Flying On Top

Well today is Friday so I guess you already know what I did... As my advisor uses to say, there is no better place to be on a Friday morning than inside a cockpit and at the controls... And you know what ? The weather was ugly. I keep on repeating myself here but let me state it again : the weather is always ugly in Atlanta on Friday mornings. Still, this time there was something new : besides practicing instrument approaches, I got checked out on a Piper Warrior II.

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Here is the beast resting on the ramp at Dekalb-Peachtree Airport

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As might be seen in this picture, the aircraft is a fixed gear and features a low-wing with dihedral. It was built in 1983 by Piper Aircraft in Vero Beach, Florida. Dubbed Piper Warrior II, it's official name is PA28-160 and the radio callsign is Cherokee. To be slightly more pedantic, it comes equipped with a 160 hp normally aspirated Lycoming engine, has an empty weight of roughly 1500 lbs and a maximum take-off weight of 2325 lbs.

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Cockpit dashboard for the Cherokee Warrior. Flying at 100kt, climbing through 3100ft at 500ft per minute and heading to 050°
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The dashboard features all the standard instruments you would expect in a VFR - IFR - Day - Night certified aircraft. From left to right, from up to bottom we will find a clock, an airspeed indicator, an attitude indicator, an altimeter, an ILS receiver, an ADF receiver, a turn coordinator with a ball, a heading indicator, a vertical speed indicator and a VOR receiver. In the lower part of the dashboard lay the engine and fuel indicators whereas the communication and navigation displays are on the right. This aircraft is also equipped with a LORAN receiver which is a nice and fancy addon not commonly found in Europe.
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Just breaking out of the overcast layer of clouds.
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I did most of my initial flight training in France in a Piper PA38-112 Tomahawk (also called Traumahawk...) but I haven't flown any Piper aircraft in the last three years. It was also a return to low-wing designs after a two-year break period. So, a return to my first love ?

Low-wing aircraft call for a slightly different technique for landings since there is a lot more ground effect and the aircraft tends to float over the runway. Therefore, to reach the pilot's holy grail of kiss-landing, subtle adjustments are required when transitionning from high wings such as Cessnas to low wings.
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Cruising right over Atlanta sandwitched between a lower layer at 700ft and an upper layer at 10,000ft.
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I have always liked the design of Piper cockpits. It both looks clean, neat and a bit more airline-aircraft styled. In addition, there is an excellent forward visibility. My only grief about Piper designs would be the single right cockpit door that lacks the flexibility of Cessna's.
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5075ft, 100kt and 90° on the heading
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On the way back to Dekalb-Peachtree airport, the weather was slightly improving and the lower layer started to fragment going from an overcast to a broken layer. During the ILS-20L approach, we broke out of the cloud at 1000ft above ground and performed a sidestep approach to runway 20 Right to pave the way for a faster flying twin Cessna behind us.

Radar track for part of the flight may be found here.

Stay tuned for some more adventures...
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