- Date: 30 January 2025
- Location: Barwon Heads Airport
- Instructor: Shane Stanley – Surf Coast Flying School
- Aircraft: Tecnam P92 Echo Super
- Registration: 24-5201
- Hours in this flight: 0.9 hours
- Total after lesson: 0 – we have decided to not count this experience in total hours
The trial flight was scheduled for 7:00am to enable us to take advantage of cooler temperatures and minimal breeze. Shane took me through the basics but had completed some of the pre-flights, meaning that I didn’t get to see those steps taken. Taxied to the northern end of the runway before I was informed that I’d be performing the take-off. Took off from Barwon Heads in a southerly direction and once we reached the coast, we turned to the right and headed to Aireys Inlet. Flew around the Surf Coast and back to Barwon Heads where we followed the river back to the airport.
Challenges
Key challenges were:
- Feeling overwhelmed due to being asked to control the plane without any significant instruction.
- Getting used to the feet controlling direction when taxiing, taking off and landing. This is going to take some learning!
- Being too “aggressive” with the controls – the control stick is sensitive and only requires light touch to be reactive.
Outcomes
The take aways from this experience:
- The introductory flight should be a lot of watching and not much flying
- Trying to take in too much information while being 2100 feet above the ground on an “introductory” flight is counter-productive
- I will look around for an alternative school – experience was overwhelming when it shouldn’t have been. Traffic back from Barwon Heads was dreadful in peak hour as well