"Good Flying Luke"

A quote from an old Star Wars video game, where your instructor complimented your flying... its a bit of an in-joke with me and my wife, as this is what she got when she tried to play and she flew through the canyon crashing her ship from one side to the other (she had the invinicibility cheat turned on, so got a perfect 0% damage run!)

Anyway, I actually did pretty well today... It was fairly benign weather with just a moderate crosswind, and some wicked thermals coming off the Hunua Ranges.

Went and practised some Wingdrop stalls... actually quite good fun... the view goes something like sky->sky->more sky+stall warning->GROUND! :)

HASELL/HELL check, carb heat hot, throttle 1500RPM, in the white arc take full flap, carb heat off going through 60kts, hold back pressure, stall warning, keep holding back and eventually the stall will fully develop (due to gyroscopic forces from the engine/prop, the plane tends to drop the port wing), then controls forward (NO AILERON!) and full power and right rudder all at the same time, then roll plane level, nose up above horizon, once we have a positive rate of climb we slowly bleed off the flaps 1 stage at a time.

I mentioned no aileron and its important, otherwise it will exacerbate the wingdrop and put the plane into a spin = bad! The natural reflex when you roll over is to try to roll it back... and I almost did it on the first one...

After that, a quick PFWLOP (which I kind of stuffed up as I was a little high... I think I was too close to the field on downwind)... and then home for a perfect grass landing.

All in all, another fantastic day in the air!

This flight: 1.0 Hours Dual
Total Hours: 53.9 (48.0 Dual, 5.9 Solo, 1.9 IFR)