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:

Lola meets Ohlala

Time to see what happens when Ohlala starts flying. After that long beautiful fall day in the woods near Calden we took our new Cockerspaniel "Ohlala" for a ride in Lola. Knowing that it was bumpy, noisy and absolutely unusual we truly had expected a very nervous and uncomfortable puppy in the plane. But nothing like that. Curious and easy as if flying was the only thing Ohlala ever did, she enjoyed that short ride into the cold November day. Our new family member earned her first Wings. Approved for further take-offs!

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 ...

Bye, bye Tempelhof

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One of the great accomplishments of modern, urban cities is their infrastructure. Thousands of business travellers or tourists come for short or long term visits.
So did we on Tuesday morning to Berlin. A meeting that took place at 3pm, the preparation in the morning in Kassel 400 Km away and back to our families in the afternoon. That is only doable with general aviation AND infrastructure. From Kassel to Tempelhof in 1:10 h. From Tempelhof to the meeting in 0:30 h so less than 2h from the office in Kassel to the meeting in Berlin.

So if anybody knows why this great piece of infrastructure in Berlin will be closed shortly, please advice!!

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!

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.

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 :-)

San Anna in Camprena

So, what do you do when being on a trip? Some people sit in the sun, others keep them busy reading or doing sports... Joerg and I decided to organise - for ourselves - a dead reckoning geo-cache. Whatisthat!?!

Take Lola, put off the gps (who did not want anyway) and start looking with the help of a map, mountains, a highway and a river for San Anna di Camprena - a Roman church in the middle of nowhere...

An amazing flight over the Tuscan countryside, overflying lakes, turning 360 degrees over wonderful small villages and chatting away with the Italians in the control towers...but San Anna de Camprena? We think it does not exist...

But we like to challenge you to find it :-)