Gyroplane Training 
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Web by: Rebel Systems Training Days April 7 - 22 2001 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 May 26 - June 2 2001 April 1 - 11 2002 |
Day 7 Got to the airfield with light winds and sunny. Martin was the first off but had a terrible time. Coordination gone, approaches c#$p and so on. He got really frustrated as he felt he had regressed. From starting ab-initio he has progressed remarkably. Well, onto my turn. Brief was circuits, landings, and dead stick landings. Circuits are now fine, no problem with those. I was still leaving the power to high to long on approach, but got that sorted. What is still causing me grief is as we are coming into the low level flair my feet refuse to cooperate. I have to think very hard what to do with them which tends to detract from everything else that needs doing. After a number of those, and tight low level circuits to decrease the turn around time, things were still not gelling. I knew right from the outset that the feet would cause a problem and this has certainly been born out. I shall persevere and get it licked... We landed and refueled then off again to do some river following to loosen up and get over the earlier frustrations. In the air under normal flying my feet do the rudder correctly, it's just this low level into flair that they refuse to do what they should. That was 1 hour 10 all together for that session, but we didn't get around to dead stick landings. I said to Roger we should try the landing flair little and often, and at some point it will click. The brain knows what to do, but I just can't think about that and cyclic etc on landing. It has to become instinctive, so just needs more repetition to hammer it in! Hopefully I will get another session in this evening but Roger has two others to get in before then so we'll see. Today, being good Friday the airport is busy. Quite a few trikes are doing there thing, and plenty of GA, with a commercial turbo prop twin coming in to. I think that was an air ambulance from France, as it was met by an ambulance. Smell that kerosene! To do: takeoffs, engine outs, and sort out the final stages of landing - feet! Then onto single seat after that. Well, evening dawned, and Roger hot foot from taking out Simon, (building another Merlin 912, and needed training on torque effects), decided there was time to take me out for another session. He had already been flying 5 hours at this point so it was a long day for him. I wanted some time in the air to work on my feet, so we did some figure of eights. A little lazy at times but generally ok. I don't seem to have a problem with general flying, and can go where I need to at the correct power and altitude and compensate and trim as required to the prevailing conditions. Well onto circuits, and yes, you guessed it, lazy feet causing problems again. Low level flight, tight turns onto runway centerline, and descent to thin wedge no problem, but then rat sh%t. Tried a few of those and I started to get frustrated so called it. Last one and things were beginning to improve. Not good but better! This is very frustrating I can tell you! I have been trying to work out where I am going wrong. I am alright when I think about it, but the last little bit before landing you can not think about it, it has to be reactive. I was talking to Chris, our trainee instructor on the way back to the digs, and I asked where I should be keeping my feet on the pedals. He said that the heel should be on the pod floor, and using the ball of the feet to apply the pressure. Now in triking this is not the case as the pod floor is never designed to take the weight of your legs so you rest them on the pedals. Could this be my problem? We shall see, hopefully tomorrow, and I will try. Roger was always complaining that I was not fluid on the pedals and this could explain that. Maybe this is the problem. I really do hope so!!! Roger is quite right that until the feet are sorted then it is no single seat for me. I shall try the new foot position tomorrow if we manage to get a session in as the weather is looking to close in for the bank holiday weekend. |