Cirrus SR20 Refresher October 30th
With the short days and poor weather on the way, I took the opportunity of renewing my currency on the Cirrus SR20 G3 GTS that is available to me. On looking at my logbook, I saw that it was exactly a year since I had flown this type, so I enlisted the services of Stuart, a flight instructor, to renew my solo rights.
Myself and Alan, my flying companion, arrived at Blackpool shortly after mid-day and I set about the pre flight inspection of the aircraft. This revealed no problems but we required fuel. After Stuart had munched his sandwiches we fuelled up and set of for Hawarden where I had booked us in for circuits. It took me until past Woodvale Airfield before I had the plane trimmed to my satisfaction. The Cirrus has an elevator and aileron trimmer that you operate via a toggle switch on the control side stick and it takes a bit of getting used to. It's a bit tricky to "blip" the toggle just enough to get the desired effect. It's easier to put it on auto pilot!
We arrived at Hawarden and joined right base for runway 22 with a slight crosswind from the Southerly wind. Prompted by Stuart, I slowed us down to 90 kts and dropped the flaps to 50%. The approach was a little high but we were soon over the threshold for a decent landing. Three further circuits all resulted in acceptable touchdowns and Stuart declared he was satisfied with my flying. Oh Good.
Flying instructors develop their own little ways of criticism or prompting and Stuart is no different. On one circuit he casually asked me at what height I was going to fly the circuit we were on. I looked at the altimeter and saw we were at 1300 feet instead of the required 1000 feet. Ooops! I descended to the required height and all was well again.
We returned to Blackpool for a radar vectored ILS which was broken off due to a departing B737. We were repositioned back to 10 miles and had another go. Not a brilliant approach but I'm blaming the lack of familiarity with the aircraft. Still, if it was for real with bad weather, we would have made it in O.K.
Alan, sat in the back, enjoyed watching the show and learned a bit more about how we operate.
All three Cirrus SR20 G3 GTS aircraft I have access to, parked at Blackpool.
Alan took some video of one of my landings so when I get a copy I will post it for you to watch.
Myself and Alan, my flying companion, arrived at Blackpool shortly after mid-day and I set about the pre flight inspection of the aircraft. This revealed no problems but we required fuel. After Stuart had munched his sandwiches we fuelled up and set of for Hawarden where I had booked us in for circuits. It took me until past Woodvale Airfield before I had the plane trimmed to my satisfaction. The Cirrus has an elevator and aileron trimmer that you operate via a toggle switch on the control side stick and it takes a bit of getting used to. It's a bit tricky to "blip" the toggle just enough to get the desired effect. It's easier to put it on auto pilot!
We arrived at Hawarden and joined right base for runway 22 with a slight crosswind from the Southerly wind. Prompted by Stuart, I slowed us down to 90 kts and dropped the flaps to 50%. The approach was a little high but we were soon over the threshold for a decent landing. Three further circuits all resulted in acceptable touchdowns and Stuart declared he was satisfied with my flying. Oh Good.
Flying instructors develop their own little ways of criticism or prompting and Stuart is no different. On one circuit he casually asked me at what height I was going to fly the circuit we were on. I looked at the altimeter and saw we were at 1300 feet instead of the required 1000 feet. Ooops! I descended to the required height and all was well again.
We returned to Blackpool for a radar vectored ILS which was broken off due to a departing B737. We were repositioned back to 10 miles and had another go. Not a brilliant approach but I'm blaming the lack of familiarity with the aircraft. Still, if it was for real with bad weather, we would have made it in O.K.
Alan, sat in the back, enjoyed watching the show and learned a bit more about how we operate.
Alan took some video of one of my landings so when I get a copy I will post it for you to watch.
posted by David M at 10:24 PM
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