Taking Advantage

We haven't had many good flying days. Winter weather and snow packed fields have kept me grounded most of the time, but there have been a few opportunities to get airborne.

Last week I departed 7N8, headed north to ETX and out V30 toward KZER. It was a great exercise to get out of the local area and play with the VOR. Everything worked well (NAV SRC is a GREEN light, not red like the GPS). A touch & go at Zerby and a short trip back home with 3 full stop landings made for a great trip.

I was over booked with work this week and suddenly an afternoon opened up. The weather was great so I had to take advantage of it, but I didn't have a 'plan'.  However I had just been reading about short field landings over an obstacle and decided to see what 4PS could do. The real trick here is to finesse speed control at the lower end, close to Vso. Nice workout. (45kts seems to be about right.)

I also went over to Bally Spring Farm for a low approach. Shorter than 7N8, it sits down in a "bowl" and the GPS squawked "pull up!" the whole time in the pattern. Nothing I couldn't get into or out of, but this was one place that requires quite a bit of respect.

I also tested the 180 degree option on the autopilot. If a pilot pushes his luck and gets into bad weather, he can press and hold the autopilot button and the plane will execute a level 180 degree turn.  Nice.

In other activity, I just got a letter from the Pennsylvania Bureau of Enforcement, Planning, Analysis and Discovery (The Discovery Division). They would like a check for 6% sales tax on N674PS. (8% if I live in Philly.) I previously investigated trying to register the aircraft in Delaware to avoid the sales tax...AOPA Lawyers and other tax accountants said that was a myth..."if the property or services subsequently are used, consumed, or stored in Pennsylvania" 104-31.7.

I also passed my 2nd class medical. That's something I might be able to take advantage of in the future.

AHhhh.....

Like giving a parched man a cool glass of water.

Five landings. I'm still working on my muscle memory for power adjustments in the pattern. Full power back to 4000 RPM is a lot of travel, and back again to 3000 RPM is more than you think. Basic air-work was good (considering the layoff) and the landings were sweet.

I'm still thirsty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYAhfB8srl0

Mud

I'm learning why it might not be a good idea to call a place with turf tie downs and taxi ways home for the winter. Snow removal is a big problem.

Yesterday was 'good' Pennsylvania winter weather. Temperatures above freezing, winds below hurricane force and much of the snow/ice had retreated. I went out to the airport around 11:00am with the intent of doing some basic air-work and a few landings.  123 props to get the burp, about 15 gallons (3 hours) on board and no ice on the airframe. I still had to negotiate snow drifts to get the tie down straps and cover off and perform the exterior walk around. Carefully manipulating my balance to get inside without getting snow on anything, I buckled in and pulled out the checklist. She started after 6 props and hummed nicely.  This was to be the best part of the day.

Warmed up and ready for taxi we moved about 6"s and stopped. Full power to taxi just didn't seem reasonable, and she wasn't moving even with that. Slow exhale.

Shut her down, unstrapped and got out to take a look. The left main was up to her wheel pant in a ditch. It became abundantly clear why former owners had placed wooden pads in the ground for tire support. The PiperSport has a narrower stance so the only wheel supported for her was the nose.  I couldn't push her out. Slow exhale.


One of my other hobbies is woodworking. I always have a few pieces stored in the garage waiting on the next project, so I cut a 6' 1x6 into 3 pieces, grabbed a small garden shovel, my screw driver and some work gloves and after a little lunch headed back out. First I took the pant off and insured no damage was done, then I worked with the shovel and my pocket knife to try and clear a path. I couldn't push her out. Slow exhale.

Sat in the car for a bit. Obviously I needed some help, so I called the office and Ashley said she would send someone out. I remembered why Pennsylvania is nicknamed "Linebacker" country. Troy was at least 6'4" and ~220#s. I'm pretty sure he could have lifted the LSA out of the hole by himself, but graciously allowed me to help by pushing on the nose. Done, no problem. Five minutes later he was back in his warm equipment shop and I was sitting in the car figuring out what to do next.

Surveying the current spot, if I could move the airplane about a foot to the left I could get the left main and nose on former blocks and use one of my freshly cut boards for the right main. So I filled the ditch with ice (plenty of that) and decided to taxi forward enough uphill to allow me to reposition the airplane.  Carefully manipulating my balance to get inside without getting snow on anything, I buckled in and looked up to see my car sitting on the taxi way in front of me.  But that's OK because I'm not going to go that far anyway. Right. Slow exhale.

I moved the car and, carefully manipulating my balance to get inside without getting snow on anything, I buckled in and pulled out the checklist. Took a bit longer to start, probably really didn't need any choke. I moved forward slowly and tapped the right brake to straighten her out. Nope, just continued to slide left. Mashed both brakes and stopped. Close enough. Glad I moved the car.

With the tow bar attached it was easy to move back into the position I wanted. All 3 wheels are now out of the mud and I decided to remove the other two wheel pants. After getting two of the six screws out of the right main, the next screw got obstinate. Having gone way into debt on patience I decided to replace the two removed and call it a day. Strapped, covered and secured I headed for the house.

Hey, no damage, I got a start and a 'run-up' and whole lot of exercise. And I continue to learn how much I really don't know about aviation.

Frustration

I heard on a Podcast that the weather this winter has been 'a bit squirrely'. I might have another word for it but you get my drift. Another week of flying lost to poor weather conditions. I went out to the airport to clean the snow off and struggled just to get out to the plane. Snow is roughly a foot deep with more coming down. Another inch or so expected today, another inch or so tomorrow with a blizzard expected mid-week.

The trick is finding something to do while waiting. Read, study, explore, and dream about warm sunny days seems to be the way to get through the bad weather season. I'll admit it is frustrating to have a new airplane sitting on the ground.

"a different business perspective"

Stunning news that Piper decided to discontinue its business arrangement with CSA. Initially I felt like an orphan, that the most expensive investment of my life (aside from my house) had just been ruined.As I had time to absorb the details, I found that I was not so much an orphan but more the victim of a divorce and would get child support.

What happens now? The name of the aircraft will change from PiperSport to SuperCruiser. But other than that it is very much business as usual. The network of dealers, distributors and service agents that surrounds former SportCruiser will continue to operate and to be strengthened; though now directly under the Czech Sport Aircraft banner. Both new and existing clients will continue to be receive the highest possible levels of service – much of the supply and logistics chain has always run directly with CSA.

As the aircraft continues to prove itself as a market leader, fun, economic and reliable Light Sports Trainer and Tourer; sales look to continue to hold market share and grow in numbers. Clients can also be reassured that CSA is a strong and stable company. Backed by leading European private capital firm Slavia Capital, the company enjoys respect in the market, has a current order book in excess of 150 aircraft and continues to invest in R&D.

Slavia Capital continues with leading international financial institutions on preparation of the Initial Public Offering of CSA shares at the Prague and Warsaw Stock Exchange, CSA is financially strong and transparent, meeting fully IPO information standards.

What this does to sales of the airplane is unknowable. Piper's involvement seems to have ginned up sales. Its abandonment won't help, I'm sure. From my day to day operations nothing has changed. My goals are still the same. My involvement in aviation is still the same.Plus, I have a great airplane sitting at the airport waiting for me.

I read an interesting analysis in SportPilotTalk.com:

CSA is floating an IPO and concurrently trying to broaden its markets (military trainer sales, broader international distribution, more instructional sales). It wants to grow internationally. However, we don't see in its announcement any reference to increased manufacturing capacity. That boils down to a relatively fixed supply of a/c needing to fill a potentially expanding number of sales slots. If we were Piper, business growth would be our goal as well and we would view this as an undesirable restriction on growing domestic sales while overhead costs associated with the master distributorship are probably somewhat fixed.

From a macro perspective, both companies appear to be making rational decisions. From a (N America) customer perspective, it may end up meaning little in the near term, given the alliance of regional distributors that was announced. From the individual distributor's perspective, slow sales volume probably fits the financial realities of the current economy that they must accept for now. But it appears that all of this is driven by the financials (no surprise; we are talking business here...) rather than decisions being made on some high philosophical plain.

Glitch #1. I had a long conversation with the mechanic. I had him load the video I sent and review it for any unusual problems and he immediately pointed out the oil temperature. His solution was to add the baffle over the oil cooler inlet duct. While skeptical I agreed to do this and so far the unusual indications have stopped. It could just be that this simple mechanical fix could solve the perceived complex electronic fix that I thought it was. I need some additional cold weather flights to verify.

While I waited for the oil to warm up I spent some time customizing my instruments. I’m a “North Up” kind of guy so I dove into the menus to make that change. (It seems that when set as “Track Up’ my position report is always 10 miles south of the field.)  I also adjusted the Dynon EMS 120 configuration to recognize when I added fuel so that it would display a ‘quick path’ to initiate the fuel computer. (I also added a step on my checklist to check the fuel/trip computer prior to each flight.)

So now I wait for the weather to improve. I think this quote is typical: “"Very slippery conditions can develop early, but at the end there will be slush, puddles of standing water and areas of fog all draped by a dreary and ...dull, dim and dismal display of gray," AccuWeather's Elliot Abrams

First Flight of 2011

Validation.

I was out to check on her on Tuesday to see if the nose tire was fixed. It was. Harry was in his shop so I stopped in to find out if there was anything I should be concerned about. He had taken off the wheel pant, inspected the tire and just pumped it up. The pant was replaced and he wanted to check on his way home to insure it was still holding air. When I came out to fly on Wednesday it was still inflated. I suspect I may be 'horsing' it around too much getting it back into the parking spot, I'll have to be more gentle or pull out the  tow bar to help with steering.

I started the process of removing tie down straps and the canopy cover and as I did a beautiful Red Tailed Hawk landed on the abandoned tower by the pond. Just checking the competition I guess. I'm sure he was amused at the amount effort I put into getting ready for flight as he cleaned a feather or two with his beak. I lost count at about 150 props, but she burped soon after that. I removed just a little frost from the wings and tail surfaces and completed the rest of the exterior preflight with no incidents. Before climbing in I pulled her out a bit to get out of the tire ruts in the soft turf.

I like the choke for starting. Four blades and she was running. Glitch #1 is still there. The video shows the engine instruments during run-up. I shouldn't get the warning/alert at 4000RPM. Later in the flight this mysteriously corrects itself and shows the readings typical for a Rotax engine. Warranty work is scheduled next week.

Just a short flight over to KUKT for a full stop/taxi back and off again home to 7N8. No other glitches noted, and after two (very smooth) landings, the nose tire is validated as fixed.

A Learning Experience

I started "winter operations" at Butter Valley over the 2010 Christmas Holiday Season. First was just a short trip around the pattern, next a 45 minute flight with my son to introduce him to the airplane. After that I did another solo flight to work on my basic airwork and landing pattern. The last flight of the year was with my sister, again just an intro flight.

I learned a lot. Proper tie-downs, fueling the plane from gas cans, ice and snow removal (plane and runway) and generally how to operate out of a small non-towered field. None of this stuff is written down, it is the DOING that teaches.

An example: The 'little blizzard' left us with patches of snow and the above freezing temperatures gave us some unfrozen soggy sod for a taxiway. I had less then half of a fuel load, but two full sized occupants in the cockpit. When the nose wheel didn't respond while taxiing to the run up it was easy to believe that it was slogging through the wet turf. The longer then normal takeoff roll could be attributed to some ice in the wheel pants, or the heavy load, but in no case did I think any thing was wrong. Until I tried to back taxi after a normal (smooth) landing and found that full power wasn't enough to get her turned around. Shut 'er down and inspect to find a nearly flat nose wheel.

With parents and relatives watching I got out the tow bar and pulled her back down the center of the runway, and when sure it was safe restarted the engine (hot start procedures) to taxi back to the tie down spot. Fortunately I had some help to keep the situation under control and keep the on lookers off the active runway.

Yes, I did preflight which included checking tires. Yes, I will check even more closely for now on. Yes, there is light maintenance on the field, and I did go over to meet Harry. I can get his help next week to troubleshoot and repair the tire.

There are dozens of small but important lessons I've learned just in this one short month of airplane ownership. 2011 is going to be a real learning experience.