Posted Monday, December 1, 2008 @ 04:48 AM
Hiya Fellow Fournier Fans,
Today I’m in a great mood.
Last week I turned sixty, not an age to be proud of, and next week is forty years since HDO’s first flight, so between us we are now one hundred years old. Ugh!
I was pretty depressed about that until Saturday, when we scored top points out of a field of seven in the West Australian Sportsman aerobatic competition. I was actually placed second, because an odd rule in this state comp is that professional pilots or ex-professional pilots get 5% deducted from their score. Not to worry. And the others were flying either a Super Decathlon or a Christen Eagle, both with 200hp and constant-speed propellers. Only two per cent separated the top five places, so it was a tight fight.
What an incredibly capable aeroplane our good friend René designed!
And the really great thing? My fuel bill was less than one fifth of everybody else’s. Yessss!
Here’s the required sequence:
And my sequence card (one of four, depending on the wind direction)
And here’s a tracing from our TV screen of the flight as recorded by the camcorder my kids gave me for my birthday. I went off the screen a bit into wind a couple of times, so the spin, humpty-bump and stall turn are not recorded.
Here’s a tracing from the previous weekend’s practice. You can see how a little critiquing has helped a lot with the shapes.
Yours, Bob
[Edit by Bob Grimstead on Monday, December 1, 2008 @ 04:50 AM]
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[Edit by Bob Grimstead on Monday, December 1, 2008 @ 05:14 AM]