This lesson is a big turning point in my journey towards my pilot’s license. First, I’m moving flying schools and, second, I’m changing aircraft!
New Flying School
This lesson sees me leaving behind Eshott in Northumberland, a wonderful and friendly airfield with a great flying school set in the middle of some of the UK’s most picturesque scenery. I will fly to (and from) Eshott without hesitation in future, but right now it isn’t the best fit for me.
Over the past 18 months I’ve struggled to find instructor and aircraft availability at Eshott, so I haven’t had regular opportunities to fly. As I proceed towards the last few lessons of my LAPL syllabus, I need to fly regularly and build a strong bond with the aircraft I will do my Skills Test in.
Another factor in my decision to leave Eshott is the type of airspace it sits within – specifically, “Class G” uncontrolled airspace. Flying from Eshott is a very simple affair, pilots effectively do whatever they want, and are responsible for keeping a look – and a listen – out for other aircraft. The choice of runway to use is up to the pilot, depending on existing circuit traffic and wind direction.
This has been a great simple introduction to flying without a lot of the complexity that comes with controlled airspace and “towered airfields”, where air traffic control issues instructions and clearances that you have to obey.
But with nearly 30 hours of flight time in my logbook, and a Qualifying Cross Country (QXC) and Skills Test looming on the horizon, I wanted to experience more of that complexity. I wanted to spend more time in controlled airspace and controlled airfields speaking with Air Traffic Control.
I visited Aeroschool a couple of weeks ago and felt confident they would be a good choice to take me through the rest of my training. Based at Teesside International Airport, serving commercial, military and training aircraft and surrounded by Class D controlled airspace, Aeroschool offered exactly what I was looking for.
New Aircraft
Although Aeroschool has Cessna 150s in their fleet, they will be phasing them out soon, so I decided I would immediately start the conversion to their more modern fleet of Aquila A211 aircraft. That way I would have maximum time with the type before taking my test.
The A211 is a sleek looking, composite, low-wing aircraft with a large bubble canopy offering excellent views. Powered by a Rotax 912 4-cylinder engine, the Aquila has a “constant speed propeller”, which requires a new way of thinking about how the throttle controls the propeller, and introduces a new lever in the cockpit – the PCL.
The Propeller Control Lever tells the propeller how many RPMs (revolutions per minute) you want it to spin. The throttle controls how much fuel goes into the engine and therefore how much “grunt” the engine has.
Incidentally, if you want to see me completely fail to understand how to use a constant speed propeller, you can see it in all it’s glory in this video:
So with lots of power (i.e. an open throttle), the PCL will control the “pitch” (or angle) of the blades on the propeller to maintain the desired RPMs. With lots of power, the propeller will pitch to “grab” a lot more air with each turn to maintain a set RPM. If you reduce the power, the propeller will pitch less into the air and grab less of it, to maintain the same speed.
Think of it like gears on a bike – on a low gear, you can ride up a hill easily with just leg power. On a high gear, you can travel far with each turn of the pedals, but you’d struggle to get up a hill. Constant speed propellers are about managing more carefully how the engine power is used rather that directly connecting the fuel flow to the propeller rotation speed.
Get to the lesson already!
OK OK! So I met my instructor and after a short briefing we went out to the aircraft. Compared to Eshott, with it’s general aviation (GA) traffic, we were sharing the airport with Draken’s fleet of private jets converted into military support aircraft, someone’s very expensive Dassault Falcon 900EX business jet, and a plethora of airliners. (We theorised that the Falcon might be related to Kylie Minogue playing at a nearby arena but we weren’t sure).
As we walked over to the Aquila, a Ryanair landed just a few hundred yards away on the runway we would shortly be taking off from. Very cool!
The instructor and I walked around the aircraft and performed the external checks. Control surfaces, engine oil, propeller, fuselage, tyres and wheels, all were looking in great condition.
Next we hopped inside, which takes some gymnastic ability. The instructor showed me how to “book out” the aircraft and then we called the Tower, telling them our plans and the number of people in the aircraft (in case we needed Search and Rescue).
With that done, I ran through the rest of the interior checklist and started the engine. The instructor changed frequency to the ATIS – automated terminal information service, which provides a looped recording of the local weather and traffic conditions, updated every 30-60 minutes depending on changeability – and then he made the first radio calls while I made mental notes.
“Golf-Tango-Sierra-Delta-Bravo, information Echo, QNH 1024 request taxi.”
“Golf Delta Bravo, taxi holding point Charlie, runway 05.”
He read back the instruction then asked me to taxi the Aquila to the left out of the parking apron.
The Aquila has a very different feel to the Cessna 150 I has come to know and love. While the Cessna rolled freely and had light controls, the Aquila feels more robust – heavier. But once we were moving along the yellow taxi lines it wasn’t a million miles from the old F150H.
Take Off!
We got to holding point Charlie and I pulled into a designated area for power checks. I ran up the engine, checked the brakes held us in place, I checked the magnetos and the carb heat. All good! There was barely any noticeable drop in RPM or manifold pressure (how we measure engine “grunt” with a constant speed prop) when switching off the magnetos. The Rotax 912 is an impressive motor.
“Golf-Delta-Bravo, holding at Charlie, ready for departure,” said the instructor.
“Golf-Delta-Bravo, runway 05, line up and wait,” came the reply, which the instructor read back. He taxiied us into position on the runway then handed over controls to me.
“Golf-Delta-Bravo, surface winds 040 degrees as 14 gusting 23. Runway 05, cleared for take off.”
The gusty winds would make the take off interesting…
He read back the instruction while giving me a thumbs up. I advanced the throttle smoothly while pressing on the right rudder pedal. A **LOT** of right rudder is needed in the A211!
I managed to keep her straight on the centreline and at 55 knots I started to gently pull back. But nothing happened. I kept smoothly pulling and pulling, watching our speed get to 60kts then 65, then the nose lifted, the wind picked up the wings and we weather-cocked around. I pushed the nose down gently to prevent a stall but not hard enough and the instructor helped with a few degrees of forward pitch.
I’d learned my first lesson about the Aquila – you have to be quite forceful with the controls but not fast as they are very responsive!
I climbed out a bit fast (80kts) even though Vy is 65, still getting used to the elevator sensitivity. I was mostly amazed how much right rudder it needed to fly straight – the ball of the slip indicator was always drifting right requiring more pressure on the right rudder pedal.
The instructor gave me headings to fly on and altitudes to climb to as we left the controlled Class D airspace to the north west, passing Darlington on our left before overflying Newton Aycliffe.
“Do you know what a HASELL check is?”
I did. In fact, I’ve posted about it before.
HASELL checks are done before intentionally inducing stalls and stands for:
- Height – high enough to recover from the stall?
- Airframe – wing clean or flaps, depending on the type of stall you’re practicing
- Security – hatches (doors) closed and harnesses (seatbelts) tight
- Engine – Temperature and Pressures in the green, carb heat out to Hot if reducing engine power
- Location – not above built up areas and not near restricted airspace
- Lookout – make sure you’re not going to bump into anyone!
I performed the HASELL checks and then the instructor asked me to perform a clean power off stall. I pulled the throttle back while progressively increasing pitch. The speed bled off and at around 50 knots the stall warning horn went off. The instructor asked me to wait until we were deeper into the stall, then said to recover.
I pushed the nose of the aircraft forward and opened the throttle, closing the carb heat with my index finger in one motion as the throttle lever went forward. I climbed us back up to 3,000ft.
Next we did an approach to land stall. Flaps out, throttle back, maintained altitude with back-pressure, and then at the first sign of the stall, nose forward, throttle up, cleaned up the flaps as we climbed back to 3,000ft. No problem.
We practices recovery from spiral dives (the effect of uncoordinated turns) and then, all too quickly, time was up. I flew us back into the Class D as the air traffic controller switched us to a Radar Service and told us to “report left base”. I turned parallel to the approach path and flew to the left base point.
“Why don’t you take the radios from here?” My instructor asked.
I nodded, having practised for the previous few days! “Golf-Delta-Bravo, right base, runway 05.”
“Golf-Delta-Bravo, number one for landing, runway 05 report final.”
“Number one for landing, wilco, Golf-Delta-Bravo.”
I turned onto the final approach path for the enormous runway 05 and started to descend towards the numbers. I was pretty happy with the approach, it was smooth, wings were level, we were in trim.
One thing I was very worried about was rounding out too early. It’s common for students like me who have only took off and landed on short, thin rural airfield runways to develop a “sight picture” that we become used to. For example, at Eshott, when the sides of the runway touch the side of the windscreen, then you should be rounding out.
At Teesside, if I rounded out when the runway touched the side of the windscreen, we’d still be at 80ft above the ground. It’s massive
Incidentally, it wasn’t an issue and there was no urge to round out early because there were enough visual cues to know when we were close to the ground – the texture of the runway and the grass either side helped my brain build a 3D picture of our position.
I started to gently pull back to arrest the descent but it wasn’t enough so my instructor added a bit of back pressure on the controls, which I appreciated. I kept the Aquila on the centre line with the rudder pedals while waiting for our speed to bleed off. The wheels kissed the ground.
“Not bad, you can fly!” said the instructor.
I’ll take that, every day of the week.
“Except for that take off!” ………..He wasn’t wrong.
We were the last lesson of the day so as the sun began to set I helped tie down the aircraft and we walked back to the flight school, admiring the Falcon through the wings and things of the Aeroschool fleet.
I think I’m going to enjoy this…
