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A Pilot's Submission to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) On the phone Ron, a flight examiner, seemed a reasonable sort of bloke. He reminded me of the need to do a flight review every two years. He even offered to drive out, look over my property and let me operate from my own ALA (authorized landing area). Naturally I agreed to that. Anyway, Ron turned up last Wednesday. He said he was a bit surprised to see the plane outside my homestead because the ALA is about a mile away. I explained that being close, this strip was more convenient, but there are power lines crossing it at about midway, but it's really no problem to land and take-off because at the halfway point you are always on the ground. For some reason Ron seemed nervous. So, although I had done the preflight inspection only four days earlier, I decided to do it again. Because he was watching me carefully, I walked around the plane three times instead of my usual two. My effort was rewarded because the color returned to Ron's cheeks - in fact they went to a bright red. In view of Ron's obviously better mood, I told him I was going to combine the test flight with my requirement to deliver three calves from the home paddock to the main herd. After a bit of a chase I caught the calves and threw them in the back. We climbed aboard, but Ron started nagging about weight and balance calculation. Of course I knew that sort of thing was a waste of time because stock likes to move around a bit. However, I did assure Ron that I keep the trim wheel adjusted to neutral so we would always remain stable. Anyway, I started the engine and cleverly minimized the warm-up time by tramping hard on the brakes and gunning her to 2,500 rpm. I then discovered that Ron has very acute hearing. Through all that noise he detected a metallic rattle and demanded I account for it. Actually it began last month and was caused by a screwdriver that fell down a hole in the floor and lodged in the fuel selector mechanism. The selector can't be moved, but because it was on 'All tanks' I figured it didn't matter. However, as Ron was obviously a nit picker, I blamed the noise on vibration from a stainless steel thermos I keep it in between the windshield and the magnetic compass. My explanation seemed to relax Ron because he slumped back in the seat and looked at the cockpit roof. I released the brakes to taxi out, but unfortunately the plane gave a leap and spun to the right, "Hell" I thought, not the starboard wheel chock again. The bump jolted Ron back to full alertness. He looked wildly just in time to see a rock thrown by the prop wash disappear through the windscreen of his new Commodore. While Ron was busy ranting about his car, I ignored his requirement that we taxi to the ALA and instead took off under the power lines. Ron didn't say a word, at least not until the engine coughed at lift off, then he screamed, "Oh God!" "Now take it easy," I told him firmly, "That often happens on take-off and there is a good reason for it." I explained patiently that I usually run the plane on standard MOGAS, but one day I accidentally put in a gallon or two of kerosene. To compensate for the low octane of the kerosene I siphoned in a few gallons of super MOGAS and shook the wings up and down a few times to mix it up. Since then the engine has been coughing a bit, but in general it works just fine. At this stage Ron seemed to lose all interest in the flight test. He pulled out some rosary beads, closed his eyes and became lost in prayer. I selected some nice music on the HF to help him relax. Meanwhile I climbed to my normal NOSAR NODETAILS cruising altitude of 10,500 feet. On leveling out I noticed some wild camels heading into my improved pasture. (See Part 2) ========================================================================== ==== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers/
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