Flaps away at 100', then set a steady 65 kt climb out. All turns were made fairly steep, so as to make ourselves as visible as possible to any gliders.
John wanted to start with some upper air work, to make sure I could still remember what to do with the foot rests. We used Bruntingthorpe as a reference point, and did some 360' turns. Then John had me make 6 x 60 degree turns to the left, and 6 to the right. Stick and rudder were then nicely under control.
John said I still didn't look relaxed, so decided to do a couple of loops to give me my confidence back. However, it's not very confidence-inducing when the engine cuts out and you're upside down. Still, he was right, it fired up again on the way down.
Finally we went back to the field for circuits. Our first two circuits were at 1000', keeping things fairly slow so I could remember what I was doing. Because it's been so long since I last flew regularly, even downwind checks needed thought. My first landing wasn't too bad, but I wasn't quite sure why! John had talked me through it, but I wasn't sure why it had worked. My second one was awful. The approach was fine, and I thought I had it sorted. The flare was good, but then I wouldn't let the aircraft continue descending. John added some power just in time to stop us landing too hard.
The workload was higher than it should have been, due to returning gliders in the circuit. It was also fairly hot. John asked me if I wanted to continue, or take a break for a while if I was tired. I decided to try another circuit, and hoped it was the right decision.
This time we made it a tug circuit, at 500'. This meant there wasn't much time to worry about the landing before getting there. This time it all came together again, I greased the landing, kept it straight, and remembered to brake to keep the landing roll short. Yes! I'm not incapable!!!
John was keen for me to go back and do another one now, so we went back for another low level circuit. However, a glider landed just before us, meaning I had to land between its wing tip and the fence. It looked a lot narrower than it really was, but it didn't affect my landing. Again it was a smooth touch down, but I almost lost it in the roll. Fortunately, I managed to catch it before we ground looped.
Time for one more circuit before it got really busy with gliders. However, there were a couple more on the field by the time we got onto final, leaving us a gap between three gliders on one side, and a whole row of them on the other. I don't mind crashing into a fence, but 30 people and some gliders is a different matter. Again I handled it okay, landed without hitting anything, and prevented a developing groundloop by adding some brake to increase rudder authority.
Total time: 1 hour 15 minutes