Flying Competition at Warnervale

I recently participated in a flying competition organised by the club at Warnervale aerodrome. Another pilot had already put his hand up for ferrying the Warrior from Bankstown for the day, so I decided to drive instead, Warnervale being about an hour drive north of Sydney. And since the weather forecast was good and we had not explored that corner of New South Wales yet, Nina and I decided to make a day trip out of it.

We drove from Sydney and crossed the Hawkesbury River at Brooklyn Bridge. Not to be confused with the bridge of the same name in New York City. The area seems to have more than a coincidental relationship with the Big Apple since the bridge itself was built by American contractors, and the suburb across the river is called Long Island.

Brooklyn Bridge happens to be the entry point for the Bankstown GA Lane southbound. The lane is a north-south corridor of Class G airspace squeezed in-between the Richmond RAAF base to the west and the Sydney CTR to the east. The lane has an upper limit of 2500 ft.

Warnervale aerodrome is very easy too find, just a couple of kilometers off the motorway. It's one of those typical country aerodromes. What's also unfortunately typical about it is that it's soon going to be closed down under the pressure of property developers. A sign on the wall in the clubhouse seemed to indicate that the flying activities will be relocated to Aeropelican, about 15 nautical miles to the North-East.

Because there was a suspected problem with the starter motor on VH-IJK, we didn't stop the engine in-between competitors. Lindsay, the instructor, would stand on the wing while pilots swapped places. I have to say I love the idea of just sitting down in the airplane, fastening the seat belt and pushing the throttle forward. Feels just like driving a flying car.

We taxied to the run-up bay and then down a dirt track to the holding point where we decided to take-off immediately rather than wait for the aircraft on base to land. As I lined up I was shocked at how narrow the runway was. It really looked like we had taken the wrong turn down a local farmer's driveway. The irreplaceable Google Earth told me later that the runway is about 8 metres wide, compared to 18 at Redcliffe or 30 metres at Bankstown.

At 400 feet Lindsay took over while I put on the hood. Then she got me to do some climbing turns, straight climbs and straight and level flying under the hood. At the stage we were about 3000 feet. Lindsay briefly took over to put the aircraft into an unusual attitude (a spiral dive) from which I had to recover on instruments. Throttle back smoothly, wings level, pull the yoke back without stalling and recover.

Next was a simulated forced landing without power. Throttle to idle, carby heat, mixture, fuel, capture and trim for glide attitude. Finding where to land was not too hard since we were right overhead the aerodrome. I had plenty of altitude to expend before landing so I brought the flaps in early and we touched down not too far from the threshold. Full power and one more circuit, this time for a precision landing.

My precision landing was anything but precise. The only precise thing about it is the height above the runway I maintained while floating for a long long time. My approach was actually good, but soon after I turned final I got a bit spooked by the line of trees that seemed very close to the approach path. I added a bit of power and pulled the nose up to give myself more clearance over the trees, and as a consequence I ended up way too fast on short final, probably 10 or 15 knots too fast. All this energy had to go somewhere hence the long float. We taxied back on a muddy dirt taxiway this time, with one main wheel skidding in the mud.

I checked my score with John who was organising the whole event and realised that this time around I wouldn't make it into the top three. Last time was probably a fluke, cause by people not wanting to get up too early on a Sunday.

We then drove to Toukley and went for a walk on the local beach. We came across the cutest sand castle ever, played fetch with a local dog for a little while and enjoyed the end of the afternoon while a 152 was performing airwork above our heads.

Just round the corner we climbed up the stairs to the Norah Head lighthouse. According to this web site maintained by lighthouse nerds, this lighthouse shares a similar design with its two other NSW siblings at Cape Byron and Point Perpendicular (you have to love the name). Lighthouses tend themselves quite well to aerial photography, and the three of them could be covered in a day's flight... here's an idea for a Sunday flight with a difference.

It's been a hard day's night flying session

Remember how I said in my previous post that I loved the idea of flying at night on weekdays because it freed me from having to take time off work or planning my week-ends around flying lessons? Well, I just came across a huge downside of this nice little theory: after a full day at work, it is very, very hard to empty your mind, restore energy levels and focus on the flying. As a result, my first night flying lesson was very, very messy and I was quite upset with that.

I met my instructor Ben in the clubhouse and we started with a quick whiteboard briefing about taxiway and runway lighting and how night circuits are flown differently from daytime circuits.

Because I had forgotten my torchlight at home, I had to borrow Ben's for preflighting the aircraft. The pre-flight visit is essentially the same as in daylight, with the addition of landing and navigation lights. I noticed that the landing light was not working. That's the light right at the front of the aircraft, below the engine air intake, the one that's used for lighting up the runway on take-off and landing at night. Can't really go without it at night. Ben said we could use the other landing light instead, the one situated near the middle of the leading edge of the right wing. Problem solved.

The aircraft on that night was VH-IJK, the oldest Warrior in the club's fleet. It could definitely do with a new interior trim, but that didn't bother me much in the dark. Before startup, Ben showed me how to use the panel lighting. Unfortunately, the row of switches is not lit up, and I had to be extra careful not to switch the electrical master off when going for the fuel pump switch.

We taxied to 11C and Ben reminded me to perform taxi checks when turning. Keeping the nose wheel on the taxiway centerline was quite hard because the light was coming from the side and not all yellow taxi lines at Bankstown have green lights down the middle. Ben explained that one common mistake is to taxi too fast at night because the pilot has less cues in his field of vision for gauging speed. The trick is to look in the general direction of the wingtip to get a better idea of how fast we are going.

The circuit was already full, with five or six aircraft practicing night circuits. The tower told us to expect a delay and that we would not be cleared before an airplane currently in the circuit makes a full-stop landing. We shut down everything and agreed with the tower controller that he would shine a torchlight at us when he wanted us to start up and talk to him again. The light eventually came and we lined up for a session of about 7 or 8 circuits.

Maintaining the runway centerline on take-off is hard without a front landing light, so I concentrated instead on keeping the picture drawn by the runway side lights and the distant threshold symmetrical while accelerating to take-off speed. The upwind section of the climb is done on instruments up to 500 feet. Wings level, maintain best rate of climb speed with the airspeed indicator and maintain runway heading with the DG. And keep that instrument scan going.

On crosswind when the opposite threshold is about 45 degrees behind us I turn downwind, make my downwind call, BUMFHH checks and try to maintain the runway about one third of the way down from the wingtip. Same story with the other threshold before turning base. Ben explained that the trick for knowing when to turn final is to watch for when the first runway side light on the near side aligns with the third light on the far side. This worked quite well, but I always ended up too high on final. Ben identified the source of the problem as me not flying a square base, but rather having the base leg point toward the threshold, thereby giving myself less time for descending.

A few times when I ended up too high on the glideslope I managed to recapture the correct approach profile (2 red lights and 2 white lights on the PAPI), only to go too high again on late final. Ben insisted that I do not push the nose down below 300 feet to recapture the perfect glideslope otherwise I'll end up touching nose wheel first: if it's too high, just accept it and fly it. 300 feet is also the magical number for the altitude where I more often than not forgot to turn carby heat off. Not good.

On one circuit Ben asked the tower to switch the PAPI lights off, which lead to a good landing actually. Flare and touchdown require a bit of a leap of faith at night though. We tried without the landing light, which worked well too. Having the lights off forces the pilot to concentrate on the picture of the whole runway rather than the beam of light from the landing light.

On one circuit we had a rescue helicopter join the circuit on final from Prospect when we were on downwind. That's because, as per the ERSA, helicopters at Bankstown must use fixed-wing procedures at night. The tower advised us of possible wake turbulence and I extended downwind to allow more time for the turbulence to dissipate. Not that it helped anyway. I was on short final when the aircraft suddenly rolled to the left. Very similar story to what happened to Chris recently. Right rudder, full power and we went around. I forgot to retract the flaps though and it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to find out why I wasn't climbing as well as in the previous circuits. That and leaving carby heat on are really the kind of beginner's mistakes that make me very upset with myself. Power up, nose up, clean up and speak up. It's not that hard.

Because of our late start we were alone in the circuit when the tower shut down and the control zone reverted to a CTAF. We did one more circuit and taxied back to the club house. We had a debrief where we went through the list of things that could have been done better. Ben gave me a copy of the Night Rating syllabus so that I know what's coming up. We booked two circuits sessions for next week, any one of which can be converted to a simulator session should the weather be less than ideal.

Very attractive the dark side of flying is

A month ago I took advantage of a social event organised by the club to go flying at night for the first time. Three pilots and one instructor in a Warrior, $100 for three circuits, a great way to discover how vastly different things are at night. Not only different, but also exciting, challenging, and ultimately rewarding. Which pretty much sums up why I fly.

I took me an hour to drive to Bankstown from work through Friday afternoon traffic, only to run into airspace congestion once airborne. And that's with us starting quickly, hoping to beat the "Bank Runners", i.e. the swarm of aircraft, most of them cargo, landing and taking-off at YSBK when night falls.

We were only half-successful at that: I was in my second circuit when the tower requested we make the next landing a full stop. Danial, our instructor and the club's Deputy CFI, quickly came up with a Plan B: we swapped pilots on the ground and departed for Camden to give the other two pilots an opportunity to fly. So I only flew two circuits instead of three, but on the other hand I could experience a short cross-country flight at night, albeit from the back seat.

Saying that things are very different at night is a big understatement. Take-off attitude, for example, is set using the Artificial Horizon (about 10 degrees of pitch) rather than using familiar references outside the cockpit, such as where the horizon intersects the nose cowling. It's an interesting mix of visual flying and instrument flying techniques.

In the circuit, I realised that all the familiar reference points on the ground are gone. No more big green shed, railway tracks, racecourse or farm. Positioning in the circuit is done by reference to the runway, which thankfully is very well lit up. This is of course the way flying a circuit should always be done, even during the day, since it makes life a lot easier when visiting unfamiliar airfields. But we are only humans, and humans like creating cognitive shortcuts in familiar environments. So I was a bit lost, and consequently very thankful for Danial's guidance.

We were using runway 11C, which is the default runway at night. The photo above was taken as we were waiting at the holding point for the aircraft that looks like a white and red worm to land. Apologies for the quality of the photos by the way. Taken with a five-year-old point-and-shoot camera from the back seat at night in a vibrating airplane, I didn't stand much chance of a sharp shot. The big bright rectangle in the other two photos is the screen of the Garmin 430 GPS unit.

Each time we turned final, the PAPI lights would help us establish the correct angle of descent. Judging height over the runway at night is hard, so we flare by putting the nose on the horizon and then wait for things to happen. Which works amazingly well. My two landings were very good, much to my amazement and delight. Must be beginner's luck.

One thing that really threw me off was identifying gauges on the panel. I didn't expect that. This may be due to my lack of familiarity with the Warrior, having only a dozen hours in the type. The 6-pack of instruments didn't pose a problem, but it's really with the engine instruments that I struggled. Which one is oil temp, which one is oil pressure? Is the needle really in the green? Green at night is not the same as daylight green. Sloppy daylight flying habits sure come out at night to bite you!

One funny thing about this night is that a couple of weeks later I stumbled upon Chris's blog and found a post about that very same night flying session. Chris also flies at Schofields and went flying on that same night but in a different airplane and probably at a different time, which is why we didn't meet then. I left a comment on the post and Chris reciprocated. Hopefully we'll manage to catch up at the club one of those days, or even go flying together if my blog posts have not managed to scare him.

In conclusion, everything is harder at night, which translates into more demanding flying, which is good. I can officially say now that I am hooked, and my goal is to complete a Night Rating before Daylight Saving Time kicks back in on October 4th. On October 3rd last light will be 6:24PM, which fits perfectly with the 6:30PM - 8:30PM flying slot. But on October 4th though last light will be 7:25PM, which is getting late, especially for the night cross-country flights or the final flight test.

First lesson planned for tomorrow with Ben. And I won't even have to take time off or fly on week-ends: just like me Ben has a day job, and weekday evenings seem to suit him best. That will also be my first time using a simulator for training since the 4 hours that relate to navaids and instrument flying are done in the club's Elite AT-21 Airtrainer. One more thing to look forward to! In addition to experiencing the power of the dark side of course.

First $100 burger at Wollongong airport

The $100 burger is a concept of mythical dimensions in aviation. I had come across it many times on other people's blogs, but never had a chance to perform the ritual myself. During my PPL training I had a $800 sub once on a long cross-country solo, but no $100 burger. I'm happy to report that since last week-end this gap in my aviation culture is a thing of the past.

The $100 burger refers to the cost of flying somewhere away from the home base for the sole purpose of eating a burger, and then flying back. This is as good an excuse as any other one to go flying. Taken more broadly, it is the acknowledgment that real good reasons to go flying are scarce compared to how often we feel the itch, hence creativity and rationalisation are required.

I had booked a Warrior for Saturday, and I didn't have too much trouble convincing my friends Ingo and Marcus to join the adventure. The plan was to fly out of Bankstown northbound, do a few orbits over Sydney Harbour, fly Victor One southbound and land at Wollongong to have a burger at the Aviator Lounge, and then fly back to Bankstown after lunch.

Looking at the weather forecast on Friday evening I decided to postpone the flight till Sunday. There were quite a few things I was not too happy with, starting with the very strong westerly winds:

WIND:
2000     5000     7000     10000
250/35   250/45   250/50   260/55

35 knots at 2000ft and 45 knots at 5000ft. With a cruise airspeed of 105 knots in the Warrior, this translates to a miserly 60 knots ground speed on the way back to Bankstown. Barely faster than the cars below on the M5. Strong winds aloft are surely a nuisance, but not necessarily a safety problem unless they come with turbulence. Which takes us to the next section of the area forecast:

TURBULENCE:
OCNL SEV BLW 10000FT ON/LEE OF RANGES GRADUALLY EASING.
MOD REMAINDER BLW 8000FT GRADUALLY EASING.

Westerlies blowing over the ranges create this "occasionally severe" turbulence as the wind tumbles down the hills. This is particularly bad in Wollongong since the city is built in a natural amphitheatre with very sharp cliffs to the west, as can be seen in the picture above. This makes for dramatic views from the airport, but also dramatic aerodrome forecasts:

WOLLONGONG (YWOL)
TAF YWOL 151827Z 1520/1608
27025G41KT CAVOK
BECMG 1522/1524 24015G25KT 9999 FEW045
RMK FM152000 MOD/SEV TURB BLW 5000FT TILL 152400
FM152400 MOD TURB BLW 5000FT

Wind at 25 knots with gusts up to 41 knots? And moderate to severe turbulence below 5000ft? I don't think so. I would be nervous taxiing in such conditions, let alone landing or taking off. Crosswind in these conditions is a major problem for the main 16/34 runway, and a smaller problem for runway 08/26. However, given my low time on this aircraft type, little of which includes crosswind landings, I wasn't keen to chance it. The decision to postpone was easy to take, and my passengers were more than happy to fly on a calmer day.


The forecast was for conditions to improve overnight, and Sunday was indeed a beautiful VFR flying day. All the Warriors were booked so we took VH-NRF, a Piper Archer instead.

We took off from Bankstown on 29R flew north to Patonga and then to Long Reef. Approaching Long Reef I requested a clearance for a Harbour Scenic One procedure, which was granted and led to dozens of glorious digital photographs being taken. I particularly like the photo of Barrenjoey Head below, with the left wing flap and the reflection of the sun over the top of the stabilator.


We exited Victor One then climbed and tracked south to Wollongong. I knew from other airplanes on the CTAF frequency that runway 34 was being used. I overflew the airfield anyway to have a look at the windsock. It seemed to point at the threshold of runway 16, but with very little wind in it I decided to do like everyone else and joined crosswind for 34.


My first circuit was really tight and of course I ended up too high on final. I thought about sideslipping my way down for an instant but decided against it, out of consideration for safety, comfort, and the eardrums of everyone onboard.

The second circuit was a lot better, mainly because I was following another airplane which seemed to know his way around the place. I extended downwind all the way to the hills south of the airfield, and when I turned final the picture in the windscreen looked much more normal than on my first attempt. Landing was good, although I held the nose up a bit too much and soon after the stall warning horn went off we fell onto the runway from an altitude of about one foot.

The burger and fries at the Aviator Lounge didn't disappoint, which is what you expect from a $14.50 burger really. It was fresh and delicious, and came with the obligatory two slices of beetroot.

After lunch we took off on 34. A Seminole was performing a GPS approach to Runway 16, which he discontinued early enough to not create a problem and he passed us on our right. Navigation back to Bankstown was performed using a bit of dead reckoning and a lot of navigation by reference to the ground: Cordeaux lake, then tracking to Menangle to meet the M5 and follow it northbound till we find the 2RN entry point for Bankstown airport.

We joined final for 11L and I performed what must have been my best landing so far in the Archer. During the flare I kept my eyes focused on the end of the runway, and the nose on the horizon. I didn't realise we were on the ground until I heard the wheel rotate. A real greaser of a landing, and captured on video to boot:

Total flying time 2.1 hours, plus landing taxes, lifejacket and headset hire, amounted to $458. Divided by three, and leaving the cost of the burger proper out of the equation, we get a $150 burger. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday.

C182 performs wheeler landing at Canberra airport

I was in Canberra recently and came across this article on the front page of the local Canberra Times:

The nose wheel of a Cessna 182 fell off in flight, the pilot didn't notice and obviously was in for a little surprise on landing when he lowered what he thought was the nose wheel onto the runway at Canberra International Airport. The pilot was unharmed, the runway was closed for a little while and the ATSB is not investigating the incident.

This may sound odd at first, but when you look at their prioritization guidelines you understand why: no-one died or even got hurt and this was a private flight (priority level 6 out of 7, only above "High risk personal recreation/sports aviation/experimental aircraft operations"). In addition, and that's only my own uneducated guess, there is probably very little to be learned from this freak incident that would improve safety. Unless 182s around the world start loosing nose wheels in flight, investigating why this happened is not worth it.

The article goes on to say:

''[The pilot] said it was a very crunchy landing, but that he didn't know until he got out of the plane that he had lost the wheel,'' Ms Davy said.

This may sound funny, but is actually perfectly logical. There's no way the pilot can tell that the nose wheel fell in flight. The wheel just fell, and the pilot cannot see the front wheel from the cockpit anyway. Losing the nose wheel may reduce drag a little, but nothing noticeable through either the controls or the airspeed indicator.

On landing the noise of the nose wheel fork ploughing the runway must indeed have been very "crunchy", and the nose-down attitude surely indicated that something had gone wrong.

I just love the fact that the pilot went to the turf farm a week or so later to collect the missing wheel. Goes to show you never know where aviation might take you.

Spot the airfield: Aeropelican, New South Wales

On a Qantas flight from Sydney to Brisbane, I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the Aeropelican unlicensed airfield (YPEC) between the clouds.

The airfield is located in-between the highway and Lake Macquarie, which is why the ERSA entry says "high vehicles on the highway at the eastern end of the runway, or high masted vessels on the extended centre-line to the west, may infringe obstacle clearance gradient from the runways ends". The runway is oriented 07/25, is 820 meters long and is kind of sealed near the middle.

My guess is that the airfield is named after the Aeropelican regional airline which used to operate from the field, and now flies a modest fleet of three BAE Jetstream 32 turboprops out of Williamstown, north of Newcastle.

Even more interesting than Aeropelican is the tiny bit of land in the top left corner of the photo. This is the suburb of Rathmines, which used to be home to the largest RAAF seaplane base during WWII.

Retract endorsement a complex affair

Second and last flight for my retractable undercarriage endorsement, two days after the first one. I spent a full evening in-between writing down lists of checks and actions for each leg of the circuit, and drawing flow patterns that take me in a sequence through each gauge or control required at any stage of the circuit.

This proved quite useful, although there is as always a big difference between rehearsing things at home and doing them for real in the cockpit. Plenty of things come in the way, such as other aircraft in the circuit, that pesky instructor in the right seat, or the tower controller. Not even talking about the effect of stress on cognitive abilities. It is a well known fact that one only has half a brain left when flying an airplane, which makes planning and rehearsing beforehand all the more important.

So we did about 7 or 8 circuits in the Arrow IV on runway 29L. It's true that because of the T-Tail one has to pull harder on the yoke to get the airplane to rotate or flare, even with the trim slightly aft of neutral. The accepted explanation is that because the stabilator is outside the propeller slipstream, it becomes less effective at low speed. All other things being equal.

But are the other things really equal? The moment arm between the center of gravity and the stabilator is longer in the T-Tail Arrow IV compared to the Arrow III, which should help. Maybe the surface of the stabilator is smaller. Or maybe the reason for the design change is to be found elsewhere. According to this pilotfriend.com article on the Arrow IV, in 1979, Piper made a controversial design decision, opting to equip many of its airplanes with trendy, fashionable T-tails. So it may all boil down to a marketing fad in the end.

This turned out to be a lot of work in the circuit, which really stresses the importance of having sequences of actions and checklists memorised. I forgot quite a few times to touch the brakes before retracting the gear, which is not good since the wheels keep spinning inside the well, which may create some wear on the tires. Olivia had to use the Law of Intensity on me so that this particular aspect of operating a retractable undercarriage would stick with me, and it worked.

I made a conscious effort to slow down in the circuit to maintain separation with the other slower aircraft. It's actually a nice way to measure the ground covered since I started learning to fly in the C152 at Redcliffe two years ago: I am no longer the slowest guy in the circuit.

In the last circuit Olivia pulled the circuit breaker of the landing gear pump on me. I noticed that the three green lights didn't light up. She was happy I noticed, pushed the circuit breaker back in and asked what I would have done otherwise. I said I would have flown to the training area to perform the emergency landing gear extension procedure, which was the right answer. Olivia also insisted I verbalise out loud "three greens" as part of my pre-landing checks.

On each landing I tried to not float as much as on the previous one. The airspeed on final recommended by the club is 80 knots, while 1.3 Vs is 71 knots. The extra 9 knots add a lot of energy to the airplane, which also means that as it slows down from 80 knots it crosses a region of lower total drag, which does not help with slowing down further obviously. This was actually the topic of a recent training tip in AOPA ePilot newsletter.

We taxied back and Olivia put a new stamp into my logbook with an endorsement for the P28RT type, where R stands for Retractable and T for T-Tail. So I am now allowed to fly "complex aircraft" solo. Complex aircraft refers to aircraft with flaps, variable-pitch propeller and retractable undercarriage.

It's a very impressive term that conjures up a picture of aircraft mightier than a Piper Arrow. If I wasn't married I may even be tempted to use my newest endorsement in order to impress girls. Not unlike that scene from a movie we all know.