Sophie's First Flight

Sophie with Dad

We made a trip to Rottnest as a family one Sunday morning. This was five-and-a-half-month Sophie's first flight, and we decided to seat Kim in the back to take care of her. This was necessary since in a brief test, we established that Sophie had a tendency to grasp all the cords and pull the headset off.

	"I'm buckled in OK, what about you?"
	Backseat drivers

We had played with the idea of bringing our pram, but there was absolutely no room in the front or back by the time we were all packed in. We would just carry Soph with our Baby Bjorn when we got to the island.

Initially Sophie was happy enough, but after a few minutes with the headset on, she started to cry. This was not unexpected - we've noticed in the car that she will sometimes cry at a traffic light, but is generally fine once we're moving. I figured it would be similar in Squibby.

She enjoyed taxiing, but unfortunately after our run-up checks, we saw that there was a bad queue for takeoff. The wind direction meant we were on the single runway 12, and we were number 6 in line. The circuit was already busy with people doing circuits, so it was hard to get a chance to take off. All up we spent about 15 minutes idling on the ground. As soon as we were rolling, Sophie was quiet and seemed to enjoy the flight.

	Not happy.
	"OK we're taxiing. That's better."
	If we could just get going. We're number 6 in line to takeoff - this could take a while.
	Eventually we got airborne on a perfect Autumn day.

I haven't done a 12 departure for Fremantle in a long time. The controller cleared us to 1500 as we turned crosswind, while normally we'd have to stay at 1000 until we left the control zone. The flight to Rotto was spectacular - perfect visibility, and fast due to a tailwind. There was a long trail of boats going to and from Rottnest - I worked out later it was because of the long weekend.

It was really time for Sophie to take a nap, but she stayed awake during the trip over - she was apparently startled by a few bumps and dips, but apart from that, she was fine. When Sophie goes to sleep sitting up, she basically collapses. She did just that as we turned for final approach at Rottnest. It seemed a shame to land - in a car you'd be tempted to drive around the block a few times!

I did one of my gentlest landings, helped by a huge headwind as we landed.

	Sophie finally goes to sleep as we turn onto final approach.
	A quick snooze while we roll down runway 09 (lake is on our left). Seems a shame to wake her.

We had a pleasant morning at Rottnest, breakfast at the Dome, and a quick walk about. One day we should hire bikes here and have a bit of a look around. We almost made it home without a feed, but Sophie needed one when we arrived at the strip, before departing Rottnest. Fifteen minutes later, we were on our way home. I did a bit of a bounce as we landed at Jandakot.

Overall, it went very well. This was a test run, to check that Sophie would be OK to fly longer distances. I think she'll be fine - the only trouble is, we'll have very limited baggage room. It's pretty tight in there.

	Sophie and Kim taking in Rottnest.
	Trip home: "I'm an old-hand at this."

Annual Maintenance

I had to put Squibby in for its annual maintenance at the end of March. I didn't have any specific problems, so I expected the annual to go pretty smoothly.

Glen, from the Aero Club, rang me the next day to say that the annual was complete. There was, however, quite a lot of rust. Apparently Squibby has gone downhill a fair bit in the last year out on the grass. In particular, a push-rod bearing on my left flap was ceased, so that when they were trying to move the flap, the rod was bending, and actually snapped with a loud bang while they were checking it.

They also had to remove a number of nuts which had completely rusted on to the bolts.

I think Perth has quite corrosive conditions, probably because it's on the coast, and gets lots of salty air. It could be that Squibby is getting wet from sprinkler activity out on the grass as well.

I don't know whether I can afford it, but I'm now thinking about hangars because I hate the idea of Squibby deteriorating out in the open. My el cheapo parking out on the grass will have its own costs, in terms of maintenance.

Overall, the annual cost around $3000.

ASI Problem

Took Dan up in Squibby up for the first flight since the annual. I notice that they've changed my oil, so I'm now off the straight mineral, and onto the additives. The engine started instantly, and the controls were very much easier to move.

During takeoff, I heard a very brief buzzing - the stall warning as I lifted Squibby off slightly before it was ready. I was surprised to hear it, and realised that it's the first time I've ever heard Squibby's stall warning in flight. How could this be? Well, I've only ever practised stalls with an instructor, and I've never had an instructor in the Musketeer. So I've just never gone up and deliberately stalled Squibby.

I've read on the Beech forum that various people get a stall warning every time they land. I figured I was doing something different to them. I've checked the switch on the ground - it had full movement and caused the appropriate buzzing in the cockpit. I always thought that I'd never got close to that part of the envelope during flight. But now I'm guessing my stall warning was never working in flight before.

Well, this time as we were landing on 09 at Rotto (quite busy today - RAAF PC-9 was doing touch and goes, and a few other aircraft were doing scenic flights or NDB training), I got the stall warning buzzing during my hold-off, right up until I dropped gently onto the runway. Wow, that's new. I think they've fixed my stall warning.

On the downside, when I take my hands off the control I seem to be rolling to the right. Maybe something changed in the rigging? After we landed, I checked my aileron and there's a tab there which seems bent quite a lot. Maybe it needs adjusting.

We had our requisite business meeting and dosed up on coffee before heading for home. I decided to take Dan to the training area on the way home, so that he could hold the controls for a while. Initially the aircraft wanted to roll right, and it took Dan a while to get used to adjusting the roll, but he was very good on the holding altitude part. I figured this would be useful if he ever needs to hold the controls while I'm rummaging around in the back or something. He quickly figured out that the VSI had quite a lot of lag, and stopped trying to use that directly. In fact, he quickly worked out that the best approach was to look out the window, pick an attitude, and see the effect.

I took over and flew us in from Six South. As we turned onto base for 06L, following a Cessna, I was worried about moving in too close to it, and took early flap. I felt I was slowing nicely, but checked my airspeed and it was way too fast. I pulled my nose up, checked my speed again, and we were still too fast. In fact, it looked like I'd pulled my flap on too early, because my airspeed wasn't even in the white arc - tut tut.

The aircraft didn't seem to be slowing down at all, so I raised the nose, and started to wonder whether the flap was doing anything? It felt like it was, but I remembered that the engineers had done a fair bit of work on my flaps during the annual - maybe there was a new problem with them. Visually, they appeared to have deployed correctly. To confirm, I tried taking the flaps off - whoah, sink rate - those flaps were definitely working - pull on two stages of flap again - that's better.

Already it was time to turn final, and with this messing around I had let myself get a bit low. As I turned onto final - still above 90 knots - normally I want to be 65 knots arount here - I realised: 'Hey - that airspeed indicator is jammed - I'm definitely not flying that fast. I wonder what exactly is my airspeed?

The dead ASI had been seducing me into trying to fly slower and slower, and now I was low and a little slow on final. Not a good place to be. I tried flicking the guage (which sometimes works with my Suction guage), but the needle wasn't moving anywhere. I added a lot of power, got back on the glide path, or even above it. If I was going to do anything, I wanted to be too fast. Anything to avoid an inadvertant stall on final approach due to a dead Airspeed Indicator.

Fortunately from there, everything else went as smooth as silk - fast approach, zoomed over the threshold, got quite a lot of float during landing (no surprise, given my airspeed), heard the stall warning again and did a nice gentle landing.

Even after we parked and shut off the engine, my airspeed was still reading over 90 knots on the ASI. Talking to Glen on my way home, he thought it might be a bug of some type which had made a home in my pitot system. Especially because, since last year I haven't had a pitot cover. They're going to disconnect my ASI and blow some air through the system, hopefully to eject whatever is stuck in there.

And I'm going to get myself a new pitot cover.