While I love the club aircraft, it's hard to take them away for an extended time. Naturally, if you're hiring an aircraft for a week, there are minimums that you have to fly. Otherwise the aero club makes no money, and you tie up an aircraft so nobody else can use it. This means you can't really fly the plane for an hour or two, leave it there for a fortnight, then fly back. This seriously limits the type of flying you can do in a club aircraft.
With Squibby, I can fly away, and leave the plane for days, and nobody else needs it. It provides a new level of freedom that I have not had before. So even though it's not as new or as fast as the club aircraft, it more than makes up for it, in that it's mine.
Another benefit is that it's nice to get used to a particular aircraft. With club aircraft, there are always slight differences, nuances, or quirks with the different aircraft. Although these differences are small, I found tht I never felt completely at home in any particular machine.
I had no idea what it would take to renew my licence. I hadn't flown for seven years, so I had definitely lost currency. Did I have to do my whole licence again? I wasn't sure.
I contacted the Royal Aero Club, who did most of my original training. It turns out that it wasn't as hard to renew my licence as I had expected. Technically, the minimum I needed to do was a check with an instructor, then an AFR (it used to be called a BFR - biennial flight review, when I was flying), and renew my medical certificate. But since it had been so long, I wanted to be much more thorough.
My old instructor, Bill Aulton, had long since retired, so I needed a new one. I was lucky enough to get Karin Hibbard, whom I immediately felt very comfortable with. First lesson covered basics: taxiing, take-off, basic straight and level, turns and steep turns. We also did a few circuits at Murrayfield airport. It took a few circuits for things to look right again - I was flying big messy wide circuits, coming in too low, coming in to high, doing everything wrong. It's amazing how much we form a 'picture' of what a good circuit looks like. We use that to make minor corrections as we fly a circuit. But if you don't have that picture, it's hard to notice what's going wrong in your circuit. It would take quite a few circuits to get the picture, and the feel, back. But overall, after seven years, I was surprised how much did come back. I wouldn't quite call it like riding a bike, but it's pretty close.
Next few lessons were still general handling: stalls, performance circuits, cross-wind circuits, forced landings, and so on.
Then, we decided to do a few navigation exercises. Since I was going to be flying across the country, clearly navigation was going to be an important skill.
I purchased Squibby from a classified ad in the 'Aviation Trader' newspaper, from a great guy called Simon. He was nearing completion on building his own RV-6, and would no longer need Squibby. After various emails back-and-forth, we agreed that I would come over to Melbourne, and provided the aircraft was OK, we would fly it back together to Perth.
The direct route between Melbourne and Perth was around 1800 nautical miles. But we weren't flying exactly direct. Instead we would be taking a southern route through Victoria, to make sure we got a good look at the beautiful coastline. Also, once hitting Western Australia, rather than tracking direct for Perth, across the vast desert, we would keep to the South, staying coastal until Esperance, then tracking over mostly farmland up to Perth. Our route was more like 1900 nautical miles.
Simon showed me around the plane. It was a bit rough in some places - some screws missing, etc. But it looked OK. I was surprised by the flap lever - a big stick, based on the floor.
Simon took us up. He used one stage of flap during the takeoff. I was looking at the VTC to get my bearings, since I'm not at all familiar with this part of the world. We did an extended upwind leg, while the aircraft climbed. We took off facing south, then wheeled round to the right, on a trip up to Moorabin. Getting into Moorabin was easy - we entered via a VFR approach point called Carrum. The aircraft, and the landing, seemed fine.
We stopped for a half-hour, and went to the pilot shop. After buying a map, and some small items for the journey, we returned to Tyabb. Again, Simon demonstrated a very nice landing.
This was a cloudy day, with cloud coming in lower and darker. It was almost 6pm before we were ready to have a look, and by then, showers were coming in.
Simon helped me do the startup, then I taxied her out. I got Simon to explain how that flap lever worked on the way.
Lining up on runway 35, final check of the DG showed it was not lined up. I had not unlocked the DG when I'd finished aligning it with the compass. A new thing to look out for.
Acceleration down the runway was very gentle. Took quite a while to get to 60kts. Rotating very gently - don't pull this aircraft off the ground.It does fly itself off at about 60 kts. We then lower the nose and fly level. We were waiting for it to get to 75 kts, but it took forever (we went well past the end of the runway), so we started climbing at 70 kts.
Squibby is not a climber. There were only two of us in this 4 seater, and we had less than half full tanks, but we struggled to get 500 fpm. I was waiting to get to 500' agl before turning onto crosswind, but commenced the turn earlier, since we had already done quite a long upwind leg. Doing such a gentle, climbing turn, with the aid of a strong crosswind meant that we just continued the turn into downwind. Having said that, I do remember when Simon first showed me this aircraft, we selected 1 stage of flap for takeoff, and that seemed to help climb performance.
On downwind we were still climbing, but levelled off at about 800' AGL at mid-downwind, approaching the lowering cloud base. We also started to hit some pretty bad turbulence and showers - not ideal for my first ever circuit in this aircraft. Lucky it was dual control.
Reducing power to around 1500 rpm and turning onto base, I had my first real go of the flap lever. On the ground it had been effortless, now it took some force, which was actually reassuring, since it meant they were doing something. As you pull the flap lever, you can feel it go past a notch. Then you can carefully let go of the lever, and it will sit on that notch position. Simon said the one thing to watch for is that you pull the lever slightly past the notch. In the past he's left it at the notch. It must not quite catch properly, and a bit later, it slips out. Suddenly taking your flaps off unexpectedly in flight can give you a hell of a shock, says Simon. I can imagine.
Although this aircraft is not a great climber, it does descend well. In particular, once you select full flap on short final, it's like an air-brake. You could get quite a steep, slow descent. We might have been a bit shallow, because on both our circuits, we needed quite a bit of power to drive the aircraft in on short final.
The first circuit was pretty rough. There was a strong crosswind, quite a heavy shower obscuring the runway when we turned on final, and associated turbulence. Simon said "I hope your landings are good" as we bounced down final - I think we were both a bit nervous.
It turned out that Simon needed to apply a fair amount of rudder to straighten us up during the flair. I thought I was adding the rudder, but apparently I wasn't pushing hard enough. But the main thing I was worried about in this aircraft, ie the bounce on landing, didn't happen. The touchdown itself was quite gentle.
One of the things which is different about this aircraft, compared to those that I'm used to, it the design decision Beech took on the Musketeer's main wheels. The Cessnas and most other GA aircraft have an oleo strut, which works as a nice shock absorber and damper. So you can do a nice firm touchdown, and the aircraft will stick to the runway. According to what I've read about the Musketeer, it simply uses rubber blocks as a shock absorber. With a firm or hard touchdown, you'll bounce up into the air again. If you try to correct this the wrong way, you'll get a porpoising effect. Statistically, Musketeers get a lot of collapsed nosewheels. The way to correct it is to squeeze on a small amount of power during the bounce, and do your flare again. Even though we did a nice touchdown, I'm sure I can feel the effect of those rubber blocks. The touchdown is not as cushioned as what I'm used to.
Rolling down the runway, we decided to do a second circuit, but this would be the last one. Conditions were getting darker and the showers looked like they would set in. I didn't need this on my first circuit session. This time, during downwind, Simon explained to me that I needed to use the rudder more. I kicked the rudder left and right during the downwind leg - it certainly took a lot more force than I expected, but it did have a good strong effect. I could see that the rudder force I'd used during the first landing was nowhere near enough.
On this second circuit, I got my power levels and speeds better:
Thankfully, the crosswind died down on short final, and I could concentrate on just lining up on the runway and doing a nice flare and holdoff. I did need to apply quite a bit of power down short final, because of the aforementioned air-brake effect. But I did a nice flare and hold-off, looking at the far end of the runway like Karin said I must remember to do, and the touch-down was nice an gentle, and we stuck to the runway. Simon said he was very happy with it. On that note, we parked the aircraft. By the way, it can turn on a dime when you're taxiing.
Incidentally, Simon has done a commercial licence, and plans to instruct one day, so I think he enjoyed taking the right-hand seat. He certainly did a nice job of talking me through the circuit. Getting used to the descent rates is going to take some practice. I think if I needed a to make a glide approach today, I would have struggled to reach the runway, particularly with the crosswind which was pushing us out.
At the risk of looking stupid, I can say that I made some pretty major mistakes during the purchase. As with quite a few other things I've done in my life, I did jump in without doing enough research. This habit of mine cuts both ways - yes I make mistakes, but I also tend to take action. I know other people who research, research, research, and talk themselves out of things. I prefer to jump in, and learn the lessons later - experience is a great way to learn. Having said that, there were things I didn't do, which I should have, and it was probably crazy.
Mechanical Check
As my Aero Club LAME explained to me, I should have got a mechanical check. At the very least:
To offset this, it can be difficult. There is a cost to having this kind of check. And, in a small aerodrome, the mechanic testing this is probably the mechanic who is already maintaining the aircraft and has a strong relationship with the vendor, so how can you guarantee independence? Probably by going and have it done at a different airstrip.
For me, the fact that Simon, the vendor, was keen to fly it with me to Perth, was a significant vote of confidence. That said to me that he was confident in the aircraft, and not just offloading a lemon.
Documentation
I didn't get enough paperwork in hindsight. It was all done in trust, and on good faith. Now, everything worked out fine, because we both behaved honourably. But I wouldn't recommend anyone else do what I did. There was a lot of scope for something to go wrong, if either of us had been dodgy.