Santo Domingo – La Isabela/El Higuero Airport
Afternoon Flight of the Socata Rallye, in the Dominican Republic.
The Rallye is a single engined, low wing monoplane of all metal construction, fitted with a fixed undercarriage. Power was from one of a range of progressively more powerful air cooled engines, ranging from a 100 hp (75 kW) Continental O-200 engine in the Rallye Club, to a 235 hp (175 kW) Lycoming O-540 in the Rallye 235. It has a bulbous cockpit which houses two people in the basic lower-powered variants and four in the more powerful aircraft, some of which are designed to be used as glider tugs.
PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT
Working on the Cockpit, doing maintenance work and setting everything up, while the weather worsen and heavy rain was falling to the south
Socata Rally in Hangar / Preparations
Rallye Cockpit Interior
Super King Air receiveing maintainance next to The Rallye
ENGINE START / TAKING OFF
The engines revved up nicely after preflight check and we proceeded to the taxi way, when the tower advised for a 10 to 15 minute delay due to heavy rain 3 miles to the south.
Heavy Rain South of the Airport
TAKE OFF
Finally we were cleared for take off in runway 01, to the north, with Eastbound cross wind, Magnetos Checked and after Full Throttle, the Rallye rotated at 60 knots gracefully but slowly climbing at 500 feet x minute, Spoilerons popped out from time to time while climbing.
Airborne in Socata Rallye
LANDING
After 2 low passes over the station and several 360 south of the airport, Full Flaps were applied and we reported close final leg, the Rallye made a ( butter like ) landing at about 50 knots. A great finale for the day.
Low Pass by the Airport
