HeadInTheClouds

Thanks everyone! Next step is to concentrate on staying right on the centreline while landing I think!

From watching that video, I think I need to get over my apparent phobia of landing anywhere other than slightly left of the runway centerline

As promised, here is the video of my first solo:

If it's any help, the ops manual requires you to be able to produce your certificate/student certificate withing 24 hours of being requested...

Today was the day!

I knew my solo was coming because my instructor forewarned me and we had to organise a time in the afternoon when the Tower was closed. So today, after doing a theory course I waited around for an hour to see what the wind would do, it ended up dying to about 5 knots right down the runway in time for the tower to close for the day, woohoo!!

After a preflight and daily inspection we hopped in and started up. First we taxiied to the cross runway and took off, joining a right downwind for 03 which the wind was favouring. This was my first practical experience with a CTAF and due to the fact there was zero other traffic around it was rather easy to manage! We did a stop and go plus a practice engine failure, then a stop and go again. Although this time I came to a stop on the runway and it was time, my instructor opened the door and hopped out....

At this point I wasn't really feeling nervous at all. The first thing I noticed was how short the takeoff roll was, even with a no-flap takeoff the Foxbat was airborne within a count of 4 (A full flap takeoff then would have been astronomical STOL!). I climbed to about 700' straight ahead instead of the usual 500 to give myself a bit more time on downwind and to counter the increased climb rate. Made the usual turn to downwind with a radio call I'm happy to day I didn't stuff up, preformed the usual downwind check and took a quick glance down to the runway to see my instructor and confirm that this was infact real (The empty seat next to me also helped confirm it was real..)

Made the usual call while turning onto a nice tight base then another call when turning onto final. Was a good approach with idle power for the whole of final so essentially a glide (Which is how it should be sometimes!). Crossed the threshold and touched down for what I would consider a brilliant landing (Pity no one was in the aircraft to verify it...)

Stopped and picked up my instructor, then we realised how long the taxi back to the hangar would be. To shorten this we performed a practice aborted takeoff, which meant a 5 minute 'rollout' along the runway became around 1 minute! Exited the runway and made the usual calls, my instructor radioed the Brindabella aircraft on downwind with some comments about the wind (The only traffic during the entire afternnon), taxiied back to the hangar and shut it down.

Feels so good being able to write command hours in my logbook! I now have a massive 0.2 hours solo. Before today I had 9.6 hours total flying time and 8.6 of formal lessons excluding TIF's, according to my instructor I'm the only person he has sent solo prior to 10 hours. Guess that means I'm a fast learner

Days like today make me wonder why I'm not going into aviation as a career.... But then I look at the cost of a CPL and realise why

Hope you enjoyed the read, will post the video of it tomorrow!!!

That could have been me, although I normlly seem to be there at night!

Having landed at Coffs a few times, it looked just like the real thing!

@J170 Owner - I know there is a camera to buy that does away with the whole prop effect, not cheap though... Software would be nice though! This time I mounted the camera on the dash right at the front, next time I'll try put it back a bit further which won't make a whole lot of difference but it would be better. Not many places to mount a camera behind the seats in the Foxbat except the aileron control rods (Not a good Idea) but I may give a suction mount on the door a try one day if I can find one!

Bookmarked your blog for future reading

Taxiing was at warp speed in parts.... Haha. Final does seem a bit long but that's the standard sized pattern that all light aircraft seem to fly here, maybe to give the tower more time to plan when it gets busy?

Hi all,

Finally got a video camera and managed to film one of my lessons the other day. Was a decent session of circuits and we had the entire aerodrome to ourselves, no other traffic at all while we were flying. We practiced normal circuits, EFATO, glide approaches as well as an engine failure after takeoff at height with a turnback on to the runway for downwind landing (The downwind component was about 2 knots at the time), as well as an EFATO at 500', right over the threshold with a turnback, which is something that I probably would never attempt without an instructor in the right seat, and he assured me he would only actually attempt it because he knew the Foxbat could handle it, anything bigger though and the outcome wouldn't be the same. Anyway here is the video, editing it ate a large portion of the resolution unfortunately...

Longer version of the same sketch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEIB4baOSd8

Love the bit "Hold on, I'll do the worried walk down the aisle"

Something like this?

Sorry, I was bored and just couldn't help myself

I was taught to say it right from my first TIF, and I was under the impression that it was also to let people who may be standing behind the aircraft past the boundary fence that a blast of propwash is coming. The airfield I am learning as is really quiet and spread out, that and the fact that you can almost see the nosewheel while sitting in the Foxbat means that it probably doesnt help much, but I will still say it nonetheless!

On a similar note I was pre-flighting the Foxbat one morning at around 7:30 am, no one around at all when all of a sudden I hear "Clear prop" and look around to see where it came from, only to hear a Piper Warrior sputtering into life about 150 metres away from me. Even though me and him were probably the only ones outside of the hangars he still said it! Good to see someone else caring about safety so much.

On a similar note, 'clear prop' might not be of much use in an aircraft which sounds like this on startup (The spooling of the turbine should be warning enough!)

Sounds fun! What power setting were you using to get 103kts out of the Foxbat? Or was there a nice tailwind helping you along?

First flight for me won't be till the 7th.... Hopefully I'll have my certificate by the 1st of January 2013 then I'll be able to do one

I'm an indigenous Australian and not an immigrant but quite white. Why your hang up about skin colour? And BTW no-one is more anti-science than a Greenie.You are quite young and naive I take it?

And 'lefties' are totalitarian and opposed to individual freedom? How come free university education is part of the Greens policy then? Doesn't sound very freedom hating and oppressive to me...

I think this video sums it up nicely, I'm getting out of here now

That's rich, don't see Bob Katter either:

A - Getting an indigenous sponsor

B - Learning a native indigenous language

Every non-indigenous person in Australia is an immigrant but it seems like that detail is conveniently forgotten when people want to get up on their high horse about refugees and 'boat people' thinking it's a massive threat to our culture and values (What values?...). For christ's sake they are still PEOPLE. They are HUMAN and if they have the guts to get on a tiny unseaworthy boat for the faint hope of better living conditions then good on them. Sure there will be some who abuse this system but the percentage of those who do that would be far far less than the percentage of Australians abusing our system for their own personal gain. And what is our culture today? "Australian" culture isn't particularly strong if you ask me, the thing that makes up Australian culture is the influences from other cultures, and I bet if we lived in an Australia without ANY 'illegal' immigration throughout history it would be a very boring place indeed.....

Having the prejudice that anyone who isn't an Australian living here is a subordinate is racist and there is no argument to that. I remember watching a good documentary and reading a scientific paper (Yes that scary science word that so many conservatives seem to fear....) which was pretty conclusive evidence that all human's came from Africa, and that anyone with white skin was a mutation of the dark skinned African origin. It had a lot to do with the levels of ultraviolet light, people who stayed in Africa kept their dark skin because of high levels of UV light and the need to protect from the sun. People who moved up and into Europe no longer needed that defence from UV light and were infact not getting enough so they developed a lighter skin colour, and people who moved up into the Middle East area are somewhere in between.

Sigh..... Weather like this has nothing to do with the bigger picture of climate change....

Seeing as this tread has drifted somewhat..................years ago I read that the faster you go, the smaller you get!!! So, at the speed of light, everything is so small you'd need more than headlight is see anything.

Bit of an exaggeration (Actually a lot...) and a lot of misinformed judgements in this so called 'joke'

I can't find the rest too, not with the weather. The mustn't deem it important enough to post it up...

Ahh ok then, probably depends on the engine too. I didn't expect my thread to generate so much discussion, I guess it is an odd accident and the report doesn't really explain what happened to cause it too well...

Just a comment ... can't really see, but it looks like the prop just stopped at first strike on the ground. The one blade you can see in the second last picture appears to be undamaged? ...... When I dug mine in 6 months ago in VERY boggy ground, with the engine at idle, both blades shattered, one near the tip (the first one in) and the other closer to the root. The broken part of this one was left 6 inches underground and almost invisible, so soft was the soil. With that in mind and with the ground looking to be firm, maybe the engine had stopped producing power and the prop was just windmilling ...... If so, that wouldnt have helped!

Yep I saw that, but only the 8:40 one. I didn't think that he would actually kill the engine altogether, great landing though. Seemed to be a pretty positive story though, highlighting the fact that aircraft don't just fall out of the sky if the engine stops which is still a common belief with some people...

Okay, flaunting my ignorance here; Why would a yaw to the RIGHT cause the LEFT wing to drop? If the left wing stalled the nose would yaw left. I suspect a wind gust caught the pilot by surprise. There have been a few times I have found myself belting down the runway with my wing tip just off the ground, mainly why I won't fly in hot, gusty conditions (beer drinking conditions).