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- May 18, 2007
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jsstevens
I've been buried at work and haven't had time to fly when the club plane is available, so this week I thought "I'm gonna go fly!"
With hurricane Earl sucking all the moisture out of the air over Florida the usual afternoon thunderstorms are not happening. I scheduled the plane for 5:30 in the afternoon for Friday (yesterday as I write this). Then as an afterthought I called my dad and asked if he wanted to ride along.
It was hot but dry. After the normal preflight, I cranked up the Continental (this is a 1963 C-172A) and away we went. The wind was 240@9 and we used runway 25 so there was a little cross wind. We climbed out of KORL and headed off to the northwest. After reaching Apopka and the edge of KMCO's class B I headed up to 2500'. It was a little cooler up there, but not what you'd call cool. We flew around the western shoreline of Lake Apopka and over the gourdneck looking for the gourdneck spring. The sun was too far down to get a good look into the water, but it was nice ride anyway. I flew back over to the north side of the lake (one of the practice areas), did a couple of clearing turns and demonstrated just how benign a stall in this airplane is. (My dad learned to fly in Piper Cubs in the '50s, I don't normally demonstrate stalls to my passengers!). This 172 is much less abrupt than any of the newer ones I've flown. I'm not sure why.
Anyway, I headed back toward KORL and as we were flying along, looking around and chatting about how much all this has changed in the 50+ years we've lived in the area I realized I was still at 2500' and almost to the 1600' shelf of the class B. A 360 degree descending turn and I'm ready to head on in.
I asked for a touch and go and stay in the pattern and was cleared for the option on 25. I really enjoy the manual flaps on this early 172. I did a normal pattern approach, 1 notch on downwind, 2nd notch on base, 3rd notch and then 4th notch on final. With the wind right down the runway I flared, kept holding it off, more, more, then a very gentle touch down. I got 2 thumbs up from my dad.
With that, I cleaned up the airplane, and away we went. There was a plane waiting to take off and turn north so the tower asked me remain on upwind until they called my cross. This is a bit interesting as that takes you very close to the 900' shelf on the class B and over the highrise section of downtown Orlando. As hot as it was, I wasn't in much danger of violating the class B, but all those buildings coming closer and closer and even thoguht I cleared them just getting close to a tall structure really makes you notice you're way up in the air. So with a longer pattern I got to TPA before we got to mid-field (unusual in this airplane when it's this hot). I just throttled right back and didn't let the plane accelerate just to have to slow down to deploy the flaps. I repeated my prior pattern except I shortened the downwind a bit to compensate for the wind. As a result I came down faster and didn't pay as much attention to airspeed. I was just a bit fast at the flare and ballooned a bit. Then I flared perfectly, but about 2 feet in the air. THUMP! I should have cushioned it with the throttle, but I just didn't catch it in time. Sigh.
Third time's the charm. Once more around and this time I came in high, with full flaps (40 degrees) and used a long slip to get down to where I needed to be. It worked beautifully and I had the second really smooth landing of the day. And on that one, I quit.
After shutdown, my dad said "That was a really nice flight." and I had to agree. at 120 something hours spread over 6 years, I'm finally getting really comfortable just flying for fun. It's relaxing and I'm very thankful to be able to share it with my family and friends, and especially my dad. He's 78 and although he's in good health you never know how long you have to share things like this.
Anyway, it might not be a romantic as changing the oil :wink2:, but I enjoyed it.
John
With hurricane Earl sucking all the moisture out of the air over Florida the usual afternoon thunderstorms are not happening. I scheduled the plane for 5:30 in the afternoon for Friday (yesterday as I write this). Then as an afterthought I called my dad and asked if he wanted to ride along.
It was hot but dry. After the normal preflight, I cranked up the Continental (this is a 1963 C-172A) and away we went. The wind was 240@9 and we used runway 25 so there was a little cross wind. We climbed out of KORL and headed off to the northwest. After reaching Apopka and the edge of KMCO's class B I headed up to 2500'. It was a little cooler up there, but not what you'd call cool. We flew around the western shoreline of Lake Apopka and over the gourdneck looking for the gourdneck spring. The sun was too far down to get a good look into the water, but it was nice ride anyway. I flew back over to the north side of the lake (one of the practice areas), did a couple of clearing turns and demonstrated just how benign a stall in this airplane is. (My dad learned to fly in Piper Cubs in the '50s, I don't normally demonstrate stalls to my passengers!). This 172 is much less abrupt than any of the newer ones I've flown. I'm not sure why.
Anyway, I headed back toward KORL and as we were flying along, looking around and chatting about how much all this has changed in the 50+ years we've lived in the area I realized I was still at 2500' and almost to the 1600' shelf of the class B. A 360 degree descending turn and I'm ready to head on in.
I asked for a touch and go and stay in the pattern and was cleared for the option on 25. I really enjoy the manual flaps on this early 172. I did a normal pattern approach, 1 notch on downwind, 2nd notch on base, 3rd notch and then 4th notch on final. With the wind right down the runway I flared, kept holding it off, more, more, then a very gentle touch down. I got 2 thumbs up from my dad.
With that, I cleaned up the airplane, and away we went. There was a plane waiting to take off and turn north so the tower asked me remain on upwind until they called my cross. This is a bit interesting as that takes you very close to the 900' shelf on the class B and over the highrise section of downtown Orlando. As hot as it was, I wasn't in much danger of violating the class B, but all those buildings coming closer and closer and even thoguht I cleared them just getting close to a tall structure really makes you notice you're way up in the air. So with a longer pattern I got to TPA before we got to mid-field (unusual in this airplane when it's this hot). I just throttled right back and didn't let the plane accelerate just to have to slow down to deploy the flaps. I repeated my prior pattern except I shortened the downwind a bit to compensate for the wind. As a result I came down faster and didn't pay as much attention to airspeed. I was just a bit fast at the flare and ballooned a bit. Then I flared perfectly, but about 2 feet in the air. THUMP! I should have cushioned it with the throttle, but I just didn't catch it in time. Sigh.
Third time's the charm. Once more around and this time I came in high, with full flaps (40 degrees) and used a long slip to get down to where I needed to be. It worked beautifully and I had the second really smooth landing of the day. And on that one, I quit.
After shutdown, my dad said "That was a really nice flight." and I had to agree. at 120 something hours spread over 6 years, I'm finally getting really comfortable just flying for fun. It's relaxing and I'm very thankful to be able to share it with my family and friends, and especially my dad. He's 78 and although he's in good health you never know how long you have to share things like this.
Anyway, it might not be a romantic as changing the oil :wink2:, but I enjoyed it.
John
