Saturday, November 03, 2007

Test flight

The last couple of weekends we were unable to fly due to the high winds and some restrictions at the airport due to heavy firefighting activity. So I was eager to fly any of the aircraft, for any length of time. My preference was to fly the Grob 103 because I plan to take some passengers up in it in a couple of weeks.

So today I took a short flight in the Grob to check it out after a repair. Although an A&P mechanic actually approves the return to service, our club practice is to have a private pilot take the glider on a test flight before it is flown solo by a student pilot or by an instructor and student. So I planned to take a 2000' tow in the morning (before lift started working) and then land. I actually let off at 1800' AGL because there seemed to be some lift. I never found anything useful, and landed with an 11-minute flight.

I had to leave fairly early in the afternoon because of family plans in the evening. The way the tows and the glider scheduling worked out, I didn't get a chance to fly later. Others seemed to be staying up, reporting 2 to 5 knots of lift.

I now have 77.5 total hours logged.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

G'day Roger - no posts for a couple of weeks, I guess you aren't getting much flying in. I start my "solo in a week" course at Taupo in NZ in a few days and the weather forecast looks great!

I'll let you know how I go.

Roger Worden said...

Didn't fly last week but should fly with at least one guest this coming Saturday. I'm starting to work on my Commercial and Instructor ratings, so I'll post about that process soon.

Best of luck in your upcoming intensive training!