Liberation Flight

Man, what a loooong time it takes, for my license to arrive! Actually it's not that much, but those couple of weeks feel like half a year! But, upon returning from a weekend away, I found it on the mat on May 1st.

Of course, my first licensed flight would be one with my wife, Petra. She had flown with me on my very first lesson, in 2011 in a C172. At the time she was a bit nervous about the whole flying such a small airplane, and that had not changed since. So we were about to finde out if she would like flying, or maybe have grown a fear of flying in the mean time...

Exam Preparation

In preparation for my practical exam, it was needed to plan some cross-country flights. "The real deal", including Nav plan, course-time keeping, fuel calculations, that sort of thing. Even calculating with True Air Speed (TAS), if that only makes a difference of one knot at 1500 ft under near-ISA (International Standard Atmosphere) conditions (you do the math ;) )

So said, so done. Planned some flights to Dinslaken (Germany), Maastricht-Aachen (Beek), Rotterdam, Münster/Osnabrück (Germany again). Below is a report on what came true of that...

Centennial Landing

As my booking for March 3rd was cancelled (weather, again...), and my next booking was only at the 18th, and my instructor had previously indicated to be available at the weekend of March 7th and 8th, I decided to put a backup reservation in the system for the second half of the afternoon. A backup, because two of my flying buddies had reserved the plane for a trip across the Channel, to Biggin Hill, and back the next day. Should their flight be cancelled (due to bad weather on Saturday, or on the other side of the Channel, e.g.), then I would have first dibbs for the plane. Now, the weather promised to become steady, beautiful spring weather, just about at that weekend. So it was just about WHEN the weather was going to improve. In time for my friends to go make their trip, or in time for MY flight, or only after the weekend...
It soon became clear that the weather improvement would come well before the weekend. So they went ahead, and made their flights. It was their fourth attempt already. Three times before, thay had to cancel due to bad weather, or uncertainty about the weather on the second day. So, good for them! Less good for me, because now my flight would not go through ... or would it ...
Itso became that there was a stong south-westely wind, which made them go really, really slow on the way to Biggin Hill. It took about an hour longer than planned to get there. As the wind remained over the weekend, the return journey ook much less time than foreseen :) Also, because of ground fog at their half-way stop Le Touquet (France), they decided to make it straight back to Lelystad. It ended up being only a 2 hour flight! That meant (and luckily they kept me in the loop) that they would be back on the field around noon. And that, again, meant that I could go do my flight that afternoon!
When I arrived at the club at 1:00LT, she was alreday sitting out on the platform, waiting for me :)

(foto: Piet de Hondt)

Back in the Air

After a three month "break" due to a shoulder injury, I finally got to crawl back into the cockpit again. That's a long time, soo flying took a bit of getting used to, all over again!

Hoogvliegersdag Lelystad 2014

Busy times, with practical RT (Radio Telephony - talking to the tower) on Tuesday evenings, and still my theory course (one more lesson Meteorology, then Human Performance and Limitations) on Thursdays, plus the occasional flying lesson in between. I really hope to gt through these two exams OK, that'll leave only one - Air Law... RT takes a bit of preparation, but especially lots of practice, so that takes time as well.

Still, I wanted to be a volunteer again at the annual "Hoogvliegersdag" at my home field, Lelystad airport. That's a day, organised by the Hoogvliegers foundation, during which chronically ill or disabled children get to be a pilot for a day. They are antertained thoughout the day, and at some moment during the day, they get to fly in a real airplane. If their illnes or handicap allows it, they even get to steer the plane around a bit! That way, those children forget all their troubles for a day, and get to be a child again :)

Human Performance and Limitations

Every aviation incident has Human Factors as at least one of their root causes. So a lot of research has been put in that subject over the last few decades. Human Performance on the one side, but espacially the limitations. Man was not meant to fly, so we are taking man out of their natural environment, yet still expect them to perform above and beyond what is expected "on the ground". One of those limitations is the amount of information that can be processed. It has been demonstrated that the human brain, when overloaded with information, goes into "survival mode", where only the information that is perceived as essential for survival is processed, and the remainder is "parked" in short term memory, only to be collected again after the essential information pool is processed. Short Term memory has a limited shelf life, so it is well possible that information that is not perceived as essential, is not processed at all.
Now this is all well and understandable, but how does that affect me, the (student) pilot? Surely this will be applicable in a crisis situation, but even then ... I know what to do when things go wrong, so it won't happen to me, right?. Well, I can tell you this: you're WRONG!!!

$100 mussels

The $ 100 burger is a phenomenon well known in the U.S. General Aviation . It has its origins in the search for a destination to fly to. Lacking a "real" reason to go anywhere , a trip to a distant restaurant obviously is a good excuse to have some air flow under the wings.
As a variant of this , I found the mussel fly-in on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Aeroclub Zeeland a good reason to book the Aquila. This time with Piet de Hondt as an instructor and thus my first flying lesson in "my own" air plane was booked :)
For me, so no $ 100 Hamburger, but mussels , this time !

And : this time the bad weather came only a day later , so I've actually flown my first flying lesson in the Aquila!

Static Line

So, what do you do when you don't have the money to start flightschool just yet? You save up, of course! And in the mean time, you do all sorts of other flight-related stuff.

I started to study PPL theory from the books I got for my last birthday (thanks again, everybody!). I also enrolled in a scientific experiment that involves a full-motion Flight Simulator... I visit the social evenings at KLM Aeroclub as much as possible, like the other day with a lecture on meteorology. I'll write about these things during the time I need to get my finances in order, but what I wanted to write about today, is a foundation called "Stichting Hoogvliegers". That would translate to "Highflyers Foundation".
Stichting Hoogvliegers defined their goal as "to make (chronically or terminally) ill, or (physically or mentally) challenged children (age 6 through 16) pilot for one day". They do that by organising flights for individual children, and their accompanists, and group days with flights for 50 to 100 childeren. These flights and days are organised at all airports in the Netherlands (including Schiphol!). April 6th, a group day was organised at Lelystad Airport, hosted by KLM Aeroclub. So I quickly enrolled as volunteer for this day.

Below, a report of my experiences that day.

She fits! :)

KLQ has been delivrered :) As I could not be there during the actual delivery, I went to see her at the first opportunity, of course. To fit!

Delivery !!!

The 6th of November, a three hour flight took "my" Aquila from the factory in Schönhagen (Berlin) to her new home, KLM Aeroclub in Lelystad!

 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to witness the "homecoming" myself, because I was abroad at the time. Hence the delay in writing this repport. Many of you will probably have seen the pictures in other media already, but that does not hold me from writing a piece on this milestone myself, of course :)

Aquila day is coming ...

Today, the 22nd of October, was the originally planned delivery date of the Aquila. For a bit, it looked like delivery could take place even weeks before, but some red tape prevented that quite efficiently. But now, it's all set: the airplane has her Dutch registration finalised as PH-KLQ, she's paid for (largely), and the last stand-by instruments have been assembled into the cockpit. All that is needed now is two days of good weather (VMC, Visual Meteorological Conditions; required for Visual Flight Rules (VFR) based flight) at days that fit the schedule of the ferry crew. The crew (representatives of corporation Vuelo, and KLM Aeroclub) will fly to Schönhagen, fly an acceptance flight with the new plane, place the decisive signature, and ferry the plane back to her new home base, Lelystad Airport.
Last Friday and Saturday was the first try already, but the weather forecast over the weekend looked bad. 7000m sight is marginal, but ceilings ranging from 2000 to 700 ftAMSL (above mean sea level) are too marginal, up to outright illegal for VFR flight. The chance that the men would not be able to appear at work on Monday was just too big, so this attempt was cancelled. I just can't wait for the next occasion where weather meets calendars ...

Ready for delivery...
foto (c) and courtesy of: Stu Carr

Almost there

Saturday the 25th, was the day that the maiden flight of our new plane would take place. Unfortunately, the weather was not good enough to fly, so that flight was postponed. And of course, that also meant the the weather was too bad for us to fly to the factory as well :(

Weatheralert Saturday morning 0900 (exactly the planned departure time)

Orbifly map: Light Green = VMC, Dark Green = Marginal VMC, orange = IMC, rood = intensive IMC, Dark Red very intensive IMC (like just belowr Berlijn...)

Aquila is being built!

In anticipation of our pending visit, the Aquila importer sent us some pictures of the current state of "our" aircraft as it is being built. Or actually it is the state of two weeks ago, as I just returned from a holiday.

  

I can't wait for these two weeks to be over!

We'll depart Lelystad as early as possible on the 25th, with two airplanes, totalling 6 people. The 7th, Peter Eier, will stick some days in Berlin to this factory visist, so he will travel by commercial airliner.  Way to go Peter!

We'll probably do a stopover in Porta Westfalica, or Hildesheim (or one on the trip towards Schönhagen, the other on the return trip). That way, we reduce the flight time per leg from 3 to about 1 1/2 hour, we get to change seats, and possibly put the 2 non-licenced people in the left seat (read: take a flying lesson), each for one leg ...
We are still mailing back and forth to finalise everything, but all but one managed to book a room at the Park Inn hotel at Alexanderplatz, so that promises a nice night in Berlin as well :)

We'll fly back to Lelystad on the 26th, and then I can start organising my pictures. I expect to take more than 10 ... ;) So don't go expecting a full report on the 27th, but do expect one in due time.

Dotting some "i"s

On Thursday, the 11th of April, KLM Aeroclub had organised the first "shareholders meeting" for the Aquila A210 share holders. Now that the minimum number of share holders is reached, it is time to set up the cooperation, and that takes some formalities. There needs to be a board, and a constitution. The corporation will order the plane, so it must be decided exactly what to order (colour, equipment, registration, etc.)

It giet ôan

"It goes on", as they say in Friesland
Yesss!

The minimum number of 40 shareholders was reached, so now the corporation can be officially founded, and the Aquila can be ordered!

This winglet is mine!

On April 1st (the end date of the initial agreement), pretty precisely 40 shares were sold. That leaves about 10 more shares to be potentially available, as the maximum is set to 50. Now, with 40 shares, there is enough money to place the order for the airplane. Until the final payment is due, there is still some time for up to 10 new shareholders to join. But even if it stays at 40 shareholders, the deal is on. More shareholders would mean a lower share price, (with a proportionally lower profit).
Founding the corporation, drawing up agreements, ordering the plane, it will all take a little time. With a delivery time of the airplane of about three months, somewhere around the end of July, beginning of August, the KLM Aeorclub fleet will grow by ine two-seater. An I will "co-own" 2 to 2.5% of that one! :)

Demo Day

Saturday the 10th of March, KLM Aeroclub held an Aquila demo day for which a couple of FIs provided their services for free. So at a couple of tenners per hour less cost, it was extra interesting to come and try out the A210, this weekend.
I went too, despite the fact that  already signed the agreement, and did the downpayment. For me, this day was more about socialising, and of course about the progress in finding the necessary participants. Also, I wanted to have some pictures of the already third demonstrator for the club. After the D-EWTF, another one has come and gone already. Now it was F-HARN's turn to complete the club's fleet.

The Aquilla also a very interesting business investment...

I am a technician, so I usually don't endeavour on the economical path. But this is an open door I would like to kick in anyway:

The shared ownership construction with the Aquila of KLM Aeroclub is also very interesting as a business investment opportunity. Even if the business does not appoint a pilot that can fly at a reduced rate. The expected ROI is 10%! 

Almost Aquila

I seem to hold a patent for planning flights when there is bad weather. Today, I had planned a lesson in the KLM Aeroclub Aquila A210, but the weather would not cooperate. Fat too mch wind, some rain (not necessarily a problem), hail, and thunder (definitely a show-stopper). Plus a cloud base that would be too low from time to time...

Aquilla ferry flight

Besides flying the Diamond DA-20, I had another little adventure that Wednesday the 16th of November: I met the KLM Aeroclub Aquila A210 demonstrator! :)






The Aquila was supposed to be ferried in over the weekend before, but local weather grounded the plane. Two men (Emile and Melvin) had traveled to the south of Germany to collect the plane, and fly her back to Lelystad...

Diamonds are forever

Wedenesdday, November 16th, the day was finally there. After having had to postpone it a couple of times for various reasons, I had an appointment with Wouter Nagel to go fly a Diamond DA-20 Katana. He has a share with Katana Flyers (and it's for sdale ;) ) just like I am considering. So this would be a nice opportunity to get to know both the airplane, and the organisation.

Wouter doing the paperwork of the PH-FLK

Wouter had booked the PH-FLK for the entire day, so the idea was to do an overland to a field just accross the border in Germany or Belgium. Unfortunately, the weathergods were (again) not very favourable...