I booked a test flight with Blackbushe Aviation to see how they compare, this time though I was going to fly a different aircraft … a PS28 Sport Cruiser (G-EGLK). This was a much more modern aircraft and has lots of fancy gadgets in!

It was a very different aircraft to fly … we went through the pre flight checklist and run up before taking off. Once above 500ft I took over and we had to climb quite high to go through an inversion. It was fairly bumpy until we popped out of the top.

We performed climbs, descents, turning with the aid of the rudder as well as maintaining altitude. Due to the inversion we spent most of the time at around 5,000 feet and I struggled to maintain altitude with a very hazy horizon to look at for reference.

At the end of the lesson I flew back into the right hand circuit down to 800ft over the old runway and maintaining 800ft downwind onto base before turning onto final and descending towards the runway. The instructor took over a couple of hundred feet before touchdown. After the flight I practiced taxiing back to the school.

Summary:

When banking add a little rudder initially in the same direction to prevent yaw in the opposite direction.

Don’t control aircraft with the trim, once in stable flight (straight and level, constant speed climb or descent) THEN trim the aircraft.

Pedals are not very sensitive for turning the aircraft on the ground.