How time has flown! Not that we have done a lot of flying. The prep work has been a tad more than we imagined. Yesterday we worked until 9 in the evening. Michale and I had a tough time trying to syncronise the carbs on the new 912 of the float plane. We were foiled by the cable sleeves that made the settings work opposite to what they are supposed to do. Took a long time to find that!
Today we flew the plane proper. The weather was threatening – CB cells. Mike was piloting and just after TO when we initiated the right turn things turned funny. The trike wanted to spiral in. We were fully locked out to the left while the trike was still slowly banking right. As we were about to hit 90 degrees, Mike came off the power and she leveled off. Phew! Later we checked and the right turn needs more high siding, especially when banked at 45 degrees or more. It gets a bit scary after 60 degrees of bank. I don’t like it that much. Personally I think it has just a tad too much anhidral.
We raced for landing because of rain and had a hairy finals. At the last moment Mike decided to fly low level along the runway while the wind was from the left (over the mountain!) while two jet planes had just taken off and there was a small squall from a rainstorm coming in from head on (the rain was at the end of the runway). I have the whole thing on film. I did not like that much…
Much later Mike and I had a heart to heart chat about our respective roles. My instructor nature got to him a bit. I knew that but things were getting a bit hectic there for a moment. Now I am tired and want to just lie on the couch.
