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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