LongRoadBob
Cleared for Takeoff
My wife found a retreat in Italy that was in an old monastery in Umbria region where it was nine days with yoga and Italian cooking courses. Just got back. It was grueling. Never had more than an hour or two between sunrise and sunset (yoga began at 7:00 each morning...ugh) of free time.
Anyway, I'm a new student with all of three flying hours, and some months of theory. Towards the end of our time there I see a small plane fly over and land somewhere down in the valley below behind some trees so I couldn't see the runway. It was some distance off.
So I got on google maps, and tried to find the airport. It took a long time, I couldn't find any runways, but saw a long row of buildings that looked familiar in the general direction of where the plane landed. Zoomed in on satellite and saw the first third of what clearly was a plane being taken out of the hangar in th satellite photo. Bingo! It's a grass runway. That why I couldn't see it.
I see there are also two buildings there, and when I zoomed in I see it is an "avio club" so it isn't just a lone runway and hangar, there is a flying club there! Yay!
They had two bicycles at the monastery, so I grabbed one and about 40 minutes later arrived at the airport. As I'm walking around, one guy comes around the corner looking at me very doubtfully. I only speak a little Italian, and he only a little English. My main idea was, I wanted to book a flight so that my wife could ride along, to see how she liked flying also, since it's a long way to my PPL and if she didn't like to fly I might consider going for microplanes since it is less costly and less time, if it turned out I'd be flying alone a lot, etc.
But after talking with him, they only had micro there. He was mainly an acre pilot I eventually found out. Showed me videos of him flying, and he had won the Italian championship in acro some years back.
So I arranged instead (wife didn't want to fly with him alone when I called her from the airport) to fly in two days. So I was excited!
The day comes, I again cycle down to the airport, he doesn't show up, but a student of his does. We talk for a while he shows up, totally ignores me, not even a nod. Seems in a bad mood. I ask the student who says "he's always like that". They put the cowling on the plane, and take it out of the hangar. The student tells me he had done some modifications the night before and had to test before we could go up. He taxis, and comes back without taking off.
Turns out the trim indicator is not working. Gets a plastic chair out and places it at the tail and starts unscrewing things. His mechanic finally shows up (he'd been calling him for a half hour) and the two of them work in the plane. Still hasn't even acknowledged that I am there, not even a nod "hey". It's pretty weird.
At this point, my thinking was (was I wrong?) that it shows he is responsible in that he didn't just fly anyway, since I'm thinking if he was a seat of the pants badass he might have figured no big deal since he can still set and adjust trim. So I took it as a good sign.
After a while they fix it, and button it up. I also had watched his preflight check of the plane and though it wasn't all I so far have been taught he did seem to have a procedure and check.
Wind had picked up, was gusting a little, but the wind sock was never straight out. It went from barely up, to about half-cocked. So the student tells me he is now going to check the plane out, and also check conditions. He said at this point "it might be to on cub turbulence now, we may have to come back this afternoon or evening".
So the pilot takes off and almost does a loop just after takeoff. He was flying (maybe showing off...not sure but both the mechanic and student were making "ohhh" and "ahh" sounds, taking video, talking excitedly about "only that guy would fly like that now" ) and it was definitely impressive to me.
He lands, and finally addresses me, telling me it is too windy, too much turbulence (to me those are two different things, but I'm new to this...the wind didn't seem more than we've had in my three flights at home, and wasn't so much crosswind but mostly headwind. But I don't know how light microplanes differ for that) and we exchange phone numbers, if it gets better in the afternoon "around 6 or 7" I could come back.
Disappointed I cycle (uphill) back to the monastery. All this time my wife was texting, I didn't tell her they had to fix a problem when I thought we might still go up.
Very much a let down, the weather never improved enough, I never got to fly.
Sorry for the bad ending.
Still, was I showing bad judgment in this? Should I have called this off when they had to repair or when I heard he had done modifications to the plane? (Even that could be a language misunderstanding) he seemed "tired" and somewhat weary, but he really flew that plane!
Had many posters up on the club building of flying events, where he was flying. He had designed and built his own planes, etc.
I did think it was strange about the wind. It didn't seem abnormally high, but I had to trust his judgement. Especially considering we had agreed on 100 Euro for a 40 minute flight, he stood to make some good money but still declined. He also said "for ME it's ok, but not with a student" so there too I trusted his judgement.
Any thoughts?
Anyway, I'm a new student with all of three flying hours, and some months of theory. Towards the end of our time there I see a small plane fly over and land somewhere down in the valley below behind some trees so I couldn't see the runway. It was some distance off.
So I got on google maps, and tried to find the airport. It took a long time, I couldn't find any runways, but saw a long row of buildings that looked familiar in the general direction of where the plane landed. Zoomed in on satellite and saw the first third of what clearly was a plane being taken out of the hangar in th satellite photo. Bingo! It's a grass runway. That why I couldn't see it.
I see there are also two buildings there, and when I zoomed in I see it is an "avio club" so it isn't just a lone runway and hangar, there is a flying club there! Yay!
They had two bicycles at the monastery, so I grabbed one and about 40 minutes later arrived at the airport. As I'm walking around, one guy comes around the corner looking at me very doubtfully. I only speak a little Italian, and he only a little English. My main idea was, I wanted to book a flight so that my wife could ride along, to see how she liked flying also, since it's a long way to my PPL and if she didn't like to fly I might consider going for microplanes since it is less costly and less time, if it turned out I'd be flying alone a lot, etc.
But after talking with him, they only had micro there. He was mainly an acre pilot I eventually found out. Showed me videos of him flying, and he had won the Italian championship in acro some years back.
So I arranged instead (wife didn't want to fly with him alone when I called her from the airport) to fly in two days. So I was excited!
The day comes, I again cycle down to the airport, he doesn't show up, but a student of his does. We talk for a while he shows up, totally ignores me, not even a nod. Seems in a bad mood. I ask the student who says "he's always like that". They put the cowling on the plane, and take it out of the hangar. The student tells me he had done some modifications the night before and had to test before we could go up. He taxis, and comes back without taking off.
Turns out the trim indicator is not working. Gets a plastic chair out and places it at the tail and starts unscrewing things. His mechanic finally shows up (he'd been calling him for a half hour) and the two of them work in the plane. Still hasn't even acknowledged that I am there, not even a nod "hey". It's pretty weird.
At this point, my thinking was (was I wrong?) that it shows he is responsible in that he didn't just fly anyway, since I'm thinking if he was a seat of the pants badass he might have figured no big deal since he can still set and adjust trim. So I took it as a good sign.
After a while they fix it, and button it up. I also had watched his preflight check of the plane and though it wasn't all I so far have been taught he did seem to have a procedure and check.
Wind had picked up, was gusting a little, but the wind sock was never straight out. It went from barely up, to about half-cocked. So the student tells me he is now going to check the plane out, and also check conditions. He said at this point "it might be to on cub turbulence now, we may have to come back this afternoon or evening".
So the pilot takes off and almost does a loop just after takeoff. He was flying (maybe showing off...not sure but both the mechanic and student were making "ohhh" and "ahh" sounds, taking video, talking excitedly about "only that guy would fly like that now" ) and it was definitely impressive to me.
He lands, and finally addresses me, telling me it is too windy, too much turbulence (to me those are two different things, but I'm new to this...the wind didn't seem more than we've had in my three flights at home, and wasn't so much crosswind but mostly headwind. But I don't know how light microplanes differ for that) and we exchange phone numbers, if it gets better in the afternoon "around 6 or 7" I could come back.
Disappointed I cycle (uphill) back to the monastery. All this time my wife was texting, I didn't tell her they had to fix a problem when I thought we might still go up.
Very much a let down, the weather never improved enough, I never got to fly.
Sorry for the bad ending.
Still, was I showing bad judgment in this? Should I have called this off when they had to repair or when I heard he had done modifications to the plane? (Even that could be a language misunderstanding) he seemed "tired" and somewhat weary, but he really flew that plane!
Had many posters up on the club building of flying events, where he was flying. He had designed and built his own planes, etc.
I did think it was strange about the wind. It didn't seem abnormally high, but I had to trust his judgement. Especially considering we had agreed on 100 Euro for a 40 minute flight, he stood to make some good money but still declined. He also said "for ME it's ok, but not with a student" so there too I trusted his judgement.
Any thoughts?
