The glider normally gets airborne before the towplane - the glider pilot should avoid getting too high at this stage
| Session 2 |
|---|
WHEN
: Sunday 6th Feburary 2000
WHAT
: Lots of airwork in a Schweizer 2-33
WHO
: Dual instruction with Mark Dunning
HOW LONG : 44 minutes and 3 flights
This Sunday turned out to be what I can only describe as a total orgy of aviation. How many people are involved with three categories, classes and types all in one day? The morning started early, where I crewed for a friend's hot air balloon. Then at lunchtime, it was time to fly my Cessna 140 up to the Soaring Club of Houston for some glider dual, then afterwards, fly the 140 back home again!
The morning started out very bright. I was sort of hopeful for maybe a bit of lift so I could see what a thermal was like, but the TAF showed no such luck. By lunchtime, there was an overcast layer at about 6,000 feet. I could tell that there was some lift, as I flew the 140 up to the Soaring Club, since there were some vertical gusts. It was probably just where the ground had been warmed before the overcast covered the area. There was some workable lift - one person with a high performance glider remained aloft for over an hour and even climbed... but no lift that I could notice...well, we did find some zero sink, but that was about it. The three flights were two tows to 3000 ft. for airwork, and the third was a pattern tow, where you release over the IP at about 1500 ft.
This session was to learn a few more things about the glider. I met my instructor for the day, and preflighted. The first flight was similar to last week - more airwork to refine my handling of the sailplane. I also did all the flying this time - Mark just coached me whilst I flew the whole sequence. One of our takeoffs was also a bit of an IMC takeoff, when the towplane kicked up so much dust that it was the best I could do to watch his tailfeathers! Fortunately, that quickly subsided early in the takeoff roll. Mark tried to tell me things during the takeoff roll, but there was so much noise from the wheel rumbling on the rough ground that I couldn't make out what he was saying. I just sort of moved the stick until he went quiet, then I guessed I was probably doing alright once that happened!
I was introduced to a new tow manoevre - boxing the wake. I had heard of this and seen it demonstrated on a previous ride I had with Michael Masterov, but now it was my turn to do it. Basically, it demonstrates control at various different tow positions - we started in the normal, high tow position. Mark then had me lower the nose a little, pass through the propwash of the towplane, and into the low position. You can tell you're there when you can see a touch of the lower surface of the towplane's wing. Then you slide the sailplane using the rudder alone to one of the corners. Holding full rudder and applying a little backpressure, you go up to the top corner...and so on, until you're back in the low tow position. At that point we came back up through the wake and into the high tow position.
We also did some 60-degree banked turns - you can actually rack the sailplane right over at surprisingly low speed without stalling. The roll rate is sort of slow in a 2-33, so coming out of a 60 degree turn requires 30 or 40 degrees lead-in and full control deflections. I had a tendency to slightly overcook it on the rudder coming out of steep turns. Mark said this was common in the 2-33: many pilots subconsciously give the plane a bit of extra rudder when it doesn't roll out that quickly. We also went over stalls in a turn. Despite my earlier spin training in powered planes, I still made a little bit of aileron input when recovering - the excercise was to stop the yaw with rudder instead. It's nothing that practise won't solve.
I was also introduced to how the sailplane slips. It doesn't seem to enjoy it! Although you get a healty descent rate, the plane buffets like you're just about to stall, plus I got a blast of cold air from one of the draftier areas of the sailplane. (I had to feel sorry for the poor instructor sitting back there, it wasn't a particularly warm day, and all I could hear half of the time was him rubbing his hands together to keep warm...it's rather drafty in the back of a 2-33)
Finally, the pattern and landings. Not surprisingly, because I'm used to a machine that sinks like a lead balloon even in comparison to the 2-33, I was consistently high in the pattern, but I was getting better. I still had to use pretty much full dive brakes on final on my last landing though! My second landing of the day was a greaser, but on the first and third, I forgot about how low I sat in the glider, and tried to flare like I do in the 140, and made a bit of a thumper. The other thing which I have to break a sort of psychological barrier with is pushing the stick all the way forward on rollout! In a taildragger, that's the easiest way to end up having to buy a new prop and engine, but in a 2-33, it puts the plane on its nose skid which does most of the braking effort. The 2-33 comes to a pretty quick halt with the nose skid running along the ground. A fun thing to do once we were stopped was to see how long I could hold the glider level with the ailerons! Normally, the glider tips over onto one of the wingtip outriggers when you stop, but there was about 8 knots of wind. With suitable control deflections, I could actually hold the wingtips off indefinitely!
Mark told me I had done really well today. Unfortunately, my head got so big it got stuck in the glider canopy after that (always a danger when you're instructor tells you you're doing well!) With a bit of luck, the weather will be good next week and I can be introduced to (gulp) the simulated rope break at 200 feet...