PeanutWood

Back in Blighty

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Blinkin eck, its as warm here as it was in Cannes and Cagliari!!!

We’ve arrived safely home, the vac pump while intermittently warning us of its impending failure remained serviceable throughout the flight. The aircraft has been abandoned at the hangar for the engineers to replace the pump and figure out why we were using a litre of oil every 4 hours (that is high for almost any aircraft..!)

We had a great trip, saw lots of new places and experienced some very different flying: Italian airspace and mountains were two big new things, but also the whole idea of doing a long trip. We did about 10hrs flying in the end, which is what we expected.

Linda is back to work tomorrow, a day early to recoup some leave. Apparently I’m off to Tesco. Got the pictures from the last leg of the journey to put online too, I’ll do that in the morning as my body thinks its almost midnight and I’ve been up since 7am Cannes time!

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Nearly home

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

I started typing this at 3000ft over the town of Sézanne east of Paris. Linda is at the controls and we are making good progress, the weather is cloudy but not threatening.

Our first flight from Cannes to Lyon was glorious, up at 8500ft over the western side of the Massif Central. Linda flew this leg and landed very nicely at Bron, the home of Norbert Dentressengle’s Citations. Landing fee was a mere €18.

I then flew to Troyes. Compared to previous flights this was very boring – no high ground and no airspace issues. It got exciting landing at Troyes – no ATC, speak French only! Somehow we managed and got parked up outside the terminal.

The good run with the arcraft is over though. Already contending with higher than normal oil usage, we now have a dodgy vacuum pump. If it fails it’s not the end of the world, we lose a couple of instruments but we would like to keep them working ideally. We’ve spoken to te engineers who are happy for us to continue, so we shall.

We are now in Le Touquet where we’ll head into town for a late lunch. Linda will have done her flying for the day after landing at Le Touquet so I’m sure she will have a last slurp of la biere francaise.

We’ll then launch for our final leg, back to Cranfield. We should be landing at Cranners just before closing time and then it’s straight to the hangar for the aeroplane and home for us!

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Where next?

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

After returning to shore we set about finding an Internet cafe, all the while scouring the air for free wifi. Sadly the French are savvy to protecting wifi so we stuffed ourselves into a small shop with old PC’s to check the weather.

We had two ideas in mind. The weather looks promising for Thursday but more marginal for Friday and Saturday with heavy showers and possible thunderstorms over the UK and northern France.

Idea 1 was the least favourable but infinitely more sensible option of flying home all the way tomorrow. This would mean about 4 1/2 hrs in the Mooney with stops at Lyon Bron, Troyes and Le Touquet to change seats. A lot of flying but doable especially in good weather and with an autopilot. Lunch would be either in Troyes or maybe a late lunch in Le Touquet depending on how we got on.

Idea 2 was to fly as far as Paris. Linda would fly to Lyon Bron then I would squeeze the Mooney onto the 600m runway at Lognes east of Paris. From there it’s relatively easy to get a train west to Paris, and east to Disneyland. This meant finding a reasonable hotel somewhere, something we couldn’t do. It also left us flying home on Sunday and rather at the mercy of the Weather Gods. If the showers were slow to clear we’d have been, as Bender in Futurama would put it, boned.

So we’ve gone for option 1. The Mooney is pleasantly cool in flight, which surprised me, and if we’re flying we cant be walking miles coz my feet have had enough! We’ve got an 8am taxi tomorrow to fleece, sorry, TAKE us to Cannes Airport and we’ll start our trek northwest.

So the UK beckons for us again. It’s been a great trip, we’ve seen loads and experienced lots of different flying. But I’ll be glad when I hear a British ATCO again and see the white cliffs – always a welcoming sign.

Regarding photos, not got the Siena ones onward up yet due to the fact that obtaining wifi here in the hotel in Cannes involves selling body parts. I’ll upload them as soon as we get home – they’re all sorted, just need some wifi to use!!!

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Third flight – Siena-Cannes

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Last night there must have been another big storm in Siena. We missed it but everywhere was soaked as we arrived. We wisely chose to skip a tour round the Piazza. The rain last night though has led to fog this morning. The visibility on the journey to the airfield was down to 500m or less with low cloud, but it was lifting as we arrived.

We climbed away from Siena northwesterly. Plans to overfly the town first were scuppered by low cloud over the town but we climbed clear of the clouds, initially towards Pisa up to 3000ft then further to 8500ft.

Problem one: Pisa wouldn’t let us overfly the airfield, even right up high. So we hastily planned a route to the east of Luca. We remained clear of clouds the whole way – there were some biggies, but they all seemed to be just off our track which was a plus.

Problem two: Milan Information. In France and the UK the “info services” are very useful. Here it was a disaster. It took me a dozen calls to even be acknowledged, the controller kept going ape at people stepping on each other. He cleared another Brit direct to La Spezia then told him he was in the La Spezia danger area. We were trying to get clearance through that danger area but gave up.

Calm was restored when we were handed to Genoa and we were quickly cleared on exactly the route we requested. We were even handed over to Nice.

This is where it went a bit wrong for me. I left the descent a bit late, then didn’t trim the aircraft right for the final. The result was a quick bounce followed by a go-around, something I’ve not done in years. Oh well, the second approach was fine.

We fuelled up on arrival in Cannes then moved the aircraft gingerly onto the grass parking. There don’t seem to be any formalities here, we were let through a gate and caught a cab to our hotel.

The pictures from this leg of the trip are here!

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Second flight – Calvi-Elba-Siena

Monday, June 29th, 2009

After all the shennanigans in the terminal it was nice to get back to the dusty, cricket covered patch of land the called the General Aviation apron. Just behind us was a Thomson 757 being prepared for departure back to Gatwick, while we prepared to depart to Siena.

The Mooney has flown just over 11 hours since Martin left Cranfield and headed south, and is holding up well. The brakes which were spongy as anything are improving, the only concern is high oil consumption. While not noticeably losing any we’ve used 3 litres in that 11 hours, higher than normal. We’ve only got one bottle left so may need to find some more soon.

We watched the 757 depart and got a wave from the first officer then jumped into the aircraft to head around the North Corsican coast to Marina di Campo on the island of Elba. Here we’d swap seats and Linda would fly on to Siena.

Calvi looked stunning to our left as we climbed over the bay, while the mountains to our right looked impressive but forbidding. There is still snow on some of the inland mountains. There was some low cloud near Bastia but none to trouble us at 5,000ft.

The island of Elba soon appeared ahead of us, with a big lump of rock between us and Marina making radio comms difficult until about 10 miles out as we were descending over the sea.

Marina di Campo is a 900m runway with hills on 3 sides. My approach was from the bay towards the hills so was easy. We had a follow-me van to park us on the grass. Then an official looking bloke in a green jumpsuit turned up. Fearing the first taste of Italian bureaucracy he asked us to bring the aircraft documents to the terminal…

…where they glanced at the registration document and waved us on. Five minutes and €49 later we’d filed a flight plan (they charged €5 for that – we used our own paper, all he did was fax it!) and headed off for a drink before launching on the next sector.

Linda was then flying to Siena for our next stop. Departing towards a massive hill of about 2500′ you turn right and fly up a valley, then left up another valley until you reach the sea. Good views, not advisable in dodgy weather!

Said dodgy weather was waiting on the mainland. To get to Siena we had a ridge of hills 3500′ high to get over, but near the coast the cloud was 500′ below that. Fortunately it lifted and we made it, then having to descend to land at Siena. One perfect landing later from Linda and we were in Tuscany.

Not much at Siena Airport. Lots of greenery, one NetJets and that’s it. The fire crew put the chocks in, we then waled through their crewroom where they were enjoying lunch and a nice bottle of red. I believe they are going to charge us about €70 for this!

Parked up, tech log written, bags out, cover on. We were done in 15mins and then into a taxi driven by a female Felpe Massa into Siena. €32 for the taxi, one thing this holiday isn’t is cheap!

Photos from this leg are on my MobileMe gallery here!!!

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Calvi Airport – a parting short

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

We had a great night in Calvi, and in hindsight could easily have spent another day or two there. However, we had a hotel booked in Siena and had a gap in the thunderstorms forecast to head east into mainland Italy so at 0830 a taxi arrived to return us to the airport.

Where we had perhaps THE most shocking service ever. You pay the landing fee at the Chamber of Commerce desk. Only one of the women there spoke rough English, this despite about 200 Brits just arriving on a Thomson 757. We needed to file a flight plan, but after sending us around a corner to a computer to do it she then informed us it was broken. So shegsve us a number to call. They payphones we all credit card type and she wouldn’t let us use her phone.

When we finally got through on the mobile a ramp guy in jeans and a t-shirt took us through security, who didn’t give a toss that we bleeped and had laptops and a knife in our bags. Then the ramp nutter sped across the apron behind the Thomson, waited for us to unload our own bags and began to drive off before I’d gotten the boot shut. Charming. All I can say is thank God the bowser topped us off yesterday.

So, although our landing and parking came to only €28, the service left a lot to be desired and most unusual for a French airport. We never were offered to be taken to the Meteo officer on station but we’d checked all that on the free wifi. We’d have filed the flight plan ourselves save for the fact that the poxy British AFPEx system won’t let me in again!

Rant over, on with the holiday.

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First flight – Cagliari-Figari-Calvi

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

0830 is an unreasonably early time on a Saturday morning when your on holiday, but needs must. We decided to get airborne as soon as possible to take advantage of smoother air and head north to our next night stop in Calvi. Adrian would be flying to Figari and then Linda the second leg up to Calvi. The flights would be flown up to 4,500 ft but hugging the western coastlines of Sardinia and Corsica to save flying over the mountains.

Cagliari was pretty organised really. We met our handling agent in the terminal, he took us through and got us weather. The flight plan was filed, and then just the bill to pay. This worked out at rather more than the €90 promised – €145!!!! Hmmm. Then to fuel. We had to drag the aircraft to the pumps, but that wasn’t far. 162 litres uplifted came to a whopping €480!!!! Thank heavens we get the fuel back from the club, that was a big bill!

The flight was nowhere near as complicated as I expected. No follow-me truck out of Cagliari, just a simple taxi instruction. We followed the VRP route and climbed as quickly as they’d allow us to our cruising altitude. A smooth flight, with ATC handovers and we were on our way. The only thing we were constantly asked for was estimates, but that wasn’t too difficult with the GPS.

Approaching Bonifacio we were asked by Figari to hold, no idea why as we were number 1 to land but never mind. Joining downwind at 1000ft we were completely surrounded by mountains, it looks pretty intimidating at first. Landing was normal, and we taxied to park.

No landing fees at Figari which was nice, just a pleasant chat with the on-station Met officer. He was very friendly, helpful and informative even about our legs tomorrow. Sadly he recommended departing really early before the weather gets bad in Italy. Oh joy.

Linda then took the controls for the leg up the western side of Corsica. Departure and climb straight to 4500ft then over Ajaccio and up to Calvi. Gorgeous coastline the whole way. Calvi were in a hurry for us to land due to a 737 inbound, so we made a hasty approach to a landing Linda ungenerously described as “awful”. It wasn’t that bad, sure there was a bit of a bounce but it was controlled neatly the whole time. And we walked away from it, and can use the aeroplane again!

We are now sitting here in Calvi terminal enjoying a beer and updating the blog on the free wifi. Pictures from this leg are here!

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A tale of two final days

Sunday, February 8th, 2009

For the first time ever we went our separate ways on the final day in the USA proper. Adrian had to do his single-engine checkride to get that added to his commercial license, so rather than Linda kick around an airfield all day she’d head off to Disney for the day while I headed to the skies. The weather was great for both things, here are our individual accounts of the day!

Adrian’s day
After dropping Linda off it was up to Sunstate to pick up the aeroplane. I would be flying solo to Winter Haven to meet Dennis and Janeen Kochan. Dennis would be flying with me first to get me ready for the checkride with Janeen in the afternoon. Straight away we had a delay (no need to drop Linda off that early really!) as Dennis and Janeen had to do a flypast on a charity event in a Grumman Goose before flying with me, meaning I didn’t need to be at Winter Haven until 11am.

Sunstate had kindly agreed to let me fly N1688C for the day. This is the best aircraft in the fleet, with only 600hrs and a nice balance and much less snags than the other aircraft – but its normally for dual hire ONLY. I headed off to Winter Haven early so I had as much time as possible to re-read the Pilot Handbook, prepare my weight and balance and do the take-off calculations.

Dennis and Janeen arrived at 11am and are two genuinely friendly, totally aviation-minded people. Dennis used to fly for Piedmont and does floatplane instruction as well as flying the Goose around (lucky ***). Janeen used to regularly visit the UK to do exams, and both like England very much.

Time was dragging by this point, and not helped by the FAA paperwork clumsiness. I had to register online, which took forever mainly because of confusion with the CPL I already had in the UK. As it was I didn’t get airborne with Dennis until 12:40.

My single-engined CPL involves flying some manoeuvres which I’ve never done before – chandelles, lazy eights, eights-on-pylons, spiral descent. These were the bits I was concerned with, the other part – short-field and soft-field take-off and landings, plus a glide approach, should be fine.

Funny how it turns out. A couple of quick practices and the manoeuvres made perfect sense, and I was able to fly them pretty well without being worried about falling out of the sky. What I did cock up was the glide approach which required me to cut the power abeam the runway and glide to a landing within 300ft of the start of the runway. In five attempts I made it once. Each other attempt I was high and would have made the runway, but probably touching down at the 500ft mark so each time I was sent around. This was beginning to frustrate me immensely.

We called it quits after 2hrs of flying and landed, had a bite of lunch and worked on a plan. Dennis was happy with my flying generally, he was happy with the way I’d flown the manoeuvres but wanted me to nail these glide approaches. I could do them in the UK no bother in the PA28, but the Cessna didn’t want to slow down right for me. He wanted to fly with me for a couple more hours before signing me off for my checkride with Janeen. Understandable, but time I just didn’t have any more with the cruise and the flight home looming. So I decided to cut my losses, save the money on the aircraft and the checkride and head back to Kissimmee.

Feeling immensely deflated I launched from Winter Haven and decided to practice the power-off landing. I did two circuits, both to full stop landings – and both perfect glide approaches. Why couldn’t I do it earlier?! On the flight home I practiced a chandelle or two, cool. The lazy eights were also pretty good. I’m sure I could have done the checkride but Dennis was playing it safe and I completely agree – I wouldn’t have signed me off after that flight. Sod it.

Landing back at Kissimmee I did another perfect glide approach, then said my farewells to the folks at Sunstate and headed back to the villa for a quick swim and shower before heading off to Magic Kingdom to meet up with Linda…

Linda’s day

My day began by being dropped off at the Coronado Springs resort, where we stayed with Ian back in June last year. My main purpose in starting here was to purchase some of the body lotion from the shop which both myself and Ian really liked last time! As it was still early I grabbed some breakfast and then had a stroll around the resort.

I then caught the free bus to Disneys Hollywood Studios which scarily seemed to be over run with cutesie cheerleaders – urgh! I tried to get on Midway Mania again but the queue was already up to 70mins by the time I got there which was only 10mins after park opening! I ended up going on the Great Movie Ride and watching the Little Mermaid show, before sitting down to a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon – yummy!

I then decided to take one of the Friendship boats to Epcot, however I got diverted by the sunny looking beach at the Yacht and Beach resort, so I jumped ship early and decided to chill out for half an hour. After my time on the beach I walked the rest of the way to Epcot, where I had a brief walk round World Showcase and a ride round Spaceship Earth before boarding the monorail towards Magic Kingdom. I was diverted however by the rather relaxing hammocks on the beach at the Grand
Floridian Resort. I ended up falling asleep for an hour in the sun – good job I had put copious amounts of sun cream on! Despite the sun cream I still got up looking like a lobster, but luckily it all went down and turned brown, not red!

After my hammock time, I boarded the monorail to get to the Magic Kingdom. Here I spent a few hours wandering the park and going on a few rides before getting an ice cream sundae and chilling out waiting for Adrian to come back from flying.

Once Adrian arrived back at the park, we went into Mickey’s Philharmagic 3D show, which had been shut all hols and wasn’t supposed to open yet – so that was an added bonus. We just about managed to get a ride on the Haunted Mansion before heading for a spot on Main Street to watch the Wishes Fireworks show.

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Back to the beaches

Sunday, February 8th, 2009

Our great flying plans lie in tatters once more. Thursday was meant to see us head south, far south, to the tip of Florida – Key West. A nightstop there would then allow us to fly back via the Everglades, somewhere else we’ve never managed to visit in all our trips over here. Well, the naff weather on Monday meant we were behind on the things we needed to do up here in Orlando. My often cancelled checkride also meant time was pressing, and we really didn’t want to spend all of our last three days flying around the state.

So today we decided to head up to New Smyrna Beach, on the Atlantic Coast. The wind was cold and northerly again, but its ok – we are hardy Brits and can cope with almost anything (although it appears you are struggling with the snow at the moment back home).

Upon arrival at New Smyrna we were directed to Epic Aviation, who promptly marshalled us into a spot, chocked us and offered us free water before we’d even left the aircraft. A red carpet was even rolled out for us!!! When we asked where to go for lunch we were given the keys to the courtesy van and told how to get into town. The cost for this? Free. When I told the ramp guy that what he’d just done for us would cost over $100 in the UK he just about wet himself laughing!

New Smryna Beach is a great long sandy beach which cars can drive down. We had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the beach, they were recommended for the quality of their burgers and we can safely say they were right! The strong wind made walking on the beach interesting, plus bloody cold but we had a go for a little while.

Having had lunch and a stroll we headed back to the airfield and took off aiming generally south down the coastline. This would take us past the Kennedy Space Center – essentially one great big danger area, and over Port Canaveral. This would give us our first glimpse of the Disney Wonder, our cruise ship for part two of the holiday on Sunday. After taking as many pictures as possible over Port Canaveral without entering the danger areas (its RIGHT on the edge of the danger area!) we continued south to Vero Beach.

Vero Beach is the home to Piper Aircraft, so taking a Cessna 172 in there seemed appropriate. Apparently the ground controller hadn’t had his afternoon donut because he was as grumpy a controller as I’ve ever heard, when he asked where we were going I responded “Oh somewhere for a coffee” and he then just kept reeling off the list of FBO’s. We picked Jet Center, it had a nice ring to it. Sadly they charge a ramp fee – which we didn’t know and this is the first time we’ve come across this in the USA. Fortunately my best British accent helped get that waived as we were first time visitors and the pleasant chap in the FBO pointed out to us the best way to park and get around next time!

All told, a pleasant day out if a little windy and cold. Its meant to start warming up tomorrow!

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