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selwyn
Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 102
Location: Australia
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 Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 7:19 pm Post subject: From the sublime to the ridiculous |
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Happy New Year to all. To kick the year off I thought I'd share my New Year's Day flying experience which involved a cross country, a spell of glider towing and the return flight.
First the sublime. New Year's Eve was a nasty day with 30kt north westerlies, 42 C temperatures and a number of grass fires in the area but I was relieved to wake up to much cooler conditions on New Year. I rolled my Lightning out of its Horsham hanger at 0830 local, fuelled it up and took off into a much more pleasant 20kt or so of South Westerly. As you would expect with that wind, the initial climb out was bumpy and visibility was poor with smoke haze until I climbed out over the inversion at about 2600 ft. Then the magic began! The inversion stretched dead level from horizon to horizon with the smoke haze trapped under it giving the illusion of a smooth level surface with dark blue hills rising above it in perfectly clear air. I climbed up to 5500, let the Lightning ease into an economical 120kt cruise and relaxed back to drift along above scattered islands in a magical misty lake.
Cruising along in a beautiful aeroplane over a magic landscape, the thought that "I built this" playing around the edges of my mind, 160kt groundspeed on the Voyager panel, bliss! To make it better, judging by the absence of radio traffic, I was the only one up there.
All too soon the control area steps around Melbourne were looming up and it was time to descend through the scattered Cu sitting on the inversion into the bumps to land at Bacchus Marsh roll up to the gliding club hanger and switch off the trusty Jabiru. That was 125nm, 50 minutes chock to chock, 22l avgas, views only I saw. Beats driving any day.
Then to the riduculous. Well, perhaps ridiculous is a bit harsh, but towing in a Pawnee is certainly a different take on aviation. For those who don't know it the PA25 Pawnee is a tube and fabric taildragger with an O-540 Lycoming which started life as a crop duster. It is almost totally without frills but it excels at the task of dragging sailplanes to two or three thousand feet and getting back to the ground in minimum time. Six minutes or so to two thousand and back. Flying it is a total contrast to the Lightning. Ease the tow rope tight then apply full power, the clattering and bellowing from the huge chunk of iron up front batters at the headphones, concentrate on keeping it straight and ease into the air, the guy on behind is not keeping station so often some coarse control inputs are required to maintain the nose where I want it, a quick check of airspeed, keep the eyes out of the cockpit, fly attitude, look around, some days there are twenty or thirty sailplanes and another couple of tugs up here. About this point I become concious of discomfort in my right leg, there is no rudder trim and 250 HP, fine pitch prop in full power climb requires a significant amount of effort to keep the ball in the middle, Pawnee leg is an occupational hazard. About the time discomfort slides into ache the sailplane releases the tow, power back, descending left turn to gain space, cowl flaps closed, speed to 105, revs to 2300, look after the engine, eyes outside, plan descent and circuit, aim to arrive somewhere near base turn without breaking descent then power back, checks, slow to 65, glide approach, gentle three pointer, roll in front of the next sailplane and repeat. To do all that twenty times in a session is a significant task, to do it well each time is a real challenge.
There are clear differences in the mechanics of flying the two aircraft, if you tried to apply those control inputs to a Lightning you would have done a couple of loops and several flick rolls. On the other hand the skills are the same, look out, fly attitude, plan climb descent and circuit paths, look out, airspeed control, land at minimum speed on your chosen spot.
One of the tows I did was for a father taking his son on the lad's first flight. The lad came back with that special excited grin on his face and took the trouble to come over and thank the tuggy and have his picture taken in front of the Pawnee, a special moment.
The flight back home was more usual, staying low in the bumps to minimize the headwind, but we still managed a respectable 110kt over the ground and decent arrival back at Horsham.
What a great start to 2011. I hope you have a great one as well.
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_________________
Cheers, Selwyn
Kit 66 VH-ELZ |
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N1BZRich(at)AOL.COM
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| Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 8:31 pm Post subject: From the sublime to the ridiculous |
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Great words and perspective on two types of flying machines, Selwyn. This kind of thing is what I was getting at when I wrote the "Why I Fly" article for the Final Thoughts section of the January 2011 Lightning Newsletter. I suspect that you, like I, have never flown an airplane you didn't enjoy.
My New Year's Day flight was limited to the local area because of "delta sierra" weather, but I did get to play among the clouds for about 30 minutes.
Blue Skies,
Buz
In a message dated 1/2/2011 10:22:12 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, selwyn(at)ellisworks.com.au writes:
| Quote: | --> Lightning-List message posted by: "selwyn" <selwyn(at)ellisworks.com.au>
Happy New Year to all. To kick the year off I thought I'd share my New Year's Day flying experience which involved a cross country, a spell of glider towing and the return flight.
First the sublime. New Year's Eve was a nasty day with 30kt north westerlies, 42 C temperatures and a number of grass fires in the area but I was relieved to wake up to much cooler conditions on New Year. I rolled my Lightning out of its Horsham hanger at 0830 local, fuelled it up and took off into a much more pleasant 20kt or so of South Westerly. As you would expect with that wind, the initial climb out was bumpy and visibility was poor with smoke haze until I climbed out over the inversion at about 2600 ft. Then the magic began! The inversion stretched dead level from horizon to horizon with the smoke haze trapped under it giving the illusion of a smooth level surface with dark blue hills rising above it in perfectly clear air. I climbed up to 5500, let the Lightning ease into an economical 120kt cruise and relaxed back to drift along above scattered islands in a magical misty lake.
Cruising along in a beautiful aeroplane over a magic landscape, the thought that "I built this" playing around the edges of my mind, 160kt groundspeed on the Voyager panel, bliss! To make it better, judging by the absence of radio traffic, I was the only one up there.
All too soon the control area steps around Melbourne were looming up and it was time to descend through the scattered Cu sitting on the inversion into the bumps to land at Bacchus Marsh roll up to the gliding club hanger and switch off the trusty Jabiru. That was 125nm, 50 minutes chock to chock, 22l avgas, views only I saw. Beats driving any day.
Then to the riduculous. Well, perhaps ridiculous is a bit harsh, but towing in a Pawnee is certainly a different take on aviation. For those who don't know it the PA25 Pawnee is a tube and fabric taildragger with an O-540 Lycoming which started life as a crop duster. It is almost totally without frills but it excels at the task of dragging sailplanes to two or three thousand feet and getting back to the ground in minimum time. Six minutes or so to two thousand and back. Flying it is a total contrast to the Lightning. Ease the tow rope tight then apply full power, the clattering and bellowing from the huge chunk of iron up front batters at the headphones, concentrate on keeping it straight and ease into the air, the guy on behind is not keeping station so often some coarse control inputs are required to maintain the nose where I want it, a quick check of airspeed, keep the eyes out of the cockpit, fly attitude, look around, some days there are twenty or thirty sailplane!
s and another couple of tugs up here. About this point I become concious of discomfort in my right leg, there is no rudder trim and 250 HP, fine pitch prop in full power climb requires a significant amount of effort to keep the ball in the middle, Pawnee leg is an occupational hazard. About the time discomfort slides into ache the sailplane releases the tow, power back, descending left turn to gain space, cowl flaps closed, speed to 105, revs to 2300, look after the engine, eyes outside, plan descent and circuit, aim to arrive somewhere near base turn without breaking descent then power back, checks, slow to 65, glide approach, gentle three pointer, roll in front of the next sailplane and repeat. To do all that twenty times in a session is a significant task, to do it well each time is a real challenge.
There are clear differences in the mechanics of flying the two aircraft, if you tried to apply those control inputs to a Lightning you would have done a couple of loops and several flick rolls. On the other hand the skills are the same, look out, fly attitude, plan climb descent and circuit paths, look out, airspeed control, land at minimum speed on your chosen spot.
One of the tows I did was for a father taking his son on the lad's first flight. The lad came back with that special excited grin on his face and took the trouble to come over and thank the tuggy and have his picture taken in front of the Pawnee, a special moment.
The flight back home was more usual, staying low in the bumps to minimize the headwind, but we still managed a respectable 110kt over the ground and decent arrival back at Horsham.
What a great start to 2011. I hope you have a great one as well.
--------
Cheers, Selwyn
Kit 66
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Paul K Smith
Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 9
Location: Hindmarsh Island, Sth Australia
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| Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 1:30 am Post subject: Re: From the sublime to the ridiculous |
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Nice prose Selwyn. Your style reminds me of some of the stories in a book I'm reading "The Greatest Flying Stories Ever Told" edited by Lamar Underwood, which includes some very personal stuff by Lindbergh on his trans-Atlantic crossing and 18 other short pieces, some fictional, some factual, but all written by pilots. Maybe you should become AsiaPac's correspondent for Hangar Talk!
Cheers, Paul Smith, Angaston, South Australia.
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