Lesson Six: Medium Turns

Unusually the aircraft had full tanks so there was no need to fuel up following the pre-flight inspection, so we took off and headed out to our area. This time the instructor did the take off but I got fly us up to cruise altitude after the wheels left the ground. Once we were clear of Hamilton's control zone we picked out an easy to find landmark, which happened to be Mt Pirongia, sticking some 3000 ft into the sky as our reference point.

Judging the turn can be harder than it looks when you cant stare continuously at the instuments (unlike flight sim), thankfully there are some bolts on the engine cowling which you can line up with the horizon to keep roughly a correct angle of bank. The aircraft needed quite a bit more backpressure on the yoke then I first anticpated, but after a few 360 degree turns I finally began to get the hang of it.

Following the left hand turns, we moved onto right turns which are even harder because the bolts that you would use to line up a left turn now droop below the horizon, as the pilot is sitting up higher due to the bank angle. This was a pain but like the left turns I got used to it after a while, before we finished off the lesson with a left and then right turn before heading back to the airport for landing.

Upon landing we hit a pothole or something in the grass, the instructor said that part of the runway needs flatenning out better. We taxied back to the clubhouse for shutdown and the instructor got me to write down the time we flew on the Hobbs meter. Next lesson will be climbing and descending turns.