TRENÉR AND ME
make one feel better either, fortunately the tried and tested method of off-on, or, better to
say, retract-extend worked. During one landing,
when the plane had already all three wheels
on the ground, a massive bounce happened. So
massive that people later said they wanted to
turn and look elsewhere. I had no choice but to
give it full throttle and to hope. But the engine
reacted immediately, and after a repeated pattern, the landing went smoothly. After shutting
down the engine, the people told me that they
preferred to turn around so that they would not
be taken as witnesses to have to testify for the
record...
Photo: Richard Noxa
The sad ending
I fondly recall meeting “sir” Jiří Kobrle, whose
aerobatic career peaked with OK-CXA. He showed up at our instrument flying lesson when
he was returning from a verification flight with
;a Raven 257. I remember he was not impressed
with the performance of its engines because, as
he said, "those American horses are much leaner than the Czech ones". When it came to "his"
“Shorty”, I still remember him saying to me: "One
had to pull it quite hard. Then its wing stretched,
and it flew nicely straight. The CXA, because it
was a national team aircraft nobody did it and so
its wings stayed straight, meaning it needs more
controls now."
This aircraft eventually ended its flying journey
on May 8, 2012, when it crashed into trees and
subsequently ended in a pond. My final goodbye was cheerless when over two freezing December days I was removing usable parts from
the wreckage of the plane. There weren't many.
The body was completely destroyed, bent and
cracked. The only part of the airframe that, somewhat surprisingly, survived the impact was
the front Plexiglas section of the cabin.
My flying with OK-CXA stopped at 186 hours logged with 1205 take-offs and at least a hundred
more landings. While I have had the opportunity
to fly other “Shorties”, aircraft more powerful,
more agile, older, newer, more famous, more
colorful and so on, the OK-CXA will always be
a heartfelt affair and a beautiful memory for me.
Some "funny" stories...
Apart from a lot of beautiful experiences, there are a few that are still giving me some chills
when I think about them. Twice my tail was lifted
by a towed glider at low altitude, but fortunately
there was always enough air under the plane.
Once I was heading to Letňany from a prolongation tour in Otrokovice and I desperately needed
to catch an exam at the university. As it happens,
the weather was against it. It was good in the
Highlands, but it started to rain near Zbraslavice
and the continuous cloud cover was pushing me
closer and closer to the ground. Even though the
controller at the tower in Kbely was announcing
good weather over the radio, the cloud cover fell
to the ground near Říčany town, so even though
I had a great desire to fly all the way to Letňany,
the only possible choice was to turn and find alternate destination. I managed to land at Benešov airfield, where there was no traffic at all due
to the “raining cats and dogs” weather. The plane
stayed there for two days, but thanks to a random stop of one of the local pilots I finally made
the test that day after this lucky car pick up...
One non-lowered landing gear leg does not
INFO Eduard - FEBRUARY 2022
Photo: Richard Noxa
The author upside down. And with smile…
The short-lived decoration of OK-CXA…
eduard
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