Diversion!

Today everything didn't quite happen like in the movies. So, in the morning I planned a cross-country flight to Hanko aerodrome (EFHN) and from there to Nummela and back to Malmi. It was actually the exact same route I flew yesterday but then it was very windy and the flight was thus quite unpleasant. Somehow I felt I wanted to fly the route again, since today's weather was absolutely calm and the wind was light. Also, I was in a bit of a hurry and now I didn't have to plot a new route. At the morning briefing we discussed a little about the probability of CB-clouds and possible rain showers in the afternoon but all in all there was nothing too special to expect and all stations read "CAVOK" in the whole country.

"Cleared for take off runway 09 right turn!"

Cruising at 2400 feet, heading to Hanko.

The flight to Hanko was incredibly easy. It was so calm that I hardly had to touch the control yoke and could make slight adjustments just by leaning a little to one side on my seat. Soon I was there already and making a touch and go landing to EFHN, heading then to Nummela. I checked out the weather situation and Helsinki was totally fine. Slight rain showers were present somewhere in the north and I flew near the side of one but all clouds were above 4000-5000 feet and visibility was quite unlimited. No problem!

A little rain shower presents no harm, although it isn't so easy to see forward. Just go to remember to put the pitot heat on.

At Nummela I made another touch and go and then headed to my final 25 minute leg back to Malmi. At about halfway through I noticed some stratocumulus-type clouds building up near the shoreline, nothing too special and I expected their bases to be at about 2000 feet. Then suddenly when I had proceeded over Espoo, already having an arrival clearance to Malmi, the clouds seemed to be at about 1500 feet and descending rapidly. I still thought I could easily manage to Malmi since the weather looked like it'd be a bit better over the sea and I noticed that the clouds were "few" and above the layer there was a uniform "broken" layer, so the ceiling would still be quite high.

A few minutes later I finally undestood that I had no hope of continuing... The clouds were building up rapidly and I had to immediately turn back to escape the descending ceiling. After making sure I was flying towards the better weather and maintaining VMC I contacted tower and informed them about a diversion back to Nummela airfield. The decision was at first hard to make since I had so little of the flight left and experienced a slight "plan continuation bias" but I'm glad I still realized it was the only option and didn't continue to IMC conditions.

@ EFNU

So I landed in Nummela and soon found out that another of our school's Cessna was also diverting and I was lucky to get some company. We parked our planes to the apron and went to have some coffee at the local Air Hotel waiting for a ride home, which then came after about an hour. Both of the planes were left to Nummela to be collected later, since the other one didn't have enough fuel left and my plane only had a little time left until the next maintenance so it had to be flown back by a maintenance personnel.

On my last leg to Malmi, cruising at FL0 over the highway.

All in all, I think I got my first diversion experience before any practise flights. At least I now know what to expect. And I learned a lot about the sea and how it can very quickly blow clouds and bad weather to the nearby land. What a day!

First cross-country after the PPL phase

My first cross-country flight from the CPL phase is over. I can now plan the routes freely and I decided to start with a simple two-hour flight from Malmi to Hanko, from there to Nummela and then back, doing touch and go landings on both of the airfields.

EFHN, notice the very long but narrow runway. I'm only about 900 feet high here and still the runway looks like a small string!

The flight went well although the wind was quite gusty and it wasn't easy to maintain the selected altitude. Also, landing to Hanko (which is an especially windy place throughout the year) presented some challenges. At Nummela I got a warning from a local motor glider about wind shear near the runway threshold but I experienced none and landing was easy. A nice flight all in all and I think I'll try to fly this same route again tomorrow, mainly because I'm going to be in a hurry tomorrow and want to save time not having to plot a new route :)

A slightly different perspective this time :)

Flying the Fk9 ELA

At the same day I flew gliders at Nummela, I also got a chance to fly my Fk9 ELA ultralight for the first time this year. The Fk9 is an ultralight plane that my father bought together with his friend for the purpose of leisure trips and recreational flying. The plane was flown to Finland in the spring 2010 and from there on it's been flown for about 300 hours. I think I've flown a little over half of those hours.

The OH-U619. Quite a nice and sleek side profile!

The Fk9 ELA is a German-designed two seat ultralight fitting into the new European light aircraft category. It has been in production since 1989 with over 400 sold individuals. The aircraft is of conventional layout featuring a hight wing with struts, side-by-side seating, flaps and fixed undercarriage. The ELA version is made almost entirely of composite material and features winglets. My plane has a Rotax 912 ULS (100hp) engine installed, which gives it enough power for float operations (which we originally considered trying out but the idea has now been put on hold) and more than enough power for land operations.

A very comfortable "working environment". Notice the slight bank angle caused by the pilot taking pictures and not concentrating on flying!

This individual has a number of additional features installed particularily in the cockpit. The avionics feature a nice Dynon EFIS dislay and a large Garmin GPS with lots of easy-to-use flight planning features. It really makes cross-country flying easy although I always have paper charts on board too. On top of the EFIS, there's a traditional altimeter and airspeed indicator in case of an electrical problem.

On the right there's an electronic multi-function engine display, showing the RPM, CHT and fuel flow, for example. It now shows a typical cruise situation with about 4200 RPM, cylinder head temperature of 73 degrees and fuel flow of about 11 litres per hour. You could also cruise continuously with a higher RPM and thus greater speed but then fuel consumption increases to about 15 litres per hour and I don't like the high-pitched sound the engine makes. When flying ultralights, there shouldn't be any hurry in the first place :)

On the top center, there's a multi-informaton display showing for example the flap positions and fuel quantity (although I always use the mechanical fuel gauges). What's especially handy is that this display also includes electronic checklists, which are easy and natural to use. The checklist dissappears only if you've clicked all the items once, so it's hard to miss anything, and with a double click it automatically moves on to the next checklist. Very nice!

Dusk at Nummela

The Fk9 ELA is an absolute joy to fly. It's handling characteristics are very forgiving and the plane is very stable yet still easy to manoeuvre. It has a cruise speed of about 105 knots so it's a bit faster than a Cessna 152. Rate of climb is about 1000ft/min and stall speed is 35 knots. Stalling is almost "dangerous", since it is so uneventful and calm that you barely notice the whole thing! So it's a good idea to watch the ASI especially when landing.

A few challenges with the Fk9 is that it's quite slick and really doesn't like to slow down so quite a large power reduction is required on downwind to achieve Vfe. The airplane has three flaps settings and with full flaps it finally really slows down and you easily feel the additional drag in the cockpit when selecting full flaps. With full flaps the Fk9 can be very slow and it almost feels like you could land the plane with zero ground speed.

Overall, this has to be one of the best ultralights out there and I've noticed this plane has gained lots of positive attention everywhere it goes!

Here's some specifications (stolen from wikipedia):


General characteristics

• Capacity: 2

  

  A view from the front, nice three-blade propeller.

• Length: 5.85 
• Wingspan: 9.85 m
• Height: 2.15 m
• Wing area: 11.60 m²
• Empty weight: 278 kg
• Max takeoff weight: 544 kg or national ultralight limit (472,5kg in Finland)
• Powerplant: 1 × Rotax 912 ULS 4-cylinder horizontally opposed (100 hp)
• Propellers: 3-bladed Junkers with ground-adjustable pitch

Performance

• Cruise speed: 196 km/h; 106 knots at 75% power
• Stall speed: 64 km/h; 35 knots
• Never exceed speed: 230 km/h; 124 knots
• Range: 1,000 km; 540 nmi
• g limits: +6.01/-3.0
• Rate of climb: 5.0 m/s (980 ft/min)

The "Six One Niner" parked near Nummela's runway 04

This time I didn't fly much mainly due to the lack of fuel on board. I didn't have the time to get more and refuel the plane since my main focus was getting the glider flights done. So I made some short hops around Nummela airfield waiting for a my turn to hop in to the glider. I practised some stalls and made a few landings with different configurations.

I can't wait to start cross-country flying with this later on and enjoy my last summer of recreational ultralight flying before gaining my CPL and moving on to single-engine piston airplanes. I already have a lot of passengers who've asked for a chance to get a ride in this one. I think I'll be once again flying to Mariehamn often, since that's my favourite route here in Southern Finland. There's even a restaurant with a chance to order a 1kg steak, and we've already made a pact with a friend.. :)

Beginning of the gliding season!

Today I flew my first flights in a glider this year. There was about to be some activity at Nummela airfield so I headed there in the afternoon to get my "spring checkride" done. If you've flown less than 200 hours with gliders, you have to fly a school flight with an instructor at the beginning of each season. I took one tow to 500 meters for a normal local flight and then flew two additional traffic circuit flights. It was a nice feeling to fly a glider after a long break, especially the silence compared to powered flying is always fascinating.

Ready for takeoff!

The glider I flew was an ASK-21 tandem-seated glider, which is very popular in basic flying training and also in aerobatic training. This was also the first airplane I ever flew, back in 2009. Nummela Gliding Center has two ASK's, one nicknamed  "Punkku" and the other one "Tenu".

Promoting the school @ Air & Motor Show

An event focusing mainly on cars, bikes and aerobatic airplanes called Air & Motor Show was organized today at Malmi. Since our school's operating from there and has lately been doing a lot of work trying to gain more publicity, it was decided we would promote our airline and private pilot's courses at the event. I was of course one of the volunteers who immediately signed up for the task. I've been promoting gliding on behalf of Nummela Gliding Centre before and have always liked to do this sorts of things so I was very happy to attend!

We had a nice stand with our King Air at the front. Back at the hangar there was a Piper on which people could jump into and look at the interior. Inside our hangar there was also four C152's on display. We mainly promoted and handed flyers on our school's new PPL course with the conditional possibility to continue on to professional pilot training after the course.

Our stand and hangar with the King Air C90 on display. This one has an extended nose with a cargo hold making the plane look like a bird with a beak.

Introducing the Piper to a young boy, although I haven't even flown this one yet :)

I spent quite a while on the captain's seat of our King Air, checking everything out.. A very fine airplane, can't wait to fly this next year!

I took a little detour and checked out the competing flight school's Cirrus SR22, a nice and modern IFR-, G1000- and anti-ice equipped four-seater.

Turku-Tampere

It's over now! This cross-country flight is was the last flight belonging to the PPL part of our syllabus. The aim was to fly solo to two controlled aerodromes and then head back home, and the route was to be the same that we used when flying this same flight with the instructor. So, the route today was from Malmi to Turku airport (EFTU) and from there to Tampere-Pirkkala airport. From Tampere, I would then fly back to Malmi.

The plane of choice for this trip was the Charlie Victor Yankee. Very nice, since it has the upgraded fuel tanks and I didn't have to refuel for the whole trip.

At first everything was about to end in a dissapointing way when I heard from our course leader that there would be no-one who could be our observer, since the one assigned to this task got an emergency flight gig and the replacement instructor had to leave also. Before we get our CPL licence, every solo flight has to have an assigned observer who briefs the flight before- and afterhands and is always aware of where we are and what are we doing. Well, now I was about to go home empty-handed after all the planning work but thankfully we found an observer from the mainentance staff, since one of them also happens to be a flight instructor.

Over Helsinki..

The first part of the flight went really well and easily since I've flown to Turku many times before and it is very esy to just follow the highway in case of starting to lose situational awareness. Also, the weather was extremely nice with no turbulence or thermals, and in no time I was already in the final of runway 26 landing to Turku airport. I had to make a short approach since a Flybe airliner was about to land right after me.

At EFTU, with an ATR-72 in the background.

At Turku I went to have some coffee with a school mate who was flying the same route at the same time. After that it was time to go back to our planes. "See you at Tampere!", and off we went. Except I experienced a little delay and had to gain quite a few additional block minutes waiting at the holding point. At first a pair of F/A-18 Hornets took off before me and after that there was an approaching Wizzair A320. Finally I was ready to take off. Power set, speed alive, rotate!

A nice blue lake somewhere between Turku and Tampere

The route from Turku to Tampere wasn't that familiar, since I've not flown to Tampere Airport too often. Actually this was the second time for me. This time I actually had to navigate a little although once again, there was a road to follow. Still, I think it's nice to explore the map and look for details searching for the exact location you are in. This is good practice especially when you know where you're going and have some extra mental capacity left. I made it to the airport's compulsory reporting point and had to enter a holding pattern due to IFR-traffic. After that I had to orbit in the traffic circuit for quite a while before receiving a landing clearance.

My plane & my future plane. And then there's the Ryanair B737NG.

Tampere airport was a good place for airplane spotters today. It was totally crowded with different aircraft and I was lucky to find a free parking space. In addition to five of our school's planes, there was a C402 aerial photography plane, a Rockwell Commander, a Piper Navajo, the Boeing 737, ATR-72 and the same F/A-18 Hornets from Turku. I hanged out for a while at the apron, took some pictures and then headed to my final leg back to Malmi.

Räyskälä airfield EFRY, one of my route fixes on the final leg.

The final leg was the hardest to navigate, since there was no proper landmarks to follow and I had to cross a large area of only forest and lakes. However I managed to find a tall mast, which eased things considerably. After flying for half an hour over a featureless land I found Räyskälä aerodrome, which was one of my route fixes. After that I headed to Nummela and from there back home to Malmi.

Heading back to the hangar on board an airport vehicle.

After landing and parking my plane to Malmi, I had to order a ride back to hangar. I had to park the plane to the other side of a runway since to the main apron was closed due to the Air & Motor show coming up next saturday. By the way, I will be there presenting our school.
I was very happy that I got to fly this flight in one go not having to plan it over and over again due to bad weather or other delays. From now on, we can decide ourselves where we want to go in case we have pilot in command cross-country flights assigned. I'm looking forward to visiting different places!

First solo cross-country flight

Today was the time to fly my first solo cross-country flight. This flight is actually in the PPL part of the flight syllabus but was one of the two flights we couldn't manage to fly last year due to bad weather.

The Charlie Victor Yankee. This one has larger fuel tanks than the other eight in the fleet, so it has quite a good endurance and range when flying solo.

The route was from Malmi to Hyvinkää and from there to Lahti-Vesivehmaa and back, so the flight was actually the same "Hyvinkää-Lahti" cross-country flight I flew last year, except that this time there was no instructor on board. I did a low approach on each of the destination aerodromes.

VFR navigation. Roads are easy to follow :)

Overall the flight went well and I'm now qualified to fly cross-country to controlled aerodromes too and can start planning the second flight to Turku and Tampere airports, waiting for that!