Features

By now it's time to climb aboard, alone, because Richard Hammond will have gone home in a fuming rage of impatience. But don't imagine I can just fire up the engine.

I have to check for free movement of the throttle, mixture and carburettor heat levers, for full movement of the controls, that the heating and ventilation works, that the circuit breakers are in place, that the instruments work and that the clock is correct. Now, perhaps, I can put the key in.

But I still can't start the engine. First, it's necessary to turn the electrics on, including the fuel pump, and make sure that the warning lamps designed to indicate failure of some of the above will light up when needed. The engine may have to be primed. Then it's necessary to make sure that no one is standing next to the propeller.Then the starter can be cranked, assuming it's not already dark, in which case it's time to pack up again.

With the engine running, a quick check must be made of oil and fuel pressures, of the vacuum for the instruments, of the alternator output, that the twin magnetos are working properly, and that the radio is on and correctly tuned. And now, finally, what seems like half a day after I collected the key from the ops room, the aeroplane moves forward.

There are lots of things to check during the taxi to the runway. The brakes, more instruments, the altimeter, the nosewheel steering, the radio reception. Near the runway, it's necessary to make sure that the engine will run at full power, at idle, on each set of magnetos, without a drop in oil pressure, and without overcoming the brakes.

The flaps have to be sorted out, the locks on the door must be checked, and if Hammond were here I'd have to tell him how to get out in an emergency.

And now the kite rolls forward and at around 55 knots the rush of air over the wings, in direct accordance with the findings of Daniel Bernoulli, rewards us with the gift of flight.

But it doesn't get any easier up there. One instrument indicates the airspeed. But since the air varies, this will be different from the true airspeed. What's more, the plane flies through the air as though the air were still, but the air might actually be moving across the land.