Recent News...
There's been no updates for a while... but here's some recent news.
Over the course of a year, I traveled to Germany, Italy, and China for work. I spent a total of 4 months outside of the US. It was a lot of fun, I saw a lot of sights, and tried a lot of authentic food. I'm back now, and I won't have to travel over there again any time soon, unless my family wants to go.
I flew rarely, but I did fly off and on over this last year, and I've got a note about my most recent flight, which was yesterday.
The plan was to take my stepdaughter Ariel up for a local flight, some touch and goes, some time out in the practice area to play with my navigation skills and piloting skills somewhat, and let my passenger enjoy the flight.
I pre-flighted N43839 (the Archer II), we strapped in, started her up, did the run up and were asked to position and hold on the runway.
Everything was fine until I throttled up, and all of a sudden the plane veered to the left, and wouldn't correct. My mind was like a flash, what could this be? Brakes? A problem with the rudder? What did I do? Ariel just absolutely swore her feet weren't on the pedals.
I throttled back, told ATC I was having some issues, turned off at Echo and took her back to parking. I then called Cammie and pitched the idea to her, and decided that to just be safe I'd take N6817J. (Cammie has two Archer II's now.) 6817 is a little older and has no electric trim or GPS, but it's still a great flying plane. Here's a picture of her from Glass Cockpit's website.
The flight in 6817J went well, we did a couple of touch and goes and took off to the practice area to play around. Came back, landed, tied her up, and that was that. 1.1 hours logged.
Later, I received a text from Cammie telling me that 839 was fine, that I either had a crosswind (which I don't believe there was, wind was variable to 5kts during that time) or I had a passenger on the pedals.
While we were taking Ariel home later that night, I was going over what happened with my husband, that there was apparently nothing wrong with 839... and I said, "Gee, I just don't know where this mysterious crosswind came from".
Ariel pipes up from the back seat... "I'm really sorry, maybe my feet are just too heavy."
So there you have it. I learned a hard lesson yesterday about my passenger briefs, SAFETY doesn't cover "Don't put your feet on the pedals unless I tell you it's ok." And that I need to be more proactive about such.
In other news, I'm very excited about the new Kitfox LSA that Glass Cockpit will be getting in April. It's going to be a tail dragger, and have glass instrumentation. 123kts cruise, 5.1 hours on 27 gallons of fuel. See this link for more information.
Over the course of a year, I traveled to Germany, Italy, and China for work. I spent a total of 4 months outside of the US. It was a lot of fun, I saw a lot of sights, and tried a lot of authentic food. I'm back now, and I won't have to travel over there again any time soon, unless my family wants to go.
I flew rarely, but I did fly off and on over this last year, and I've got a note about my most recent flight, which was yesterday.
The plan was to take my stepdaughter Ariel up for a local flight, some touch and goes, some time out in the practice area to play with my navigation skills and piloting skills somewhat, and let my passenger enjoy the flight.
I pre-flighted N43839 (the Archer II), we strapped in, started her up, did the run up and were asked to position and hold on the runway.
Everything was fine until I throttled up, and all of a sudden the plane veered to the left, and wouldn't correct. My mind was like a flash, what could this be? Brakes? A problem with the rudder? What did I do? Ariel just absolutely swore her feet weren't on the pedals.
I throttled back, told ATC I was having some issues, turned off at Echo and took her back to parking. I then called Cammie and pitched the idea to her, and decided that to just be safe I'd take N6817J. (Cammie has two Archer II's now.) 6817 is a little older and has no electric trim or GPS, but it's still a great flying plane. Here's a picture of her from Glass Cockpit's website.
The flight in 6817J went well, we did a couple of touch and goes and took off to the practice area to play around. Came back, landed, tied her up, and that was that. 1.1 hours logged.
Later, I received a text from Cammie telling me that 839 was fine, that I either had a crosswind (which I don't believe there was, wind was variable to 5kts during that time) or I had a passenger on the pedals.
While we were taking Ariel home later that night, I was going over what happened with my husband, that there was apparently nothing wrong with 839... and I said, "Gee, I just don't know where this mysterious crosswind came from".
Ariel pipes up from the back seat... "I'm really sorry, maybe my feet are just too heavy."
So there you have it. I learned a hard lesson yesterday about my passenger briefs, SAFETY doesn't cover "Don't put your feet on the pedals unless I tell you it's ok." And that I need to be more proactive about such.
In other news, I'm very excited about the new Kitfox LSA that Glass Cockpit will be getting in April. It's going to be a tail dragger, and have glass instrumentation. 123kts cruise, 5.1 hours on 27 gallons of fuel. See this link for more information.
posted by Heather | 10:23 AM
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1 Comments
