Tinworm-wings: Flying at Sywell

Thursday 31 July 2008

Flying at Sywell

I have now flown about two hours, yesterday's flying having been cancelled because it was too gusty; and as a consequence of being grounded, I have had an hour and a half of ground school with Phil, my instructor.

Phil is an easy bloke to get on with. He knows his stuff, having flown on various types for 15 years. He was a paramedic before becoming a flying instructor and among other things, has been a professional musician, so an interesting guy. What I appreciate about him most, though, is his thoroughness, which appeals to me, as I am someone who likes things logical and tidy. After the rogues I have dealt with in flying instruction in the past, it is good to be dealing with someone very professional (and I am not just saying that because he will be reading this!)

I really feel I made progress today, mainly because I managed to get my head out of the cockpit; I have a tendency to try to fly by instruments rather than looking at my aircraft attitude etc in relationship to the horizon, etc. That was a lot better today. But the biggest breakthrough, in my opinion anyway, was that I understood for the first time why we adjust the trim, which is done on the GT450 with an electrically powered adjuster! State of the art stuff - this aircraft is a Formula 1 compared to the stuff I flew before. My first hour I got her up to 98mph.

At this point I must stress that nobody should use this blog as a manual. I may be writing complete bollocks....and the reader who knows anything about this will probably spot any misunderstanding straight away. About the trim: if the aircraft is flying too fast when you are flying at optimal revs, you'd normally push the bar forward, increasing the drag on the wing....but if you do this you may find the wing very heavy, so you adjust the trim, which adjusts the wing by pulling on bungees attached to the struts to tension them (increasing the camber, I think. Is that right, Phil? - "No" - please see link)

Until today's lesson I could adjust the trim with the toggle switch, watching the LED to see if we were going to speed up or slow down, but I wasn't sure WHY we were doing it. That may seem obvious, but the fact is that when you are new you are thinking about loads of stuff at the same time.

And to think, you have to be fresh and fed, which brings me on to life on the airfield. I am camping - effectively living out of boxes stored at the back of the hangar and out of the back of the car. Everyone has been very accommodating; I have mooched around quite a lot and I must be a bit of a nuisance (watching structural tests on the Dragonfly (which is the one I am thinking of owning), "helping" Bernie, who is building something similar to a Dragonfly (about such things, more later), etc, when they are all trying to get on with work. I have cycled out a bit - intend to do much more - let them all get on.

Also camping, in a hammock in the hangar, is Dr Paul, an engineer contracted to do some scary maths and fun testing (will provide a link to YouTube, when they go live on the latter). Really nice chap.

I will let you know about what goes on at Sywell and at Flylight in particular later. It is an absolutely fantastic place. Incidentally, I didn't bring the drivers for downloading pics, so can't do that just now, but will later.

Watch this space

(will sort typos later)

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Ground handling (how to store an aeroplane at home and get it to the airfield)

A trial flight in a Thruster, when I was 28, c.1991

I have started to learn to fly before...TWICE! First time round I had just graduated and got a job at an aerodrome in Cornwall, where I earned flying hours by fuelling microlights, giving hourly weather reports to the Met office etc. The weather was bad, so there was little flying to be had...and in the end I was paid with broken propellers and bits of crashed fuselage to hang on the wall. The boss was a great bloke called Ian Stokes, who had been a leading light in forming the BMAA and had manufactured Thrusters in the early days . In retirement he moved to The Gambia and became a publican and, shockingly, was murdered this year.

Flying Rogues

ten years on from my first experiences at Moorland Flying School (and now nearly ten years ago) the flying school was under new management and my girlfriend and I booked full courses. We both made good progress initially but never felt we were being moved on and had difficulty pinning the instructor down to signing our logbooks. When another instructor signed himself as P1, we got suspicious, contacted the CAA and were horrified to learn that our instructor did not have a current instructor rating, that we had not been insured and that none of our hours counted towards our licences. We were eventually refunded and the instructors were prosecuted by the CAA.

The very sympathetic CAA investigator spoke to the BMAA on our behalf and my hours have been allowed to count (at the discretion of the school). But in point of fact, I flew way over the minimum number of hours subsequently, so it is really quite academic in the end.

Around 2001 an instructor in Norfolk tried to convince me that if I bought his aeroplane he could teach me at a cut rate, as I'd then be using my own plane. Great idea, I thought, except that it turned out that the aircraft in question had failed a noise test and could not be used from the instructor's field. He later admitted that I would have to learn on his aeroplane at the normal rate. He resisted showing me the paperwork, kept avoiding me and eventually, when it was quite clear I wasn't going to buy without the paperwork, told me to F-off.

So far my experience has been that there are a lot of rogues in flying, which is one reason why I was so very impressed by the professional set-up at Sywell.

by air to Africa

My sister and I were lucky to fly many thousands of miles in the 1960s and '70s in many aircraft types, including BOAC VC-10s, Boeing 707s and even a Nigerian Airways Dakota, as our dad (and later our mum) had teaching posts in Kenya and Nigeria. Those were still the romantic days of flying, when passengers walked across tarmac and up steps, rather than walking down the tubes that have turned passenger flying into a mundane affair. (Mind you, aren't take-offs still incredibly exciting!?)

Back then air hostesses GAVE children the sorts of nick-nacks that their parents have to pay fortunes for from the airline catalogue these days; things like model aeroplanes, keyrings etc. We were also given sweets to help us cope with depressurisation. (And they were hostesses, so nobody give me a hard time)

Mum says that I cracked my first joke when I was small, on a flight out to Kenya, when I said, "Mummy, shouldn't there be a wing on this side of the plane too". Apparently I got her with that one.

At Kano airport I remember standing behind an engine and thinking how hot it still was....and then being told that the engine was cold. The heat was Kano. I got a headache and took several days to aclimatise.

The airport perri-ways at Kano were littered with aircraft that didn't make it, including a burnt-out Mig 15. The Nigerian Airforce flew them and my dad played squash with one of their pilots, Ben, at the Kano Club. I recall a Mig fly-past on my birthday. Was it arranged with Ben over a beer? Was it a pure coincidence?

At Entebbe airport (Uganda) I remember climbing down the steps on to the runway and being encircled by soldiers with machine guns, who then went through all our belongings and confiscated my cherished Swiss Army penknife, purchased on one of numerous European stop-overs. That was in the twitchy time after the Israeli hijacking ...and mum had to stifle my protests.

Before my first flight to Nairobi, as an infant, I was scared stiff. I didn't understand that I wouldn't have to sit astride the fuselage, as I did on my pedalcar! In a funny way, I not only overcame that fear but have come full circle; microlighting is just like sitting on that pedalcar......open to the elements - real flying!