Lesson 1 – Here we go!

My trial lesson was finally here! To say I was excited was an understatement.

Arrival at the club

After an uneventful morning at home with the family it was finally time to head up to Kemble, I arrived at the airfield nice and early, making sure I had plenty of time to get there and find out where I needed to go etc

On pulling up outside the club, there were loads of people stood outside enjoying the sun, and by the looks of things having a bbq! I thought it was very kind of them to put on a welcoming party for me, but unfortunately they wasn’t the case.

As it turned out Gerry Breen the “grandfather” of Microlighting had visited the club and so the club had arranged a social event to celebrate. British Hang Gliding History. Character Gerry Breen

Once the group heard it was my first lesson I “welcomed” as a new member by being made to stand front and centre for a group photo 🙂 It was a great way to be introduced to a new club and made me feel very welcome straight away.

After all of the introduction, I spent some time having a wonder around the hanger and clubhouse, until my instructor was ready.

Pre-flight Checks

Once my instructor David was ready we headed over to the aircraft to have a look round and run through some of the checks required before each flight. We first went over the engine checks required and David explained these vs us completing them as the aircraft had been previously thoroughly checked over by him. Then we walked around the aircraft looking at the exterior and all control surfaces, with David explaining as we went around what each was called and what they were used for it flight.

The aircraft needed a little top up so we then continued to check and fuel the aircraft, which was a bit of run as the Nynja we were using, was the wing tank version and the petrol has to be loaded from above the wing.

Pre-flight briefing

Once we had completed everything on the aircraft itself, it was time to head back inside and to go through the exercises that we were going to complete today.

David provided me with an overview of each exercise and the manoeuvres and expectations of each, I found the briefing really thorough, although a lot to take in straight away.

Time to fly!

Once everything was complete, it was then time for us to finally get into the aircraft and go flying, while David explained how to get into the aircraft, making sure that I knew which parts of the airframe and cockpit I could place any weight on, and more importantly where NOT to place any weight. I climbed in and got comfortable. Taking a look all around me and being quite impressed with the amount of space and comfort, also appreciating the nice modern panel that was fitted to the Njnja.

We ran through all start-up checks and fired up the wonderful Rotax engine. I was then talked through taxiing and using the break etc before being allowed to taxi the aircraft out to the runway.

David took back over to complete the pre-departure checks and he then took off from the grass runway at Kemble.

As we were climbing out the other club Nynja had departed just before us and we could see them also climbing away along side.

We took the aircraft out to the west and David handed control of the aircraft back to me, we worked through a number of basic manoeuvres including the effects of all of the controls, and David explained through how these work individually, plus the importance of co-ordinated control.

We had now flown far enough west that we were pretty close to where I live, so we headed in that direction and managed to complete a little fly-by of my house, which was fun!

We continued working through the exercises and slowly started to make our way back towards Kemble, we discussed straight and level flying, including the need to compensate for drift on the way back.

We then entered the pattern via an overhead join, I was surprised to still be in control of the aircraft at this point, but we continued with a crosswind join to the downwind leg of the pattern, completed a descending turn to final and then came in on our approach.

I was still in control of the aircraft during the majority of the landing, with David taking over quite late to ensure we touched down smoothly on the nice long asphalt runway at Kemble.

This was an absolutely excellent intro to flying in a Microlight and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, it certainly cemented in my mind that this was something I wanted to pursue further.