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.

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!

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.

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.

A Sluka Boy at Heart

The Letov Sluka is fun on wings, I promise you.

Some 10 years ago I bought my first Sluka from Kevin Rutland (thanks Kevin) and I had 174 hours of fun in it before I cast it aside for my 912 Streak. A month or so ago in a fit of nostalgia I decided to buy another and to fly in in next year's British Nationals. Just for the hell of it, having cut my blogging teeth on EMC2008, I thought I'd blog my way through the next year. Writing this blog will focus me on doing everything properly. Feel free to offer advice and encouragement.

Preparing for my First Flight

I have just bought G-XPBI (BI) from Ken Harness, a great guy with over 20,000 hours of crop spraying under his belt. I caught the train up from London to Grimsby where Ken picked me up and took me to his farm.

The Sluka I bought from Kevin Rutland in 1998 was pretty nice but this looked particularly tidy. It had a fresh permit to fly and was ready to take away. But was I ready to take it?

When I sat in it I realised how much I had forgotten. I've been spoilt for space and there ain't much space in a Sluka! And where was the pull start? I just coudn't remember and I had to trace the pull cord from the Rotax 447 engine down the front strut and into the pod before I found it, tucked in the footwell.

I was sure I knew where everything was but it all seemed different and rather new. I sat in and waggled the stick. It all looked pretty good with some neat trays here and there for the radio and other things (but what?). Ken, definitely one of the old school, told me that he didn't use the radio. Had he done so he, like me, would have found out that it was impossible to reach and, anyway, the press to talk button didn't work. Never mind, trivia!

My pre-flight inspection took over an hour. Two years ago a poor chap was killed in a Sluka when his tail folded because a nut came off. I checked every nut I could see and everything else besides and it was perfect.

Without radio I wanted to avoid the various military air traffic zones so I planned my route via Croft and Saddington, at total of 100 nautical miles. All was ready for the flight.