With light winds forecast and some stuff to drop off nearby, Claire managed another training session today. Most of the day was bright and sunny and the winds were light, so today we set about mastering the take-off and landing phase. Because "Pinky" has a flat plate alloy undercarriage and Claire's flying site has mixed grass, I decided to bring a spare Graupner Electro Trainer with wire legs and Claire's T-28 Trojan for landing practice. We started the day flying Pinky and Claire had two batteries of circuits and aeros.
After, we flew 3 flights on the Electro Trainer with Claire practising approaches and landings. The motor set-up is a bit strange, so we ended up doing glide type approaches and we did manage a couple of touch downs before the steerable tailwheel/rudder horn cracked.
Its been a few weeks since Claire flew the T-28, but yet again she felt really comfortable quickly and started chucking it around. Claire's man turned up to eat his lunch between jobs and commented how comfortable she looked throwing the T-28 around...about this time Claire decided to fly inverted which caught me out, as we had not discussed it!!!
Seeing she was getting on so well, I decided to talk Claire through some take-offs from the tarmac lane used for access. This is quite narrow and a bit of grass was used too
Since the T-28 copes well with the grass we moved onto the green and Claire did a few take-offs and we worked on smooth circuits aiming for a set touchdown point....this took a few packs as we were now doing Claire's least favourite right hand circuits On the third pack things started to click and Claire achieved her first totally unaided take-off, flight and landings with the model rolling to a stop each time. (the T-28 copes really well with rough grass)
With Claire's man back to collect her, we stopped after achieving three good touchdowns in one pack.
(further thought-anyone who has been through this will understand the "big break through" this can make in your confidence, landings are so important )
Dw