Skip to content
Menu
Flying Gas
  • Home
  • Airport Map
    • Competition flying again
  • About
  • Contact
  • ZU-IBM
Flying Gas

Stall Spin Checkout and Dual Check

Posted on August 5, 2017June 17, 2018 by Mike Blackburn

Lesson 6

Date:- 4 August 2017

Aircraft: – ZS-JAB

Route: – FALA – Magalies GFA – FALA

METAR: –METAR FALA 041300Z 14004KT 040V170 9999 SCT035 20/M00 Q1024 NOSIG

Hours:- 1.3

Total Hours:- 9.7

 

Well it’s fair to say that I have had mixed feelings about this flight. It’s a bit of a rite of passage in my mind. After every 10h prior to going solo we have to have a “dual check” where the head flight instructor flies with the student to make sure he/she is progressing well and to check up on the quality of instruction his instructors are providing.

Since I’ve done all the upper airwork exercises it was also an opportunity to do a “stall/spin signout” which is required (for good reason)prior to starting work in the traffic pattern. A lot of people kill themselves by stalling or spinning at low altitude in the circuit, particularly on the base-final turn and stall recognition and prompt recovery are thus important to have a good handle on.

It’s difficult flying with a new instructor – especially one you haven’t met before. But he seems like a decent sort and is very enthusiastic about doing things the right way. In fact, I thought my existing instructor was very “by the book”. This chap was even more so – but in a very good way. So we did things a little differently – the hard part for me was that I felt like I was having an exam and he was very much in the mode of instructing. In fact, he did all the radio work despite the fact that my regular instructor told him I’m quite capable – but it was nice to concentrate on the flying.

As it turned out it was just as well he was doing the radio work – but more on that later. Because taxiway A4 is closed at FALA at the moment for repair and resurfacing we are doing intersection takeoffs and the run up bay for 07 is unavailable – so we did our run ups on the apron and taxi’d out to toward A3. (Along the green line). As it turns out we could have done our run up short of A3 because wouldn’t you know it but 3 737’s all pushed from the apron simultaneously and we had to wait for them. Which would have been fine except one of the 737 crews managed (between the 2 of them) to forget the well NOTAM’d closure of A4 and they taxied merrily off toward the A4 end of 07. One imagines a few red faces when they had to do a U-turn in the runup bay and come back. While all of this was going on we just waited and waited and waited on the taxiway.

Fortunately TWR was on board and while the second 737 was backtracking to the departure end of 07 we were given clearance to do an expedited departure and turn out from the A3 intersection.

image

Rest of the flight was essentially uneventful. The instructor was pretty good value because he had some different ideas about doing things (all of which seemed valid) – he even tried to cure my “looking inside-itis” by turning off the PFD (there are backup instruments) and I was quite chuffed to do a full turn and not be more than 100ft off initial altitude. Stalls were fine except as promised, this particular aeroplane definitely drops a wing at the stall break which caught me a little by surprise.

4 aug

A couple of (not so good) full flap stalls followed by one decent one and it was back to FALA for another landing – mine this time and really not too much drama at all. I feel like I’m getting the feel of the aeroplane.

So I’m officially signed off for stall recovery/spin avoidance and the next step is into the circuit for a couple of hours. Solo should be soon but I suspect it will be delayed due to a SNAFU with my medical – we were a day or two late in submitting documents (which have to be in 7 working days prior to the medical panel meeting – upshot is that my case wasn’t presented so will only be reviewed on 15 August. With formal decision only being communicated 7 working days thereafter.

In the meantime however, I’m getting stuck into Air Law which trust me is a fate worse than death. On the plus side, my Crazed Pilot audio recording cable arrived and it actually works. So hopefully now my post flight reviews of gopro footage will be more useful. I also found a good place to position the GoPro to get a good overview of panel and horizon – at ear level just forward of my head on the pilot side door window. Some more footage below….

 

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2TDtc7W9uM]

Flight training

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Places I’ve Landed

Follow on Instagram

Archives

  • July 2021 (1)
  • June 2021 (1)
  • April 2021 (1)
  • March 2021 (2)
  • February 2021 (1)
  • November 2020 (1)
  • September 2020 (3)
  • August 2020 (3)
  • July 2020 (2)
  • June 2020 (1)
  • February 2020 (2)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • December 2019 (2)
  • November 2019 (2)
  • October 2019 (1)
  • September 2019 (5)
  • August 2019 (3)
  • July 2019 (3)
  • June 2019 (2)
  • May 2019 (3)
  • April 2019 (2)
  • March 2019 (2)
  • February 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (1)
  • November 2018 (2)
  • October 2018 (1)
  • July 2018 (3)
  • June 2018 (1)
  • May 2018 (2)
  • April 2018 (2)
  • March 2018 (1)
  • February 2018 (1)
  • January 2018 (2)
  • November 2017 (3)
  • October 2017 (1)
  • September 2017 (4)
  • August 2017 (3)
  • July 2017 (6)
  • June 2017 (4)
©2025 Flying Gas | Powered by WordPress & Superb Themes