Day: February 25, 2016

I laid my hands on the Savannah for the first time this morning and my goodness, what an aircraft! It leaps off the ground like a scalded cat and cimbs like a lift – in fact it feels more like sitting back in a rollercoaster during its initial steep climb phase!

People were very impressed by how my old vintage Tripacer used to climb back in the day because it had a 160hp Lycoming engine in a very light, fabric covered airframe. But this is something altogether different. If you take off with half (20 degrees) flap, you’d have to move incredibly smartly, or start climbing almost vertically, to get them off before reaching the flap limit speed of 96 kmh and I didn’t even bother trying it today.

And then before you know it, you’re at 140-150 kmh in the climb and still going up fast and within moments you’re having to drag the throttle back to 4000 rpm or less, just to keep at around 140 kmh in the circuit.

Then the big problem is slowing down for landing. I only got to try out the flaps twice today and then I had to make a concerted effort to get the speed low enough on the approach to put them on, and I’ll leave it until I get back to Galinat before I practise the technique in earnest.

So my verdict? I’m blown away and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s flight from la Ferte to Galinat with great pleasure and anticipation 😀