Archive for year: 2014

No flying tonight – weather is bad

The forecast for this evening was really crappy. Jim has decided to take the night off – he said he was little sore after all that work in the past day and a half. Scott was only planning to train Saturday and Sunday but because the forecast for this evening was so bad he decided to take off and go back home so that left me and Talitha.

We have arrived at the field at 5:30 but the wind was howling. So we sat in the car and chatted  – the wind did start to decrease but not until 7:30 even then though it was too windy. Finally around 8 o’clock the wind has died enough that we have decided to do a little bit of ground handling. Seeing the further decrease in the wind velocity I thought maybe there is possibility for Talitha to fly. I got set of gear out of the trailer, went for quick flight and the air was good…

Soooo we went for it. We only had about 15 minutes of usable light so things were rushed a bit. Once ready, Talitha had a very good take off and a decent flight – unfortunately she was not able to get into the  seat. It was either inexperience or perhaps her leg straps were just touch lose. Anyway not bad landing off the runway in muddy bean field. Yuck!

Over all though very well done given some radio difficulties we had.

Congrats on you first solo flight Talitha!

Started at 8 am with great conditions at the field.

Scott had his first flight. Great take off but6 afyter take off he started to fly directly at Jim who was facing Scott and acting like a deer in headlights. Since Jim was not moving I asked Scott to put bit more brake on to overfly Jim at safe altitude but Scott pretty much burried the brakes which made me to to say “hands up, hands up , hand up” he did and from then on it was OK. After 1 circuit I have noticed that Scott did not have much penetration so we have prepared for landing. It was good and very soft one one but like majority of students did not stay on jhis feet and went down on his knees. Very common on the first flight!

Once Scott landed we took small break to debrief.

After both Jim and Talitha put the motors on their back and ground handled with those no problem.

They are ready to fly. Just need calm conditions.

Eventually wind picked up and startyed to gust to 35 km/h We could only use the small training paragliders and even then it was getting to be too much. We packed up at noon – its siesta time. Back at it in the evening.

Congrats Scott on you first solo flight!

Andre, as anyone who follows this site will know, has recently gained his recreational pilot license. He is now able to take a passenger. Having recently turned 40 (in December), Andre suggested beers and a flight as a gift. We did the beers in December, but I had to wait until Andre passed his exams to go for the flight. Well, Andre passed with ‘flying colours’ so to speak, coming top of his class (2013) at the St Catharines Flying Club. We headed out for an evening flight on Sunday. It was a couple of degrees below zero, but it felt a lot colder as Andre took me around the plane for some pre-flight checks. I must say, flying a plane has always seemed a lot of hassle to me. There are so many things to remember… important things. That’s why they have written check lists to follow. We checked for fuel levels, water in the fuel, air speed indicator, oil levels, moving surfaces etc and then climbed in. The cabin was preheated. Apparently engines don’t like cold starts, so they get them toasty warm before you set off. The upshot is the cabin was very much warmer than the outside. We spent another 10 minutes or so going through lots of pre-flight checks in the cabin. The array of dials, instruments and buttons looks overwhelming, but Andre knew his stuff and rattled off all the safety checks like a pro.

There was a moment during his safety briefing where I though Andre was suggesting we would bail out without parachutes in an emergency, but it turned out he was talking about an emergency on the ground.. pheww!