08.04.2016: I flew to Munich yesterday (with Swiss, not with my SportCruiser), a flight that started with a great view over the alps…
…and ended with a parallel approach to Munich with an Air Canada Boeing 787 Dreamliner, around 10 minutes of formation flying. Looked pretty cool.
Today I continued to Berlin, where we took an unusual approach which led us over Tegel into the downwind of runways 09, as can seen below. I have been many times to Berlin, but never flown such an approach, nearly looked as if they had originally flown the usual approach to runway 27, but then changed the runway.
16.04.2016: I went flying today for the first time in quite a while. The weather was not too good, ..
with 34 knots of tailwind in only 5’500 ft,…
…which resulted in a ground speed of nearly 140 kts.
But as soon as I climbed a bit higher the weather improved, with great visibility and only around 10 kts of wind at 8’000 ft.
Only around the Säntis there were some clouds, with the antenna mast just touching them.
When I returned Dan had brought his Kitfox to the airfield, preparing it for the first flight. I am acting as his flight test advisor in behalf of the Experimental Aviation Association.
He did some taxi tests to check steering, brakes etc., and was very happy with the results.
07.019.04.2016: Today friends from Denmark arrived for a visit. They brought me a cool present, a wind vane in the shape of a Lockheed Super Constellation. They received if from a friend who produces them, and who happens to read my blog regularly. He even put the callsign of my plane on it, nice touch.
We of course assembled it immediately, as can be seen below. It has two solar cells on the wings, which are charging an internal battery.
When it gets dark, position lights and internal lighting automatically turn on, as can be seen during a test in my living room below.
In full darkness it then looks as follows:
21.04.2016: I had to go to Hanover today, and while descending towards the destination we overflew an airport which I recognised as Hildesheim. I have stopped there twice for refuelling on flights to / from the North, highly recommended.
22.04.2016: It’s Aero time again, which is also why my friends from Denmark arrive at this time of the year. And as every year we go there to check what is new on the market. And as every year not everything is new, as the plane below, but still work looking at.
My wife loves the Pilatus Porter, and has just recently been on a vacation to the Himalaya, so I sent her an MMS proposing to buy the one below. Her immediate response was “go for it”, but unfortunately it was neither on sale nor do my finances allow for this…
Attendance by exhibitors was lower than one year ago, some of them, such as the whole glider community, are not following the switch to a yearly event and are only attending every second year. The same is valid for some of the bigger names in the business, such as Robin or Tecnam.
Electric planes were taking more room than last year, such as the helicopter below.
I noticed a plane at the booth of Evektor, which is also being produced in Kunovice where my SportCruiser comes from. It seems one of them saw my plane when I visited Kunovice a year ago, as the paint scheme of the plane below is very close to my plane. Quite similar lines, a very similar red and what seemed exactly the same yellow stripe…
Below an ultralight which I understood was designed by a Czech university. It resembles an Aero L39, which is probably why it is called UL-39, and is powered by an impeller. Looks pretty cool, but as usual for this type of UL it has only a very limited useful load (320 kg empty weight and 475 MTOM), which raises the question what the second seat is there for. And from the video I saw it does not have a jet like sound at all, it rather sounds like a lawnmower. I read somewhere that it is powered by a 1000 cc in line motorcycle engine from BMW.
On the booth of the German vintage gilder association I saw a Schleicher KA-4 Rhönlerche, the plane with which I started my flying career in 1976.
Then there was a Glasair Sportsman on floats, powered by a jet fuel zipping Diesel engine. That’s a next project I could consider, especially as it has a really usable useful load of 450 kg / 1000 lbs and a range of 1000 nm at 122 kts (reducing the useful load to a still impressive 320 kg / 700 lbs),.
When approaching the booth of Czech Sport Aircraft we saw a poster of a modern interior, which turned out to not only be on a poster, but installed at least in a prototype. It looks pretty cool, I’m sure it’s appealing to many customers.
Even more impressive however was the prototype of a Sportcruiser variant designed for basic training, glider towing and even basic aerobatics. The prototype is currently approved for the same 630 kg as my plane, but they said they would increase the MTOM even higher. In the final version they are expecting up to maybe 700 kg, and that with only some minor modifications to the airframe. For the engine however they switched to UL Power, as the Rotax 912 is not certificated for even basic aerobatics.
On an outside booth we saw a Cessna 172 equipped with a turbine, that would be an upgrade to my SportCruiser.
Finally near the main entrance there was a large booth from Siemens, the company I am working for since more than 25 years, where they exhibited a number of electrically powered airplanes. Two of them were straight electrics, an one a hybrid. Cool stuff, I will check whether they have any vacancies for test pilots….
As usual we went to Aero by train and ferry, this time in really nice weather.
28.04.2016: Today we had another first flight of a homebuilt aircraft in Lommis, which even seemed to be of interest for a big bird, which was circling above when everyone was getting ready. It’s a “Rotmilan”, or red kite in English, with a wing span of up to 1.8 m..
Maybe that was because of the red colour, or because of the bird logo on the hood of HB-YPO, a beautiful Kitfox 7.
Below a picture of the Kitfox in front of another Kitfox 7, which had it’s first flight last year, and a Breezer, another homebuilt plane. There are now six homebuilts stationed in Lommis, a continuously increasing number.
Below Dani taxiing to Runway 24 for the first flight, obviously in good spirit.
With only little fuel and one light person the plane was probably 200 kg below MTOM, which resulted in an impressively short takeoff run.
I usually recommend pilots during first flights to remain over the airfield at maybe 4’000 ft, which is well above the approaching traffic, but in gliding distance if anything happens. Also I can observe the flight from the ground and might give some advice if needed.
Dani chose to do a first approach with a go around , but at significant height, just to get the feel for the approach….
…which was then followed by the first landing.
Of course we celebrated the successful first flight with a bottle of Champagne….