http://www.saflyermag.comfrom this stabilised approach. With a couple of stabilised approach
circuits completed, it was time to explore OFH’s slow flight envelope.
I, and I suspect I’m not alone here, had never been a fan of
stalls and spins. It’s something that I managed to do competently for
flight reviews and conversions but never looked forward to. Never
fear, ‘Captin Chaos’ will make you face you fears – and you will be
the better for it.
Raising the nose in clean configuration, OFH stalled according
to the book; the same was the case with everything hanging out.
Nothing to it. What about the power on stall? Bringing the nose up,
bleeding off speed and applying power to maintain altitude while
squeezing in right rudder to maintain heading and prevent a wing
drop, the stall warning started blaring and the needle swung below
the comfort of the white arc. This was uncharted territory; loss of
control dragons lingered here.
I kept raising the nose, and with more and more of my weight
being supported by my back, I felt like I was sitting in a roller coaster
as it inches and clanks its way to the tipping point. But the lurching,
falling, rushing of wind and spinning ground vertiginously filling the
windscreen never came. The speed dropped to 45 kt before the
nose pitched down for what was an anticlimactic mush of a stall.
We did this a couple times and I was enjoying myself. We got to
the stall, and then unloaded the wings – and hardly lost any altitude.
The Saratoga isn’t approved for spins, so we wallowed in the air
above the lush Barberton bushveld and played on the edge of the
stall, turning to the left and right and releasing a little back pressure
on the yoke here and there.
To conclude the upper air work we did some minimum radius
turns. Flying just above the stall, I opened full power and rolled
into a steep turn. My eyes were fixed on the horizon, so I couldn’t
see how tight the turn was, but I knew it was tighter than any turn
I had done before – and yet could still have been tighter. Then CC
took control and put us overhead the runway. I was pleased to
take a break. As he threw us into the turn, I looked down over the
precipitously inclined wing as it seemed to pivot around a point.
Using the runway lights as a reference, I estimated the turn to be
about 200 m in diameter.
If I took nothing else from the course, just becoming more
comfortable with stalls and slow flight would have made it
worthwhile.
Turning final, I settled the aircraft on a ‘stabilised approach’: full
flap, gear down, 70 kt and homing in on the numbers. Flaring into
ground effect, I closed power and heard “bang on the numbers!”
from my right. CC leapt in his seat with excitement and satisfaction.
With my mind reeling, it was time for some more of CC’s wonderful
‘Bush Air’ hospitality.
The following morning started with a recap. We took-off and did
a couple of circuits to cement the ‘stabilised approach’ and I hit the
touch down point almost every time. It is essential to be ahead of
the aircraft. Flying slower approaches means you have taken away
the manufacturers recommended ‘10 knots for the wife and kids’
so getting complacent quickly puts you behind the drag curve. It’s
an advanced flying course that demands precision. And with that in
mind it was time to tackle short take-offs and landings.
This is where you see the value of practicing the upper-air-work,
as it requires ‘hanging on the prop’ to bring the plane in as slowly
as possible. My take-offs and landings were shorter thanks to CC’sSpot landing is CC's speciality. The
runway light was the touch-down mark.
All CC's training revolves around
making you a safer, more confident
and more proficient pilot.