Finally got to take Mel for a longer flight!

After the first (rather short) flight with Mel which was also my first passenger flight, I've been waiting for quite a while for a suitable day when we were both free to take her up again.  This time for a bit longer than just one circuit! With the conversion to Tecnam and Janine's flight going well and the forecast for mild winds, I thought I'd also take the opportunity to show Mel the new aircraft.

The forecast had also predicted frost then sunny, so I had made the booking for mid morning to reduce the chance of delays due to to fog.  As it happened, the day had neither of those things.  The overcast clouds were sitting at about 3500 feet AMSL, and the wind had steadily crept up during the morning to around ten knots.  I wasn't concerned about it, because the Tecnam handles wind with ease (plus, it was blowing almost exactly down Runway 29).

The flight.

I wanted to show Mel our friend's horse stud from the air, so we readied the aircraft, blasted off from Lethbridge and headed to the North. I'd flown to it once before - but never approached it from the South, so it was a new experience for me. We followed the main road for a bit, and then switched to the Geelong-Ballarat goods train line after it crossed the road.  It was pretty smooth for the most part, but as we got closer to the hills around Buninyong, the mechanical turbulence could start to be noticed. 

Looking West to Blau Estate (in the bottom left of frame).  The curved railway line can be seen along the bottom of the frame.

We went by it once, then I turned and gave us another look at it.  Without thinking, I did a steep-ish left turn to make sure we avoided the tiger country in front of us.  Mel wasn't too sure about being on the high side of the aircraft - she looked across at my side window to see the ground.  I quickly made it shallower, and later explained that the best way to cope with it is to look straight forward at the horizon.  It made her feel a bit better, but I feel that I may have jumped in a bit too quickly with that sort of manoeuvre!

I pointed the nose back towards where we came from and had a peek at our ground speed - 124 knots!  This was going to be a quick return trip.  Descended to circuit height, and as we were already on the dead side, I decided to join mid field crosswind.  Downwind was over in a flash, and if the Tecnam isn't hard enough to slow down in normal conditions, it's very difficult when you have quite a tailwind!

I turned base and pulled it to idle.  The airspeed was still over 75 knots.  I raised the nose and got it back to just over 70.  With the wind, the Tecnam just didn't feel like it wanted to settle!  I waited and waited, then eventually, I hear the right main wheel start to spin up.  Yup, you guessed it: another greaser.  The Tecnam must be pre programmed for them, I swear!

We shut down and pushed the aircraft back into the hangar.  On the drive home (which we had just flown most of a moment before), Mel said, "This seems a lot slower than flying."

"Yep, especially because we were flying at around 180 kilometres per hour!"

"Wow"

Wow indeed.