06/07.04.2018: It was time for the annual inspection and maintenance again. It went smoothly, with no issues of relevance detected. Below a picture I took before we synchronised the carburetors, for which the cowling needs to be off.
Of course I had to verify that everything was ok with a check-flight, for which the weather was perfect.
14.04.2018: Today the General Assembly of the EAS took place in Grenchen (LSZG), and as the weather was nice I decided to go there by plane. Grenchen is about an hour flight (with a SportCruiser) west of Lommis.
I was not the only one to arrive by plane, as can be seen on the pictures below.
21.04.2018: It’s time again for the Aero in Friedrichshafen, the biggest general aviation related exhibition in Europe. This year I again went to look for flight planning software, as I decided to finally switch to electronic charts. One trigger to do so was that Apple finally brought out a standard size iPad with the retina display, which is a lot better to read in sunlight conditions than the previous models. It is still not as good as the Garmin 695, but with the two of them I have a good combination, as well as redundancy.
First I however went to check how electric flying is progressing. Siemens had again a large booth, with some interesting projects being shown.
Several of them are resulting from a cooperation with Airbus, which not only covers electric taxis as the CityAirbus shown below…
…but also a research project to replace one of the engines of a BAe 146 with an electric fan.
On the lower end of the food chain they showed electric powered GA planes, charging stations…
…and also a 100 kW hybrid engine, consisting of a gasoline engine which drives a 55 kW generator, batteries and a 100 kW electric moto driving the propeller.
Other concepts for electric taxis were shown by other companies or research organisations which are less conventional, such as the flying saucer below. I wouldn’t want to climb in and out of it over the grid which covers the fans…
I then had the traditional Currywurst for lunch…
…before my usual visit to the Czech Sport Aircraft booth.
The gave the SportCruiser a facelift, with an improved interior…
…as well as the latest in Dynon avionics.
They also announced an entirely new aircraft called QuattroCruiser, a 2+2 seater powered by an UL Power i520 with 200 hp.
Over the years they have announced and shown several new planes, such as the Mermaid and the Parrot, which however never got beyond the prototype stage, so I wonder what will become out of this one.
22.04.2018: I managed to go flying today, spending two hours enjoying the scenery.
I passed Ambri (LSPM) just south of the Gotthard pass, one of the many former military airbases which are now operated by local clubs. Ambri is on my list of places to fly to, but the weather needs to be right as it is located in a narrow valley at 3’241 ft, surrounded by high mountains. It also has limited operating hours, and is sometimes closed and used for other purposes. Hard to believe that they operated jets from there, Vampires, Venoms and Hawker Hunters.
Flying at 12’000 ft I passed a paraglider, which was flying even higher…
