03.05.2016: I flew to Prague today, and then via Frankfurt to Torino in Italy, again a lot of flying hours…
04.05.2016: I flew back from Torino to Zurich via Munich, this time in daylight. I had around an hour to wait at the airport, and took the chance to take some pictures from the perfectly located lounge.
Torino airport if home of a major plant from Finmeccanica , whose aviation arm has recently been renamed Leonardo, probably in honour of Leonardo Da Vinci. From what it looked like they are doing maintenance there on both transport airplanes and jets.
There was a surprising number of business jets taking off, from what one can deduce that Torino lies in a fairly wealthy part of Italy.
But they also seem to have a heart for general aviation pilots, I saw quite some single engine planes landing and taking off. I checked the landing fees on the internet, they seem pretty reasonable.
My plane to Munch is landing, I’m flying with Air Dolomiti.
When taxiing to the runway I noticed a DC-3, marked as Linee Aeree Italiane. This airline was founded in 1946 in Rome, and integrated into Alitalia in 1957.
Below a look back at Torino airport.
06.05.2016:
I decided to go flying this morning before going to work, I just couldn’t resist the great weather. Then Dani, the Kitfox “driver” called me as his test-flight to determine vx and vy was next in the sequence of flight testing. He could not find an assistant to write down all the figures, and also to serve as ballast as these flights have to be performed near max takeoff weight. I of course volunteered, so we agreed I would go flying with my plane at 7:30 and then join him around 9, skipping work for the day…
The picture below shows why I love flying early in the morning. The air is calm, visibility excellent and usually there are also no other planes in the air.
I did my usual tour over the alps, just flying quite high (around 12’000 ft) and enjoying the peaceful atmosphere.
When returning back towards Lommis I passed the Säntis,..
…where I noticed a lonely skier, shown in the centre of the picture below.
Flying overhead Lommis I could already see the Kitfox being prepared by Dani, who was eager to do his test flight.
Now to the test flights. To determine vx and vy one has to perform a number of climbing sequences, each one lasting 10 minutes. Each sequence starts from as low as practically and legally possible to whatever altitude reached in the 10 minutes climb, maintaining a constant speed. The speed is increased from sequence to sequence by 5 kts, starting from near stall to clearly above the expected vy, so e.g. with 50 kts, 55 kts … up to e.g. 70 kts. During each climb the assistant has to write down every minute the altitude and the outside temperature.
Belwo a shot from the cockpit of HB-YPO,…
…and one into the cockpit, proving that test flying is a serious business.
The results of these test flight are sent to the EAS evaluator, which determines vx and vy speeds corrected to standard atmosphere, max take off weight etc. The result is then a graph as shown below, with the two resulting speeds to be added to the operating handbook of the plane.
07.05.2016: The plan for today was to fly to Raron for the spring fly-in of our Experimental Aviation Association, but the weather made it finally impossible to reach Raron, which is in the Wallis valley in the middle of the alps.
When we took off the weather still looked quite nice, but the clouds covering parts or the alps where already visible.
The closer we got the clearer we saw that the central alps were all covered with a solid layer of clouds, as predicted in the weather forecast…
….with only the highest peaks sticking out.
Below what should be Jungfrau Joch, the passage between Eiger and Jungfrau, with clouds spilling over from the south.
An it looked the same when we were flying further west, or east where we came from. There might have been a chance to fly low level into the Wallis from the western end of the valley near Lake of Geneva, but we had to be back in Lommis in the evening, so we discarded that option and decided to return back home…
…after a turn around the restaurant on the Schilthorn / Piz Gloria, the location of one of the oldest Bond films.
10.05.2016: I had to go to Genoa for two days, flying to/from Milano and driving from there by car. The weather was not too nice, as can be seen on the picture below taken during the flight back home over the alps to Zurich.
12.05.2016: I had to go to Braunschweig today, flying to/from Hanover. On the way back to the airport I passed a van with a commercial for Breezer aircraft, a plane that was on my list of possible kits.
