Total flights = 4
Finally I got to see a pattern . 3rd flight I saw 13R and next sortie I saw apposite. After 10 days of no flying, what skills I claimed before were lost. Anyhow after last sortie, I re-accumulated self in the cockpit.
Patterns is fun! Flying at 200 knots and 1000agl while pulling up to 3Gs during turns is a blast. Other than final turn, we can pull 60 degrees and sometimes almost 90 as required. While slow, this airplane requires a LOT of right rudder. While touch-n-go, being ahead of airplane and expecting sudden yaw to left is required or aircraft will depart runway. Also, holding stick slightly right for enormous torque that wants to roll airplane to the left is a must or during lift off left wing can strike runway. Trim. If I do go-around while being trimmed for landing, there is so much force that I can barely hold stick to level flight while trying to re-trim. I’m not that weak, but at times I had to use both hands. :P
After having 5 hrs in airplane, I can compare to only known to me T-6 addon for FSX (IRIS Advanced T-6). Unfortunately, it is off. FM is wrong. Plain and simple. It doesn’t simulate Slipstream, P-factor, Torque or gyroscopic effects to levels of what real jet does. I can only use it to practice my radio calls and timing. I can’t even do regular landing because IRIS doesn’t simulate prop drag.
For next sortie, I want to get landings down. Due to wide runway, I keep getting illusion of being too low and that causes me to flaring too high.
Monday is next flight. Fun!
1100hp. 2900 shaft torques. 2750 pounds of thrust Basic empty weight 4900. Add 1100 pounds of fuel to that and you get fun little airplane.

Good for you Sim. I envy you getting paid to do that and having a plane with some performance.

OG,

You can do all of the above in a C152...with some imagination!

When I had my first stall lesson I was expecting something along the lines of pitching up violently and then over in to a hammer head before spinning madly and coming out of it with about 6 inches to spare. Imagine my disappointment when the instructor finished his demonstration and I hadnt even noticed!

Mailman

Yes, the Cessna 172 has very tame stall characteristics too. It actually has to be put into a spin by either dropping a wing or using rudder to get some yaw induced movement. Stalls are gentle and the plane will self-recover.

Remember to spin, you need to stall and introduce yaw. I just finished current block of 6 flight and during next flight we will do spins.

For today's flight, we had a bit of a problem. We couldn't close cockpit so multiple crew chiefs had to play around with it. After getting it fixed and starting jet up, we were 40 mins late for take off so this sortie become pattern only. So I had a chance to get my landings and pattern down. Pulling closed from take-off is extremely fun. Picture placing feet on the horizon while turning. So setup, take-off and clean up gear / flaps. Accelerate at min of 140 and turn while placing feet on horizon. Before reaching altitude, reduce power to ~20 torque. This should place you on alt and speed to drop gear and do another touch and go.

During my last "closed", other aircraft (after landing) said we looked like a space shuttle. Yeah, I overshot my alt a little bit

Isn't that what I said ? It has a straightforward stall and you have to make it spin.

Some a/c have more pronounced stalls and will want to spin unless you counter the tendency.

I guess I miss-understood when you said "actually".

Yep, Cessna's have some pretty tame stall characteristics, which is fantastic really.

But spinning was a lot of fun...and I eventually got to do a hammerhead as part of my aerobatics rating too!

Speaking of which, I was down on a flying trip around the South Island when we called in to Queenstown. As luck would have it a good mate of mine was working there flying a pits special for tourists. He took me up, and I thought I knew it all for aerobatics...but by the time we had finished I was a light shade of green and had had enough!

It was all I could do to walk away upright after that flight!

Not sure what your standards are but ours was recovery within 100feet from the stall?

Regards

Mailman

I wish fuel was as cheap here as in the US - the biggest hurdle to any idea of PPL for me is the insane price per hour for flight training.

Basically as soon as I had my licence, I somehow managed to squeeze my frame into a C152 Aerobat.

I made sure that I did aeros straight after 'just in case'. I think it did my overall flying a lot of good, and I never regret doing that. I like 'unusual attitude flying'....lol.

I felt that the little bits I'd done in the Archer and 172 were 'too little' just in case the #%&*$# ever hit the fan. Kinda glad I did it this way.

The best thing I have done for my flying skills is getting a taildragger rating and flying Cubs. C172s and Piper Cherokees can be trimmed for hands-off flying when you've reached cruising altitude, and you can have your lunch and look at the nice view. The Cub has to be hand-flown ALL the time. The one I fly also has very basic instrumentation; ASI, VSI and altimeter only. Does wonders for developing your seat-of-the-pants sense.
As a consequence of learning to fly the Cub I have become better at flying all other aircraft as well. My landings especially have improved very much. I can now touch down in all the planes I fly within a few yards of my selected landing spot. A very good thing in a light plane if you ever have an engine failure or need to perform a forced or precautionary landing.

I think for my general flying, the biggest change I ever had was when I transitioned to the Socata Carribean range of aircraft.

Despite its class, a flapless approach even in a TB10 is not something that you really WANT to do. Even at my height, seeing over that engine without flaps is tough work. I once heard that the Tobago and Trinidad were designed to prep airline pilots. Would not surprise me.

The Socata range are the only GA aircraft I've flown where I can be on finals at 500 feet, and tell you exactly, to the meter, how far into the runway I'm gonna touch down. I would love to buy one for myself. Even with these new types like the Cirrus, I would still choose a TB10. I'm comfortable in the cockpit, and I like the ergonomics.

Anyways, is anybody here able to advise me of approximate hire rates of these aircraft stateside?

Thanks

Andy.

How much we can lose during stall? The only maneuver, other than spin, that we actually stall is Power-On. Frankly, I have to look up the numbers in syllabus for how much we can lose. We recover at first lose of control; wing or nose drop. But since engine is so powerful, it's not very noticeable. AoA indicator doesn't show degrees but shows numbers and at 18 is it stalled. To recovery, max power and relax a bit to get out of stick shaker and then return back into stick shaker and try to get as close to 18 units of AoA as possible.


Today, most fun thing I did was spins. It was sort of mini spin. We got into gyration and quickly recovered. In next flight, we will enter stable spin.

So, min speed to enter 120. Pitch up to ~40 degrees and idle power. At 80 knots, place stick full aft and give full rudder. Airplane will do something similar to an aileron roll. After which, power idle (just confirm) and controls neutral. Airplane goes upside down and nose facing almost 90 degrees. Afterwords, recover. It's pretty simple

One interesting thing - during pattern stalls (not really stalls, just stall indications) I recovered at buffeting and not artificial stick shaker.

For tomorrow, I have two sims; emergency procedures and instruments.... yay.

Unique little extra thing we (instructor and I) did during last flight; chase-ship. After doing work in MOA we returned to our airfield. After two touch-n-goes we heard that someone had a tail strike and required a chase-ship. There was no one else in pattern so we took the job. It was freaking awesome! The light condition of evening made it very picturesque while we were inspecting aircraft for damage. After confirming tail strike, we had to stay up in the air for a while. First runway had to be inspected. Then solos went up in air we had to stay up for them until another instructor took off. So our mission was almost 2 hours of flying time and 14 landings.

Speaking of solos. I'm coming up on mine soon. It is expected to be either next week or afterwords. My landings are fine right now. As is pattern.

Sounds like a great day Sim.
Good luck on your solo flight when it happens.


Wheels

Instruments two test is finished. Next step is weather.

Speaking of weather, it has been messing with my flying. My last two sorties were canceled due to low sealing. I'm scheduled to fly later in the day tomorrow, but weather is questionable.

I did a quick research and found out that B-2 maybe an excellent choice to put on my 'wanna-fly it' list. They don't fly a lot of hours in B-2, maybe once a month!, but they keep flying skills while flying T-38s. Before even flying B-2, pilots do a quick one year tour while being instructors for T-38 to pilots that fly B-2. I find no problem with that

Ceiling Sim, it's ceiling. Sealing is what you use to stop leaks.

Bah! Firefox spellchecker didn't save me. Thanks for correction

How do you formulate your list of "would like to fly"?

It's a list and you just select airframes that you want to fly. It doesn't mean that you'll get it, but usually they try to give you something of that list. If first aircraft unavailable, then they try second. You get the idea. If you're good, it's easier to get first 'wanna-fly' plane.
IPs advice us to select life-style and not airframe. For example, C-130 pilot can be gone 2/3 of year away from home.
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Instruments test - complete!

Today, I woke up to rain and thunder. Technically, alarm first and then those previously mentioned. So I fully expected to sit on a ground behind books for the rest of the day. But somehow, cloud ceiling raised just enough for pattern. And lucky (not) our jet was not under overhang so we got start her up under weather. After take-off, we did a pattern-delay. It means we practiced few landings before going to MOA. While taking off due to moisture in the cockpit, my helmet visor started fogging up. That made things a bit interesting After second touch-n-go, very light clouds started developing slightly below pattern. After two more circles, they got worse. After we left pattern, I heard pattern got closed. It got so bad, that we had to use ILS when recovering from MOA. Usually during bad weather, we radar vector for circling approach but not today. Cool! I got to watch IP land as I applied all of instruments stuff I learned previously.

During departure through cloud deck, controller asked to expedite climb due to some Cessna flying in our way. So we climbed from usual 180 to 140 while in clouds.

In MOA, I noticed crazy wind while at 22,000 feet. I haven't experienced anything like that before. It pushed jet all the way to the corner of MOA and I almost busted boundary during my maneuvers. Lesson learned. Also, jet has noticeable lack of power at that altitude. It feels as every maneuver requires more time to do.

Anyhow, another fun flight