![\"null\"](\"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/images\/MZEL3.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Ikarus had been out but MZEL hadn’t flown for quite a few days so I had to check the fuel in the carburettor bowls for water while Rosie did a fuel drain check at the drain point just behind the right undercarriage wheel. All was clear so pretty soon we were all checked and ready to go. I think I mentioned before that I’d made my own AX3 checklist which was a real help. It’s double-sided (so it has large type that I can read without glasses \ud83d\ude42 ) and laminated, so I can write on it with a chinagraph pencil. That way as well as working as a pre-flight checklist, it can also be used while in the air. Here’s a pic of it.<\/p>\n We back-tracked runway 02 for take off on 20 and pretty soon we were airborne. Take off not too bad but you have to expect to be a bit rusty after a 6-month lay off, because that’s how long it has been. Did a few climbing and descending manoeuvres ahead and in the turn and it felt very good to be back up in the air. Then we went off for a few circuits and landings.<\/p>\n Considering it’s been 6 months, things didn’t go too badly. Not surprisingly, my height control left a bit to be desired and at one time, with the lift that was around, we gained nearly 200 feet on the down-wind leg! After one landing, Rosie suggested we do a hop. A hop is when she takes off, gets us to something like 40 or 50 feet, cuts the engine to idle and asks you to land it back on what’s left of the runway. This was a totally new exercise for me and I have to confess, I was completely unprepared for it. What a disaster! We landed but all over the place and with a thump. Rosie judiciously decided to leave more hops for another time \ud83d\ude15<\/p>\n We did several right and left hand circuits and landings and things began to feel more comfortable as time went on. On one approach we gained an amazing amount of height over the large copse of trees that is there so at Rosie’s suggestion I side-slipped most of it off. I didn’t think I could get enough off and would have gone round, but Rosie said to watch this, and promptly did another huge side-slip in the other direction, which got us low enough to land. It always amazes me how much dynamic energy these little aircraft lose when you level off with power off, compared to say the Group A singles that I used to fly, so you can come in too high (but not too fast, try) and still land when a landing would have been unthinkable in the Group A.<\/p>\n During all this I noticed one thing of serious importance. While Rosie was doing her big side-slip, I found that because of the tightly laced ankle high boots I was wearing, I couldn’t get my right foot on the rudder pedal while it was extended. This means that in those boots, I would be unable, if necessary, to push the rudder pedal far enough to manoeuvre the aircraft, so they will have to go! That’s the last time I’ll wear them for flying – and would you believe, they are the same ones I wore 30 years ago when I first learnt to fly as a young man (yes, wearing 30 year old boots I’m ashamed to say – and it gets worse…. I also wore them while I was gliding a few years ago as well!)<\/p>\n Anyway, we only had enough fuel for about 1 1\/2 hours (with a reserve) so eventually we headed back. Total time was 1 hour 20 mins. I said that this was the first occasion since I began flying with her that the weather was as good at the end of the flght as it was when we took off, and I just hope that 2009 continues in the same way. Rosie said that if I wanted, we could refuel and go again, but I decided not to. Just as well. That evening after all those circuits I was knackered \ud83d\ude15<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The weather this week was gorgeous, in most of the UK actually, but especially down here in the South-East. I phoned Rosie last weekend to arrange a flight for Thursday and for once I’d got the weather exactly right. Wednesday was slightly warmer, but then because the sun was hotter, there would probably have been … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n