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flying high

I was lucky enough to have been given a trial flight with Ace Aviation for my birthday (thanks Mother!), which I took at Halloween, which seemed an appropriate date on which to take to the skies.

the plane

The Cessna 150 was one of the most popular training aircraft ever built, with almost 24,000 being built between 1959 and 1977.

It's mostly made from aluminium alloy, with a fixed undercarriage. The engine is an air-cooled four-cylinder unit with horizontally-opposed cylinders (sounds like a Beetle).

The metal two-bladed fixed-pitch propeller directly driven from the engine crankshaft, fed by a gravity-feed fuel system with aluminium fuel tanks in each wing (hmmm, perhaps not a Beetle!).

For more information about the Cessna 150, see the Cessna website.

the airport

I flew from Shoreham Airport.

I almost didn't get there, as my wife took the children out shopping thirty minutes before we were due to leave the house. We finally left twenty minutes later than I'd planned, but luckily I'd ensured some contingency, so we arrived at the airport with a couple of minutes to spare.

Founded in 1930, it's the oldest general-aviation airfield in Europe. My family were able to watch me take off from the art-deco terminal and had time for coffee and cakes whilst awaiting my return.

the flight

the briefing

Russell Glass was the pilot and my instructor for the day.

He briefed me about the flight and we discussed the route we would be taking - over my home town of Burgess Hill.

We also talked about how much I wanted to do, and you won't be surprised I wanted to be as hands-on as possible.

into the cockpit

We then walked out to the plane, and I was taken aback at just how small it was. I've been in bigger women.

I had to duck to walk under the wing, then swung up and squeezed into the cockpit. We then put our headsets on, and I realised how necessary this was when Russell started the engine. Normal conversation would have been difficult, and of course, we needed to communicate with the tower.

Russell then took me through all the instruments, or at least the essentials.

I was then allowed to taxi to the runway, with my feet on the rudder pedals and Russell's steady hand on the throttle.

After we were given clearance to take off, Russell took over the rudder and handed the yoke over to me.

The throttle was pulled out, the engine roared and we swiftly gathered speed on the runway. After we reached 80 mph (I'm presuming we talk about mph on the ground and knots in the air, but am open to correction), I gingerly pulled back the yoke and we smoothly rose into the air.

into the air

I was surprised at how steeply the Cessna could climb. It was very responsive as I slowly banked left, and after a few minutes over the sea, we headed inland.

Russell reminded me that I didn't need a grip of steel on the flight yoke, and demonstrated that even with my hands off the controls, the aircraft continued to fly straight ahead, and wouldn't just dive into the ground! Suitable reassured, I could relax and enjoy the scenery ... and the views were spectacular.

The clouds were low, so we kept just under them and met only a few drops of rain. As you can see from the pictures, the cloud cover was patchy, with plenty of sun, so I felt I'd been very lucky with the weather.

I had flown over much the same ground only at a similar altitude (2,000 feet) four months previously in a hot-air balloon, though on that occasion was strictly a passenger. This time, I was more insulated as I was looking through a windscreen, and everything was happening much faster. Last time, it took over twenty minutes to pass over Henfield, but now we were travelling about forty times faster.

Shortly we were passing over Burgess Hill and I could see my house from the air. It was great to see the whole town at once from this vantage point. You could say it gave me a whole new perspective on Burgess Hill.

I banked again to the left, and slowly swung around the town, heading south again towards Shoreham.

As we flew south, we passed over the downs, which looked magnificent.

All too soon, we were approaching Shoreham airport again. I descended and lined up with the runway before handing the controls back to Russell for the landing, which gave me the opportunity to take some more pictures, which would have been somewhat unwise if I was still at the controls.

feet back on the ground

Ironically, after I landed, I felt on a real high.

I chatted to Russell as we returned to Ace Aviation for my certificate and I hope he enjoys reading this report on my flight. I'd highly recommend Ace Aviation and Russell to anyone.

I met up with my family at the terminal and enjoyed a cup of coffee and some chocolate cake whilst watching someone having a helicopter lesson only fifty yards away. Hmmmn. Perhaps next time.

In retrospect, my only regret was that I wished that I'd bought the latest edition of Microsoft Flight Simulator and had a practice first ...

updated Sun 02 Nov '03   give feedback...

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: : © Mike Bliss 2009