A quick trip to Ørebro

On friday I had a flight into Ørebro, Sweden. About one hours flight to the south-east. We flew IFR on both legs and a friend of mine was PIC since I am not qualified yet. I will start theoretical and practical training shortly. We departed ENHA in CAVOK and picked up the IFR clearance from Oslo Approach. We were cleared initially 6000ft direct MASEV waiting for FL090 due to inbound traffic at Oslo Airport Gardermoen. We were quickly given our cruise level and we were seeing a GS of 174 kts. Had a small component of tailwind. Approaching MASEV, we were transferred to Sweden Control 131,125. We were radar vectored north of the danger Area R-18 and made a nice join to long final RWY 19 in Ørebro. TWR asked us to hold over NDB EN on final due to inspection of the RWY. The weather was CAVOK, but this gave me an opportunity to train NDB holding.
We departed Ørebro in the afternoon and climbed direct to FL100. A warm front with local showers was approaching Oslo area and we were in solid IFR after some 20 minutes. Minimal icing, but switched the pitot heat and prop heat on to be prepared for more icing. OAT was -2degC. We received descend clearance from Oslo Approach some 28 NM from ENHA and deselected the ALT HOLD and pitched down the command bar on the flight director. We descended in solid IMC and soon we were in rain. Weather was as expected so we did not use the weather radar today. At 5000ft we were visual and made an uneventful landing at ENHA.
Great trip, lots of good learning! Fly safe and train often!

My Seneca Places.. so far!

View Piper Seneca destinasjoner in a larger map

Filing IFR flightplans

After searching the web for a while and talking to pilot friends, I have a simple way to creating and validating IFR flightplans free of charge:
Use FlightPlanPro (free download at http://www.flightplanpro.eu/ ) or create a free account at http://www.eurofpl.eu/ . These apps also validate the IFR routing with CFMU. Copy the route into an ATC filing system, like http://www.ippc.no/ or similar. Voala! While you are at it, copy it into the Jepp Flight Deck App on the iPad and you have the route available in flight. 

Piper Arrow II 1974 LN-KTR for sale

Low wing, 4-seater, Retractable landing gear and constant speed propeller. IFR equipped. Very nice travel-machine! Airframe: TT 3700hrs. Engine: Lycoming IO-360. New propeller and hub in March 2011! Avionics and instruments;

Nav/Com 1: Michel/TKM 170C Digital. New in 2008, Nav/Com 2: KX170B,ILS coupled to NAV 1, VOR coupled to Nav 2, ADF: King KR85 Audiopanel/Marker: King KMA20 Transponder: King KT76 mode A/C DME: King KN64 Garmin 100 GPS, not coupled Dual altimeters, new leather seats and replaced worn interior parts. The plane has been very much cared for and reason for sale is upgrading to twin. We have good experience in keeping the maintenance costs at a very reasonable level. This is crucial to sensible hourly cost. We have operated the plane for 48.000 NOK/year in fixed costs and 600 NOK/hour wet. Price NOK 489.000.

Cleaner air after Volcano!

I took my plane into the air today to perform my own ash pollution experiment. The weather looked like this:

Experiment: I wiped off the front windshield before I took off for a 50 min flight. The left wipe is the result of the airplane flying some 4,5 hours on the 12th April 2010 (BEFORE ICELANDIC VOLCANO ERUPTION). The windshield has been covered in the hangar with a thick blanket until today. The flight commenced into the MES (Mesnali) VOR at 7000 feet for some 30 minutes before returning home. Airborne 1930, landing 2020 local time.

After landing I wiped off the windshield with the wipe to the right. As you can see there is no ash whatsoever.

Conclusion: The air in which I flew is cleaner than I have experienced before. I consider it safe to fly VFR in Scandinavia as long as we keep away from the clouds.

Learning The Air Commander is 100% responsible for its plane, crew and passenger at all times. The authorities can never guarantee safe flight, although they have tried very hard since the Icelandic Volcano eruption.

Nail that ILS!

I found this trick in a magazine. It is simple and can be used enroute as well. The trick is how many degrees to correct final approach Track (FAT) when windspeed is known.

Formula: Max Drift Angle = (60/KTAS) x Windspeed

Example: wind is 250/15 kts. KTAS = 120 kts

MDA=60/120*15=7,5 degrees

If wind-direction is more than 60 deg off your FAT, use 7,5 degrees

If wind-direction is 30 deg off your FAT, use half MDA, 3,25 degrees

Other wind-directions: Interpolate

So if FAT is 220, heading is 223,25 degrees. Works fine!

This comment was entered a late night from Washington to Dallas @ FL340! Cool!

From Cool to Fool in one sec!

This Air Commander did a very good job in pulling the ejection handle, some prior decisions may have room for improvement. 20,4 MUSD of carefully shaped metal and composite parts built into a tight formation and working perfectly together went up in smoke. Next time this Air Commander will probably calculate the altitude needed for a loop somewhat better.

This is a strong reminder to all aviators: If you plan to be extremely cool, the distance to becoming a fool may be quite short!

Read more here: http://gruntdoc.com/2004/01/thunderbirds-accident-report-released-with-photo.html