Day 13 Some low level hairy stuff.

Tuesday 24th February

As discussed last week, today was my last day in the drifter in my training program. I took off knowing I was going to be doing a practised forced landing under a power line some time in this lesson. So I headed for the windmill where we normally turn left to stay out of the Amberley restricted area on our way to Bradfield, but instead of turning left as usual Kev called out to turn right and follow the Seven Mile Lagoon to its south west extremity. He explained to me that there was a pumping shed near the edge of the Lagoon. I told him I could see the pumping shed and the power lines running across the paddock to the shed. He then said "you have been well briefed on this and that is the only paddock suitable for you to force land in and you now have an engine failure" and then the throttle was closed.

My first attempt would have got us into the paddock but it was going to be a bit short as Kev wanted me to pick a point closer to the power lines. So Kev called "my plane" and took us back up to a suitable height again, then handed the plane over to me again and cut the power. This second attempt I judged it better as I lost height and turned into the wind. As we came over the fence I pushed the nose down a little more, not only to aim at the spot Kev wanted me to aim at but also to carry enough speed to carry us under the power lines after I levelled off a couple of feet above the paddock.


After one more aborted attempt and another successful one, Kev told me to climb to one thousand five hundred feet and head for Bradfield. We were about half way there in a beautiful cloudless sky when Kev told me the cloud base had now dropped to 1500'. So I dropped the nose and levelled off at 1400'. Then he called that the cloud was now down to 1400' so again I descended, but as I descended he kept the cloud dropping and as Bradfield is 400' above sea level it wasn't long before he had the clouds at tree top level and we were down amongst the trees and about one and a half k's from Bradfield. I knew there were mostly paddocks with just a few scattered trees between where we were and Bradfield, but with tree lines running along some of the fence lines it meant I had to scout around these to get there. Down amongst the trees I could not see Bradfield but I knew we would be getting close. Then as I scouted around a patch of trees there was the threshold of runway 18 only 150 mtrs away lined up directly in front. Then Kev called out that the clouds were now at ground level and I was dead.

Kev chewed my ear off for not deciding to make the call that I would have to put it down in a paddock instead of trying to reach my destination because that is how pilots kill their passengers and themselves. Lesson learnt !!!

When we landed he told me to go for a fly and practice some steep turns, stalls and some forced landing approaches but do not go below 500'. "And don't forget to come back in an hour or so and pick me up". :-)

Back at Lynfield at post flight briefing Kev told me he was happy with how I handled myself with the low level flying through the trees and under the power lines. For me, it didn't faze me too much having to do it and I can see how in training it can be beneficial, like practicing forced landings, but I hope I'm never put in a situation where I need to draw on that part of my training.

T/T 14.6 hrs (solo 2.4 hrs)