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The heat is on

As I noted in my previous post, I went flying this past Saturday. What I neglected to include is that it was the hottest temperature that I've ever flown in. It was already 90 degrees Fahrenheit when I got to the airport. That's 32 Celsius for my metric-inclined readers.

I actually opened the POH and checked the performance numbers before I started my preflight inspection. I was already pretty confident that Ariel could do it with no problems, but I wanted to make extra sure. The book said it was okay, though the takeoff roll would be a hundred or so feet longer than in past flights, but Harvey Field has a long enough runway. In addition, I knew that I'd be about 350 lbs. below maximum weight, and the chart assumes you're at the max.

When I did take off, the plane performed just fine, and I had no problems clearing obstacles and making the noise-abatement turn that is requested when taking off from runway 33. In fact, the plane seemed to perform more or less normally, and I didn't notice much performance degradation. I'm sure it was there, and I always kept it in mind, but I didn't have any issues.

As I flew around, I was tuning in to various airports' automated weather systems to get altimeter settings. With it being as hot as it was, they were including the density altitude in the report. For the most part, it was about 2200' above field elevation. Not too bad, but it still makes a difference.

When I came in for landing, I knew that everything was going to be just a bit faster. When flying in the pattern, you want to be flying at specific airspeeds at different points in the pattern. That airspeed, however, is the indicated airspeed. It's determined essentially by the pressure of the air in the pitot tube. However, since the air is less dense when it's hot, that pressure is less for a given true airspeed. This means that the true airspeed will be higher when it's hot than when it's not.

Keeping that in mind, I did what I think was a better than normal (for me) job at managing my airspeed. This led to a rather nice landing, if I do say so myself. I've been working on making my landings more consistent, and "prettier", for lack of a better word. I think I've figured a couple of refinements to my technique, mainly around throttle control, that I think will improve them. If last Saturday was any indication, I'm on the right track.


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