Sierra Del Barón Rojo

The epics of my Beechcraft Sierra.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

 

Canberra - 17 June 2006

What a wonderful day to go flying. My day started at about 8:00 am and I went to Super Cheap Auto and purchased a tube of 1-minute Araldite, and picked up a nozzle for my window sealing caulk tube that I forgot last time I was there, and some Wax and paper towels.

The next trip saw me at JayCar, a local electronics supplier, where I purchased some cable armour, a super-bright LED tourch and some other items and headed out to the airport.

I removed the covers from the plane and undid the pilot-side plastic trim and got out my socket set and undid the nuts holding the pilot-side windscreen in the door. This screen had been put in with Silicon Rubber sealant (silastic) and leaks like a seive when it rains. It took about 1/2 an hour and I had the screen out. The next job was to run around the fibreglass lip and cut the silastic away. The silastic grips very well to the fibreglass but not very well to the plastic screen at all.

Once I was satisfied it was clean I then laid a bead of caulking compound right around this lip and then replaced the screen. I pressed the screen down onto this compound so it spread out across the lip and then held the screen in place with the original screws, washers and the nylock nuts. I then went around the lip and ensured that the bead has spread so it covered all the gaps. I also added additional bead around the outside bottom of the screen to ensure that the bottom of the screen was doubly sealed. I then replaced the trim when I was satisifed I had done enough.

The next job was to polish the aircraft. I applied the polish to a small rag and rubbed it over the wing and it dissappeared! So I had to put more on. I did the upper surface of the wing, the stabilator the top and sides of the fuselage first. Then I got on my back and crawled underneath the aircraft and added polished to the entire bottom of the fuselage from the front cowling to the back tail-cone. Then I added polish to the bottom of the stabilator, and to the bottom of both wings. The whole process took ages.

When I inspected the upper sections of the wing to remove the polish I noticed that it didn't have any powered wax on it, so I applied more polish and did the wings again. Perhaps the polish had been sucked into the paint.

Anyway I then went around the whole plane, top and bottom and removed the dried wax which came off easily and left the paint very shiny. In fact the green stripes look very green and I could see my face reflecting from the bottom of the fuselage.
The polishing took about two hours and boy am I sore.

I then grabbed my can of trusty white-lithium spray-on grease (what will they think of next) and lubricated both control columns. Wow what a difference that made to the friction!

I also greased the seat rails and they slide very well too, and I lubricated the chain on the trim wheel - what a difference that made as well. Almost as good as the difference in the aircraft after we lubricated the aileron hinges and control linkages with Slick 50 One Lube.

I had been at the airport since 9:00am and it was now 13:30 and I was getting hungry so I packed up my gear and broke for lunch, well not quite. When I got to my truck I realised that I had not wound the cable armour onto my battery-pack cable and splitters, so I spent half-an-hour winding the split armour up all the cables. The hope is that this armour will protect the cables while in the aircraft from things such as the trim pulley chain, the seat latches, and feet when the cable is lying on the aircraft floor because I place the battery supply behind the front seats and run the cable forward to the PDA on the control column and the GPS receiver on the dashboard.

So I bought some lunch close to the airport, but not at the airport because I hate airport food, and when I got back I took my flight back and started the plane and refuelled. To my horror I noticed that any spashes of AvGas instantly take the polish of the wings, so when I parked it I had to add more wax to the wings near the fuel caps and will remove the dry wax in the morning.

Anyway I warmed the engine and 25 minutes later I took UMS for a City Charlie 2 flight. Charlie stands for clockwise and 2 is the longer flight path. This long flight is about 30 nm which is not far at all and takes about 15 to 20 minutes in my plane.

I was cleared for takeoff and 1102' later I was in the air, this is one up with full fuel at an airfield elevation of 1885' and an OAT 55.4 F, which I think is pretty impressive for a heavy machine. I turned right at about 500' and backed the manifold pressure back to 25" and the revs to 2500rpm and I had to lean it and it climbed like a homesick Angel. It loves the cold air and it wasn't long before I had climbed to 4000' AMSL.

I was a little bit off track because I haven't flown a clockwise city flight for a long time, everything was backwards and almost unfamiliar from this way round.

Since Canberra airport is running with only one active runway due to extension works on the cross runway it is very busy and I was delayed to permit 737s to land.
I took this as an opportunity and requested permission to orbit Kambah. The response was orbit as much and where you like, so I circled my house 2.5 times (3 passes) and headed towards Mt Stromlo where again I was advised there would be delays. So I requested some additional airwork and was given the instruction fly wherever you like but remain west of Black Mountain tower, so I got to buz around in the West of the city as well.

I was eventually cleared to track back to Lk Ginninderra and then to the Race Track and over the Ainslie ridge for right-base onto R17. All these delays and orbits extended my flight to a long 22 minutes, almost the same amount of time I spent warming the aircraft up.

The C2 flight path

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