The funky chicken.

4 December 2006
Flight Hours: 5.0 Dual

It was Monday morning, and I had a few days to relax in anticipation of my impending leave from work, and my next flying session. This morning the weather looked great, although some heavy storms passed through last night, knocking out the electricity. Arriving at he airfield at 7:15, at was already getting hot and very light wind. Today we headed out the the Bronkhorstspruit dam, and had to do a bit of map work along the way. Upon taking off, I could feel that it is taking us a while longer to rotate, and the climbout was nothing to get excited about either. Lesson of the day: Short runway, little to no head wind and high temperature: bad.

Climbing to cruising altitude we turned towards Bapsfontein, and settled on course for the dam. The air was surprisingly smooth, and we managed have have a very comfortable cruise, allowing me to easily identify landmarks and checking with the map. At the halfway mark we hit a thermal bump, and smooth air again. This allowed me to enjoy the scenery, and it was fun relaxing for a change and soaking up the beautiful surrounding landscape!

Arriving at the dam, the air decided it had enough and flicked on the "bumpy" switch. The flight back was a bit uncomfortable, and I had to fight the wing all the way back to Microland. I had the opportunity to do the radio work on the returning leg, change the frequency while holding on the bar with my left hand, and all in all just doing the funky chicken. Flying overhead a brown ploughed land, the thermal effect was very pronounced, and bumped a lot more than it would flying just through rough air. Joined overhead Microland, and Henk suggested I spend another 5 minutes in the general flying area. I descended to 6000ft looking smoother air which never came, and we opted to return to base.

Henk took me through the circuit procedure, and demonstrated a low approach and full stop landing. On this landing I kept my hands on the bar, and got a good feeling on how the round-out and holding-off is supposed to work.

A very enjoyable flight for the most part, and I am looking forward to circuit work and low-level flying. If all goes well, I will finish up the year's work end Tuesday!