Leaning to Fly – Hour 50 GFT Revision
I arrived at the airfield bright and early, in fact it was still bloody dark, oh yea and friggin freezing too. By the time Rob arrived, I had just got the wing fixed to Gunny, and was inspecting it at low level. As Rob approached me I could see he a little bag and a mug of something… mmm I thought, just what I needed… Hi GT, said Rob, then took a sip of his lovely hot drink, and then tucked it to his pastry, ooooh!
OK GT, meet me in the office and we shall discuss what we will be doing… Hopefully solo I thought.. Wrong, when I got to the office, Rob said, “Right GFT Revision, we are flying but you need to take full responsibility, you do all the checks, make all the decisions about which runway to use, and where we go too.. OK Boss..
So we gets into Gunny, does our checks, and then I said OK, we shall take off on runway 30… silence in the backseat, err no GT, look at the wind sock, yea I said its right across the runways, no its not, look again, and look at the square its of at an angle to runway 15, do you not think mate, err no Rob. OK GT lets taxi down and have a look at the sock, as sometimes it can give you the wrong information if you look at it from another angle. So off we taxied and stopped in front of it, yep it was sort of pointing to 15, mmmmm.... OK GT, yeap Rob, and so off we taxied for take off from runway 15. 1st fuckup!
We took off and headed for south mimms at 2000ft QNH. OK GT, I want you to speed up to 70mph staying at 2000ft, OK Rob. Power increase, bar back, 70ish mph. OK GT, a little slow getting there but not bad. OK I want you to slow down to 55mph and stay at 2000ft. OK Rob, I removed the power and pushed the bar forward and for some reason we went it to self-induced pilot oscillation. OK back to 60mph GT, OK … This I did, I think fairly well, however, as Rob said it needs to be quicker…
The next one was that I had to accelerate to 80mph and hold it, so increasing the power quickly and bringing the bar towards my chest.. OK GT, back down to 60mph, which I did… OK mate, you were little too quick that time and we lurched forward. You need to be smoother for your GFT… OK I said, and now feeling a little glum we flew on.
Right the next thing is I want you to carry out is a 30 degree turn to the right, OK I replied, I looked to the left and then to the right and put gunny into a right turn, pushing on the bar forward to maintain our turn. Completed, Rob requested I do one to the left… I thought that I was doing well… however, Rob thought different; you slowed down a little on both turns you need to increase your revs to maintain speed. OK Boss. OK Rob!
Right GT, when were you going to do a LIFE check, err … now Rob, OK, Do one then! After completing the check Rob reiterated the need to do them, “the examiner will not remind you to do them, you have to do them yourself, if you don’t he will think you're are a right spanner, and will not have any confidence in you or your flying at all” errrrr, OK Rob. In my mind I am thinking, fuck, fuck and fuckity fuck fuck!
OK GT please do a 45 degree turn to the left, OK Rob! I looked to the right and then the left and turned, again I lost a little bit of power, but increased in mid turn, leveled off and I got, “That was shite!, what about a HSELL check!”... oh fuck! … “come on! You need to do these mate”… I know Rob, well fucking do them, and you will need to do them every time, OK let us return to the airfield… OK I replied..
Flying back to the airfield it was sort of quite over the intercom, I was feeling rather glum with myself and I think maybe Rob was slightly disappointed with what i had done I thought too!
I called in “Plaistow Traffic, Golf Golf Tango inbound from the south for overhead join, for runway 15. I crossed over the threshold at the crosswind and joined the downwind, called in, “Plaistow Traffic, Golf Golf Tango, downwind for runway 15”, soon we were on base and finals, in went the call and i completed the landing which was not too bad even though it was 15.
We taxied off to the grassed apron, shut down and climbed out of the cockpit. “OK GT, lets take it from the beginning… you need to take responsibility for the aircraft and the flight. That means you must do everything, what runway, where you are going etc.. er uh! I nodded, in the air you need to carry out LIFE Checks every 10 mins, and not wait to be told to do them. You also need to, before you carryout any advanced maneuvers, carry out a HSELL Check, in fact all checks need to known off by heart, you cannot rely on the check sheet, it doesn’t look good if you have to keep looking at your check sheet in flight before you carryout a procedure”.. I thought that was the reason for checks sheets Rob, if I tried to remember them, I might forget something, “ No GT, you must remember them, so the next time you go solo, you can practice the following:
1. Speeding up and slowing down without loosing height
2. Turning at 30 & 45 Degrees and not forgetting the HSELL Checks
3. You need to practice all the checks too…
Therefore, lots of stuff to do now GT, the hard work begins!!
Somewhat pissed with myself for fucking up, I left the airfield and only wished I had learned these checks off pat before, and that I had practiced the turns more, and well fucking everything really… But I suppose that’s what the GFT revision is for..
I am not back until Wednesday 29th, and hopefully I will get a few things right instead of fucking up at this stage of the game… The test must be as hard as fuck, harder than I had previously imagined …mmm…. time to cop on I think, and get this last bit put to bed!
Happy Landings
GT & Gunny Flexwing
