ventana7
03-19-2004, 04:59 AM
The other day after my checkride with Jim Mayfield in the AAI modified RAF he told me I was working much harder than I needed to fly the gyro. He then demonstrated what he meant.
We took off and at abut 10 feet agl he took his hand off the stick and we climbed straight ahead to 250'. He then gave the stick one poke with his extended left index finger. The gyro began about a 25-30 degree bank and turned us 180 degrees to downwind as it continued to climb. There was no tendency for the gyro to steepen the turn. When we were on downwind Jim gave the stick one poke with his right index finger and we rolled out of the turn. We were maybe 5-10 degrees off course and both of us leaned slightly to the left and we corrected for that and were established on downwind.
His continous turn from downwind and descent to landing was just as smooth- one power reduction one move of the stick and nothing changed from then on and we arrived over the numbers perfectly set up for touch down.
It was a pretty impressive demo of the machine and of flying.
Rob
We took off and at abut 10 feet agl he took his hand off the stick and we climbed straight ahead to 250'. He then gave the stick one poke with his extended left index finger. The gyro began about a 25-30 degree bank and turned us 180 degrees to downwind as it continued to climb. There was no tendency for the gyro to steepen the turn. When we were on downwind Jim gave the stick one poke with his right index finger and we rolled out of the turn. We were maybe 5-10 degrees off course and both of us leaned slightly to the left and we corrected for that and were established on downwind.
His continous turn from downwind and descent to landing was just as smooth- one power reduction one move of the stick and nothing changed from then on and we arrived over the numbers perfectly set up for touch down.
It was a pretty impressive demo of the machine and of flying.
Rob