Flight #8 - Shoreham - Slow flight and stall recovery

Autumn has arrived! After a week of wind and rain I woke up this morning to find the sky grey and the wind still quite blustery.

I checked my blood sugars at about 7.30am and was disappointed to find them up at 11.6 which is high. I blame a birthday chilli meal last night where I probably had more rice and tortilla's than I intended. I didn't want to have blood sugar's that high when I flew. I also wanted a couple of coffees plus Holy Communion first and each week I have flown my blood sugars have risen as the morning went on - even without breakfast. I decided to have a 2 unit (tiny) dose of fast insulin to see if it would bring my blood sugar down a bit, and my pre-church coffee was black to avoid the lactose sugar in milk.

After church I drove to Shoreham Airport arriving around 9.30 and tested again. My blood sugar reading was now 9.5 and to avoid it dropping further I had a white coffee from the fantastic restaurant at the airfield and went for my lesson.

Today we would be practicing slow flight, holding level and doing gently turns just before the stall point. We would then be starting to do some stall recovery.

After I had completed checking out the aircraft my instructor joined me and I started the engine and taxied to the active runway - tarmac runway 20. The wind was from 220 degrees at 13 kts, so just a slight sideways component to a pure headwind, but quite buffety in nature. Due to the cooler, wetter weather the inside of the plane had some condensation which disappeared after a few minutes of flight. After the power check I turned the aircraft around, headed out onto the runway, and did a reasonable takeoff - my second ever. I climbed us up to the west, turning through holes in the cloud, leveling out and trimming the aircraft at 3,500ft. Here's a video of that sequence from end of Power Check to level off...

It was then time to slow the plane down and hold it in clean configuration and then with two stages of flap close to the stall point, with the stall warning intermittently going off. This was at about 60 kts (clean) and about 50 kts (with flaps). Here's a video of gentle slow turns - listen out for the stall warning horn...

With those done okay it was time to start learning recovery from stalls. We started with glide recovery where you leave the engine at idle, and then moved on to normal recovery where you apply full speed as part of the recovery procedure. We did this a few times but I didn't come close to recovering within 150ft of the stall - I was nearer 250 ft - so lots more practice needed. Here's a video of me doing normal recovery...

Finally it was time for us to head back. My flight instructor took control and side-slipped us down through a hole in the cloud while I tested my blood sugars quickly. Now that I knew I would generally be doing the landing I wanted to follow the CAA guidelines about testing blood sugars within 30 mins of landing. My blood sugars were 10.2 which is quite a good level for flying and is certainly within CAA guidelines of 5 to 15.

Once through the hole in the cloud I took control and flew us just about the 1000 ft min altitude limit, but just under the clouds, for an unusual right-hand circuit in to Grass runway 25. Here's a video of the landing, which was okay but quite bumpy due to the blustery wind...

Here's the chart of our flight...

Weather...
- EGKA 190820Z 22013KT 9999 -RA FEW011 BKN015 16/15 Q1014
- At 08.20 GMT on 19th (October) wind 220 degrees at 13 kts, visibility 10km or more, light rain, few clouds at 1,100ft broken clouds at 1,500 ft. Temp 16 degrees, dew point 15 degrees. Barometric pressure 1014 hPa.

Blood sugar readings...
> 2 hours before flight: 11.6 (so I had 2 units of NovoRapid)
< 30 mins before flight: 9.5
Landing: 10.2

Flying hours...
This flight: 1h 0m
Accumulated: 8h 15m

Flight #7 - Shoreham - First take-off and landing

The wonderful weather from September continued into October and I woke up this Sunday morning to blue skies and barely any wind.

I did my usual routine Sunday - up around 8am with blood sugars 6.9 which is quite good for a flying day. Had a white coffee. Went to church at 8.30 for communion, grabbed a white coffee at the local shop and drove to Shoreham airfield. On arriving there tested blood sugars at 09.45 and found they were 10.0! It can't be the communion wafer - it must be the lactose in the two white coffees that's lifting my blood sugar. Next time I will go for a black coffee and see if that makes a difference.

I went out and did the pre-flight checks on the aircraft, just feeling overjoyed at the beautiful morning weather. This lesson would be about doing Medium turns, which are a very controlled level turn at 30 degrees bank with good use of rudder and keeping the aircraft at the same altitude. We would be doing this over the coastline above Bognor Regis so total distance on route chart below looks small, but there were plenty of orbits.

I taxied down Alpha and Bravo towards start of Runway 02. Here's a picture of me checking clearance behind the aircraft as part of the power check...

Unexpectedly my Flying Instructor (FI) asked me to taxi the aircraft on the runway and then pilot the aircraft through the take-off for the first time. What an amazing feeling. The take-off and climb were okay but I tracked to the right of the centre line which is not good so next time need to do a much better job of taking off and climbing in a straight line. Here's a video, and remember I didn't know I was going to get to do this...

We took off to the East on runway 02, and after turning to the West and climbing to 3,100 ft we started the Medium turns to the left and right. Then we moved onto combination maneuvers over the Solent such as "turn left to a heading of 050 while descending to 2,700 ft". Here's a right hand orbit while maintaining height at 3,100 ft...

Finally I practiced my descent and approach to Shoreham passing over Worthing pier just above the 1,600 ft minimum clearance, then did Base config set-up (carb-heat on, 1,500 RPM, 75 kts airspeed, 2 stages of flap). As per last week my FI asked me to turn onto final and apply last stage of flap and pitch for 70 kts lining up onto the runway. Unlike last week he didn't then take control and land the aircraft - he talked me down as I did it for the first time!!! To teach me a lesson for letting go of the throttle during the maneuver he pushed it to full power during the descent (30 secs into video). I quickly brought it back to approach speed again. A fun game - but I must learn to keep hand on throttle when not in cruise. Amazing feeling. The touch-down was smooth but my short-final approach was twitchy - far too much control movement, but not a bad place to start. Here's the last few minutes...

I can't believe I got to take-off and land - both for the first time and on the same day! Both were not great, but they were safe, and I know I can get better from here.

Here's the chart of our flight...

Weather...
- EGKA 050820Z 01007KT CAVOK 08/06 Q1021
- At 08:20 GMT on 5th (October) wind 10 degrees at 7 kts, ceiling and visibility okay (visibility at least 10km, no clouds below 5000 ft). Temp 8 degrees, dew point 6 degrees. Barometric pressure 1021 hPa.

Blood sugar readings...
> 2 hours before flight: 6.9
< 30 mins before flight: 10.0
Landing: I didn't know I would be landing so didn't measure blood before doing maneuver, but I did check after landing and blood sugar was 11.4

Note: Isn't it odd that all I had to eat/drink between first reading was two white coffees and communion wafer and blood sugar went up by so much?!

Flying hours...
This flight: 1h 0m
Accumulated: 7h 15m