In Flight USA Celebrating 30 Years
48
December 2013
Soaring With Sagar Story and Photos by Sagar Pathak
NEVER WASTE
A
BFR, PART 2
Never waste a BFR aintain a constant airspeed, stay on glidepath – not too high, not too low. Let the ground come to you. Small, gentle inputs and flare. The mains bounced with a decisive jolt and I leapt back into the air. I had come in just a tad too high and skipped off the earth like a rock skimming across the pond. Not a problem, time to just pull the throttle back and transition to a three-point landing. Easy peasy. Float back down, a little back on the stick to control the descent, wait for the stall horn and gently kiss the tailwheel onto the ground – and pull all the way back on the stick as the mains touched. But it’s not over just yet. Keep dancing on the pedals to keep that nose straight. Don’t over-correct, just small, minor inputs. A month ago, I decided to get back into flying and beat the uphill battle that many private pilots fight. I had let my pilot’s license lapse and needed to get
M
current once again. The FAA said that I needed to do a Biennial Flight Review, the mandatory flight and ground instruction with a certified flight instructor that happens every two years. After chatting with my friend Dan Dyer from the San Carlos Flight Center (SCFC), he suggested that I go after my tailwheel endorsement and knock out both.
I was going to spend the next few weeks with SCFC CFI Justin Phillipson. If you are familiar with Reno Air Racing’s Formula One class, he was 2012’s Rookie of the Year and placed in the top three of the Gold class in both 2012 and 2013. So he was obviously well versed in living life on the edge. Hopefully I wouldn’t scare him too much.
On average, it takes a student approximately 10 hours to fly a tailwheel aircraft proficiently and solo. Justin said something during our first meeting that stuck in the back of my head during my entire training. “Flying tailwheel is going to be a very humbling experience.” And it was just that. I am not the greatest pilot, but I’m pretty darn good (Once Orville Wright asked to have his photo taken with me). My first flight in the Super Decathlon was not bad. Not great, as Justin put it, but he wasn’t ready to turn us back to the hangar just yet. The first flight was .5 hours of me trying to get a feel of taxiing and flying with the rudders. Justin flew the plane and I followed along controlling the rudders. My path resembled a snake slithering along the ground. Drift a bit left of the yellow taxi line, a little right rudder. Or so I thought. Then we darted back across the line to the right and so on. Justin, with the patience of an angel, told me, “small correction and stay in front of the inputs.” Little by little, flight by Continued on Page 57
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