Continued....
OK, where was I, O' yes - The voice assisted flight module (VAF)........
Now being a Rattex and a fixed pitch prop things start getting interesting at the higher end of the RPM spectrum I hear so one wants to try and avoid that quite a bit....
I found that initially stages of the flight, in the middle and towards the end my VAF constantly needed to remind me of the RPM ..... With a 2 stroke the revs climb very quickly and because of the low noise interior I think on this version I will need to keep a close check on this in the future....
My only excuse is that the throttle has a tendency to slooooowly creep back a bit so I am overcompensating at the moment. I have been told that with the 4 stroke this will not be an issue.
Also something that I found strange was the fact that every time the revs climbed Steve would look outside at the ground - something about emergency landing area's and the waffle about the block thing again.... Not sure why we would want to perform and emergency landing.. My bladder was empty and thanks to Kellogg's I am as regular as clockwork so I was fine for a while still...... Maybe he had eaten curry the night before, who knows....
So anyway, after the non event stall we do a couple of runway inspections of Whats landing head off up the coast towards Haga Haga.
On out final pass at What's I informed Steve that I would like to get down into the valley to experience a bit of the low level tap (see route in pic) - Anyway just after the threshold the ground drops away into a valley where I knew my friend Mr Turbulence would be waiting... So off the end of the strip, nose down and follow the contours all the way to the river... Here and there a bit of tap but I immediately noticed two things - One, this a/c laughs in the face of tap and secondary (and for me most importantly) is the effectiveness of the control inputs - With the generous control surface areas the plane is very responsive, the moment a wing dropped a gentle touch on the stick would have it back in place in no time whatsoever....
So through the valley and up the river until the BIG dam and then hard left...
For those of you who know the area there are some lovely long stretches of beach that one can fly forever and a day loooow level.
We maintained a fairly respectable height until the sand and that is when the fun really started.... Miles and miles and miles and miles of fun with a bit of a pull up here and there to avoid ingesting people and their pets into the engine......
The one thing that I can honestly say about this area and the local avieighters....aviatorrs...avveiate... ag, pilots is their sensitivity to Joe Soap average citizen with regards to low flying and "noise pollution"
I have also often though about what the average citizen thinks is happening when they are sitting on the beach and 2km's or so away they see an aircraft suddenly descending towards the beach and then fly in their general direction LOOOOOOOOOW level - 500 metes or so before getting into their "happy" space we climb out and over them only to repeat the process again on their "dead" side......
Usually as one passes overhead we are greeted with waving arms and lots and lots of teeth.... Man, we are a fortunate bunch of people...We must never loose sight of that fact........
Anyway we did quite a bit of low level flying and I think I must have been improving with the footrests because for the most part Steve stayed on his side of the cockpit....
As with most good things they eventually come to an end and I started a nice gentle turn out over the sea to bring us back on the reciprocal heading.... After a couple of minutes my autopilot kicked in with a "I have control" and the next minute the sea was positioned in a weird angle off the nose.... I don't think Steve was keen for the 8km swim back to land....
Don't anybody tell him but I am not scared of either the swim back or the fishies that will want to make a meal of us... I have a secret anti-shark weapon, it is a pocket knife with a 1 cm blade.... The trick to fending off a shark attack with the formidable weapon is quite simple.... As soon as most of the parts have stopped moving after a water ditching all one needs to do is jab ones pax once or twice in the leg and make sure that one stays at least 10 meters away from him/her in the swim back to shore....
So, we get back to the area around the a/f and practice a couple of touch and goes over the world's tallest Blue-gum trees.... Well I say practice but for most of the time I was just following the control inputs that the "autopilot" was making.....
From my vantage point the approach goes something like this..... Fly towards the 600 foot tree line hoping like hell that the Rattex is not in a bad mood..... 1 second after the prop has clipped the highest branches push the stick through the firewall and enter a dive that would have Stuka pilots holding their breath for about 8 seconds before levelling out, holding her in ground effect until you have dissipated the 300 knots worth of stored energy and then touching down...... we did one or two of those and then called it a day.....
Final circuit, flew the perfect triangle and on downwind started a 4 minutes battle with Mr Flap lever...... Left hand on the stick, right hand on the flap control level, mind power on the throttle SLOOOWLY easing itself back to neutral....
At this stage eyes outside the cockpit watching the rapidly approaching 600 foot Trees of Doom.....damn this flap control is small and thin... pull push, pull push, pull push....flaps remain where they are....some more pushing and pulling NOTHING.... Look over at Steve for assistance... He is sitting there with his eyes closed and a smile on his face....
Damn..... My mistake, remove hand from Steve's lap and look inside the cockpit for the flap lever.... Where the hell has the thing got to..... VAF starts warning "ground ground ground....." look out the front, why is the earth rotated 90 degrees from where it should be.....stupid thing...... it needs to stay in one place...bad BAD ground....
OK, found flaps, push lever, dump flaps... zoom over the Trees of Doom with microns to spare, stupid birds sitting in the top of the tree almost get converted into pink wobbly bits and feathers, 70 degrees nose down... 1...2.....3.....4.....5.......6........7........8
Following the autopilots control inputs, now in ground effect..... hold off, hold off, hold off and then we are down rattle rattle shake shake rattle bump rattle...... Grab the 10 speed racers brake (he he Kevinbark
)
and squeeze.... mmm, nice braking ability..... Steve climbs off the dashboard ledge and takes his seat again (For an instructor he certainly does move around in an aircraft quite a bit)...
Taxi back to the hanger, I finish off the post flight checks and then head off back to the office........
My colleagues think that I am having an affair I think....for the rest of the day I sat staring out of the window with a big grin on my face.... :D
I went to see Mr X this afternoon and the negotiations continue....
Well, that is enough for this post, more again next week....
You're not really a loanshark, you're a consultant to the government 
