My first dual gyro flight
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My first gyro flight was in early February 2013 with Bruce at Caboolture. This was supposed to be the flight where I decide whether to proceed or not with gyro training. It didn't work out that way and I'm still making up my mind.
A few things were less than perfect. With two big guys in the cockpit it was a squeeze. With a long bumpy taxi out to the airstrip it got very hot inside our clear bubble. Even before the takeoff roll the gyro was shaking. Once we left the ground the shake seemed quite bad. I was videoing using my phone and began to feel motion sick at a few hundred feet off the ground. Fortunately this passed when I put the phone away and looked outside.
We flew to the training area where Bruce showed the gyro was stable hands off and he demoed a simulated engine out. I then came onto the controls and we did a vertical decent and traveled backwards in the headwind. I flew a little bit mainly holding a heading and doing a turn or two. This was enough to show me what I'd wanted to know and I handed back to Bruce so I could video the circuit and landing.
First impressions.
Gyros do seem fairly easy to fly. The stick load isn't particular high and there was little workload flying straight. As a glider pilot I tended to over-rudder. Controlling the throttle seems easy enough. I could feel we were flying through thermals but there was very little change in nose attitude. We were lifted without the nose pitching up. Circuit heights and speed are similar with what I'm used to because Bruce flew a fairly standard circuit to match what the other aircraft do at this field.I don't expect the flying part of training to be too difficult - the takeoff is the hard part. I'd also have to get used to sitting much higher than I'm used to and adjusting the landing flare.