Level 2 lockdown is real in South Africa. This allows further movement and (good news for some) the purchase of alcohol and cigarettes. Most importantly, the restrictions on general aviation have been lifted – we can fly between provinces (states) and can fly with other people in the aircraft.
To celebrate our new found freedom the three usual suspects (Matthew, Roger and myself) decided to do some interprovincial flying. A strong cold front had caused some scattered snowfalls earlier in the week in some high lying parts of the country and we were hoping to spot some snow on the Drakensberg.
Because we’d had good times on our previous trip to El Mirador last year, we decided to reprise the route.
As I write this, ZU-IBM is in for annual inspection. This should only have been done in October, but the CAA is a bit of a hot mess at the moment, and it is taking 3-4weeks to get the airworthy certificate or Authority to Fly (ATF) after annual inspection so we moved it up a month. I suspect this is mostly because the AMO doesn’t want airplanes stuck on its ramp waiting for paperwork to be completed.
I think it will help to have moved the annual forward away from the ATF expiry date because that should mean that we can do a full year on the next cycle. Anyhow, this does basically qualify as the first year of ownership and looking back, I must say that it has been really good to own the aircraft.
We’ve done a few trips that we would never have done, and the freedom of being able to decide on a whim to go flying is seriously under-rated. So here follows a small summary of the year in ownership..
Hours flown: – 69,5
Fuel purchased: – 1154
Average fuel Burn: – 16litres per hour
New Airports visited: – 17
Passengers Flown: – 37 (obviously not separate individuals)
Of course, there will be at least one unexpected expense involved and this time it is the 5 year rubber renewal which involves changing every rubber hose and gasket in the engine compartment. It is a bit of a pain and an unexpected expense which could be deferred… but that is not how I want to operate my aircraft. Deferred maintenance is something that I feel will bite one day and will be an issue if/when I sell the plane (yes, that RV-7 is still calling….).
There are a couple of other squawks that need dealing with – for some reason the starboard strobe has decided to call it a day, and the landing light wires seem to get quite hot coming out of the switch on the panel – this may well be normal but it needs to be checked out. The oil pressure still runs lower than I’m comfortable with on the long climbs – although we have looked at the system I think another once-over won’t go amiss. My gut feel is that the issue may be the sensor, but that is the easy way to rationalise it.
Apart from all that, the only other job is to put a decal on the rudder – I’ve long wanted the chequered pattern on the plane so we’re putting it on the whole of the rudder. I trust it will look good. The idea I have is what is shown below…
So, with no plane and hopefully no more surprises… there is little to do but to wait patiently impatiently for news on when Miss Daisy will be back. Will update as and when needed.
My airplane needed to go to the AMO to have some work done. This, as most aircraft owners will appreciate, is a real pain. To achieve this 10nm flight requires two adults, at least one car and a fair bit of patience from the non flying adult.
The usual rigmarole – drive to Baragwanath airfield. Drop off flying adult at Baragwanath. Non flying adult drives (usually in rush hour traffic) to Tedderfield while flying adult preflights and flies the aircraft to Tedderfield. Both adults then drive home. Understandably, this plan is not too popular with the non flying partner because it can be a 2.5h exercise when we have better things to do.
Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be able to take my friend Ari flying. He may not know it but he’s actually my aviation mentor – one heck of a nice guy who has a knack of thinking about general aviation in ways I haven’t thought of. He’s a commercial instrument rated pilot with more than 1500h and he flies a FIKI Cirrus SR22T with his father.
One reason we are buddies is that we have similar outlooks on general aviation safety and doing GA correctly. My feelings on these are borne out of lots of reading – his I suspect are from lessons learned in years of flying. It can be daunting flying with a significantly more experienced pilot in a non instructor/examiner situation (OK, it can be very daunting flying with an examiner) because one feels like one’s skills are on show – this was the first time I was to be PIC in my aircraft with him (I’ve flown in his aircraft many times). You don’t want your first flight with a new passenger to be your last flight with that passenger..
Special Sling preflight pose – lifting the elevators to view the control rod attachment bolt
I must confess to feeling that the Sling was a little shabby compared to the extremely well equipped G5 Cirrus but hey, an airplane is still an airplane – and I’m a proud owner.
We had a secondary objective and that was to test the Aerox system I acquired recently – it seemed prudent to do this with an experienced supplemental oxygen user. We came prepared – he had 2 oximeters and I had 1. Of course, true to form mine was DOA, although after 10years of hard use in my day job meant I shouldn’t be surprised. It is time for a new one anyway as the LCD display isn’t very readable in the bright cockpit. In addition we had an emergency cylinder in case the main cylinder didn’t perform as expected.
For a change the weather was playing along really nicely and although the visibility wasn’t really good, the air was smooth as we climbed energetically away from BaraG – had a good 750-800fpm climb rate which impressed my passenger. There was no other traffic in the training area and we started our climb after exiting from under the Johannesburg TMA. Information approved our climb and handed us over to the area controller (Centre) and I handed control over to Ari. For the last day in March it was still pretty warm – was showing an OAT of 21 Celsius at 10000ft but the Sling trundled on at 400fpm through 11000ft with the Airmaster Prop in Climb and 34” manifold pressure on the throttle.
We routed south as we climbed, out over the Vaal River and Parys, enjoying the views (despite the limited vis) and the smooth air. Climbing through 10000 feet I popped the pulse oximeter on and was quite alarmed to find my sats were 89%. I wasn’t expecting it to have dropped so low at a relatively low altitude. I didn’t feel any adverse effects although I don’t believe time of useful consciousness is an issue at this altitude. However, it seemed like a good idea to get the oxygen on which we did.
Looking silly with a poorly applied Oxysaver
Let it be said that one looks a little ridiculous wearing an oxysaver cannula – but you look a lot less ridiculous with the cannula on than slumped over the controls with two fighter jets on your wing. The oxysaver allows pretty low flows – <1litre per minute at altitude up to 15000ft – by using a small reservoir so it’s relatively economical to run once you’ve forgotten the initial outlay for the equipment!
Above the inversion @11500ft south of the Vaal River
Area control came on asking us to stop our climb at FL125 due to other traffic on the airway above us which was a little disappointing but the density altitude was already well over 14000ft by this time, so I didn’t think with a service ceiling of 16000ft we’d get much higher anyway.
Heading back into the smog…
At this point we noticed that the oil pressure had decreased to 1.6bar from 2.5bar. Lower limit of normal is 2bar on the Rotax 914UL. This was obviously not something to take lightly. Initially we thought it could have been due to the warm conditions – oil temp was normal and CHT’s were within limits. Still, we arrested the climb and throttled back with no improvement. The best call at this point was a 180deg turn and route back to home base keeping a good lookout for potential off airport landing sites.
We had to descend to avoid busting airspace and as we descended below 9500ft the oil pressure recovered to normal and stayed there, going up to 3bar as we leveled off at 7000ft. Given that there was no other indication of abnormality we felt it was reasonable to do some maneuvering while keeping an eagle eye on the engine gauges.
I did two steep turns (PPL standard @ 45deg) and thereafter Ari did 2 at CPL standard (60deg). That man can fly an airplane – made the wake on the second attempt in an unfamiliar aircraft. He was raving about the control responsiveness and the inherent balance of the Sling – I think he was quite impressed – high praise indeed from someone who has hundreds of Cirrus hours. “It feels like I have an RV Grin,” he said as we cruised back for the overhead at Baragwanath. I dubbed it the “Sling Smile”
Steep turns – fun!
One touch and go then a full stop landing and it was time to put the plane away. I did get some constructive criticism of my crosswind landing – I need to try and land upwind of the centreline rather than ON the centreline – this makes sense as it gives one a few more metres to deal with any squirrelly behaviour after touchdown.
All in all a successful morning’s flying. The oil pressure reading remains a concern but I’m waiting on the AMO to comment. We suspect it may be a grounding issue or a problem with the oil breather pipe. We had a good look around the inside of the cowling and there is absolutely no oil leaking anywhere and no oil stain on the belly of the plane. Time will tell – the joys of aircraft ownership…
