Summer, especially the dry and hot one, is the prime season for my other passions, such as scuba diving and riding my bike. Some scuba trips take me away from home for the whole weekend, so scheduling flying had become challenging and 2 weeks intervals not uncommon.
Realizing that maintaining my currency and, more importantly, proficiency on 2 different types would be near impossible, I made a decision earlier this summer to lose my currency on a Cessna until fall as it would appear that remembering how to fly in controlled airspace with two working radios, gyros, etc. is much easier that remembering how to land Citabria. So, this had been a summer of Citabria. And what a summer it had been!
I was staying close to home this weekend and the Wx forecast was perfect for Saturday, zero wind, severe clear and unlimited viz. Still a bit too hot, but manageable. I scheduled a long overdue dual acro flight to go over some figures with my instructor and learn some new ones.
It was really nice to fly acro with the defined horizon instead of hazy transition between the earth and the sky that persisted all summer long. I warmed up with a couple of hummerheads, managing the near perfect one on a 2nd try. Then a loop and we were ready to try some slow rolls.
I have been practicing them for a few sessions, but they were falling apart on me. Soon, it was obvious why - i was trying to fly them too fast, too abrupt and some controls inputs were too little, too late. My instructor done one, i followed him on a controls and then few a few semi-decent ones myself with the mental notes on what and how to practice later.
Then we tried a few half loops and immelmans (still need to work on those) and finished by working on reverse Cuban 8's, which proved an almost impossible figure to fly for me. Finally, on try #6 i almost got it. By that time, were were in the air for over an hour and my stomach went into unsettled mode w/o any warning. I seriously thought i was going to lose it this time, but as we got closer to the field and i got preoccupied with spotting the sock, etc., it then settled.
As we flew over the field, we looked at where the sock was supposed to be and could not see it. Took us a few seconds to realize that the reason we could not see it was that it was completely limp, hanging straight down in the still air. That gave us a choice of either Runway and naturally, we wanted the upsloping usual one, so i had to loose a lot of height as we joined the downwind and descended to circuit height at the same time. I was a bit high on final and had to slip a bit, but stabilized over the threshold and had a beautiful landing.
That was yesterday. Today, i was going to practice some of the same elements solo. As i came to the field, i noticed my friends that were flew to Tobermory yesterday and were not supposed to be back until later today were already back, with the plane tied down. Taking to the guys on the field, there was a moving storm line North of us, but the effects were already spilling into our local area with ceilings dropping down and wind picking up. The rain and thunder were not supposed to arrive for a few hours, and the wind was straight down the Rwy so i thought i'd go up for a very short flight.
It was a very short flight indeed. 0.6 hrs. Ceilings were low and getting lower, so i was limited to 3,000 to 4,300 ft space, which really was 3,500 to 4,300 as i do not start anything below 3,500 and do not do any loops or HH at that height. Horizon was not there anymore replaced by obscure transition between cloudy skies and hazy land. I fount a bit of a hole in the clouds that allowed me to climb a bit higher and do some loops. half loops and immelmans and then spent the rest of the flight working on slow rolls at around 4,000 ft. As i worked, the wind afloat was getting stronger and cloud bases darker and finally i decided that it just was not worth it and made a beeline for the field. Wind was strong and gusting, but still relatively down the Rwy, so i had another nice landing.
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