I was looking forward to today’s flight. The weather doesn’t get much better than it was today… 60-70°F this morning, clear skies, calm wind and smooth air. Not only that, it was not a weekend, so the traffic was light.
The preflight check went fine, but we only had about half tanks of fuel. Gene had already called for fuel before I arrived, but after 20+ minutes, they still hadn’t shown up. We decided to head for Siler City where they have self-service pay-at-the-pump 100LL fuel.
Taxi and takeoff was smooth. I hadn’t flown in air this smooth in a long time, so it was almost foreign to be able to let go of everything and just let the plane fly as it should.
We climbed out to the practice area at 2,500 feet to work on some stalls. One power-on stall and one power-off stall; both went well with only a slight wing drop on each. Then we did something I hadn’t done before: a power-on stall with a 15° turning bank. It wasn’t really any different, except that a wing was already low, so the recovery required a lot of rudder. I also did a descending 15° turning bank power-off stall, which I hadn’t done before. That was more or less the same… wing low, heavy on the rudder.
Gene demonstrated a few “advanced” stalls. In a climbing turn, he pulled back abruptly on the yoke and the plane stalled fast. Recovery was equally fast. It was more of a “feel it stall for a half second as I pull back on this.” After that, a power-on (but not full power), descending, fairly steep banking turn and another fast pull-back for a stall. This time, however, we entered a full stall. That was right before I about lost my lunch… well, I may have if I’d eaten lunch. 🙂 On recovery, the nose was pitched down considerably, so power came off and our bank angle was so extreme that it felt to me like more than a 90° bank, as in, it felt like we were a bit upside down! Gene assured me that we weren’t; it just seemed like it due to the extreme nose down attitude and the steep bank and turn. It was almost scary, but more like “the first time you ride a new rollercoaster” scary, not the “we’re going to die” scary. Weeeeee! 😐
After that acrobatic experience, he pulled the power, I found a nearby field, circled around a couple times to line up for landing. I almost came up short, but we would’ve made it ok.
We were already near Siler City, so we decided to go ahead and land for fuel. There was a twin engine prop working in the pattern, so we had to fly around and come in behind him. He was following an abnormally wide pattern, so it proved to be a good exercise in traffic avoidance decision making.
My first approach was a little high, but with power off, we sank enough to salvage it. Distracted by the not-so-good approach, I didn’t make much of a flare before we touched down. A touch and go and around for another go at it. The second approach and landing were much better. There was little to no wind, so I didn’t have to deal with drifting off the center line.
We pulled in to fill up with fuel. The nice guy at the pump helped us out after quickly realizing I hadn’t done this before. He walked me through the process in detail, which was very helpful. I swiped my card and he took care of the rest. 100LL aviation fuel there was $3.40 per gallon and we needed 11 gallons. You can do the math. That was after 2-ish hours of flying since the last top off. So… say 6 gallons per hour at 115mph (100 knots); that’s about 19 MPG. That’s better than my minivan gets in the city, though car gas doesn’t cost $3.40/gallon… at least not here in NC. Those numbers can vary significantly, though, based on wind and all sorts of other conditions.
We headed straight back after that since we were already running behind. On the way, Gene demonstrated a high-speed emergency descent; one that might have to be done in case of a fire. The idea is to get on the ground as quickly as possible while keeping the flow of smoke away from the cabin. As quickly as possible, he slowed the plane down to 85 knots (max speed for flaps), dropped to full flaps (30°), entered a descending turn with full opposite rudder, so a slipping turn. We maintained 85 knots and sank like a brick. The plane droped altitude very quickly without picking up airspeed; lots of fun… I like slips. Really, I do. It’s amazing what this little plane can do, and I got a good taste of it today. I don’t have to demonstrate this type of maneuver, but it’s a good thing to know in case of such an emergency.
At six miles out, Gene said “I’ll let you take it in all on your own.” Gene’s a chatty person, which is fine; I’ve gotten used to listening to him while trying to do what I needed to do. But it was eerily quiet as I made the call for the 45 for runway 3, then downwind, base and final. It was the first time where he was really just a passenger. He didn’t say a think until after we landed. The landing was so-so; touchdown was a bit hard as I climbed a tad on the flare, but it wasn’t bad. Gene said it wasn’t that hard, but he did note that I had the left wing down a little, as I seem to be in the unconscious habit of doing.
An eventless taxi back to the ramp after 1.5 hours and 3 landings, and I’m now at 23.9 hours.