HISTORY

The Landing: Slow and from the Side

Touching on the landing from a pilot’s point of

view, the flaps were extended slightly after the

third turn while leaving the RPMs the same,

and that set the plane to descend loosely.

I imagined the location of the landing strip about

three kilometers distant, although the airfield

is visible. I am familiar with the area. I aligned

myself based on local landmarks, avoided

overflying Jírovice and turned towards Semovicky pond. Above it, I deploy the flaps fully, radio in, and with gentle throttle adjustments and

stick action, I positioned the Trenér at an angle

to the strip. It sat beautifully in the air, and everything was going off like clockwork. The only

thing was that there was a little more application of trim than normal, but that was due to

the speed. It was maintained at 105km/h, which

is pretty low, but still above stall speed. The air

was calm, so all of this was working well. If it

was gusty, the speed would be higher in order

to keep up a reserve. Above the pond, I realized

that we were really low. And the terrain rises

some 40m higher than the pond itself. I could

clearly see the signal flags at the beginning of

the strip. Here, it becomes an advantage to be

at an angle to the field, because you can see

everything and the instructor isn’t blocking the

view. Then, it’s just a matter of approaching the

axis of the strip, turning parallel to it and to the

tracks in the snow on it, and watching the speed and height. The instinct to set down on all

photo Marek Mincberger

should be fun! We approached Landing Strip

27 from a lower altitude than would be under

normal flight conditions. The approach took us

right over Bystřice, and although the Trenér is

equipped with a muffler system, making it very

quiet, we felt no need to promote any possible future issues. So we avoided flying over

populated areas as best as we could. Entering

the area diagonally, slightly to the right of the

Semovicky pond followed by a 45 degree right

turn about 200 m before the threshold brings

us to the landing. The turn is careful because it

is slow and low.

Somewhere in this photograph, there’s an airfield. Find it!

three points has to be kept in check, because

here, the situation is different. We were landing

on powder, so the height decreased until there

was a light thud felt, signaling the ski’s contact

with the ground. The throttle was pulled back,

and peripheral vision was used to monitor the

direction of travel. The tail dropped, and the

nose rose into the air.

There were a couple more such flights with

Adam, and during the last one, you could see

our breath in the cold.

It Was Worth It

After the landing, everything returned to normal, but I recall that the main difference was

that there are no brakes. So, when I cut the

engine and the airplane kept moving under its

own inertia, the feeling was not particularly

good. But it’s enough for someone to grab hold

of the wing for the airplane to come to a stop.

I got out with an incredible feeling, and the only

thing left to do was to put the machine away.

As the sun set, the hangar was closed and the

logbooks were filled out. I was left with the impression of the view of the world that the flight

had given me. The view of the snow covered

countryside. The thought of setting down on the

soft powder. It was all worth the frozen feet!

Non-standard KNX

photo Marek Mincberger

An interesting feature of the aircraft with the OK-KNX matriculation is the non-standard left engine cover. Normally, the Z-226MSs have a NACA

air inlet for the oil cooler, which is placed under the engine cover. The cooling air flows out through the gap between the edge of the engine

cover and the fuselage. In the case of the OK-KNX, the left engine cover lacks the NACA inlet, thus is smooth and the oil cooler is positioned as

an external device, located between the lower part of the nose and the exhaust. The reason of this modification is not entirely clear. It was most

probably made during the overhaul in Trenčín in 1990. At the time, the aircraft was still powered by the Walter Minor 6-III engine, which had no

oil cooler. However, the owner of the aircraft, the VZLÚ (Czech aerospace research center) later conducted tests of the M-332 engine using

this aircraft, thus needed to place the oil cooler „somewhere“. During the 1990s, this aircraft flew with the engine, matriculated as OK-006. The

non-standard oil cooler then remained on the aircraft even after it was changed into the standard version of the Z-226MS.

The colour scheme of KNX is similar to a well-known MiG-3 winter scheme…

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INFO Eduard - March 2021