Mini BPPP

This year I didn't get to do the flying portion at BPPP because my plane was down getting the engines done, so I've been trying to meet up with instructor Jim Gruneisen to do a seudo make up of the flying portion.  For numerous reasons our schedules didn't jive until this last Saturday, so I had scheduled the day for the training.  We've had great weather, and it was severe clear that morning, but for whatever reason it was freakin windy.  I got to the airport at 9am ish and the wind was already blowing 15 kts.  I went over to PAO to meet Jim and was surprised that my ground speed was over 210 kts at 3,000 ft and I was throttled back!  38 kts on the tail and pretty bumpy.

I picked up Jim at PAO and after a small detour to fix my door handle, we were off.  We got beat up by turbulence flying over to Tracy for the first approach, and heard pilots reporting moderate but it probably wasn't that bad.  We did the first approach, broke off to the hold, then went above 5,000 and shut down each engine in turn and practiced feathering a then the recovery.  This was the first time I'd done an in-flight shutdown since the new engines were installed and I was happy to test out the prop accumulators and found they worked great.  We then did a single engine approach to TCY and I heard someone call out on the radio "nice greaser Adam".  I said, "who is that?".   Turned out to be my friend and fellow Baron pilot Larry Mattlock and he said he was about to scrub a trip to Harris because of the wind and turbulence.  I egged him on and said "awe it's smooth above 4,000" and told him I'd meet him there and he agreed to brave the winds.  I filled up with cheap gas, Jim and I spent some time reprogramming the JPI to set my default fuel quantity, and we were off to Harris.

It was interesting landing at Harris which is 2800 ft runway in 20 kt wind gusting to 30, but it was mostly aligned with the runway so it was actually an easy landing with all that headwind.  Here is a shot of the palm trees blowing in the breeze...

Tri-tip was good and then we blasted off for Hollister and I did a single engine approach with a circle to land partial panel, which was basically Jim pulling the breaker on the air data computer.  After that I made one last approach to PAO,  tired from the workout but it was great practice.  I'm instrument current anyway but nevertheless another IPC is done and in the books!

Watched a plane crash

Got back from a trip with my wife and kids, had just landed and was putting the plane in the hangar when a Navion took off on KCCR 32L, the runway right next to my hangar. He got to maybe 400 ft, I heard a pop or a backfire and the engine quit. He pointed the nose down, leveled off, then made the mistake of trying to circle back around. It looked scary as it was basically pointed straight at me and my hangar, then stall/spun at maybe 20 or 30 feet and crashed nose first into the dirt, a wheel popped off and flew a hundred feet away. I yelled to my wife to watch the kids and I ran to the plane and was the first one there... no fire, but gas leaking out the bottom, the engine basically separated from the airframe. I jumped on top and pulled open the canopy and two older guys were inside, alive and conscious but clearly in shock and bleeding from their heads. Some other guys ran out from their hangars with fire extinguishers and luckily there was no fire. I didn't try to pull them out for fear of injuring them worse. Fire dept was there a few mins later. 

I was already on edge after all the crashes this month, and this was quite a shocker, especially in front of my wife and kids. Scary stuff.  Some news reports:  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 849S71.DTL  I left an officer my business card in case the NTSB wants a report.   Very surreal. I just stood there watching and at first I didn't get it... I was thinking, what the heck are those fools doing? I was thinking they were training and had purposefully pulled the engine, then it sort of hit me that they were going to crash, then they crashed, right in front of me. The sound of it was sickening. Definitely makes me take pause and think about my flying. I also think it's just as important to have a single engine out mantra as it does for us twin guys... if you're below 600 ft or so, land straight ahead or turn 90 deg at most. You're not going to get around 180 deg from 400 ft. It all happened so fast, it's got to be instinctual.

Where's the moon?

The winter weather flying this year has been interesting, we haven't had very many big storms but we have had a lot of clouds layers, fog, valley fog and a few cold frontal systems bringing in some ice at anything much above a few thousand feet.  Around here most MEA's bring you well below the freezing level and my most typical trip is to Socal which brings me over a mountain range.  Today at 10k ft the OAT was a chilly -15degC.  I've been seeing a lot of low level valley fog and mountain obscuration and multiple layers.  Here is an example:

The last few night flights I've done have been in early night, with the sun setting in Socal before 5pm, a launch at 6pm and a moon rising at 8pm or later, I've had a number of moonless flights.  When the weather is like above and it's night, you might well be clear of clouds but you can't see jack.  For example:

Once I got back to Norcal the cloud layers parted and I could see the ground lights, but after climbing through clouds Socal was like night over an ocean.  In the day time these layers are good fun though, here I am skimming clouds at 11,500 ft.

50 hour gremlins

I'm now at 50.1 hours since the new engines were installed in August.  I had thought I had just about worked through all the new engine gremlins, but on my flight to LA last week my left alternator light started flashing intermittently.  Not a huge deal, after all I have two.  There was a cloud deck but it was broken and scattered, and I was in the clear on top at 10k ft.  In a single I would have had to scrub the flight... it's the paradox of the twin owner, you get to make some flights that would ground a single engine pilot, but you fly twice as often with something broken.  Once down in the LA basin I ended up shooting over from CMA to VNY in IMC, and it's such a short flight I didn't worry too much about having an alternator out.

The flight back was IMC through a layer that topped out at 9,000 and then I got on top again at 10.  Over the valley however I found the central valley was socked in with ground fog, there was a high overcast at 20,000 and the sun was falling fast yielding to a moonless night... basically I was clear of clouds but in solid IMC, no city lights, no visual references, just floating along IFR in a black void.  To make it more interesting, I pulled up the Wx at CCR and saw that it was deteriorating rapidly.  An 800 ft ceiling turned to a 400 ft ceiling turned to  200 ft ceiling.  The LDA approach at CCR takes you down to 440 ft, then you go missed, so there was no point in trying to get into CCR with a 200 ft ceiling.  The airport was basically closed.  I had filed LVK as an alternate, and since they have an ILS that takes you to 200 ft I knew I could get in there, so I diverted.  That was also handy, because my maintenance shop is at LVK and so I shot the ILS on in, left the plane in front of their hangar so they could deal with my failed alternator, and called my wife to pick me up.  When I got to CCR to pickup my car, the fog was so thick I couldn't even see 20 ft in front of the car.

Long story short, turns out I have the dreaded Kelly Aerospace alternators, which are the only ones certified for my airplane.  The problem is, Kelly Aerospace is known far and wide for producing the worst products in aviation.  How they are certified by the FAA is beyond me.  No one was surprised to hear of a 50 hour Kelly alternator going bad...  oh well, I'm sure the next one will crap out right after the warranty expires.  We're also only in December and I've already used up all my deice fluid... time to shop around!

KCCR->KDVO->KCMA->KVNY->KCCR

Nice flight today, good flight with a mix of light IFR and stunning VFR on top.  Had a little Beech flyout planned to visit my buddy Alejandro for lunch at Camarillo.  First I flew over to Gnoss (KDVO) to pickup a friend Tim, but right after takeoff I heard that telltale whistle coming through the door... uh oh, a few seconds later it popped.  Doh, door open in flight is no biggie, but I sure felt dumb.  I circled around and landed and gave it a good slam this time.  Took off and got Tim at Gnoss, got a Bravo clearance and and headed for KCMA skimming a broken layer at 9500 ft... stunning.  I didn't have my camera going today though ;(

We had a great lunch with a super successful, cool and interesting crew.  Here are some photos Ale shot.

Those beautiful Beeches... clearly the finest piston aircraft ever made!

The lunch crew, great food in Camarillo.  My new favorite airport restaurant!

That's my bird behind, blocked by the Boyz

Then I flew IFR to VNY because those clouds were thicker over that way, I'm glad I did because I was in the clouds nearly the whole way, but I suppose I could have scud run it too.  Did my pickup at VNY, and then picked up my IFR clearance back to KCCR.  We popped out on top at 10k and had a nice smooth ride despite the 35kt headwind.  Landed at night in rain and mist 1:45 mins later and tucked the Baron away.  What a great, super capable all weather airplane!  On both legs I got about 185 kts true on 22 gph running LOP with all CHTs in in the 330 range or lower. 

Had an issue with the left alternator though, the warning indicator is flashing intermittently... probably has something to do with the battery issues I had?  Oh well, the JPI showed 28.2 volts and I have two alternators... another advantage of the twin, I would have scrubbed this flight in a single.  But yet another thing to get sorted, also the poster light on the backup AI is burned out.  No biggie...

Battery drain

This morning I went to go meet Jim Gruneiesen, one of the BPPP instructors for some training.  I went to fire her up and the left engine fired up right away, but when I engaged the starter on the right engine the blade basically moved a little bit and then stopped. It was as if the battery was low or dead, but I had the battery tender on and it should have been fine... grrr.  I had been juggling with Jim for weeks and had to cancel. Turns out the batteries had just hit their limit.  This afternoon Chris and Alan from MaintenanceExpress flew over in their 172 from LVK with two new batteries.  They showed me how to change out the batteries and then I fired her up.  She fired up so fast it surprised me. I've never had a plane start so fast, faster than my car.  Back to squawk free for now (knock on wood)!

Ice is for cocktails

Had a nice beautiful IFR flight tonight, skimmed the clouds at 8,000 ft right at sunset which was so awesome I didn't even mind the headwinds.  

Started out kind of interesting, I knew I had to get though the wall of cold, mountainous clouds. Good day to own a Baron!