Demo Flight On A Rainy Day
Hemet, California (1998)
The day started out very dark and gloomy. The sky was very grey and it looked like it was going start raining at any moment.
A friend of mine (named Kent) who had been driving up to Hemet with me every weekend to watch me fly, decided that today he was going to go that extra step and give it a try.
His demo flight lesson started out with a good preflight inspection and few minutes of 'ground instruction' to orient him with flight procedures and the use of controls.
As they taxied out to the main runway, I discovered that my ultralights engine was going to be hard to start that morning. After fussing with it for a few minutes I managed to get it started, warmed up, and idling properly and soon and I was headed out to get some photos of their flight.
Just south of Hemet is a row of low hills that mark the boundary of the ultralight flying practice area. No houses, a few roads for emergency landings, and almost no other aircraft around. A great place for a demo flight. You can see how hazy the day was. Completely grey and overcast.
Catching up with them was easy to do since my Cobra "A" ultralight flies faster than the MXL trainer they were in. Faster cruise usually means a higher stall speed and later on that became a problem as I tried to slow down enough to fly formation with them.
As I got closer, I had the opportunity to take this very interesting point-of-view photo, with the hills in the background, and my Cobra's airspeed indicator and compass in the foreground. If you look closely, you'll see that I'm cruising at about 34 mph. My usual cruise is around 47 to 50 mph.
The closer I got, the more I had to keep slowing down my ultralight so as not to go zooming past them. At one point I was flying so slow the Cobra entered 'slow flight' and the controls got very mushy with the nose bobbing up and down as the tip of the wings would stall then begin flying again. The Cobra "A" model has very docile stall characteristics due to the 'wash out' of the wings. To get a significant stall you have to work at it pretty hard. That was a nice feature to have that day.
The weather was getting more threatening and at one point we actually flew into a light misting rain. Losing some altitude got us out of the rain and our duo of ultralights headed back to Hemet.
The flight back was totally uneventful though just a bit moist from the rain we had flown through for a few minutes.
"Another satisfied customer" is the best way to describe this photo of Kent and his instructor right after the flight.
I think that Kent will remember his flight for a long, long time.
The day started out very dark and gloomy. The sky was very grey and it looked like it was going start raining at any moment.
As they taxied out to the main runway, I discovered that my ultralights engine was going to be hard to start that morning. After fussing with it for a few minutes I managed to get it started, warmed up, and idling properly and soon and I was headed out to get some photos of their flight.
Catching up with them was easy to do since my Cobra "A" ultralight flies faster than the MXL trainer they were in. Faster cruise usually means a higher stall speed and later on that became a problem as I tried to slow down enough to fly formation with them.
The closer I got, the more I had to keep slowing down my ultralight so as not to go zooming past them. At one point I was flying so slow the Cobra entered 'slow flight' and the controls got very mushy with the nose bobbing up and down as the tip of the wings would stall then begin flying again. The Cobra "A" model has very docile stall characteristics due to the 'wash out' of the wings. To get a significant stall you have to work at it pretty hard. That was a nice feature to have that day.
The flight back was totally uneventful though just a bit moist from the rain we had flown through for a few minutes.
