Finally! Decent weather for flying!

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:20]Good morning. It's been a fantastic, superb hot, hot, sunny bank holiday weekend for a change, which is unusual in the UK. It normally rains on bank holiday weekends, but this has been one of the hottest, I think, perhaps on record. We've had temperatures of around 30° centigrade. I'm not sure what that's in American money, but it's been bakingly hot. I've managed to fly for 5 days in a row. I've not really done much in the way of recording, which I should have done. It's a lost opportunity, but I just wanted to get up in the air and explore. I think this video will probably go out on the second channel.

[00:00:50]As you can see, I'm not wearing a tie.

[00:00:51]I'm a lot more informal, and that's because it's so hot. I don't think I could tolerate wearing a tie at the moment. So, we'll stick this on the more informal second channel which we've just started. The reason I'm doing that is because I do spend a lot of time trying to edit the videos for the main channel.

[00:01:04]And what I wanted to do with the main channel is keep it for more refined sort of film making, if you can call it refined, and then uh just put stuff that I would normally end up not even using.

[00:01:15]Uh I think it's a waste because it's nice to be able to share the flight. So, I think I'll be putting that on the second channel and again, it'll be far more informal. But uh this video I think in its entirety will probably be on the second channel. So check that out.

[00:01:27]Right, we are up to temperature. So I'm probably going to just tax you forward a bit.

[00:01:32]>> Spy View Golf Delta Kil Kim.

[00:01:35]Spy View Golf Delta Kila Lima Delta taxi runway 04 spy view.

[00:01:39]>> That's really loud. I'll turn that down.

[00:01:41]See if we can get a That should be a bit better. Sorry about that.

[00:01:58]Yeah, the wind's light and variable.

[00:01:59]It's all over the place at the moment.

[00:02:00]I'll probably take off on 04 though.

[00:02:04]Right, I'm not necessarily parked into the wind, but there's there's very little. I'll just stop there. Okay, let's do our checklist. Boom. Boom.

[00:02:15]Pre-Tech checked. It's my view golf delta kila lining up runway 04.

[00:02:20]>> It's so noisy and that's because I haven't turned my turn my noise cancelling. Ah, that's a relief. That's such a nice noise cancelling headphones are amazing.

[00:02:33]>> Spy View Golf Delta Kilima Delta actually taking off on runway 01. Spy View.

[00:02:39]>> It's benign enough. So, let's do that.

[00:02:42]Okay, here we go.

[00:02:45]No birds there.

[00:02:49]Good. Go, go, go.

[00:03:20]SP view Delta Kim Delta downwind runway 01.

[00:03:36]I'm coming into land.

[00:03:48]Approaching way point view. Golf delta kil delta on final runway 0 1 33.

[00:05:10]Spine view Golf Delta Kim Delta backtracking.

[00:05:14]>> I wanted to just do a practice landing there because I've found that I've got into a few bad habits and I I really felt that on that uh practice landing there. Um, I'm coming in too shallow. I'm not rounding out enough and uh using the angle of attack to scrub off speed. Uh um so I'm glad I did that. It just helped me also because there are relatively nil wind conditions. It's makes it well it certainly highlights exactly where you're going wrong. So that was a good a good lesson for me. We'll turn around.

[00:05:49]We'll take off. Away we go. Spike View Cove Delta Kila Nema Delta lining up runway 04. Spike view.

[00:06:04]Right. So the flaps are set, the trim is set, fuel contents are sufficient.

[00:06:13]Both fuel pumps are on. View delta kil delta taking runway 04.

[00:06:47]Right. Change channel, bit hazy.

[00:07:13]So, this is a perfect day for glider flying today. So, I suspect there'll be quite a few of those chaps out. Yeah.

[00:07:19]So, it's uh quite a warm day, very thermally, and I think it's going to pick up as time goes by. Can't really see the aisle of wine. I can just roughly make it out because it's so hazy.

[00:07:31]I think the gliding chaps will be out in force. And I noticed that there's a no tab for a competition that's taking place. Whereabouts is it? Big one.

[00:07:41]Ah, there we go. Looks like it's from Dunk as well.

[00:07:46]So, I hope those champs are having a good time.

[00:07:52]I tell you what, these DV windows are fantastic. They are so good because they allow the air to be directed straight at you. I far prefer them to the sliding windows.

[00:08:02]>> Approaching way point >> and in combination with these vents.

[00:08:07]>> The only downside >> approaching way point. The only downside is that they tend to leave create quite a bit of cabin noise. So if you're doing a radio call or something like that, you have to close them otherwise you just can't hear yourself think. But um they're brilliant. So if you are buying an aircraft and you are thinking about the spec, I would strongly suggest that you try and get these little DV windows there. They're fantastic.

[00:08:31]Direct vision apparently, I believe.

[00:08:36]Why are we climbing? The flaps away. The gear is up.

[00:08:41]Probably not trimmed properly. Right, let's have a look out there. Good.

[00:08:46]Looking good. Here we go. Nice turn.

[00:09:03]B up there.

[00:09:07]And let me put my autopilot on. And then I can put my >> autopilot.

[00:09:13]Little camera on so you guys can see.

[00:09:26]Beautiful. Right. The outside air temperature the outside temperature is 24°. That's even at 3,700 ft. So, it is a warm day, but we're still flying. I didn't go to Spanfield this year. I would imagine it was a fantastic turnout. I suspect that everyone was there. I was also very disappointed to miss out on seeing the ellipse inaugural flight and landing at at Sandal. I believe there's quite a crowd looking at that new aircraft. So, I'm hoping to get the opportunity to go up and look at it personally. I'll be quite quite interested to see what that that aircraft like as it's new to the market. Good. So, I got the autopilot on just to get us past the airspace and come to Abbas and then I'm just going to play a little bit.

[00:10:21]Right. So, what I think I'll probably do is go towards Glenford Forum and then down towards Airsfield. Airsfield used to be a glide site and I believe it's become more of an aviation hub and it's opened its doors to a lot more in the way of traffic. Now I've not been in there but I've had quite a few friends go and then they say it's an interesting field. It's not far from a monkey zoo or something like that I believe. But uh yeah it would be be interesting to fly there. I think that's old Taran Rushton down there.

[00:10:52]I think it's an old RAF space. So we're going to go to Blandon and then towards Airsfield. We go go down circle around Dorchester and then come back up past Milbourport and maybe fly over my house or stay clear of Compton Abbas.

[00:11:08]So yesterday one of my friends Steve who looks after our dog Jimmy occasionally for a flight and Steve uh lives not far from us and we took a flight around Compton Abbas and we were so fortunate to see a Spitfire pass in front of us. I did try and hunt the Spitfire down but I just didn't quite have the speed to be able to to keep up and gun it down.

[00:11:32]Also I don't have any guns but that was quite cool.

[00:11:39]They do have a very distinctive silhouette which I think will be produced by the ellipse, hence the name ellipse because it has the same ellipoid wing. Starting to bang on about it, but I'm quite keen to see it. Although having said that, we are very happy with this. We're not thinking about getting rid of it. But just when when there's new aircraft, we always have to have >> point.

[00:12:06]>> Okay. So, I think I'll pop the uh >> autopilot disconnect.

[00:12:10]>> Take the autopilot off and um fly by hand for a bit because otherwise what's the point?

[00:12:21]So, the trim system in the WT9 and I'm not sure if you can see, but it's got this kind of like notch system and it I mean it's it's really good. It's nice and solid and you know exactly where you are. But unfortunately because it has that graduated notches, what tends to happen is that you find that sometimes the the position you want for the trim is halfway between the notch. So you're either slightly nose up or slightly nose down, which means that you have to put a little bit of pressure on the stick.

[00:12:50]Now, some people like that, but it it can be a bit irritating sometimes when you're on very much longer flights, but then I suppose that's when when the autopilot comes into its own. But uh yeah, that's my only criticism of this trip. Having said that, there was the option for an electric trim where you could kind of like just tease it to where where you wanted to to be. Um, but I felt that I had so many electrical systems in the aircraft that actually I wanted to keep the basic controls as close to analog as possible because if the electrical system should fail, well then at least the controls themselves aren't driven by electric.

[00:13:28]So, I know I'm sure there are people screaming at the screen telling me that everything should be analog or everything should be digital or what's the point of committing to one and not the other, but blah blah blah blah.

[00:13:37]That's just what I chose.

[00:13:40]So, Eve's not been in the aircraft for a little while. I was really really hoping with this spell of good weather that she would have been tempted to join me and we could have just popped over to Germany cuz it would have been absolutely ideal. We could have left work on Friday with the bank holiday Monday, fly on over. We could have been in Germany by the evening before the sunset, spent some time there on uh Saturday and Sunday and then flown back today because it's just absolutely perfectly flyable right the way through to Germany. Eve works very hard and I have to remember that that you know although flying is definitely my passion and traveling certainly is one of her passions but um I'm not sure she necessarily wants to to fly everywhere at the at the drop of a hat. So I respect that and I think she had her hair done as well which seems to be an all day event for for a lot of women.

[00:14:31]And given that I take a whole day out to go flying I'm not going to criticize.

[00:14:35]Also, I'm not an idiot.

[00:14:39]Never mess with your wife.

[00:14:49]Some of the cameras are overheating, which I'm not surprised about. So, I'll probably turn these off now and then uh turn them back on again when we come into land. See you later.

[00:15:01]Boom.