N941WR
Legacy Member
I thought this might be worth mentioning…
Saturday morning started out at around 24 degrees F at 7 AM. After breakfast with the local fliers the temperature had gone up to 36 degrees. That was good, in my mind, as it would make pre-heating the plane go quicker.
The air was clear to the horizon but very turbulent. Enough so my wife was turning green by the end of our 30 minute flight.
Entering downwind at 1,000 AGL, we were flying over a forest of dark trees. No different than I had done a bunch of times before.
Throttle to idle, airspeed slowing, 90 MPH, deploy all the flaps, speed to 70 MPH.
Hey, what is going here? The plane is not descending, in fact we are going up at 300 FPM. OK, slow it down to 65 MPH, my short field approach speed. Nothing, we are still going up. OK, point the nose down and let the speed climb until we exit the thermal. Now we are ready to turn Base and we are up around 1300+ feet AGL. Extend. Turn Base. We are way out from the airport. Slip. Turn final. SLIP. SLIP some more. Keep the slip in all the way until just before touchdown.
While none of that was dangerous, it did surprise me how much lift we were getting from the thermals. The clue should have been the bumpy flight and the remedy is to speed up to get out of the thermal. Extending as needed to make a normal stabilized approach. (For me a “stabilized approach” usually includes a slip as I like to keep my patterns tight.)
Saturday morning started out at around 24 degrees F at 7 AM. After breakfast with the local fliers the temperature had gone up to 36 degrees. That was good, in my mind, as it would make pre-heating the plane go quicker.
The air was clear to the horizon but very turbulent. Enough so my wife was turning green by the end of our 30 minute flight.
Entering downwind at 1,000 AGL, we were flying over a forest of dark trees. No different than I had done a bunch of times before.
Throttle to idle, airspeed slowing, 90 MPH, deploy all the flaps, speed to 70 MPH.
Hey, what is going here? The plane is not descending, in fact we are going up at 300 FPM. OK, slow it down to 65 MPH, my short field approach speed. Nothing, we are still going up. OK, point the nose down and let the speed climb until we exit the thermal. Now we are ready to turn Base and we are up around 1300+ feet AGL. Extend. Turn Base. We are way out from the airport. Slip. Turn final. SLIP. SLIP some more. Keep the slip in all the way until just before touchdown.
While none of that was dangerous, it did surprise me how much lift we were getting from the thermals. The clue should have been the bumpy flight and the remedy is to speed up to get out of the thermal. Extending as needed to make a normal stabilized approach. (For me a “stabilized approach” usually includes a slip as I like to keep my patterns tight.)
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