Ingo Noka

Archive for the ‘Airmanship’ Category

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Thailand Flight – Day 3 / 29 July 2013

In Aircraft, Airmanship, Equipment, Flight Log, Navigation on July 31, 2013 at 8:49 pm

9M-DRJ, a bit lonely at Hat Yai Airport, Thailand

On Monday, my short field take off skill was to be tested.  In a case like this, before you do anything else, you have to makes sure the weight and balance of the aircraft is acceptable for the runway you want to take off.  At a soft, grass field of 500 meters, that stuff really matters. Normally I take off from runways that are built for an A380, on which I have ample time to get up to speed or to abort if it is just not going to happen (the take off).

I couldn’t do  much about my own weight (which is embarrassingly high these days), so I made my plane as light as possible.  I had about 32 Gallons (87 Kg) of fuel and 25 Kg of luggage (mostly paper, iPad, laptop, handheld radio – this sort of thing).  Altogether, I and my plane were in good shape for a short field take off. (I did the calculation for takeoff ground roll and over 50 feet obstacle as well, which is a topic for another post.)

W&B for take off from grass field Phuket Airpark

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Thailand Flight – Day 1 / 27 July 2013

In Airmanship, Flight Log, Knowledge, Navigation, Uncategorized on July 28, 2013 at 8:26 pm

Pad James and Ingo at Phuket Airpark

Wow!  What a day. The weather in Singapore turned a  leisurely flight from Singapore to Phuket with plenty of breaks and buffer time into a mad race against time.

I arrive at about 7:30 am at the Seletar immigration checkpoint.  The METARs and the rain radar didn’t look great, but there was still room for hope that I could take off between 8 am and 9 am.  Later than planned, but still not too bad.  A front of early morning thunder storms moved from the North West down the coast to Singapore, but hadn’t made landfall yet.  I thought I could skirt the outer edges of the weather by flying inland rather along the cost to Malacca.  By the time I had the aircraft ready the situation was still borderline acceptable, so I asked ATC for clearance.  Surprisingly, they actually got it, but cautioned my that after Point XRAY the visibility would be so bad that I probably wouldn’t be able to proceed in VMC.  If you have half a brain left, you do not ignore a message like that from ATC, so I postponed the flight plan to 10:00 am. Read the rest of this entry »

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Airspeed – Dead or Alive?

In Airmanship, Equipment, Gear, Knowledge, Ownership on May 19, 2013 at 4:47 pm

As they saying goes: it only takes two things to fly – airspeed and money. However, while it is usually better not to think too hard about the money you spend on flying, it is a great thing to know your airspeed.

Recently, I found out what it takes to fly without knowing your airspeed. After take-off, the airspeed seemed to come alive very late and be stuck at about 60 knots. By the time I decided that something is wrong with my airspeed indicator, I was already airborne and not enough runway left to abort the take off. I figured it is safer to fly as planned and use power, attitude, ground speed and eyeballs to fly at a safe speed. It turned out to be rather easy to achieve a straight and level flight without airspeed. After all, what speed can you possibly fly at with a 70% power setting without climbing or descending? The real question was, how would I achieve a reasonable approach speed and probably for the first time in my flying career I actually listened to ATC telling me wind speed and direction in their landing clearance.

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Exhilarating and scary – VFR around Monster Thunderstorms

In Airmanship, Flight Log, Navigation, Weather on April 22, 2013 at 12:17 pm

This is not how a straight in approach to Seletar is supposed to look like

As the saying goes, pilots start off with a ton of luck and no experience and hope to gain enough experience before their luck runs out. I used up a good portion of luck and learned a lot of things yesterday.

On my way back from Kota Bahru, an uneventful three hour cross-country flight was crowned by one and a half hour of the most challenging and scary flying I have ever done.

Within 30 minutes, a couple of rapidly growing and fast moving thunderstorms put Johor, Seletar, Subang and Tioman into IMC – all at the same time.

Mind you, I am not talking about a bit of bad visibility that is crappier than what we normally deal with in South East Asia. I am talking about the big black impenetrable blanket that cover large junks of the land.

While orbiting next to one of those monsters my ground speed in one 360 degree turn varied by 70 knots! The aircraft was going up and down so rapidly that the AP disengaged, my headset flew off and I banged my head into the ceiling so badly hat I saw stars in the clouds. (Advice from the “Been there, done it” department : truly tighten the seat belts and do not just chant this point on the check list. )

If you know the layout of the airports in Malaysia, you will also know that there was literally no viable option to land anymore and I was at the end of a 3 hour flight with about 2 hours endurance left if I would have flown the tanks empty.

So I was flying up and down the East coast between Sidilli Besar and Desaru to find an opening, but every time I thought I had found something, ATC told me that the weather radar looks even worth where unwanted to go.

Eventually, ATC negotiated with Singapore a 4000 feet climb and track to VJB, which is the VOR station there. With the up- and down-drafts yanking me around like mad I even had problems to remember what a VOR was, let alone how to track to one. However, many hours of lonely flying in my new airplane with plenty of time to play around with the avionics paid off.

I managed to go in the right direction, but lost my nerves close to Kota Tinggi, where I descended to 1000 feet again to track the ground.

Again, many flights to Mersing in the past gave me the confidence to navigate by ground features alone. I was even able to identify the danger areas by the the change in vegetation, but why I bothered to avoid the areas when I thought I might not make it to the airfield is one of those mysteries…

Finally I had the airfield in sight and what a beautiful sight it was! I guess this put me into such a calm and relaxed Zen state that I did one of my best landings ever – an absolute greaser. (Good landings only happen when nobody else is in the aircraft to witness it. But whether you believe me or not, I know what I saw… Or maybe my butt was just desensitized. )

After big thunderstorms the view is often gorgeous, with unlimited visibility and haze rising out of the jungle in columns. And that was the sight Mother Nature greeted me with on my flight from Johor to Seletar in cool air and just the slightest drizzle. Maybe it was an apology for her earlier misfits?

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Watch your Weights

In Airmanship, Flight Bag, Knowledge on September 18, 2012 at 12:13 am

This pilot has become rather heavy. Time to brush up on W&B!

During our flight training we have all learned how to do the weight and balance calculations and we have been told that this is something we must do before every flight.  Of course, even then, many of us thought this exercise was only good for watching the instructor’s reaction when you filled in his weight (for the examiner your estimate better had to be on the low side).

For me this was the state of affairs for the first 100 hours of my PPL “career”.  However, lately I am flying more and more with passengers and luggage, so I thought I’d better brush up on my W&B knowledge. As things go these days, my first thought was whether there is an App for that, and sure enough there are plenty.  In one of my next posts I will review an excellent application from Angell Development LLC by the name of WnB Pro.

Let’s talk first about the theory of W & B.  As usual the FAA has very good materials on their web site (Aircraft Weight and Balance Handbook, FAA-H-8083-1A).  I recommend reading this document if you are really serious about this stuff.

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Flying in the Dark …

In Airmanship, Flight Log on January 5, 2012 at 9:48 pm

Sunset over Gunung Pulai

A good start into the new year.  I did an hour of night flying yesterday (4 January 2012).  The weather was gorgeous – calm air, an almost full moon and a bright orange sunset.  Night flying is in many ways similar to the normal day flying, but of course there are many differences as well.   For every FRAS member, who has not done the night flying, I would strongly recommend to try it.  The tropical night is truly magical.  Click here for a couple of pictures i took while I was waiting for Paulo to come back from his sortie. Read the rest of this entry »

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Aeronautical Charts of Malaysian Airspace

In Airmanship, Gear on November 13, 2011 at 6:29 pm

Soviet Military Topographic Map

In South East Asia, Aeronautical VFR charts tend to be out of date or non-existent.   As with most General Aviation related services in this part of the world, this sorry state of affairs has to do with the very low demand.  There are simply not enough GA aircraft and pilots in Asia to make it worthwhile for anybody to spend money on many things that are taken for granted by pilots in the US or Europe.

Nevertheless, we make do with what we have and I have not heard of anybody getting lost in Malaysia because of a missing or inaccurate map.  Of course, the airspace is not as crowded as (I imagine) in most parts of the UK or Germany.

To alleviate the situation a bit, I have collected a couple of resources that can help fellow aviators in Malaysia to find their way around.  I would be very grateful if you could send me additional information or help me correct mistakes I may have made.  This blog entry is just an announcement of this new content on my website and any further changes will be made on this page. Read the rest of this entry »

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What did they say?

In Airmanship, Private Pilot License on September 26, 2011 at 10:28 pm

Piper Avionics Stack

A while ago I wrote about my radio practice at Senai airport.  I wrote it mostly to get things lined up properly in my own mind, so I never got around to publish it.   I now found it again in one of the abandoned folders on my laptop and think this may help somebody else with their first radio calls.  So, while I make it available here, I am aware that I am not that experienced myself and may get things wrong.  It always better to ask an instructor for clarification if in doubt! Read the rest of this entry »