Went up for a winter flight today and it was very enjoyable. When I took off, it was -3C and during the flight, climbed to over 9000 feet at -10C. It was smooth air and severe clear, so sight seeing was a pleasure with 100+ mile visibility. This is a nice time of year to fly, since my radiator doors are completely closed and everything is quite clean aerodynamically, and there is plenty of power and climb.

 

From a destination standpoint, it was a case of all dressed up (bundled up) and nowhere to go.  I am including a picture of my flight path, so you can get the idea. I was mostly flying in the vicinity of my home airport (10CO) between 8 and 9 thousand feet. I admit is looks like a ball of twine, but it was a chance to do some wingovers, chandelles, really steep turns and to get quality work on my feel for the speed dynamics and coordination of the plane and pilot. I like the fact that its accel-deceleration characteristics are very smooth and controls are well balanced in all phases. I recommend this highly to other Q-drivers. It is fun and at the end you feel like you have sharpened your skills.

 

As a final exercise I circled down from 8000’ with the throttle pulled to idle. I made my last turn onto downwind at pattern altitude and 100 mph indicated and did a squeaker landing close to the target point on the runway. I had not done this for a while, so that felt good and pushed the plane back over the snow into the hangar with a smile on my face.

 

Well, that’s all from the wild west… All you Q-builders need to become Q-flyers!

 

Cheers,

Jay Scheevel, Tri-Q2, N8WQ  204 hours