Martijn Moret Private Pilot Blog

NBAA 2008: planes, planes, planes

I was lucky to be one of the visitors of NBAA 2008, the biggest convention on business aviation. This year the fair was held in Orlando, in the Orange County Convention Center, and there was a static show on the aprons of the executive airfield nearby.

Of course it was not only pleasure (yeah right)! I was there for a business reason but will tell you more about that in future postings.

Some pictures:

Cockpit of the Cessna CLS+

Single-engined Cirrus Jet

Next Generation Turboprop: Pilatus PC-12 NG

Eclipse 400 (single engine VLJ)

Glass cockpit of a Cirrus SR-22

Great convention, lots to see!

Vlaai-in on Airport Maastricht/Aachen (EHBK)

Saturday the 27th of september, the airport of Maastricht (EHBK) organized a Vlaai-In (pun intented: in dutch pronounced as Vly-Inn, and the word Vlaai is a famous pie in the south of Holland).

Some 85 general aviation aircraft would fly to the most southern airfield in The Netherlands, and it promised to become a beautiful day. It was, however, quite foggy in the morning. In order to reach our landing slot of 12.00 we had to leave at 11.00 the latest.

My fellow flyblogger Ton Klaassen, just recieved his JAR-permit a couple of weeks ago, owns a part of a US-registered aircraft, a Cessna 172 with retractable gear. Very cool, my first time in a complex Cessna 172.

The journey wsa great, albeit somewhat hazy. The event a bit disappointing. I somehow expected a bigger event, but perhaps I was spolied by the dynamic "Hoogvlieger" day of a few weeks back.

Here some pictures:"

The "complex" aircraft

Ton as PIC

Overhead Eindhoven

All pilots received a Vlaai (in our case: cherry-pie) before departure. It tasted great!

Hoogvliegers Rotterdam: high flyers day in Rotterdam

The Hoogvliegers foundation organises flying events for critically ill or handicapped children. The main event of the day is that every child gets the chance to be a pilot. They are the co-pilot on a very special flight, often their first, and they forget completely about their daily routine and sorrows (as do as well the parents and brothers/sisters)!

Today, a big day was organised for kids from the Rotterdam region. With the help of many parties, not the least the Rotterdam airport and air traffic control, there were many things to do. Next to being a true pilot, the children get to enjoy the fire brigade water games, policing demonstration, ride with police cars with sirens on (didn't know there were so many US-trooper cars in The Netherlands), drive in big trucks etc. The VLM also sponsored flights in one of their Fokker 50, so every child got to fly 2 times today, once as passenger, once as pilot.

I volunteer for this foundation as well, by taking kids up in the air, and introduce them to flying. Today I did 4 flights. Flying with kids requires additional attention before and during the flight, and it is quite exhausting.

The first one began with some delay because after the engine start up clearance and the propellor started spinning, one of the passengers indicated that she needed to go to the toilet. So, engine shutdown, deboard and back to the platform. When we were boarded again, a small plane ran of the runway with a flat tire. We had to wait for some minutes before Rotterdam Delivery would let us start up.

But all in all, those flights were great, the kids were great and for sure they have had a special experience.

FlyBlogger meeting: Ameland

Once and a while a group of "dutch private pilots with weblogs" meet up for a lunch. Every time we plan to come together more often, but weather, schedules, aircraft, etc prevent more than 2 meetings a year (give or take).

This time, the weather almost got at us again, and the reservations of the different members created a split meeting with Marcel and Guus attending both meetings. Frank and Pascal attended the first meeting (having to leave due to the aircraft reserved by other people later in the day) and Rob, Ronald, Martijn, Ton and Philip (my brother in law) were present at the second meeting that day on Ameland (EHAL). Ameland is one of the dutch "Wadden" isles, in the north of Holland.

We were locked in at Rotterdam until about 3 in the afternoon. A front came over but was terribly lacking speed. It was bound to already have been gone in the morning, but the 300-feet clouds and rain drizzle, or drizzle rain kept visibility very low. At 14.45 we decided to go, but were blocked by air traffic control, who said it was not VMC. To our surprise, 2 aircraft got clearance 2 minutes later, and a call to the tower revealed they had reconsidered.

Flying north we encountered some clouds, but they were well above 1500 feet, our ceiling under the Schiphol TMA. We flow along PAMpus (beacon with the name of a small island near Amsterdam), Enkhuizen, Hoorn, crossed over the Ijsselmeer to Stavoren, Harlingen and final destination Ameland.

We went to lunch at 16.45 (I had a great pancake) and enjoyed the last summer-sun-rays. Great.

The flight back was beautiful. We flew the former mentioned route in reverse, but crossed the Schiphol CTR. At 500 feet over Schiphol is always a very nice thing to do. Due to runways in use (06 and 18c) we got a fancy routing around the CTR..... where was Badhoevedorp again? (no pictures though)

Then south along the dutch west coast, with the sun getting ready to set, to the south and from Scheveningen-harbour directly to the field.

After a bit of waiting (about 4 hours) we had a great day. Good to meet (nearly) all of you again.

Weekend in Cambridge

Last week I flew to Cambridge, an exciting trip! The goal was to visit my aunt who lives downtown Cambridge, and celebrate her birthday (somewhat belated). I planned for this trip already in July, but in that weekend the weathergods prevented any (VFR) trip between the UK and the continent.

We arrived at 9.30 at the club, and start to collect the neccessary items: life jackets, tie-downs, aircraft papers, etc. We brought some drinks and food for during the trip, next to the overnight suitcases.

I had updated my navigation plan from the one I created in July already at home. The customs form was faxed to Cambridge airport operations the day before, and on my way to Rotterdam I had called dutch customs, which is needed for any direct non-Schengen flight.

The weather forecast was fine for Saturday (disregarding some scattered showers and isolated CBs), but Sunday would be tricky as some front was crossing UK from west to east. However, if we would leave early there should be no problem.

Blankenberge (Belgium) from 1300 feet

The intended route was Rotterdam along the coast to Oostende and Koksijde (on the south side of the Belgium coast), then cross the channel (coasting-out is the right word), and in the UK via overhead South-end, Earls Colne to Cambridge.

White cliffs of Dover, mid-channel at flightlevel 50

The weather in the UK was beautiful with some scattered clouds in the 3000's, and we were switching between London Info, and the tower frequencies of our waypoints. The most beautiful remark from air traffic control was London Info with a message to all stations (airfcraft): "Please have all a very good lookout, you are with many up there". Brilliant.

Near Southend

At Cambridge airport, Marshall's, we filled the aircraft up for the next day and pay the landing fee + parking for the night (29 GBP in total). The fuel was actually very cheap, and I saved some 37 euro's on the total rental price.

We took a taxi to get to my aunt's house, and went into town for a lunch (one of my favourites is jacked patato with coleslaw and cheese) and a stroll.

Center of Cambridge

We had a great dinner at her place, cooked by living-in summer student Naïma and went to bed quite early for a saturday. I did not have trouble sleeping though.

On sunday it was different weather. Already when I woke up, the rain was pouring down, and clouds were low. The effects of the front had arrived much earlier. I called the flying club that my reservation needed extending, and that was not much of a problem.

We decided to lunch at home, and after went to airport. The sky was clearing, and the cloud were climbing at about 400 feet per 30 minutes.

Pre-flight check at Cambridge airport (EGSC)

After an hour of waiting I decided to take off. There might be some problems underway over the channel and over Belgium, but if it wouldn't be possible to cross the channel, we could always wait it out in Southend.

The channel was indeed, full of clouds and low visibility. But Ostende had broken clouds at 3000 and 10KM plus visibility so I decided to cross.

My mother can fly!

Nice flight, but a busy one, being the only on board with a flying license. Having a GPS is a neccessity on these trips, it helped greatly in re-assuring the position, as well as answering the continuous "what is your ETA for ..." questions from London Info!

Mallorca mountains and bays

Whoaaa! What way to better spend a part of the holidays than up in the air (except for the beach when it is really hot, and mediteranian restaurants at night)?

I contacted the Real Aeroclub de Baleares yesterday if a flight (with instructor or safety pilot) was possible..... and it was! In their fleet they have Pipers, Warriors and Archers, as well as a Cessna 152. I have experience on the Warrior and on the 152, so no problem. A piper Warrior was available, the EC-FXS!

In the early morning (hey, getting up at 7.30 is early during this holiday), I drove to Son Bonet airport (LESB). This field used to be the main airport for Mallorca untill 1959, and is now a General Aviation field for mainly flight schools and helicopters. Also the local forestrial watch aircraft and resque helicopters are based here.

Unconsiously I skipped multiple layers of security, but when I arrived at the Aeroclub the lady told me I really needed the accreditation of the security company. So back to the main entrance of the airport (where the gate openend automatically when I arrived), and with my accreditation (yellow sticker with name and date) back through the gates of the Guardia Civil to the club.

I had to wait a bit before my instructor and aircraft returned from a previous instruction flight, so I spend some time looking at the maps and VFR corridors. This airport is located in the vicinity of the very busy main airport, so special procedures are needed to separate the traffic.

Together with the very friendly instructor, Xisca, we set the route to fly: after take-off to the west over the mountainous area of the Serra de Tamuntana.

Then to the south, passing the Dragonera island, and after an orbit over Port Andratx (the place I am staying).

Now east passing some beaches, and then back over the hills to the airfield, carefully not invading the airspace of Palma de Mallorca airport (LEPA). I did 2 circuits, with the first landing (on the 24) being completely crap (crosswind, heat turbulence, low approach over a road with trucks). The second one (on the 06) was OK, and once again low over the buildings of the outskirts of the city of Palma.

The weather was hot (31 degr.AGL) and humid (70%), which impacts the performance tremendously. I seldomly saw these climbrates in a Warrior when flying 75 knots.

Son Bonet is a nice airport (landingfee EUR 8.06 for a Warrior, with up to 2 touch and go's and a landing). The aeroclub is a nice place, with sufficient english to overcome communication problems. Xisca did radio, for which I was glad. I speak spanish, though have not all the aviation lingo in spanish available. Xisca talked to me in (speedy) spanish, and when I didn't understand I askd her to repeat!

Learned a lot lot today, on moutain flying, on hot weather turbulence and aircraft performance. Great! Hopefully I will fly one day from Rotterdam to this field!

After a busy week, it is good to clear your head.....

After being harrassed by a cold, which blocked my nose for the past 4 weeks, finally I found the time, health and working aircraft for some airtime.

I booked a Cessna 172, which I hadn't flown for a while (the weeks seems to pass faster and faster). And it showed..... I started off with some circuits, but the landings were crap. I made beginners-errors (flaring far too high and too brusk) and had the plane bounce up and down the runway.

The 3rd one was OK, and I decided to fly a small round (exit the CTR in the south-east, at Ridderkerk, fly to the Haringvliet river, westbound to the Maasvlakte, then enter at Hoek van Holland).

I asked for an arrival over the river, so I go the standard 1.300 feet, 0000 on the transponder, report abeam Maassluis, Euromast assignment. No problem of course and beautiful views on the harbour.

It felt good again.... but I could notice the non-flying period..... Keeping current is the most important, some weeks might already be a lot. The final landing was brilliant though: the plane was kissing the asphalt!

Evening flying & loopings

Nice! After weeks of hazy flying conditions with visibility between 3 and 8 kilometers (and only an hour or 2 in the evening of truly flyable weather), last monday it was finally a great and clear day..... I had to work though. However, I managed to get home on a decent hour with plenty of time to go to the airport, and stay in the sky for an hour of so. (We can fly these days until 2200 hrs at night, when the sun sets in the West. If you take potential diversion to another field into consideration , you'll need to land in Rotterdam at 21.15).

Port of Scheveningen. Former Norfolk terrain now largely empy.

Because of the late decision I decided to go solo, and do some practice along the way. I requested a direct Den Haag and flew over the harbour (area I also live) and the popular beaches (nobody there though, because of the 16 degr. Celsius: sunny but not very warm).

Pier of Scheveningen from 1.200 feet

Great and very calm weather, and I was truly enjoying myself up there. I flew back along the coast to the south with the intention to do some airwork.

I did some steep turns (45 degr.) over left and right and a emergency landing procedure (which I need to practice more often....). I went back to Hoek van Holland (hotel) and requested a arrival via the "river" (nieuwe Waterweg)... beautiful!

Following the Nieuwe Waterweg eastbound, near Maassluis

Spin recovery and loopings

For some time I wanted to participate in the "Unusual attitudes" training that the flying club is offering. In this training you learn to recognize and respond to aircraft behaviour outside of the regular flying procedures, ie. stalling of the aircraft (no lift of the wings), and spiral dives (spins).

I had a briefing last week already, but we couldn't take off due to the deteriorating weather that day. On Friday though in the late afternoon, the weather was splendid, so I could do the practical side of the training.

Using the PH-SVN, (an aerobatics Robin) we took off and flew to an area near Oud-Beijerland. There we climbed to 4500 feet (Rotterdam approach cleared us to FL 50 or below) and we started with the different exercises: full power stall (yes, that is possible!), low energy stall, steep turns (60 degrees or more = feel the G-force!), and an exercise in which you fly at less than 30 kts (indicated) but you don't stall. As the instructor indicated in the briefing: stall has nothing to do with speed, but everything with pitch.

Then, before going to the spin training, time for the fun part! I wanted to experience a looping, so we did 3.... a cool but simple procedure (of course this was a introduction into aerobatics, so we did not focus on what can go wrong in a looping). We also did barrel-rolls and a stall turn.

Next, the "spiral dive", which is what you would get if you try to recover from a stall situation the wrong way. (the good way is releasing your stick or yoke with modern planes). To get the aircraft to "spin" if to stall it, and when you feel the buffet (vibration of the wings) full rudder so you end up in a left or right spin, with the earth approaching rapidly (about 700 ft per spin-cycle). To come out of it, applying full opposite rudder and pulling up the nose (in sequential order) is the trick...... not a very frightening experience I would say, but actually very cool.

From the cockpit it looks like this: WMV spin movie (by Hans van Geffen)
From another aircraft look here: YouTube spin movie

We did 3 spiral dives and than returned home.... full of adrenaline, and also tired! I felt the adrenaline still the next morning!

Flybloggers 6: Hilversum (EHHV)

Saturday May 10 it was nice and hot weather, which is not neccessarily good for flying...... I could feel the Cessna 152 (PH-HGO) had to work harder with this temperature. But it was a great day for meeting the other guys who are flying and blogging!

I have never been to Hilversum airport before, which is almost unbelievable since it is only 20-25 minutes of flying away from Rotterdam. Although it is a grass-only airport, I had only little trouble finding it, since I prepared with Google earth to see what I could expect: first locate the Loosdrechter plassen, then a bit to the right, look for the square lake and enter the circuit from there.

The approach is somewhat exciting since the trees are on very short final, as well as some houses to the left of the centerline (runway 13).

At the airport I met Frank (Murdock) and Pascal (Acda), as well as Guus and his 2 passengers. Rob and Marcel had not been able to make it, for various reasons. We had lunch (Pannekoek!), and went home again.

The grass runway (13), trees at the end, and hot weather made the take off a bit more exciting than usual, but everything well within limits.
Back over the Reeuwijkse plassen, on which many boats were present (not on the picture though)

Nice to fly a 152 again, it has been a while since I flew that type. But it felt good, as most of my flying experience has been on a cessna 152 including my first solo (more than 3 years ago!)

Great day, with an involuntary flapless landing

Today I had a flight scheduled with my colleagues Guido and Pieter. A lucky day, since it was warm and really nice weather. The aircraft I had reserved with low on hours before maintenance, so they asked me if I could take a Cessna 172 instead of the Piper. No problem for me (that's the beauty of being checked out on multiple aircraft type).

I had never flown before on the PH-BSF, but it was almost equal to the ANH, so no worries. We decided to take a hotel departure, overhead the ECT terminal, over the Haringvliet to the Volkeraklocks (sluizen in Dutch), Ouddenbosch and on to Seppe for lunch!

Great passengers (very keen on any sound and movement the plane made), and great weather with very little turbulence, although you could feel the change of terrain (between sand and water, and inhabited zones).

Ouddenbosch was quite easily found (excessive cathedral for the size of this town, and built as a replica of the St. Peter in Rome), and Seppe is at that point visible (if you know where to look).

The landing was ok, though not the smoothest I ever made.

It was for me the first day that I could eat outside, and we had a great lunch on the terrace of the airport restaurant.

Then back to Rotterdam, we orbited once over Strijen (Pieter lived there before, and then I called Rotterdam tower for a Romeo Arrival (via Ridderkerk at 1500 feet).

We obtained clearance to "break off" that arrival over Foxtrot (van Brienenoord-bridge) to continue towards the Euromast. Beautiful views on the skyline of Rotterdam, and off course the Erasmus-bridge where Guido participated in the relay-run during the marathon of some weeks ago.

I was told by the tower to maintain 1500 feet until downwind. There was a 737 of Transavia on final (see pic below and find the aircraft!) and I was number 3.

After the wing of the number 2 passed abeam I got clearance to descend to 1000 feet, so I pulled the gas and turned base. I put flaps to 20 degrees. I was still high so I decreased more gas and put flaps 30 degrees. Then I felt that descend rate, speed and nose-attitude did not correspond with the flaps-configuration. I checked the flaps and saw they were not coming down. I tried the switch a couple of times, but they didn't want to come down at that moment.
:(

Time to decide what to do: go around or continue the landing without flaps. I decided for the latter, there was still a lot of time for going around. I created some drag to lose altitude faster, and saw that we would make it... the landing itself was quite uneventful, but for the first time in my flying career I did not make the high speed exit, so I vacated the runway via Victor4 (treshold of the 06).

On the ground, I tried the flaps again and they came down! I reported the fault in the electronic system, and we had a coffee to debrief. I noted mentally to re-insert the visual flap check on downwind... somehow I skipped that between my PPL lessons and now. Great flight again!

Flying for kids : Hoogvliegers day in Lelystad

Today I flew again for the Stichting Hoogvliegers, which organised a grand day at Lelystad airport.

More than 200 handicapped or ill kids with their family, 31 aircraft (including a DC-3, a Lynx navy-helicopter and an Antonov 2), 84 ground-bound vehicles (ambulances, fire brigade trucks, police cars, american police cars, motors, Ferrari's etc) in which the kids could sit or fly created a beautiful scene and lots of noise.

Also some ground activities like flight simulator, rock climbing and fire extinguishing were present and the kids had lots of fun that day.

picture by Kevin (badcop)

It was probably one of the busiest days ever for Lelystad airport, which had to close for inbound traffic twice. I made 2 flights (I could only stay until 13h30m) with Nikita and Alec. Great young pilots, who probably spent too much time near people with white coats, although that is not discussed on that day! They had a great day, and so did I!

Find pictures (by other people) : here

Video report of that day:

Return flight to Groningen (EHGG)

I needed to transport myself to Groningen, because I had to do some mid-(fiscal)-year progress interviews with 3 of my colleagues and had to choose from:

- being in the car for 2 x 2h30m (traffic jam likely)
- being in a train for 2 x 3h (working possible)
- being in a plane for 2 x 1h15m (fun very likely)

The choice was actually not very difficult since the weather forecast was good (alhtough some fog expected early in the morning). To be in line with the corporate policy I flew in private time but was back on duty as soon as I was on landside!

The flight to Groningen was beautiful in the PH-SVT, visibility not bad but far from good, and the flightplan worked great (as did the Garmin 430 on board).

I met one of my colleagues at the airport, and we did the interview right there, after which we went to lunch downtown. The other interviews were conducted afterwards and it was time to head back to Rotterdam.

My Robin DR400 Ecoflyer (Diesel) was head-to-head with a gigantic helicopter of the Danich Army/Airforce that wanted to take-off, so my aircraft was pushed back a bit to prevent it from auto-flying. In the end I was gone before the Danes finished their coffee, but ok.

The flight was beautiful, I went straight overhead the Soesterberg Airforce base (again) and in no time I was back in Rotterdam! The plane had 2 hours to go before a 500 hours inspection, and went to EHMZ with an instructor and a student for a first solo (links to dutch blog)

No pics because my wife took the camera to Spain.