So after I was told that the plane was out of action for weeks it suddenly is fixed, apparently the spark plugs and gone and it wasn't the magnetos after all. Anyway, I'm not complaining! After arriving at RAF Henlow I was quickly briefed on the flight and I decided to focus on trimming as I had previously flown lessons on straight and level flight and effects of controls. The flight was only 30 minutes long but I will be flying again tomorrow. I did the pre-flight checks and we taxied down to runway 20 we used the right hand side and took off, the flight was very enjoyable as we flew across the countryside.


After about 5 minutes we had reached a steady altitude of around 1500 feet and I was handed control, I did some climbing and descending and practised my trimming. It seems the knack is to trim out the forces in the stick which are required to keep the plane level, I think you need to learn to understand the feel of the forces whilst concentrating on the horizon in front.

We arrived at the way point and our altitude had increased a bit, this was due to the high level of thermals today and as an unexperienced pilot I hadn't noticed these so had been pushed up. The other pilot took control and lowered our altitude before some tight turns at around 2G, we then set of on the return leg, this included a stall and a dynamic stall at around 4G, unfortunately I wasn't able to catch these on film.

On arrival to Henlow airspace we did a circuit in which I was following through, although by this point I was pretty worn out and not really paying enough attention. We landed and I was expected to do another circuit. This was pretty abysmal on my behalf, I floated us in on roughly the right heading and then pulled us over to the right just before the landing meaning the other pilot had to take control.

All in all the flight was very enjoyable and I can't wait to do it all again tomorrow, please feel free to browse the blog and watch the video. If you have any comments you wish to raise please leave a comment below.
Thank you