The Secret is out. Your president likes smooth air. There have been many times when I take-off for a short flight and one circuit tells me to put the plane back on the ground and back into the hanger. I guess I am one of those pilots that enjoys a perfect ride. I will pull myself out of bed at 4 or 5 AM in the morning to get to the airfield before the winds start blowing. You see, the Buzzard is light and short coupled, and I can feel the wind gusts slapping my tail and moving the back around. I am still not sure how I am going to be able to handle the air around this part of the country. It seems like the Parkland of Red Deer offers less wind most of the time. I consider myself a low time pilot, still learning, and happy to find friendly smooth air. I enjoy having other pilots fly with me and I enjoy flying with other pilots. There is always something we can learn from each other. I have enjoyed the company of fellow club member Bert Lougheed, on numerous occasions, sometimes in my Buzzard and sometimes in Bert’s Grumman Tiger. Bert has been a great mentor to me and skillfully nudges me in the right direction to help me learn better flight habits. I remember a day when the air wasn’t quite as smooth as you expect winter air to be, and Bert commented with a smile “Looks like a good day to practice for the summer days that are less friendly.”

When the air starts to get bumpy, I, like some others, tend to tense up and make things worse. What do I mean by that? Think about your own habits. I know that when the bumps start, my grip on the stick tends to get a little tighter and tenser. In fact a check ride with my instructor after a couple of hundred hours revealed the comment “Your doing everything right but, you should relax a little, try flying with light stick control, just two fingers on the stick.” Think about driving down the road. Usually none of us use more than a light touch on the steering wheel. Let the weather or road conditions change and the grip becomes a little tighter. Have you ever noticed that when the grip tightens bumps will seem more severe? You hit the bump and the tense grip makes you chase the bump. You may end up moving the wheel three or four times in jerky little movements, yet when you are relaxed the same bump is gone as quickly as it arrived. I have found the same thing in the air. The ride is a lot better if we let the plane handle the bump instead of chasing it. This is a concept I am still trying to perfect.

I recently had the chance to fly to the Cardston Fly-In breakfast with Jim Corner and the ride was perfect. We had a 20-30 knot headwind on the way down, but Jim’s Kitfox cruised through the air happily with a smile on her face. The sky was overcast, and the air was smooth with just a little air movement (I hesitate to call them bumps) to let us know we were in the sky. The return flight was similar, but we encountered one good bump that let me hit my head on the skylight of Jim’s Kitfox. The wind seemed to change from a tailwind to a headwind and the bump was there to let us know. Jim is a great pilot with a lot of time in Kitfox’s and the bump disappeared as quickly as it showed up. I am not sure, but I don’t think his grip changed at all. Chalk up another learning experience for me.

Of course, there are times that we expect great air, and the weather guessers have something else in mind for us and sometimes we get rewarded with great air. I remember a time when I had to work in Wetaskiwin and the WX predicted winds from the south in the morning with a change to the winds from the north in the late afternoon. Seemed like a perfect opportunity to combine a plane ride with a little work with a tailwind both ways. I got to the airport a little later than I wanted but was still able to be aloft early enough to enjoy a perfect ride north and arrive in good time to get to work. It was one of those days that little went the way it was supposed to at work and I had one wire run that was extremely tough. By the time work was done for the day I was dragging butt pretty good. I would normally never go flying that tired, but I had only one way home, so I had my co-worker for the day drive me to the airport and I started my pre-flight.

I fired up the Buzzard and jumped into the air. Smooth, cooler, and a tailwind. The weather guessers were right today. I had a tailwind going to Wetaskiwin and the GPS showed 95mph on the way up and a tailwind going back to Red Deer and the GPS showed about 90mph. Not bad for an airplane that is comfortable at 65 to 70mph IAS. I was only in the air for a few minutes and all the stress and worries of the day left my body. The flight back was much too quick. I soon found myself over the Lacombe area and saw the corn maze below me. I grabbed my camera from the bag on the seat next to me. I took the lens cap off focused the shot I wanted and snapped a few pictures. When I put the camera back, I realized that I hadn’t touched the controls for 15 to 20 seconds and the plane was flying itself happy as could be. The air was that smooth. I didn’t want to flight to end just yet and did a quick cruise to the model airplane field to check things out. Really, it was just an excuse to extend my time in perfect air. It was a perfect day, the weather guessers got it right and the whole time I am sure I was controlling my flight was with just a couple of fingers. Now, if I can just learn to do that when the air gets a little rougher. It is a skill I will continue to work on and something only time will perfect.

Guest speaker for this month’s meeting is Jim Hyrmack from Hyrmack Airshows on flying the Ivory Coast for the UN. Jim is an aerobatic instructor from Brooks and Jim showed me some of the photos he had from his travels. It should be an interesting evening.

Till next time I wish you “Smooth Skies and Good Lies”.