NZFF

Hi guys
Today I went flying. We did steep turns and spiral dives.

When I got to the Aeroclub, the airport was already busy, Dash 8's coming and going, the Tecnams sitting out front, and Cessna 172's ever present. I preflighted RJF and noted that we had 48 litres of fuel in our tanks. Minus 1L of unuseable and 45 minutes club reserves, that means we had 32 litres left for flying, enough for nearly 2 hours.

I got talked through steep turns, what to do, and how to recover from a spiral dive, should we ever get into one unintentionally etc.

I started up (and forgot my after-start checks AGAIN ). We got our taxi clearance and taxied to Hold point Delta for runway 20. We did our run-up and DVA's, and lined up (after recieving our clearance to the west, 2500ft and below). I took off well and we established ourselves westbound to the Mapua Training area. We climbed to 2000ft, and tracked along Rabbit Island. Upon reaching Mapua we changed to 119.1 to state our intentions. That went ok and we continued along the coast for the mapua training area. As soon as we reached it, we found the club 172 doing turns in the training area, so it became unsuitable for steep turns. We tracked a few minutes south to the Upper Moutere training area instead.

The instructor showed me a steep turn at 2000ft, and then I did it. It was great fun!I barely lost or gained any height, and the G forces felt really cool. A steep turn is done usually up to 45* of bank. To do one, you basically roll your wings and increase your power 100rpm when you pass 30* of bank. This allows you to gain more lift by having more airspeed.

We did a few of these, then she showed me a spiral dive. She rolled the wings to 45*, then kept going a little bit, and didn't use any back pressure. Our nose slowly went down and we banked more and more, and the G's got higher and higher. Higher G loading is a really cool feeling! After she had recovered from her dive, I tried one, which was successful, and we didn't crash and die. Yay!

After this, we rejoined the Nelson Circuit, did a Touch and go on the grass (not so smooth), and then a full stop on the grass. By this stage the wind had changed and we were on runway 02. My second landing on the grass (the full stop) was smooth. We taxied to the club after giving way to a Dash 8 (the pilot waved to me!
B) )

We shut down, and that was that. One of my most enjoyeable flights, and all in .6 of an hour.

It's awesome hearing of your training mate. No pitstops this time then?

Nah man, I made sure I double-checked the tyres in the Preflight

Here are some diagrams of today's flight:
At NZNS:


In tasman region:

Sounds like your enjoying flying lessons...they get even better though when you start doing aerobatics

Yeah, I don't think I'll be doing aerobatics in the tecnam though, its a little flimsy I think. Also the club Nanchang is stuffed (the prop pitch is stuck in "fine" mode). I think there's an aerobatic C150 around Nelson, not sure though. Steep turns was aerobatic enough for me though!

Sounds like heaps of fun dude! When I was your age, all I had ever done was fly a C152 around straight and level!

It was great fun!I barely lost or gained any height, and the G forces felt really cool. A steep turn is done usually up to 45* of bank

I went up in the Warbirds DC-3 to do some steep turns, and the pilot told the copilot to give it a 60* degree steep turn and he accidently did a 75* degree turn instead. The G-Force was awesome (way better than any roller coaster!)

Also, to get into the spiral dive stall, did you just point the nose up, then when your airspeed reached 0, kick the rudder one way and push the ailerons tot he other way? I thought only aerobatic type aircraft could handle these sort of maneuvers?

Awesome, those steep turns are so much fun, I can't wait to start flying lessons full-time at Ardmore next year.

Trolly wrote:Sounds like heaps of fun dude! When I was your age, all I had ever done was fly a C152 around straight and level!

It was great fun!I barely lost or gained any height, and the G forces felt really cool. A steep turn is done usually up to 45* of bank

I went up in the Warbirds DC-3 to do some steep turns, and the pilot told the copilot to give it a 60* degree steep turn and he accidently did a 75* degree turn instead. The G-Force was awesome (way better than any roller coaster!)

Also, to get into the spiral dive stall, did you just point the nose up, then when your airspeed reached 0, kick the rudder one way and push the ailerons tot he other way? I thought only aerobatic type aircraft could handle these sort of maneuvers?

Trolly.
A spiral dive is where you bank too far over. When your bank angle goes too far, you lose the lift created by your wings and your nose drops. You don't stall.

To recover you just use your ailerons to slowly roll level, then slowly pull out. Nothing like a stall.

if you ever want a real wild ride get your instructor to show you an "inverted spin"

the aircraft is spinning but you are on the "outside" of the aircraft with it pitch "down" or away from you the whole time - the airtrainer used to oscillate in pitchrate at the same time just to add to the experience!

Cool towerguy, how do you recover from that?

asprin!

the instructor did that one but the airtrainer emergency recovery was - "just let everything go, it will stop itself!"

"just let everything go, it will stop itself!"

Not if you're 50 feet above the ground

kismet wrote:

"just let everything go, it will stop itself!"

Not if you're 50 feet above the ground

Well it will, just rather terminally.

The instructor showed me a steep turn at 2000ft, and then I did it. It was great fun!I barely lost or gained any height, and the G forces felt really cool. A steep turn is done usually up to 45* of bank. To do one, you basically roll your wings and increase your power 100rpm when you pass 30* of bank. This allows you to gain more lift by having more airspeed.

In those pretend planes dont you need any opposite pedal to balance the aircraft in the turn?

And when you did it right, did you feel anything as you passed the 180 degree mark?

Regards

Mailman