Landing at ESKN

Here is a short video from a landing I did at ESKN. For those of you flying the PA-28, what did I do wrong?

Enjoy!

A day as an instructor student

My day starts at 0600 with me getting up and putting on the coffee.
While the coffee is  brewing I get on the computer to see what the weather will be like.

I eat breakfast while pretending to teach today's lesson, trying to speak as if I was in the plane.
After performing my morning ritual which to a spectator would make  me seem completely mad I gather all three bags of stuff that I need and head out.
I get picked up by my instructor and we proceed to the airport which is about an hours drive from Stockholm.

After arriving at the airport the weird part of the day begins. This is where my instructor (who is FAR more experienced than me) loses all his flying skills and knowledge and becomes my student.
This is a very strange sensation, I don't have half the knowledge and skill of this man and yet now I have to act as though he is my student.

The session starts with a short briefing of today's flying lesson.
Here we cover what maneuvers we are going to train and some theory to back it all up with.
For example if we are going to train turning I don't simply go through how to enter,hold and exit a turn. I go through in detail how to enter, hold and exit a turn but I will also go through WHY we do what we do.This includes explaining the forces that act on the airplane while turning.
It's simple for a  student  to learn a list of actions but he/she also have to know why we do what we do.
We also go through weather, the students planning for the day, weight and balance and some other stuff.

After the briefing we head out to the plane, do the preflight inspection, get in, start the engine and start taxiing.
Remember that my instructor is still my student so he will mess up everything, checklists, taxiing, flying, everything.
When we get airborne it's time to start the lesson. The usual way to perform a lesson is that I begin by explaining the maneuver followed by me demonstrating and explaining. 
Now it's time for my "student" to try the maneuver. This is where it becomes tricky for me, I have to identify not only the faults but the root cause of the faults and tell my student how to fix this.
After about an hour of me trying to teach my instructor how to fly we land.

After we refuel and get the plane back to the hangar it's time to debrief.
This is where I go through the flying lesson with my instructor (who still is my student). I tell him what he did good and what he did wrong (usually a lot) and we discuss how to fix these faults.

Finally after a long time of pretending to teach the teacher I get to be the student. We go through if I could have done anything differently, how to better use the time, if I missed any faults in his flying etc.

After doing two or more sets of the above we finally head home for some much needed rest, the days usually run as long as 12h.

So there you have it, a day in the life of an instructor student.

GoPro Cockpit view of AN-2 descent from 9000 feet

Here is the second video of a descent just after we dropped off the last skydiver.

GoPro Cockpit view flying AN-2

Here is the first video from the AN-2 cockpit. Some taxiing, takeoff, flying and landing in this one.

A quick look at the Antonov AN-2

Here is the first video from Monday. A quick look at the beast!

My day in the AN-2

My day of flying skydivers in an AN2 was amazing. I got to fly with a person who has logged over 2000h in the AN2 alone and have survived 5 engine failures in single engine airplanes.

The day started with changing spark plugs on 3 cylinders due to the engine running unevenly.
After about 1,5h of work including climbing over the cockpit window (4m in the air) to check the oil we finally got ready to fly the beast.

We loaded 10 skydivers in the back and headed out on the grass strip.
As we sped down the runway I was amazed by the short take off distance of the 5500kg plane. I had read about how short this plane lands and takes off but its a strange feeling to take off in a shorter distance than a PA-28 with a plane that weighs 4 times as much.

After climbing to about 1500ft I got to take over the controls. The airplane handled so well and was surprisingly easy to maneuver. I proceeded to climb up to 8000ft where I left the plane in more capable hands for the last positioning over the drop spot.
Nearing the drop spot we gave the 3 minute heads up to the jumpers who began preparing and opening the back door. The plane jostled quite a lot when the cargo (jumpers) started moving around in the back.
As we flew over the drop spot I was watching as one after one jumped out of the airplane. The feeling of for the first time seeing people actually jumping out of the airplane that I am strapped in to can only be described as a mix between wonder and discomfort. I would never have thought that it would feel so strange seeing the cargo leaving.

As soon as the last skydiver left the airplane we started a very steep spiral descending at 12-15m/s (around 3000ft/min). We descended from 9000ft and landed in 3,5 minutes, around the same time the last skydiver landed.

The landing was spectacular! We landed with 30 degrees of flap giving us around the same landing distance as a Super Cub which weighs about seven times as little as this beast.
With full flap the AN2 has a shorter landing distance than the Super Cub.

The day continued with us flying 5 loads of skydivers and me logging 1h of flying this wonderful beast.
Hopefully I get to learn how to fly the AN2 and carry skydivers.

For those of you who want to try skydiving or try flying an airplane, contact me at info.rydair@gmail.com and I will refer you to the correct people.

PS.
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DS.