I was at the airport today working on our cooling plenum (the last flight the engine wasn’t cooling quite as well as I would like), and Dave Gallagher stopped by to see how things were going. He mentioned that he was going to do a couple of patterns to warm up his oil for a end-of-summer change, and wondered if I wanted to come along. Are you kidding? Who turns down free air time?

Off we went. She doesn’t accelerate like our plane, but she doesn’t need to, she still uses almost no runway. With the bubble canopy, the view is outstanding. I didn’t really notice the wing blocking my view is you look mostly ahead of yourself, and the cowling is fairly modest. After a couple of patterns we left the airport and he gave me a little stick time. This is the first plane I’ve flown that is more pitch sensitive than the Velocity. Or, maybe not more sensitive, but on the Velocity you can trim it very close and there’s a lot of spring tension on the stick to keep you from over controlling it. The Zodiac is just really light in pitch and I found myself giving it way to much input… and not using the rudder. Bad habits… Again, that’s why I wanted to learn outside of the Velocity. Anyway, it was great fun, and got me out of the hangar for a half hour, so thanks to Dave for taking us along. Here’s a quick picture.

Posted By: Brett Ferrell
Saturday October 5th, 2013 at 10:12 PM

Categories: Blog
Tags: Blog

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