Pitot Cover arrives
I've had quite a lot of trouble getting a pitot cover which fits. The Musketeer has a really narrow tube, and I couldn't source any removable cover which would fit.
The Western Airmotive guys ordered me a permanent-style aluminium model. The first one that came was too small. The replacement was initially too big, but a bit of plastic tubing between the pitot clamp and the tube did the trick.
It's a clever-looking design - it automatically opens when I get enough airspeed. It would add a bit of wind resistance, but Squibby is such a bus anyway that it's not going to make much difference. And I don't have to remember to remove it before flight.
Avdata Mix-up
Flying is expensive. Parking, insurance, airservice charges, even landing fees all add up.
Avdata do an automatic billing service, where based on radio transmissions, they calculate who landed where, all over the country, and send out bills to each aircraft owner.
Last Avdata statement, I was billed for a landing in Mackay, Queensland, which is about 3500 kilometres away.
When I queried this, they said it was a mistake - an aircraft with a similar callsign actually landed there. To their credit they apologised and sorted it out very quickly.
But I'm going to be checking my statements from now on!
Denmark on the South Coast
My wife & I have wanted to go to Denmark since we visited last December. It's a beautiful town, the only problem is that it's a five hour drive from Perth.
We've been playing with the idea of going away for a weekend. We decided the sooner the better, since Kim is pregnant and getting heavier each week - soon she won't even be able to fit in behind the right-hand yoke at the current rate. And after we have the baby, there's no telling how hard it will be to get away for a weekend.
So on Thursday, we checked the weather - it all looked good, except for a cold front coming in late Sunday, so we decided to go. There wasn't that much to arrange - dogs in kennels, car hire, accomodation.
Friday was a beautiful day. We had a business meeting up in Perth in the morning, so we knew we couldn't get away until after midday. I estimated the flight would take just over 2 hours. It's always surprising how long it takes to actually get away, with the fueling, faxing of flight-plans, preflight, and so on. So I wanted to leave by 1:30pm, because I don't like to travel a long way to a new strip, and have to worry about end-of-daylight.
This was only Kim's second time in Squibby, and our first actual cross-country trip, where we would actually be going somewhere with luggage. I was a bit of a nazi when we were packing, I banned Kim from bringing all sorts of things. Her handbag will never be the same after we packed it so tightly. The only omission we later regretted was our ugg boots, because it was a bit cold down in Denmark mid-winter.
When the refueler came around to put fuel in, I expected our tanks to be at 90/90, instead it was about 80/FULL. I haven't researched how our tanks work, or if there's an overflow, or what, but I'm not sure why fuel seems to flow from one tank to another. I'm trying to work out if there's a small slope on my parking spot. I really haven't solved this mystery yet.
There was a moderate wind from the East, but it shouldn't really affect us because we were basically heading south. We took off on 06R for an Armadale departure. This was probably the second Armadale departure I've done in 8 years, so I had to check with an instructor the correct procedure for crossing 06L. You just have to get permission on the ground frequency.
We were right on our max weight, with Kim, myself, full fuel, and a weekend's luggage. But Squibby took off just fine. The Armadale departure went smoothly, then we set our track for Kojonup, and began our climb to 5500. It took quite a while to reach cruising height, we were probably getting around 3-400 fpm.
Kim seemed to enjoy looking around. The country rolls by pretty slowly. We had set the GPS for Denmark, but I wanted to practice visual navigation. After tracking over the large, distinctive Serpentine reservoir, we found Boddington very easily. The gold mine there has ramped up recently, and there seems to be a big lake which is not on my map.
| Boddington, on the Hotham river. It's amazing to be this brown in the middle of winter. This is the dryest start to winter I've ever seen. |
It was incredible how brown the country still is, given that we're at mid-winter. There's been no rain for months. The country looked exactly the same as it did in late-summer.
One thing I was enjoying were my new chinagraph pencils. I've been cursing my Albany chart for 6 months because of a stupid plastic coating which is impossible to write on - I preferred the straight paper maps. By now I've discovered chinagraph pencils, I love this map. It's like writing with wax, it goes on beautifully, and is easy to clean off, with no residue.
After Boddington, we pass virtually directly over the top of Quindanning. I've never been there, so I wasn't sure how big it would be (pretty small, I guess). I never saw a thing. Kim thought she might have seen it on her side, seeing a large red roof, with a few buildings around it. I wasn't sure, so we just kept going.
10 minutes later we were picking up landmarks to show we were still exactly on track, so I figured we must have passed Quindanning without really seeing it. It was very useful having Kim as company/navigator. She was learning how things look from the air - what do rivers look like, what roads look like, lakes, wheat bins (practically every town has one), the big power transmission lines which are very hard to see, but which cut a very visible path when they cross through trees, etc. In addition, she also had to lear what all the symbols on the map meant - but she was learning very quickly.
We passed between Darkan and the Hillman airstrip. I think the Hillman strip is a private one, but it's very visible from the air, with its long gravel surface. Kojonup was right on our nose - we gave inbound/overfly calls, but nobody seemed to be around. We turned a few degrees to the south and now tracked for Denmark.
Overhead Kojinup, there was one very distinctive hill right on our nose, on the horizon. Looking at my chart, it had to be Mt Leay, the biggest hill right next to Denmark. So it was just a case of tracking for that hill, for the whole 70-mile leg. That makes it extremely easy to find Denmark - you can see the hill from miles away.
On our left were the Stirling ranges. This is the only thing which resembles mountains in this part of the world. The highest is around 3500 ft, so they're on the small side. Nevertheless, the way they rise unexpectedly out of dead-flat farmland is always spectacular to me.
| The Stirlings are actually a bit more impressive than these photos show. They're a fair way away though. |
Apparently, I still have things to learn about carrying passengers who are on the intercom. I talk to myself a bit, often using expletives. It's just little things, for example if I meant to swap fuel tanks at 10 past, then I remember at 12 past, and say to myself 'oh crap' (or worse), the passenger gets that over the intercom, and has no idea what I'm referring to, and can get quite alarmed. So I've got to iron that little habit out.
Also, the first time I handed the controls to Kim, she wasn't ready. I just said 'just hold this for a second,' then without waiting for a response, I promptly reached around behind, squirrelling away for the camera. Kim didn't know what to do, she started calling me "I don't know what I'm doing - take the controls back!" When I turned around the plane was in a banking descent. So I need to show Kim how the controls work at some stage, so she can just hold it straight and level if I need her to. Ideally, I would like to get Kim to first solo stage, where she could land the plane if she had to. That would be good - but I haven't discussed this with her yet.
The last 15 minutes coming into Denmark are over forest. Denmark is famous as 'where the forest meets the sea'. As you approach Denmark, you see the big Wilson Inlet - you just can't miss it. The strip was easy to find also.
My airstrip guide reads "Caution: airstrip undulates - landing on runway 10 is an upward slope to such an extent that you cannot see the other end of the runway. Beware power lines to the west."
I was landing on 10, so I was landing on that initial upslope. Mindful of the powerlines (which I couldn't see), I kept the approach pretty high. On mid-final I did pick up the powerline poles, but couldn't see the wire. I seemed to be well clear, although I had to be careful to arrest any sink I got on final.
I also kept my speed up - normally I take it from 65 kts to 60kts on short final, but here I tried to keep the speed on the high side of 65 kts, so I would be able to pull the nose up if the slope was more than expected. I did have to pull up quite sharply, the runway did seem to climb rapidly - probably nothing once you're used to it, but more than I was expecting - but it then levelled out and I was able to do a fairly normal sort of hold-off and landing.
Given how much extra runway I ended up with, it could be worth aiming 100 metres beyond the threshold next time. That would take both the powerlines, and the initial slope out of the equation, and still leave a lot of room to land. Worth a thought.
| Arriving at Denmark in our private plane, our hire-car was waiting for us. We were able to drive straight to our resort. We felt like Hollywood. |
| Squibby parked at the picturesque Denmark stip. |
| There's even a view of the inlet. I'd happily build a house here. We were exceptionally lucky with the weather, considering it was mid-winter on the south coast. |
I have to say that Denmark is a very pretty strip. It's the first strip I've ever been to where you actually have a really good view. As we parked Squibby, we could see the inlet even from the cockpit. Add to that the clumps of trees, and the first green grass I've seen for 6 months (it's a lot wetter down here), and the late afternoon sun, the clear winter sky, and the elation of a successful flight to a new strip, and I got quite carried away with the moment.
Tony provides a fantastic service, and he had left a hire-car at the strip for us, so it was just a simple case of chucking rocks under the wheels (I haven't bought any chocks yet), then throwing our stuff into the car, and we were able to drive to the Chimes resort, for our very relaxing weekend.
| One of the features of our room is that you have a view of the ocean and the inlet from your spa bath. The window is coated with some sort of reflective surface, so people supposedly can't see in. I hope that was true. |
Kim & I really like Denmark - we're thinking it would be a good place to live one day. We decided to spend a day looking at real estate - it's a good excuse to drive around having a look at the place. We saw some great blocks, with views over the ocean and the inlet.
| Here was a block of land we wished we could afford... |
| ...it even came with its own set of roos |
| Lights Beach is typical of the beautiful coastline along here. |
| Just behind the beach is a forested hill which includes Monkey Rock. I climbed on it last time I was down here - it has the best view. |
On Sunday, we planned to leave at about lunchtime. There was a cold front coming in from the west, and we didn't want to get stuck on the ground. Our first destination was Albany. The trip is only about 20 minutes - we needed to head there for fuel. I decided we would fill up completely.
We departed on runway 28, into the westerly wind. This allowed us to do a gentle loop over Denmark, before heading east for Albany. There were some great cliffs along the way - we stayed pretty low, while we were looking at the scenery. Then we climbed up to 1500 for the remainder of the trip.
| We were under a bit of time pressure because of a big front rolling in. We could see it making its way in all morning. |
| We circled over the Wilson inlet after taking off. |
| Kim was able to look over her shoulder, but it was hard to get a good aerial shot of the township. |
| I hadn't realised there would be all these cliffs on the ocean side of the inlet. I took this by opening up the flap-thing on my window. It makes for a much clearer photo, but you have to make sure you hang onto the camera. It's windy as soon as you get your hand out. |
| Albany airstrip is on the nose. I haven't been here since I was very young. |
I'd never been to Albany, but it was easy enough to find. In fact, the runway is huge - about 1800m. There was no-one else active in the circuit, so it was a very easy entry. After touching down, we had to roll out for ages to get to the refueling area - it's a long runway. You could do several touch and goes on it. You could probably even get up to circuit height in between. Or not, but is it long.
The refueler was waiting for us, and had us full in less than five minutes. Then without delay, we taxiied out, and took off again.
The first leg back to Kojonup was going to be very easy. You pretty much follow the Albany Highway, and you can't miss it. The only point of interest was how slow we were travelling. We were making about 72 kts, breaking into a 20kt headwind.
The whole flight, Squibby didn't want to remain at 4500 ft. At first, it kept wanting to sink - later, it wanted to fly. Go figure.
From Kojonup, we turned left a huge 7 degrees.
This leg of the flight was not so pleasant - it was nothing like the trip down on Friday. It was quite bumpy, and we were facing into the low winter sun, plus we were outrunning the front, which was something else I had to keep my eye on.
When we were coming up to Darkan, I couldn't find any landmarks we were expecting. We kept looking, trying to orientate ourselves. Eventually, I saw Darkan to the north. Somehow, we were travelling about 30 degrees off course, and had quickly got more than 5 miles off-course. Not a huge amount, but enough that we had a lot of trouble figuring out where we were.
I think there were two causes. Firstly, I probably had around 10 degrees of gyro drift. Secondly, we had changed areas. So whereas on the first leg I had planned for a 360 degree 20 kt wind, from Kojonup I was planning for a 270 degree 20kt wind. That's an unusually big change, probably due to the approaching cold front. Clearly, in real life the wind doesn't usually change instantaneously by 90 degrees. So the winds I had planned for were totally off.
Still, we picked it up pretty quickly, then were able to correct our course for the observed winds.
As we approached Perth, the air was starting to thicken up. There was a smoky hazy, like a mist, ahead of the front. At times it felt like going into light cloud. But despite the deteriorating visibility, we could still see Perth in the distance, so there wasn't going to be a problem.
It got reasonably busy as we came into Jandakot. Kim doesn't like this part yet - she finds the whole approach and landing a bit scary. It's the change in engine rpm, the turns, the amount of other traffic on the radio... I thought we were going to have to go around as we came down on final, but then tower cleared us to land while the preceding plane was still on its takeoff roll. Then we almost got stuck on the runway, because as I came to the taxiway, an earlier plane had paused, not giving me enough room to vacate properly.
But we shut down, tied up, and set off to pick up the dogs. Overall, a really enjoyable weekend, and a total of around 6 hrs flying. And Kim is getting more familiar with flying in Squibby, and genuinely likes it. A great weekend.
Mutt Muffs arrive
We're idiots about our dogs, Daisy and Molly. They're sisters, and have always lived together. A couple of years ago, they went through a phase of fighting each other all the time - we thought one might end up getting killed. But then they settled down (swapping dominance roles in the process), and now they are great friends.
Just lately, they've developed a new habit of snuggling right next to each other. It's very cute.
A pair of large Mutt Muffs arrived in the mail today. Michelle at Safe and Sound pets (http://www.safeandsoundpets.com/index.html) has been delightful to deal with, and I'm very glad she's got a new section on the website for customer photos (http://www.safeandsoundpets.com/page/page/2449012.htm).
Here's what my pair look like, straight out of the packaging.
There's also a handy headset-bag for each set.
I don't have any photos of the dogs actually wearing the Mutt Muffs yet. I'll wait until I have a photo which can do them justice. Our initial attempts showed that we'll have to adjust the straps (and cut off some excess velcro), to make sure each set fits snugly. But we did get our dogs to the stage where they were walking around the house with the Mutt Muffs staying in place.
Molly doesn't seem too fussed about them yet.
At one time, Molly looked like she wanted to try to get them off with her paw, but we've been rewarding the dogs with bits of pasta whenever they allow us to put the Mutt Muffs on.
The instructions are very clear, that you shouldn't just put Mutt Muffs on for your amusement (or your friends), however tempting that might be.
They should learn to associate the Mutt Muffs with fun (eg, riding in an aircraft, or at least, getting pasta treats), so that they accept the Mutt Muffs like they accept other things, such as a leash.
Nobody's checked my ASIC yet
I've had my ASIC card for a few months now.
I wrote about ASIC cards a while back. This is the card that will stop 9/11-style aircraft-assisted-terrorism.
So far I've been to Jandakot, Rottnest, and Albany, all of which I think would require an ASIC card, but up to now, no-one's checked whether I carry such a card. There was always a general feeling that these cards were unnecessary, and would achieve nothing - that's a given. But it looks like the system has only been half-implemented. Every pilot now has a card to show that they are not a terrorist, but there doesn't seem to be anybody assigned to check the cards. At least, I've never seen anyone. Nobody has ever asked to see mine.
Last time I was at Rottnest, the terminal was empty (locked, in fact, so we had to jump over a fence to get off the airstrip). The only individual I could find at Albany was the refueller. Is he now on the front line in the war on terror? It didn't seem like it. He was only interested in giving us fuel.
Still, no one has flown a light aircraft into any office towers in the last few months, so presumably the system is working.