Ok. So again, there’s this huge gap between lessons. Not quite 13 years, but it still feels like ages. I have to say. It wasn’t entirely my own fault this time. I’ve been bumped three weekends in a row, as due to work commitments, Sundays is the only real day where I can guarantee being able to turn up. First lesson was blown out a couple of hours before I was due to fly because my instructor caught covid. I booked in for the following Sunday, and there wasn’t an instructor free. And I booked in the following Sunday, and it rained, and when it rains at Bodmin the cloud is in contact with the ground. There’s no flying at all. So, when I got the rain-soaked phone call, my better other half booked me in for the next day and told me she’d do my share of the workload. It’s moments like that that makes me realise why I love her so much.
So Monday dawned, full of sunshine and promise. I worked as fast as I could to get as much done as possible before I was due to fly at 14:00. She dropped me off at the airfield and I went and found my new instructor. I think I’ve had an hour now with pretty much all of the instructors at Bodmin. It’s always a bit nerve wracking to go with someone new, as each person is unique with their own foibles. He asked me what I wanted to do today, and I explained that because this is the runup to Christmas, it’s our busiest time of the year and this could well be my last flight of the year. Even though I know what I need to do is hit the circuit in earnest, I’d prefer to just have a poodle round and maybe just do a bit of actual training along the way in the way of some slow flight and what not. He suggested that we do a few circuits at the end and just play it by ear. I agreed so went off to pre-flight the Vans RV12.
Runway 21 was in use today which is the shortest runway at just over 400 meters. We took off after doing all the pre-flight stuff and headed towards Liskeard and took a slow turn round the transmitter at Caradon. As we headed north we did some slow flight and played with the flaps while maintaining height. As we turned back towards Bodmin, I said that I really wanted to fly overhead Colliford lake as we’d been there a couple of months ago and it was really low and the last report I’d seen said it was down to less than 25% capacity. It was quiet disconcerting to see it from the air like that. As we approached it, where there should have been a lake full of water, all there was were a bunch of disjointed puddles. The whole lake was really low. I pointed out to my instructor where my other half and myself had been walking when we’d been there. We’d walked down a cobbled road that had been submerged since the lake had been filled back in 1984 and you could clearly see it from where we were. He seemed slightly taken back when he spotted it.
We arrived back at Bodmin, saw that other RV12 doing circuits and turned to the ‘dead side’ to lose height and enter the circuit over the end of 03. Except that there was another RV12, so our crosswind leg was done to slot us in nicely behind him on downwind. Unfortunately he was doing flapless approaches so extended his downwind leg which meant we had to do the same to keep separation. None of this is a problem. However, when I turned to final, the sun was directly in front of us and it become instantly apparent that the canopy glass was not clean in the slightest. I could only just make out the runway! This resulted in arriving far to quickly, ballooning horribly on the short runway and doing a go around. It’s all good practice, but I was kicking myself! Because of the go around, we’d gained on the other aircraft in the circuit and my instructor considered doing an orbit. I on the other hand resorted to slowing the aircraft down and just holding the height all the way along the downwind leg, putting a nice bit of distance between the two of us. Again, coming in on final the runway all but disapeared from view, but this time I kept on top of the speed a little bit better. We landed fine, except we departed the rather narrow grass runway and were just belting across the field. Not a great look for my new instructor! The third, and last landing was perfect. And I felt somewhat redeemed. It was gentle, down the center line and perfectly on speed all the way down. Some of that was due to the fact I’d found a bit of the canopy that was see through and the rest was down to the fact that the sun had a few clouds obscuring it a little. Not one of my better lessons, and I said as much to him.
Neil's flying space 