Superhawking

Flight hours: 4.4

You may recall that the engine was well over TBO and although performing strongly, it was time to use the insurance money to buy a new engine.

The decision was made to move to a Penn Yan beast, which also requires a new prop... Who cares? 180 HP, ability to carry full fuel and 4 adults in a 172... Sold.

The engine will take a few weeks to arrive by sea freight and another two weeks for installation.

The outcome should show a 125 kt cruise (130+ kt fast cruise) at around 40 litres per hour fuel burn.

AirNav VFR

Flight hours: 0
Aviation Reading: Aviation Magazines

Over the last few months I have had a few emails from readers asking about the web-based application I designed to help with tracking the aircraft hours and maintenance as well as whether I use flight planning software. This post will be about the flight planning software I use.

This article was written sometime ago, however I never got around to taking screenshots of the software. Seeing as George, a work colleague from Western Australia and fellow pilot, will be in Sydney for a work junket in the next few months, I decided to quickly whip up a flight plan for a possible trip we will take and present some screenshots on the process as well as telling you why I choose this piece of flight planning software (for Australia).

The software I use is AirNav VFR from Sentient Software.



The reason I chose this software is primarily for its point-and-click interface on official Airservices Australia maps. I can essentially plan flights on suitable maps and instantly cross-check them with airspace requirements, PRD type zones and selecting suitable waypoints. Totally cool!





Below is a planned route. I simply opened the three charts to determine the best route (WAC, VNC and VTC), double clicked on Bankstown for takeoff and proceeded to mark my route via easily identify features or points of interest. Click on the picture for a closer look.



In addition, it has a whole swag of features such as adding notes to the flight plan on the actual map, GPS coordinate uploads into my GPSMap 296 (it's in a standard format so it can be used on most GPS's), moving map display options (if you take a laptop/tablet PC with a GPS connection) etc.

Below you can see how useful it is to make thorough notes in the planning stage so as the flight progresses, you have taken some considerable workload off your in-cockpit decision making. Again, click on the picture for a closer look.



You can then print out official Airservices maps (Best to print them out on a colour printer to obatin the full benefit), customised to your flight along with flight plan details, navigation information, radio frequencies etc. Obviously, a safe pilot will also spend a small portion of the planning stages on basic cross checking of the software navigational plans with old fashioned real map work.



A final checklist helps ensure you have covered the major aspects of planning a cross country flight such as fuel requirements, altitudes to fly and even winds aloft so you can have your magnetic tracks already worked out. Goodbye E6B use for flight planning fuel burn, ETA's and wind correction angles.



I fully recommend that pilots (even students doing NAV’s) or hard-core simulation pilots, forget the competition to AirNav and seriously consider putting this piece of software into your digital flight bag. Primarily due to the fact that this is the only software with approved full colour Airservices maps which is one hell of an advantage as well as being generally easier to use than the others on the market.

The thing that blew me away is the cost of the software, starting at $225 for a map pack for instance Western Australian WAC’s, VTC’s, VNC’s, ERC-L and going to $300 for all VFR maps (You can also get IFR map packs).

Now THAT price is very reasonable, even for pilots flying low hours per year. In fact, if you think about the time you will save in planning a flight from fully traditional methods, you have certainly paid for the software many times over in just one or two cross country flights as well as improving your safety in the air by enhancing your ability to plan thoroughly thus reducing your cockpit workload.

The subscription for all maps currently comes to under $60 per year. So if you purchase the software and all the maps you will ever require, Sentient supplies you with all of the Airservices updates at that low price. You just cannot beat that.

Do yourself a favour and obtain a demo of the software (suited for Australia only unless you are a real hardcore overseas simulation pilot looking for reality planning). Email Paul Boxer and tell him OzPilot sent you. Alternatively give Sentient a call on (03) 9646 3331 (+613 9646 3331 for your overseas folk).

Note: I'm not employed by Sentient Software. This is just an unbiased post about how happy I am with the software and their customer service.

Maintenance hell is frozen… For now.

Flight hours: 0
Aviation Reading: Aviation Magazines

Well, what a pleasant surprise!

The mechanic (actually a L.A.M.E (Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer)) cleared the plane for another hundred hours before engine overhaul! That extra hundred hourly on-condition sign-off allows me to take the engine up to 400 hours past TBO.

The Lycoming O-320 in the plane was compression tested and oil consumption was in the middle of normal limits along with no metal being found in the oil filter.

What does this mean? Financial raping of engine overhaul/replacement has been diverted for now. Hell is frozen and is thawing over the next hundred hours of flight. It also gives me a few months reprieve in departing with my cash.

On other financial news, the windsheild will get replaced in the coming week or so.

India and Podcasting don't mix

Flight hours: 12 (via Human Mailing Tubes)
Study hours: 0
Aviation Reading: Flying

I believe India is jinxed for actually getting a podcast out. Working long hours, broken equipment and the Windows Vista audio drivers I'm using are not recording as well as they could. L.A.M.E Lame lame.

Appreciate the man-handling of my bags and the outcome to the microphone I was going to use whilst travelling. Slightly functioning through only ear piece, damaged head band, inability to clip the earphones into the holder and a crackling mic when recording. Joy.



I will endeavour to push out one of the planned episodes this week on my normal recording rig. Stay tuned!

Shiny Headset

Flight hours: 1.2 (Simulator)
Study hours: 0
Aviation Reading: Killing Zone: How and why pilots die

"Imagine a headset so comfortable you may forget you're even wearing it! You'll think it was designed for you personally. Made from new, handcrafted materials that refuse to sacrifice lightweight comfort [and provide] long term durability….

Now imagine it's yours - the new X-11 ENC from David Clark."

I actually don't have my own headset. Let's rephrase that. I have a headset, but I do not "own" it. Michael (the work colleague I flew with on the previous weekend), was a student pilot well before I was. He was in limbo with flying training when I decided to get my license, so we established a temporary trade of his David Clark H10-13.4 headset for an AGV motorcycle helmet of mine. I would commence my flight training using his headset and Michael can race his Subaru WRX with my helmet.

That trade continued to be in place for over 6 years as Michael never picked up flying training again. Now that I have the Cessna, I cannot possibly let all passengers who fly with me to use one of the spare old headsets we have in the rear baggage compartment. Using an old headset can ruin the experience some.

I decided to check out the ANR headsets and made my decision on procuring the new X11. Now one lucky passenger on each flight can use my old (trade) headset, whilst I use the X11.

It weighs only 12.1 ounces and has a music input which means I can listen to some tunes/podcasts whilst I am flying. The good thing about it is that the music cuts out for a period of time whenever it detects a carrier signal on the listening frequency.

Syndicate: 2010

Flight hours: 0
Study hours: 0
Aviation Reading: Flight of Passage

When I joined the syndicate, one of the owners was introducing me to the way things operated. I queried him on how bookings are made, which I discovered was via email to all owners and first-in, first-served.

Seeing as I try to make everything I do in my role within I.T. as automated or simple as possible, I immediately asked if they had considered using a website that could be the recording point of bookings. He said they may consider it and he would put it to the other owners.

I saw that as the green light to fully code the site using PHP and mySQL.
It provides us with:

• Booking Management
• Maintenance Tracking
• Reports
• Pilot Hours
• Hours per month
• Trending the 100 hourly inspection
• Photo Gallery
• Medical and Rating tracker (for currency and renewals)
• Contact information of the owners
• Newsletters
• Share-a-ride posting
• Weather briefings
• Submission of flight plans for our more common flights

I host the site myself (WAMP) and purchased a domain name for the site which is the tail registration. Naturally the site was accepted and voted as the only means for bookings along with recording maintenance etc, thus moving the syndicate further into the internet age.

That blue line represents our 100 hourly that is rapidly approaching.

Hey honey, we bought an airplane

That's nice dear.

As I mentioned, the syndicate found me. They currently have seven members and I was to replace the last remaining original member who had purchased a Jabiru in recent times.

The plane is a Cessna 172M, always hangared and is in great condition.

Along with the usual items found in general aviation aircraft, this one has:

• Aux Tanks
• Two NavCom's
• Two ADF's
• Two GPS's

One of the GPS' is TSO'd (GNC 300XL), which means it is certified for IFR. The other GPS is a old portable Garmin GPS 95 which has been attached to the instrument panel. I also have my Garmin GPSMap 296. I bought it not long after Garmin released the GPSMap 496, seeing as the price for the 296 came down considerably being twice superceded and all.

The GPSMap 296 greatly enhances awareness during VFR flight and it certainly helps reduce the cockpit workload especially when you are skirting near airspace boundaries. A bonus is that my flight planning software can communicate with the GPS to upload my flight plans and waypoints.

The flight planning software was only a recent addition to my "flight bag". It will help me plan the bigger trips since you can view and overlay multiple maps at the same time.When you have finished planning within the software, it can submit the flight plan, provide fuel logs, a passenger route guide (keeps them occupied and feeling like a co-pilot) and overlay notes on the pertinent areas of the charts you require such as frequency changes or altitude planning. All of these things further help to reduce cockpit workload for the pilot, which is a good thing.

That being said, I still ensure I am no stranger to old school flight planning. Give me a chart, compass, plotter, pencil and a timepiece and I can navigate to you to any location. We can sort out the wind correction, groundspeed and ETA's whilst flying.

The additional auxiliary tanks provide roughly 6.5 hours endurance. My bladder may not last that long at times, but it is good to know I can take 2.8 people a long distance without re-fuelling. It will be very suited to some of the long trips I would like to make.

One of those long trips involves George, a work colleague from the west coast of Australia. We will be planning a trip to the centre of Australia to visit Uluru among other things. George also has his pilot’s license and seeing as I'm over in Perth for Christmas this year, George and I can go somewhere quiet and plan that trip.

Awesome, I now have my own plane, the only down side is that I still want to build a plane. I think I can put that off for at least five more years, maybe less.