Flying time today: 1h 00m (doesn’t count towards PPL(A))
Total flying time: 46h 15m
I’ve recently been pondering how I’m going to fly after I’ve got my license. Renting from a place like PFT really isn’t workable regularly: a Hobbs meter at around £120-£130/hour is awfully expensive by the time you add in all the taxying around, taxying to the pumps and back, power checks, waiting at the hold for wake vortex, etc. And perhaps more importantly, aircraft availability can be very restricted since they need to keep the aircraft in the air as much as possible to stay in business. Clearly, group flying is the answer.
There was recently a potential group forming at Oxford for a PA-28-180, at around £6k for a 1/6 share and then probably something like £80-£90/hour, and a similar standing fee per month. It all worked out at around £6k/year (plus the capital) for 50 hours of flying, in a highly capable aeroplane - 400nm with three people and light baggage at 110kts quite doable. Pretty good, but a lot of money nonetheless when I’m trying to also save money towards a property deposit. Besides, much of the time I’d fly by myself or just with my partner anyway. Also, the IMC capability of the PA28 isn’t going to be relevant for a while, as I build my VFR hours and wait for the legal uncertainty around the IMC Rating to sort itself out before taking the plunge with instrument flying training.
At which point, another idea entered my head… there’s an outfit at Oxford called FlyCB who operate a couple of Evektor EV97 Eurostars on microlight permits. Hmm…
Looks like a proper aeroplane, but with better visibility. Flies like one too, apparently - a sprightly one at that. Will do a few hundred miles at 100mph, or a couple of hundred miles with a passenger and overnight bags (much more if it wasn’t for the 450kg UK microlight restriction - the airframe is spec’ed much higher). It’s a fairly new design, and the aircraft at FlyCB are only a couple of years old, so maintenance costs will be minimal. This is getting interesting.
OK, so what’s the downside? Well, the hours don’t count towards my SEP class rating renewal, so I need to do 12 hours every other year in a proper SEP-class aircraft or have a renewal session with an instructor - or convert my JAR PPL to a NPPL. Not really a problem - I envisage renting a SEP aircraft anyway from time to time if I need to go further or carry more people. Sticking to the CAA’s 450kg MTOW, the range/payload is a bit limited, although there’s talk of that changing soon. And I can’t do instrument flying in it, but I don’t envisage going that way for a year or two.
But the clincher is that it’s £50/hour to fly, £40/month, and £3500 for a 1/20 share, of which only half are owned. That’ll be about £3500/year for 50 hours. Considering it meets my requirements for maybe 80% of the flights I’ll make, it seems like a good idea.
So I went off to FlyCB last Friday to see what it’s all about. After a quick chat, off to meet the aeroplane and preflight it. There’s less to check than on a PA28, although it’s necessary to hand-pull the propeller to get the oil and coolant (yes, it’s water cooled) circulated before start. A quick walk-around, check the static and pitot ports under the wing, pull the plane out of the dimples it’s made in the grass - it weighs next to nothing, of course - and it’s time to get in. Getting in requires a little care, because putting weight on the wrong thing will break it, but it’s easy when you know how. There’s a fairly sparse instrument panel, with no attitude indicator or direction indicator - not needed since it’s day VFR only. There’s a comprehensive set of engine instruments, including cylinder head temperature, the ASI is calibrated in MPH, a floating compass, a balance ball, and the usual pitot/static instruments. There’s an aerial socket for a GPS, which I’d definitely make use of.
Strapped in and plugged-in, it was time to bring the canopy down, crank the engine over a few times to distribute oil, then flick on the mags and crank again - this time, the engine sprang into life and settled into a smooth, rapid whirr, not unlike a large engine with lots of cylinders - but the give-away was the RPM idling around 1500! The Rotax isn’t a conventional aero-engine.
A quick mag-check, and it was time to taxy. The instructor left me to it, and happily my RT skills hadn’t left me - the instructor warned that the steering was a bit lively on the ground, but it seemed fine to taxy. The plunger throttle has a spring which pulls it no lower than about 2000rpm: it requires it to be constantly pulled back to maintain true idle. But even at an idle, I had to constantly drag the brakes to avoid building excessive speed taxying on tarmac. With no gyros, taxy checks are abbreviated, and we were soon at the hold for a power check at 4000rpm, check mag drops, check idle, and we were off. There’s no carb heat, because the Rotax circulates warm coolant around the carb to prevent icing, which is a very neat feature given my track record on such matters.
Lined up on the runway, the instructor took control for take-off as I followed him through. Full throttle, the world leaped forwards towards me, the ASI wheeled up past 40mph, suddenly I could only see sky… and we were airborne! Good grief. It felt like four seconds and less than 100m, into a pretty negligible headwind. The climb-out was steeper than I’m used to, and as we settled into a climb through 1000ft, I took control and tentatively explored how to use a control stick, rather than the yoke that I’m used to. Unsurprisingly, it’s completely intuitive. A little gentle back-pressure was needed to maintain the best rate-of-climb climb speed of 60 mph, as we headed west past the southern edge of Blenheim Palace, then turned north-west towards Chipping Norton. I levelled out somewhere between 2500ft and 3000ft, and followed the instructor’s suggestions to bring the rather-stiff throttle back to about 4000rpm, to the point that the engine just slightly softens its note, and pitch the cowling about 7-8 degrees below the horizon for a level 80mph economy cruise. The elevator trim lever is located between the seats, and given the whole range of movement is only about two inches (compared with the eight revolutions of a winder on a PA28), it’s extremely sensitive - a millimetre or two can make all the difference.
Next, time for some turns. Turning left, it moves smartly and needs almost no rudder. The pitch attitude stayed roughly constant, and it was fairly easy to maintain a constant angle of bank, even though it’s much more sensitive than a PA28. Turning right, it needs a fair boot of rudder to keep the balance ball centred, and the nose has a tendency to swing high, resulting in a climb and loss of airspeed. Co-ordinating it all intuitively will take some practice, but probably make me a better pilot. It was all very novel, particularly using a control stick, and felt very different from a PA28, but not at all difficult. It particularly struck me how obstructive a kneeboard is with a control stick - the way that it could restrict movement of the stick felt dangerous. Since we were staying over local territory, I took mine off as soon as we were airborne. Not sure what I’ll do for cross-countries, though. Maybe put it round the side of my leg for takeoff and landing, where I might need to suddenly apply full deflection.
Possibly the most marvellous thing about this aeroplane is the view. The View is a big part of why I originally wanted to fly, and this was the best view I’d had from an aeroplane since I flew flexwings. Despite the low wing configuration, the wing is so narrow that it doesn’t really obstruct the view of the ground much, and the view forwards and to the side is unimpeded. There’s a good 8-10 degrees of ground visible in front below the horizon at a cruise attitude, you can twist round in your seat and see the tail, and of course, the view above is completely unimpeded. It’s the most marvellous sense of space, and greatly reduces the places for conflicting traffic to hide from you.
After a couple of S-turns, time to climb. Full throttle, and pull back until the airspeed drops to around 45 mph for best angle of climb. Pull… sky fills the view ahead and the airspeed drops through 60… pull harder… 50… pull harder… is this a spaceship or an aeroplane? We’ve got something over 30-degree pitch-up, and the aeroplane is stable and climbing, no hint of the incipient stall. Most impressive. Back to level flight, and time for stalls: throttle to idle, pull back hard, and the airspeed drops quickly. Just below 45 mph on the dial (may not be accurate because the angle of attack is severe), there’s a gentle buffet through the elevator… keep pulling… and at 40 mph, the nose gently drops. Full throttle and release pressure, and the plane is instantly accelerating through 50 mph, so pitch back up to recover and climb. Very benign. I tried stalls in a variety of configurations, and the response was always similar: ample gentle buffet, a soft and stable break-away, and a quick and highly-responsive recovery. Flying at 45mph, on the edge of the incipient stall, it was a bit mushy and wallowy, but still very controllable in turns.
We then accelerated to 100mph, so I could check out the cruise configuration I’d use for going places. The instructor had warned it would be a bit frantic, but I didn’t really see what he meant. It was a little noisier, and slightly more responsive than usual, but nothing particularly noticeable. I don’t see any problem with sitting like that for a couple of hours.
Time to check out the landing configurations. The three-stage flaps are operated from an ergonomically-angled mechanical lever between the seats, like a PA28 but more comfortable to use. Putting out each stage causes a modest pitch down that’s easy to catch. First and second stages increase lift, to give a nice stable descent and approach at 60 kts. Third stage is like a barn-door, and can deliver low speed with a high rate of descent. No surprises there.
So, from near Banbury we headed back south towards Oxford. I requested an overhead join, to see what the plane is like in the circuit. From a joining height of 2300ft, it was easy to lose altitude quickly on the dead-side without flap, and stabilise cross-wind at circuit height. Maybe it’s because it’s slower in the circuit (80 mph vs. 95 knots) that a PA28, maybe it’s the better visibility, but it certainly seemed less of a handful. It wasn’t clear to me what the pre-landing checks were, and I had to prompt the instructor, but he quickly went through them: there didn’t seem to be as many as in a PA28. After a mis-communication with the instructor, I ended up a bit closer in to the airfield at the end of the downwind leg that I’d have liked, resulting in a very short base leg. Turned base, checked I was within flap limiting speed, put down two stages of flap and pulled the throttle out to idle (holding it there against the spring). Turning final, I was very high indeed, but the instructor told me it was normal as I set up the aiming point. Half-way down final, I was still very high, the instructor urging me to make sure I was pulling the throttle out to idle (I was), so time for third stage of flap. Perhaps it was the lack of headwind, but we seemed to be staying aloft forever. On a short runway, I’d have thrown it away at 500ft and tried again, but here we were with 1500m of runway, so I put on a side-slip and kept it going in. It was remarkably easy to stay aligned with the runway, and at about 50ft I straightened-out the sideslip and prepared to flare. The instructor prompted me with some urgency to flare, which I did, and he just nudged the control column forwards to prevent me standing the plane on its tail in a stall (it’s a bit sensitive in the flare), before we gently touched down a third of the way down the runway, nose high in the air. The nosewheel seemed to come down gently of its own accord, by which time I’d drifted some way to the left of the centreline, and my attempts to bring us back straight resulting in some alarming weaving - I feared I was getting into a pilot-induced oscillation that would end with us off the side of the runway, but I just about managed to keep it under control. The nosewheel steering is *very* twitchy at speed!
And so back to the parking on the grass. What a delightful aeroplane… <chequebook twitches>
UPDATE: the very day after I wrote this post, FlyCB was no more!
http://ftnonline.co.uk/
http://forums.flyer.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=48425&start=40
How sad. Better look elsewhere - seems like Oxford might simply not be viable unless you’re in the Cirrus money league.