lesson report

Oz Lander wrote:

I overflew the airfield at the required 1500ft, to check the wind sock,
and enter the circuit. As I made my call, the radio sounded like it was
screaming, and I could not hear my own voice like I normally can. I
tried several times, and was rewarded with a call from another a/c,
saying "Station calling! Too much feedback in your last transmission!
Please repeat!"
Fan-bloody-tastic! I was flying over the airfield at 1500, and unable
to tell anyone I was there!
I quickly took off the headset, and grabbed the passenger headset, and
put that on. Then I retransmitted using the push to talk button on the
right control stick. (The Gazelle has a control stick in front of the
pilot and the passenger, rather than a yoke). So, I'm flying the plane
with my left hand, and having to take my right hand off the throttle,
to operate the right hand side push to talk button! This saw me turn
slightly to the left, and, trying to figure out if I had radio or not ,
I got overwhelmed for a brief second, and began my decent to 1000ft to
join the circuit, on the live side of the airfield, about half way down
the downwind leg! What I should have done is stay at 1500, make a high
circuit to the dead side, and then get down to 1000ft, and join on the
crosswind. I realised it as soon as I levelled out at 1000ft on the
downwind. Still unsure as to whether I was being heard, I repeated the
cak-handed operation of the right side PTT button and called the
airport for a radio check. Report came back as loud and clear. The
problem must have been the pilot side PTT button, or his headset. (I'm
betting on the PTT button.)


Hi Oz,

I was think about this and I wonder if the problem was just that you had
the second headset mike close to its earcup so it gave feedback. I can't
imagine how a simple PTT switch problem could behave as you describe.
Next time mayby inplug the other headset before takeoff if it's not in use?

Cheers MarkC

"DR" wrote in message
...
Hi Oz

No, a loss in altitude is not necessarily a stall demonstration. You have
to try to maintain height by pulling back more and more and the stall will
show itself as a sudden nose drop -you may be at full back stick before
the drop occurs. This is because the center of lift suddenly moves back as
flow separates. In the PPL you are expected to hold altidude accurately
until the abrupt nose drop. The actual stall speed depends on loading and
the POH figures should be for MTOW. If you are not up to MTOW, the stall
will be below Vs (remember bank increases wing loading). Height loss could
be as little as 50' if you do it well.

For the wing drop 1/2 power and small left rudder should be enough -you
don't want it to snap into a spin! The wing drop exercise gives you
experience in immediate reactions needed to stop a spin developing. I'd
say it is probably the most dramatic manouver I've done so far (recovery
from unusual attitudes under IF seemed less dramatic -maybe because I
couldn't see the ground!).

I hope you've covered the spin break method -PARE (and remember you must
pull back rather than forward if you've become inverted :-( ). I'll admit
I've not had the confidence to do a full wing drop while flying solo so
far -even though my recoveries to all 3 stalls have been quite good
(IMHO). It can't be due to the 'confidence prop' in the right seat can
it??? By the way, on my checkout for soloing to the training area I
managed to drop a wing a bit during an advanced stall. My immediate rudder
action killed the problem and I got my first compliment :-) -so training
does seem work -even though I'm still finding good rudder coordination
elusive... only 10Hrs to go before PPL minimums... Tomorrow is low flying
lesson 1 -I'm really looking forward to that one after 5 hours under the
hood!

Cheers MarkC

Hi Mark,
I'm not doing PPL, I'm doing RAAus, which is ultralights. I asked about
spins last weekend, and was told we won't be covering them. I asked if that
was because the a/c just won't spin, and was told that you could probably
force it to spin, but you'd probably rip the wings off at the same time.
Spins are classed as aerobatics, and my little a/c is not approved for
aerobatics.
I'm 3 hours from RAA minimums (20hrs)
Oz Lander

"DR" wrote in message
...


Hi Oz,

I was think about this and I wonder if the problem was just that you had
the second headset mike close to its earcup so it gave feedback. I can't
imagine how a simple PTT switch problem could behave as you describe. Next
time mayby inplug the other headset before takeoff if it's not in use?

Cheers MarkC

Not sure mate. Funny thing is, it was working perfectly fine when I was
doing my taxi and departure calls. Also was fine for my 5 mile inbound call.
Wasn't until the overhead call that it stuffed up, and the pax headset was
hooked over the top of the pax seat, and had not moved at all.
I do recall it happening once before very early on in my training, when I
was still not solo, and my instructor just made all the calls from her side.
I'd only just started making calls back then.
Oz Lander