Back to School

When I bought into my group aircraft, one of the conditions set by the insurance company was that I take 5 hours of instruction with an instructor before flying solo. So it's back to school for me!

My previous passion - learning how to drive properly!

The easiest way to explain flying a light aircraft to non-pilots is by comparing it to driving a car. I actually think that controlling an aeroplane in pitch, roll and yaw is more intuitive than the two-dimensional controls for a car, but the way you are taught during a PPL is completely different to learning to drive. This'll be a bit controversial, but I think the driving test consists of a lot of 'skills' that don't prepare you in any way for a real emergency or real life situations. Being able to parallel park is wonderful, but it won't save you when you have a tyre blow-out, or you get snap lift-off oversteer in a front wheel drive car on a wet, greasy road.

A PPL course is different. Obviously there are times when you can use a cut-down version of some of the procedures, but for the most part, you should actually be utilising what you learned.

3 months has slipped by since my PPL skill test. I'd planned to take a couple of check-up lessons with an instructor even before the CC insurance company insisted, to make sure that I hadn't picked up any bad (or dangerous!) habits in the 7 hours or so P1 time I've had since then. PA28 conversion training will give me the check-up I need, while introducing the aircraft to me with a safe pair of hands waiting in case I cock it up.

After an e-mail from the group treasurer to say that the insurance company had verified my details and that I was covered in the aircraft, and with my freshly arranged log-in details to the groups Internet booking system in my hands, I was straight on the phone to my flying school. My instructor for the conversion course is Phil Matthews, the CFI, who I know quite well, and knows just about everything there is to know about being a pilot. He was also my PPL examiner, which adds a certain air of authority to his opinions. We arranged to meet for an evening flight after work on a Tuesday night.

The day came, and the weather while I was at work was, to put it bluntly, awful. I tried to be interested in my day-job but the persistent drumming of heavy rain on the window made it hard to concentrate, and at lunchtime I was sure that the flight would be called off. A bit of hope came when I called the airfield at 2pm and was told that it was improving, and I couldn't believe it when at 4pm I was told that it was flyable and that I should come on up.

Awful British weather subsided into a great evening for flying

My office in Bristol is only 30 miles from the airfield but the difference in the weather made it feel like another country. CC was stuck behind a Seneca in the hangar and by the time I'd dragged her outside there was a perfect blue sky with just a few scattered, fluffy cumulus clouds. Phil and I completed the walk around and before long we were sitting at the hold raring to go.

CC's a lot more powerful than my previous aircraft, and it took a bit more rudder to keep straight on the runway during the take-off. The actual lift off is more of a rotation than in the Robins I'm used to, which just tend to fly off in their own time, but then we were away and climbing at a rate which is a bit more than I'm familiar with! We trundled westwards and, once clear of the airfield, started a programme of left and right turns up to 60 degrees of bank that Phil obviously uses for his 'standard' check ride as well as the full repertoire of stall configurations and speeds.

The PA28's controls seem a bit woolly compared to the aerobatic aircraft I trained on, but it's built to be a touring aircraft, so you would expect nothing else. The aircraft feels quite different to fly due to having a yoke to hand rather than a stick, and because it's quite a bit larger, but the handling struck me as very benign. Even (deliberate) stalls in a steep-turn failed to produce any drastic effects, and maintaining cruise altitude proved quite easy at about 2400rpm and 105kts IAS.

The largest difference in performance that I could feel was when gliding into some practice forced landings, which made up the next part of the flight. The first attempt ended up a little low (but passable) into the chosen field due to me underestimating the sink during a gliding turn, and the second a bit high due to overcompensating for it. A bit more practice there required, I think - after all, if it happens for real you don't get to go-around again!

We took another 10 minutes or so going over procedures like switching fuel tanks (unlike the Robins, CC has 2 tanks which you alternate between to maintain balance in their levels) and generally enjoying the perfect flying conditions, before we made our calls to ATC and headed back to Gloucester. After being given a left-downwind join for runway 27 at Gloucester, and I promptly started to line up with right downwind. In my defence I'd never been offered a left downwind at Gloucester because the circuit for 09/27 is always flown to the North, but no excuses - it was a silly mistake, and I'm glad Phil was there to point it out. Pre-landing checks completed, we turned base and then onto final at 600ft with full flap.

CC seems like a pretty friendly beast to land, everything seems to happen smoothly and slowly, and 180bhp means that there's plenty of power to combat any unexpected sink. I had to cut the throttle a bit earlier than I'm used to as I flared and held the wheels off the ground for as long as possible. We touched down and backtracked, taxied back to the hangar, shut down and finally pushed CC back into the hangar.

After we'd sorted out his fee, Phil went off on his way, and I went back to CC and finish off the paperwork and lock up. It was very strange wandering across the tarmac of the now almost deserted airfield, back to 'my' aircraft and hangar, after only previously having access to the airfield via flying schools. CC locked up and paperwork done, I stood in front of the hangar for a while in the silence of the cool evening air as the sun went down. A very good way to spend an evening.