Cool dogs in sunny weather

End of February. Time to take Lola and the whole flight crew to Bad Vöslau, 20km south of Vienna. On that beautiful 3h trip our fly-dog Ohlala enjoyed the humm of the engines more than the view, which was after the initial climb in IMC just amazing. Lola runs so perfect these days that I almost wanted to publish the engine data with all the CHT and EGT curves...but figuered that I would bore most people with that :-)

For Twinco flyers: I usually fly 2450 rpm with 24'' in FL90, which costs roughly 8gph per side and brings a nice 160 knots true cruise (55%). This time I tried to 2450 RPM with 26'', cowl flaps open, 9.5 gph and 180 kts true (65%).

The flight was exactly 3h.

Hmm...wait:
3h * (2*9.5) = 57 gallons in total with 65% or
3.5h * (2*8) = 56 gallons with 55%.

Sweet. Saved 30minutes for nearly free.

A word about vienna taxi drivers. Don't trust them. Ensure (and I mean ensure!) that they know where they are going. On the way back we went to Schwechat since the driver denied the existence of an airport in Bad Vöslau...

A short movie from the cockpit in flight:






Some impressions:

Direct Bamsu to avoid

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After a very intense weather check we took off into the UK Sky, knowing that it'll be a bit bumpy in the Benelux. Since Kassel is at the same latitude as Blackbushe and seeing the radar image we needed just a heading of 090 to be fine, but our routing went via LNO which was in the middle of the activity. A simple "Request direct Bamsu to avoid" in the vicinity of Koksijde (Belgium Coast) simplified the routing and cleared us well of the "Charlie Browns". Nice flight. 2:50 from Breakfast at Tamsin's house to Coffee at Ollie's :-)


Tamsin and her parents, Kathleen and John, also met Lola for the first time. Clearly this kid likes airplanes, so I promised to take them on a sightseeing flight the next time we will revisit again.

As for the moment the shadow of Lola was just fine.

Grandfather's Land

One of my ancestors is from Belgium, but we only discovered that lately. So Annelies and I took Lola for a ride to Grandpa's land :-) Smooth. Nice. A very warm welcome from a guy in EBLG (Liège) who flies Twincos in the flightsimulator and an easy transition to nearby brussels made it a super summer weekend trip. Let's see what else the weekend has in place for us ...

On the Rocks

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A normal business day. A meeting in Dresden. So sure we'd take Lola for a day trip there. 30 Kts wind from the West and icing in FL 90. Enough to make some whiskey on the rocks out of it, so time for a complete de-ice test: windshield, props, boots. Nice. All worked. Great Job Jan!

Heading South

Ibiza. Known for Sun & Fun, hot beaches and cool drinks. Most of the people who go there get into their T-shirts, Flip Flops and take a cheap direct flight.

Another way of going there is with Lola, Henrik, Peter and Michael, heavy guys and luggage and not enough fuel to make it direct from Kassel. So a planned fuel stop in Montpelier sounded easy and convenient. Until you meet french "officials". In perfect "we ignore any other language than french" and we want to see "douane papers" that the VAT for the plane was paid 10 years ago and bla, bla ... Lola was grounded for some hours until the papers were sent from Germany by fax.

Anyway, Ibiza was obviously nice with, Lola ran well and who needs Turbos anyhow :-)

Upper left corner

... on the map of Germany is Langeoog. A tiny, quiet Island in the North Sea. No cars allowed. Just northern "Über-Gemütlichkeit". Henrik made those pictures on that beautiful day.

A few good men ...

With a Twin Comanche to Argentinia.

How many people fly into vacation?
Well many. Germany´s tourism industry employs 10% of all employees of Germany. Mainly Europe, but also far east. Far and easy. With Condor, Tui or many other airlines. A video, some cookies, a book, breakfast before the landing. Easy.

Ok than. How many fly themself? ca. 50,000 in Germany. How many of them have flown into their own holidays into another country? My guestimate is 10% of all pilots flying. Makes 5,000.

How many of own pilots have been flying across the Atlantic? (Ok, you Lufhansa pilots - you don´t count here). My guestimate is 10% of the 10% of all pilots flying. Makes 500 in total or 0,0006 % of the population of my home country.

Pilot und Flugzeug organizes every year spectacular readers tours. This year to south america, than north toward the USA and via the northern Atlantic back to Europe. With a few good men, a mission and lots of adventurous spirit. Breakfast before the landing? Well, read the full story:



http://www.pilotundflugzeug.de/artikel/2007-09-26/Leserreise_2007

Ground-to-air

A word on fuel pumps: Mechanical fuel pumps seem to be a source for many problems. I had a completely wrong one installed on my RH engine ... turning in the wrong direction. And if the mechanical fuel pump still works, the fail-open valve don´t go and so your boost pump is nice for making noise but useless when it comes to a half working mechanical fuel pump...

But it was quite an "opening" for Lola. Almost everything that was associated with "fuel" got replaced. Bladders, Pumps, Hoses ... it took Jan and the other folks from Piper quite a while but they did a magnificent job. Congrats, Lola fly´s beautiful now!! In fact I never had such smooth humm of the engines before ... sounds like one but performes like two :-)