Beautiful flying weather this morning, nothing more than a light breeze and virtually clear blue skies. Didn’t worry about phoning ahead, and set off straight after dropping my partner at work so that I’d be there in plenty of time; mindful of the traffic last week!

Turns out that I didn’t even have to worry about that, the traffic in the air above Wellesbourne was worse than on the motorway down there. Arrived with plenty of time to relax before my lesson, and sat out in the sun while John was up with somebody else.

Todays lesson was on the effect of the controls (elevators, ailerons and rudder), both their primary effect (pitch, roll and yaw respectively) and the secondary effects that they also have (change in airspeed, yaw and roll). We’d also be doing some examination of the different feel of the controls at different airspeeds, as well as some more work on trim.

I’d already got the general hang of it from my previous two lessons, and had been reading up at home, so I was able to ask a few quite specific questions about the different effects.

Flying today was in G-WAVN, my third plane in as many weeks. Same type as Victor Victor last week, but with a standard nav/comm unit rather than the fancy GPS that Victor Victor had.

The lesson started with a walkround of the plane, checking the various surfaces and components to make sure there was no damage, etc. There seems a lot to remember here, but the process was quite methodical and there’s a handy written checklist anyway, so I’m pretty confident that I’ll have that licked.

After the checks, we taxied to the holding point for more checks with me controlling the rudder (though I’m sure John was helping correct my changes along the way) and then a quick takeoff on 18 and we were up in the air.

This is started to almost feel natural now; no apprehension in the takeoff and I found I was much more able to both enjoy it and pay attention to other things going on. I was even able to follow John on the controls to see how it was done. Turned towards Long Marston again and out to the usual training ground. Found I was much more familiar with the area this time, but again was surprised how quickly we covered the distance to it.

The lesson itself was pretty straight forward, I made various changes on the controls and observed the change in attitude of the aircraft and any secondary effect the change had. Some work on trimming, which I’m still finding a little tricky to get right; mostly because I can’t quite get the nose on the horizon properly, but I felt it came together better than last time. And finally on the way back, some demonstrations of the different feel of the controls at different speeds; firm and responsive when going fast, but sloppy when slow.

A moment of radio hilarity on the way home as a passing aircraft reported themselves to be “over Green Farm”, leading to a little argument between them and the tower over where exactly that was (tower having never heard of it). In the end they settled on “3 miles South” and the aircraft passed without further argument.

Followed John on the controls through the landing, and we were down again. A relatively short time in the air, due to the longer briefing and pre-flight checks, with more homework to do on the effects of flaps and on straight and level flight.

P/UT Hours Today 0:30, Total 1:40