 Eeyore's
Blog - Pilatus B4
I met a friend of my owners wife (a really nice lady..) who when she saw
what I get up to, suggested that I and all the other members of the
NNAWGC pilots should create a blog, which captures our adventures every
time we are able to fly; a pilots perspective. |
| 5th Oct 13 I went flying today at Callow Bank, near Hathersage in the Pennines whilst attending a scale day fly-in of the Sheffield Society of Aeromodellers (SSA) . Unlike on my previous outing, I really liked today’s airborne escapades. My previous flight back in June had been particularly stressful, and I felt that nobody loved me… whilst flying on the Long Mynd, Shropshire on his wedding day of all days, not even the weather gods liked me that day. Yes, lovely sunshine but what turbulence... more than after a good night out on a curry..... variable wind hitting the slope in all directions causing such windshear.... it didn’t take long before my nerves were getting the better of me; I was in trouble! To be honest, I should not have flown but got carried away with the moment. Well, it was a wedding day and not wanting to disappoint the lovely bride. Head wind, wind from the side, Tail wind…. I lost my airspeed, stalled and being too low to recover, the inevitable happened. Ouch!!! Whilst I survived, I thought my lovely B4 was going to be reduced to the scrap heap. However, some weeks on, my glider has now been fixed, and in some ways, it’s better than before, and I have a new cockpit and a joystick to boot...... My latest outing on Saturday, was at the SSA flying site at Callow Bank. I was a little stressed to start with, but I didn’t make too much of a mess that the straw on the cockpit floor couldn’t cope with.... within a few minutes I got the hang of it, didn’t need any more than a few clicks of pitch trim. I got more confident throughout the flight that I even did some mild aerobatics. I was really enjoying myself and getting carried away, but as all things that go up, have to come back down and make a landing at some time. Oh dear, nervous again… and now feeling unloved once more, I thought I'd best get my landing right. Oh boy, even Pooh Bear would have been proud; whilst Tigger, aka Neil looked on, I couldn't have done a better job. A text book landing…..lining up on the landing strip, such a smooth landing, I even managed to run along on the undercarriage for a while before letting the wing tip drop to the ground. Sweet! Don’t let on, but I was well chuffed with that, I even had a grin on my face, until I looked up at my master of course. Well, I can’t give too much away, but I quite like my new life as ‘Aviator’ Eeyore. The rest of the gang would be well impressed too! My second flight of the day created an aire of excitement in the cockpit with a few more aero’s and low passes.... And another landing to match the first. Oh yeah…Oh yeah... Certainly a Panatela moment, I can even hear that music in my head.... Air on a G String. I’m now going be miserable again for a while, well I do have to keep up appearances, but hope I get to fly again next week at Devizes. I’m going for a well earned rest now. Eeyore |