Richard's Adventure
How it started
Richard Cranium wanted to learn to fly from a very young age. At sixteen he left school to start an apprenticeship.
He wanted to get his pilot's licence then, but after courting and beer costs there wasn't enough
left to buy a model aircraft. Several years later he took a trial flight in a Cessna 152 and was instantly hooked, but
he could still not afford the sixty odd pounds per hour. Two weeks later he seen a microlight
flying over the coast and wondered how much it would cost to learn to fly one of these. A trip to the
airport and a chat with the flying instructor re-kindled the burning desire to learn to fly. Assured that
a microlight licence was much cheaper to obtain and keep valid he paid for the whole course of 25
hours up front. Richard spent every possible moment at the airfield and managed to get his licence
in 25 hours taking only 5 weeks.
Building hours and confidence
Richard had done all his training on a Thruster and following the issue of his licence decided to buy a share in a Chevvron. During the summer Richard was flying on every flyable day soon getting to 100 hrs. He was starting to brag
about his skills as a pilot and extract the Michael from low hour student pilots thinking that
after 100 hrs P1 there was nothing else he could learn. He had had a couple of engine failures which
proved no problem to him. He had flown under a CB once (and once only) which had shaken him
but he coped well with the situation. Richard was a cross between Superman and Chuck Yeager. Or so he thought!!
The day it all went pear shaped
It was a great day in late summer and Richard
finished work early to go flying. He arrived at the airfield at midday and pulled the Chevvron out of the
hangar. 30 minutes later, with the aircraft checked out, he was sitting in the cockpit ready to go.
With permission granted to start up and a good shout of 'CLEAR PROP' the starter button was pressed and.........
.....nothing. An hour later the problem was found - a dodgy starter motor lead. No problem the
battery was always flat on the Chevvron and handswinging was the norm. With help from the groundcrew at
the airfield Richard was on his way soon climbing to 3000 feet in the gentle wave that was
coming from the mountains to the north. 45 minutes later the Chevvron had crept up to
5000 feet at cruise power and Richard was going to see how high he could get in the wave. Within no time
at all he was up to 8000 feet. At this height he was starting to feel nervous and decided not to go any higher.
The airfield was only 5 miles away and knowing the good gliding abilities of the Chevvron decided to switch
the engine off. This was normal practise when hill soaring or flying in wave and thermals.
It was very hazy and the Chevvron was taking ages to descend. Richard flew further west than he wanted
to and noticed a huge bank of stratus moving in. By now he was only a few hundred feet above the cloud and decided to restart the engine to
fly back to the airfield but when the starter button was pressed he remembered the problem with the starter motor.
This was normally no problem in the Chevvron as the engine could be started in the air by
switching the ignition on and diving gently to an airspeed of 70 knots whereby the prop
would start turning over and restart the engine but he did not have the altitude above the cloud for this trick.Instant loss of suntan
There was only one thing for it, descend through the cloud. He had heard loads of pilots talk about flying
through cloud and they lived to tell the tale. And he was a better pilot than them!!!
The Chevvron entered the cloud at 5000 feet flying at 55 knots. Twenty seconds later a cold sweat was running down the pilots back. His
airspeed had dropped to 35 knots even though he had the control stick fully forward. Ten seconds later and he was approaching
the never exceed speed of the aircraft. Richard swore that if he survived this ordeal he would give up flying for good.
The Chevvron broke clear of the cloud one minute after entering it. It was almost fully inverted and had lost over 2000 feet in altitude.
The aircraft was put the right way up by the pilot and the engine restarted by gently diving to reach
70 knots. Richard landed the Chevvron, put it away, and walked to his car to go home to many calls of "looks like you seen a ghost mate".
Conclusion
Richard did fly again. In fact he has over a thousand hours but still has cold shivers about that day.
He learned three very important things.
1. Don't become complacent because you never know it all, and you never stop learning.
2. Don't mess with clouds - They kill.
3. Always carry spare underpants
