"American General 11905 cleared for takeoff. Leslie Salt departure approved."
And so begins a new love affair. I am checking out in the "new to me" - and relatively new to the world, 1991 AG5B Tiger leased to my flying club in Palo Alto. Having never flown an almost brand new aircraft before, and having seldom flown aircraft with wings on the bottom, this should be an interesting experience.
I tap and ride the toe brakes a bit to keep aligned with runway 12 until we reach about 20 knots, then slip my toes back down to the rudder pedals as we bite air. The Tiger has a free castoring, non-steerable nosewheel so you steer with the brakes until the rudder starts working. Switching from toe brakes to rudder while accelerating down the runway seemed a delicate maneuver the first time; we jink to the left a bit, but lots of rudder fixes things and we track straight down the runway.
55 knots. Rotate a little. Somebody kiss me quick, we're airborn!
"Has a light touch, doesn't it?", Rich (my instructor) comments as we bank towards Leslie Salt.
"Yeah. It seems that you just sort of *think* of pulling the yoke, rather than applying definite back pressure when you turn."
"Right. You probably won't even feel a need for back pressure until the bank exceed 30 degrees."
I keep the nose down and the airplane under 1500 ft. altitude to avoid clipping the San Jose ARSA. We quickly accelerate past 120 knots! Lordy, this is not the Cessna Skyhawk I've been flying lately.
We head through the Sunol gap to the practice area over the reservoir. The usual stuff; steep turns (I balloon 200 feet every time "think; don't PULL"), stalls power off and power on, emergency procedures. During the departure stall we hold the yoke full aft and dance on the rudders and ailerons - the plane remains controllable even as we sort of "dutch roll" it while in the stall.
Now for the fun. Back to maneuvering speed 112 KIAS.
"Go ahead and try some dutch rolls or maybe a chandelle. I think you're gonna like it."
...so I do my little rudder and yoke dance for the dutch rolls just like I used to practice in the Cessna 152. Yikes! This thing has an amazing roll rate and we go from 60 degrees left back to 60 degrees right bank in about one second! So I do it again and again (this is fun), the nose stays right on the horizon but my sense of balance is telling funny things to my stomach so back to straight and level. Bottom line is that this four-seater has a roll rate that seems similar to the Citabria with spades, or maybe the Decathlon. At least that's what it felt like on this flight. Can't roll it all the way over though; this is not an aerobatic airplane.
Next the chandelle. Coolness.
"OK. Call up Livermore and show me a landing."
I get the ATIS. "Livermore Tower, American General 11905 Landing Uniform".
"Roger GRUMMAN 11905. Make straight in 25 Right. Report four mile final."
" "Livermore, TIGER 905 is four miles."
"uh, GRUMMAN, er, I mean AMERICAN GENERAL 905 cleared to land."
The plane lands OK. Tends too float a while if you're a few knots
fast. Gives up easily if airspeed too slow. Lands when IT wants to.
Oh well, I hope you get the picture. What DO you call a Tiger anyway?
The FAA controllers call us by three different callsigns. I sort of
like "Tiger 905", has a nice ring to it.
Other new things to me were the neat KLN88 Loran, coupled to the King HSI
compass system and to the S-Tec 50 autopilot. Neat stuff. Dial in
your destination, hit Direct-Enter, set up the autopilot and pull out
the coffee thermos...
So I got my checkout. I liked the airplane so much that when I
got home I checked Trade A Plane to see if I could talk myself into
buying one (a normal ritual after flying). Yep, they had AG5B's all
right. One (a steal perhaps, with similar KLN88, HSI and other Silver
Crown, and autopilot) was $99,990. 128 hours TTSNEW. Another
example similarly equipped was $119,000. I talked myself out of
buying one rather quickly...