Our next flight will be one with some basic maneuvers.
As usual, the airfield and surrounding area is a beehive of activity - a nice feature of all the missions…
The flying in this mission is fun…with lots of airspeed changes and trim change requirements that keep your HUD scan going pretty fast. The FPM really does make maneuvers in fighters a bit easier than the rapid scan of a “six-pack” that most of us have to use in our civilian planes.
Slow flight is required to demonstrate the low speed handling qualities of the A-10C…which are very docile…
Nailing the headings, speeds, and altitudes is fun…and a nice change of pace from just dropping stuff on stuff…
There is some nice commentary throughout…
I’ll blame this deviation on my son…he wanted juice and he wanted it NOW!
After some fun maneuvering (leaves your shoulders a little tense) - it as time to check out some of the basic features of the autopilot…
Then back to the field…
The ratings came in pretty good. I had to repeat one slow flight circle because I think I started the maneuver too soon (prior to the instructor saying to proceed) and as a result, when I finished the maneuver, I wasn’t set to start the actual graded maneuver. I was pretty happy with it though. After all of the work you put into the start, the flying, and shutdown, you sorta want to at least make that Qualified or Qualified Minus grade. Unqualified is a bummer…
