Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Second Crack at the Circle
Well, that's the first circle I've flown in a few years (not counting yesterday) and it could have been worse. Click the little map for a better view. I lost it a bit just before North Newington because I was trying to take a photograph. The real slip was near Balscote where I picked the wrong junction on the Wroxton road. I spotted the mistake at the time but couldn't work out where I'd gone wrong. The next reference point was Radley which brought me back on track. If you've never flown a circle, give it a try. It's harder than you may think. If you have to get the airspeed right and record the position of ground features, which is a typical competition task, it can be a real challenge.
I used the European version of Memory Map Navigator to view the result. I scanned in the map with the circle, calibrated it and then imported the trace from my old Garmin GPS. I set the time interval at 5 seconds. The big errors are mine. The smaller deviations could be me or they could be cartographical differences - the CAA charts aren't as accurate as an Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 map.
It was a fine day, a few degrees below freezing but plenty of sun, so the circle wasn't as challenging as it could have been. It's the bits of open field with no reference points that are the most difficult. You simply have to interpolate and wait for the next reference point. The CAA 1:25000 chart is really not the best for this sort of thing but it's the one we use.This is a nice shot of the Dasset Hills, the 689 ft spot height at the northwest of the circle. If you drive up the M40 north of Banbury you can see them clearly on the east of the motorway.
Geoff Weighell flew in in his very smart GT450 shortly after I landed so we took pics of each other for the blog - and here they are.
Friday, January 2, 2009
New Year Circle
Happy New Year!I had planned to go to the New Year's Day fly-in at Newnham yesterday but the visibility was grim; I couldn't see the trees on Hinton Hill which made it well short of the necessary 3000 metres. Today was very different though, a bit hazy but over 10 kms visibility with broken cloud. But there was no fly-in so I thought I'd fly a task, a circle, and plot my track with my GPS. I picked a small circle at random from my acetates and stuck it on my chart with Banbury and Shoteswell inside the circle.
For no reason in particular I decided to fly anti-clockwise, starting in the top right at Boddington Reservoir. The wind was from the southeast and reasonably brisk so the downwind arc was pretty fast and the upwind very slow indeed. Just how slow I thought I'd find out from my GPS track. Visibility from the Sluka is about as good as it gets in a fixed wing microlight. The instrument panel shows the hands-off cruise settings at 5000 RPM.
It was a fine flight but I was disappointed to find that I'd foolishly forgottento switch my GPS to track recording mode. Still, tomorrow looks pretty good, cold but much brighter, so I'll probably fly the same circle but clockwise this time.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
A Snatched Winter Flight
Work and weather have stopped me flying for a couple of months then on Wednesday David Hadley turned up for lunch and I briefly put the Sluka though what I like to call 'its paces'. What a great day for a flight, even a short one. Sun, but not too much, and no more than 10 mph of wind straight up 27. I took off downhill and landed uphill and as I taxied back I thought what a lucky bloke I am!
David took a few pictures of me landing and the one above is a fine shot of 09/27 looking downhill. If you're not a pilot it may help to know that 09/27 is an east/west runway, 09 being 90 degrees and 27 being its reciprocal or 270 degrees. On the other hand it may not help at all! The runway drops 60 feet in 340 yards which seems a bit daunting at first but really isn't a problem at all. On the horizon to the right you can see the ridge of Hinton Hill, 3 km away, which I use to judge the visibilty. Less than 3 km and I can't fly.
David has just bought a Sluka so we'll be competing against each other next year. David is built like a whippet and so has a natural advantage. We'll see.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Now the Work Starts
Checking my log book I see that I flew 174 hours in the Sluka but that was about 10 years ago and now I have to start learning all over again. Fortunately this was a good weekend to start. Over the last 3 days I did some basic calibration. For example, climbing to 1,000 ft takes about 2.5 minutes at 6,100 rpm and 45 knots with a full tank. Then cruising at 50 knots requires 5,000 rpm while crusing at 55 knots takes 5,250 rpm. These are neither fast nor economic but it's what Sluka's do.
Then I calibrated the air speed indicator. I picked up the BMAA ASI Calibration sheets from the technical section of the web site. There are two Type Acceptance Data Sheets, 043 and 043a, which can be found at http://tinyurl.com/4w9odj . There is also a useful spreadsheet at http://www.challengers101.com/Downloads.html . I then flew the square, heading north, east, south and west at 45, 50 and 55 knots on the ASI and recording the GPS speed. Finally I did a few landings in different directions on different runways from 1,000 feet with the throttle shut. They all went well but I'm not ready to switch off the engine yet. I then flew around Canons Ashby and took a few photos in the evening light. The picture here compares well with the shot from Google Earth
Back at home I filled in the spreadsheets and was pleased to find that my ASI was reading 98% true, although this was without calibration for temperature and pressure. Te be frank, the temperature being about 15 degrees C and flying at 1,500 above sea level I suspect the difference will be less significant that the errots in trying to read my ASI!
The next trick will be to record my fuel consumption. Nice to be flying again, snatching an hour here and 30 minutes there. My aim is to try and improve my knowledge of the Sluka's performance (and mine) every time I fly. I like that because is give purpose to my enjoyment!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Bringing the Baby Home
I couldn't have picked better weather for my first flight. As ever there was a headwind but at ground level there was very little breeze. This worried me just a bit as I couldn't recall how long the Sluka took to unstick. Anyway, I'd put on some weight since my last flight in a Sluka 10 years before and I had a computer and other solid odds and sods with me. Having run through my checks I gave Ken a wave of thanks, opened the throttle - and hoped that I didn't end up off the runway and into the ploughed field beyond. In fact, the takeoff was perfect. Just as I remembered, the Sluka barely rotated but simply went up like a lift, well within the 100 yards, pretty much as square to the ground in the air as it had been on the runway.
The visibility wasn't particularly good after a few days of high pressure and I was flying into the sun, but it was good enough. I overflew Ken's runway to say goodbye (he told me he'd be ploughing it up now) and turned south for Croft.
I flew the journey back like a competition task, without GPS and trying to stay within 250 metres of my planned route all the way, except where I deliberately cut the odd corner at a turnpoint. Pretty soon the ten year gap had disappeared and it was as though I'd never left the cockpit of a Sluka.
Also pretty soon I realised that to stay straight and level at 5o knots required 5,000 rpm, partly because of my weight and partly because of the bits and pices I was carrying. It's almost impossible to overload a Sluka as there simply isn't the space, but it doesn't take much extra weight to need a couple of hundred extra revs and extra revs mean extra fuel burn. I'd planned on a two hour flight which with 34 litres of fuel should have been no problem. However, at 2,000 ft the headwind was some 12 knots and at 5,000 rpm the fuel burn would be greater.
I had no radio so refueling at Leicester was out. I decided to make Swinford my intermediate stop if I needed fuel. One problem with the Sluka is that the fuel sight tube, which runs down the side of the seat, disappears into the fibreglass pod at the time when you most need to see it. I didn't do much fooling around on the way down, just a few turns and stalls to get a feel for the handling again - which was absolutely fine. As I passed east abeam Leicester heading south the fuel in the tube was bobbing up and down around the minimum and I knew that my first landing would be at Swinford.
Swinford is a nice grass airfield, reasonably easy to find at the east end of a finger of woods running from the M1 motorway. There are several farms to avoid as well as the village and the strip is strictly PPR but I'd flown in many times and knew the circuit (http://lmac.org.uk/swinford/swinford.htm). The landing on 13 was smooth and simple. The complicated bit came after I stopped and found that there was no one about and no reception on my mobile phone. I ended up walking into the village to find a phone. What a marvellous walk it was, late afternoon on an exceptional late summer day with the Leicestershire countryside at its best. From the call box in Swinford (which didn't take coins so I made my first reverse charge call in several decades!) I phoned Shirley and asked her to bring a can and a funnel. She never murmured a word of reproach and was there within 30 minutes!
By the time we had found the garage and returned with the fuel there were a few people about organising the mowing and pulling aircraft out of the hangar to fly. Shirley headed off to meet me at Preston Capes and I had a chat before taking off and flying the last 30 minute leg home. As I passed east abeam Daventry I could see Fawsley lakes and, a few miles beyond, the trees I used as markers for base leg on the uphill runway. I pointed the nose at them, eased off the throttle and sat back to let the Sluka find its own way home. With my arms folded the little aeroplane flew itself, descending slowly, wings straight and level and never the slightest twitch; I knew that I'd made the right decision when I bought it!
Our arrival at Preston Capes was quiet and uneventful and farmer, friend and landlord of the strip, Geoffrey Arblaster, who misses very little, had no idea I had landed. With no wind I hooked the stick in the lapstrap to lock the controls and left the Sluka there for the night. Tomorrow I'd reorganise the hangar to take it.
The visibility wasn't particularly good after a few days of high pressure and I was flying into the sun, but it was good enough. I overflew Ken's runway to say goodbye (he told me he'd be ploughing it up now) and turned south for Croft.
I flew the journey back like a competition task, without GPS and trying to stay within 250 metres of my planned route all the way, except where I deliberately cut the odd corner at a turnpoint. Pretty soon the ten year gap had disappeared and it was as though I'd never left the cockpit of a Sluka.
Also pretty soon I realised that to stay straight and level at 5o knots required 5,000 rpm, partly because of my weight and partly because of the bits and pices I was carrying. It's almost impossible to overload a Sluka as there simply isn't the space, but it doesn't take much extra weight to need a couple of hundred extra revs and extra revs mean extra fuel burn. I'd planned on a two hour flight which with 34 litres of fuel should have been no problem. However, at 2,000 ft the headwind was some 12 knots and at 5,000 rpm the fuel burn would be greater.
I had no radio so refueling at Leicester was out. I decided to make Swinford my intermediate stop if I needed fuel. One problem with the Sluka is that the fuel sight tube, which runs down the side of the seat, disappears into the fibreglass pod at the time when you most need to see it. I didn't do much fooling around on the way down, just a few turns and stalls to get a feel for the handling again - which was absolutely fine. As I passed east abeam Leicester heading south the fuel in the tube was bobbing up and down around the minimum and I knew that my first landing would be at Swinford.
Swinford is a nice grass airfield, reasonably easy to find at the east end of a finger of woods running from the M1 motorway. There are several farms to avoid as well as the village and the strip is strictly PPR but I'd flown in many times and knew the circuit (http://lmac.org.uk/swinford/swinford.htm). The landing on 13 was smooth and simple. The complicated bit came after I stopped and found that there was no one about and no reception on my mobile phone. I ended up walking into the village to find a phone. What a marvellous walk it was, late afternoon on an exceptional late summer day with the Leicestershire countryside at its best. From the call box in Swinford (which didn't take coins so I made my first reverse charge call in several decades!) I phoned Shirley and asked her to bring a can and a funnel. She never murmured a word of reproach and was there within 30 minutes!
By the time we had found the garage and returned with the fuel there were a few people about organising the mowing and pulling aircraft out of the hangar to fly. Shirley headed off to meet me at Preston Capes and I had a chat before taking off and flying the last 30 minute leg home. As I passed east abeam Daventry I could see Fawsley lakes and, a few miles beyond, the trees I used as markers for base leg on the uphill runway. I pointed the nose at them, eased off the throttle and sat back to let the Sluka find its own way home. With my arms folded the little aeroplane flew itself, descending slowly, wings straight and level and never the slightest twitch; I knew that I'd made the right decision when I bought it!
Our arrival at Preston Capes was quiet and uneventful and farmer, friend and landlord of the strip, Geoffrey Arblaster, who misses very little, had no idea I had landed. With no wind I hooked the stick in the lapstrap to lock the controls and left the Sluka there for the night. Tomorrow I'd reorganise the hangar to take it.Sunday, September 21, 2008
Sluka in Competitions
The Sluka has been flown in competitions for some years now. I believe that Patrik Sainer of the Czech Republic first flew his Sluka in the World Air Games in Turkey in 1997 while Richard Proctor took first place in Levroux in 2000. In this year's European Championships in Leszno there were two Slukas. 
Dariusz Kędzierski of Poland flew a model LK-2M (No.301) while Jaromir Malek of the Czech Republic flew and older open cockpit LK-2 (N0.305). They really can't compete with Jan Lukes of the Czech Republic in his Test TST-9 Junior but they're still fun to fly with great all-round visibility.
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