93% on the flight test! Without going into detail, the examiner said I had flown an excellent test and that it had been a pleasure flying with me. What did I mess up? The same thing I always do, I totally forgot to pick an abort point for my soft/short-field take-offs. I even wrote a note on my x-country flight log to do this, and STILL forgot. NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOLLercoaster.

The other things were fortunately small things, like forgetting to go full rich when climbing from the x-country portion to do upper air work. WHY did I forget this, I do not know. Brain fart! Regardless, I am so happy to get that over and done with XD. Next up: do the 300nm trip annnnd uhhhh, wossit... oh, solo night hours! Then the commercial licence, she will be mine, AH AH AH. Annnd then it's right headfirst into the instructor rating, whew.

89% on the Commercial written! PASSU, GO TO NEXT LEVELUH, PILOTO RANGAH. The test was an odd mix of surprisingly easy questions, and those that made me want to stand up, point at the screen and holler WHAT THE HELL IS THAT. Not difficult, per say, just uh, very differently worded.

Onto the flight test! This also segues well into the next thing I should mention: an Ontario flight school has offered to pay for all of my training if I'll instruct for them for a year and a half. It's a good school and I know a lot of the people there already, so it looks like I'll be working there once I get the instructor rating done, AND done. Suhwheet! I am tres excited.

I am back from zer frozen north! Leaving camp was kind of like the end of MASH or something; you're glad to get back home but sad to leave at the same time. The timing was probably good though, since the bears were starting to move in.

To make a long story short it was an awesome four months, excellent times were had by all, and I now have Beaver time in my logbook. Okay, right seat Beaver time. That plane is awesome to fly.

Most belatedly I realised that the_starhorse tagged me for the following meme like, back in August. Whoops. I, er, I don't read LJ very often any more, I admit it! I am horribly out of the fabulous loop.

-:- List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
-:- Tag seven people to do the same.
-:- Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag whoever wants to do it.

- Since this is my aviation journal, I'll start out by saying that I LOVE doing spins. I'll grab a plane and take it up to six grand and do like, ten spins in a row, climbing up again between them. Sometimes I'll spin just to lose altitude in a hurry. Spinning is wicked awesome. You know, from a safe height. Intentionally.
- When I was younger I, er, did some modelling. Quite, you.
- I was also featured on On the Road Again. I am a rerun!
- I just bought an XBox 360 to celebrate my return to civilisation and I'm playing BioShock as we speak. AWESOME.
- Lots of small holes in things creep the shit out of me. UGH. I really can't explain this for the risk of freaking my shit right the hell out.
- I think I hate Ted Koppel! ... No, wait, I find him informative and witty.
- I can't stand emotional people though. I just get the urge to smack them until they shut up.

I'd hunt down seven people to tag, but, you know. BioShock. THIS GAME, OH MAN.

Man, I'm never on LJ any more, hahaha.

But yeah, uh, I should probably have mentioned this earlier. I'll keep this brief, but in a nutshell I'm currently up in northwestern Ontario working as a flight dispatcher for a float air service based at a fishing/canoe camp on an island in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't get my commercial finished in time for a flying position (AGH, I'm ten hours of instrument short, AGH) but I'll finish it up this fall and in the meantime get the hang of this bush flying business from the dispatch office and the right seat.

Yep, all right seat flying for me for the summer. No left seat flying. I'm gonna try to weasel a checkout on the 185, but we'll see how that goes. On the plus side, even right seat time in a Beaver and an Otter looks pretty rad in your logbook.

Other than that, HOLY SHIT, I AM TOTALLY RADAR O'REILLY UP HERE, HAHAHAHAHA. Only I listen for planes rather than choppers.

Man, last week was great for flying. I was up every day from Sunday to Sunday, save for Wednesday due to lousy weather. All PIC time towards the commercial too, which was rad. Mostly I was practicing upper air works, slow flight, stalls, steep turns blah blah, etc., plus forced landings in and out of the circuit. The next time a good day with a high ceiling pops up I'm gonna grab my instructor and go up for some spins. Spins are also rad!

Additionally I stumbled across a fabulous rental deal. Currently there's only one plane flying at the flight school, and it's understandably booked solid. So I nosed over to Vector Air across the ramp, a charter company flying King Airs across Canada and the US. It turns out they have a very nice 1979 172N available for rental in their nice big heated hanger (HELLO!) that is hardly ever booked. They just want to see it flown. I'm more than happy to oblige.

So I arranged a checkout with their chief pilot, which was a piece of cake; when he found out I was not only current but actively flying throughout the week he just asked to see three circuits, one normal, one no-flaps and one full-flaps. No prob! He was pleased with my landings, remarking I must be used to flying out of short strips. I got a grin out of that.

Anyway! I'm all checked out on it now, and I really like this airplane. The best thing is that hardly anyone else rents it. The owners are more than happy to let me walk into the hanger at any time to fly it, which is pretty much what I ended up doing all this week. And they're more than happy to let it go out on long cross-countries and overnight trips too, which is very awesome. It's the next best thing to ownership, so far.

Formation flying = fun!

After a while we had to bolt for the airport before the snow moved in, but it was very cool while it lasted.

Five more hours this weekend, 3.2 on floats and 1.8 on a checkout for the 172, plus power-off forced approaches in the circuit... man, doing those 180s back to the runway from downwind are FUN. They're like spot landings with twice the urgency XD.

And float flying was rad, as always. Tons of glassy water landings this weekend. Talk about gorgeous weather on Saturday; I flew up north in the 170 and we just hit a ton of lakes. Even today was beautiful and smooth, although visibility was between 3 and 4 miles. It was a bit of a pain up at 3500' in the 172, but 500' above the lake and the river in the 170 with everything shrouded in mist... just lovely!

Whoa! I just realised, as of Nov. 20th I've had my PPL for one year. Awyeah!

Anyway, I just thought I'd pop in here for an update. Lessee... well, my total time as of today is 176 hours. I'm pleased to say that 75 of them are on floats. Ohhhh yeah, I had a blast flying floats this summer and fall. Originally I was aiming for the fifty hours of advance training that would make me eligible for a dock job, but to hell with that- I'm totally hooked. Floats are the greatest. I don't want to be anything but a float pilot. I really don't want to go back to wheel planes. Well, okay, maybe the ones with the little wheel on the tail. They're cool.

But alas, I'm going for my commercial licence as we speak and have made a grudging return to wheels for the winter. WAIT DID I JUST SAY ALAS WTF. Going back to flying the 172 has been pretty hilarious so far. I'm like, GAWD, my feet are bored, this plane flies itself, gotta stop over-ruddering, electric flaps, wow, a radio, lol. I hear they're pretty nice on floats though- AGH, no, must not think wistful thoughts, massive winter hatey coming on...!

Although I'd kind of like to get some ski time in this winter. And more taildragger time too... and I've been eyeballing aerobatic instruction up in Smith Falls...

But yeah, commercial licence! Time to get my ass in gear again. I'd like to have it by next spring/early summer in time to get a dock job somewhere, anywhere, and then with any luck a float job after that. Here's hoping!

Whatchicha! I'm just in the process of moving this journal over onto Blogger, so don't raise an eyebrow if stuff starts disappearing; once everything is ported over to the new place I'll probably nuke it. Blogger, ahoy!

I made it up to the airport for an evening flight last night; it was quiet and peaceful save for the GIANT COLUMN OF SMOKE on the horizon. From the sounds of things a number of cottages up on Stoney Lake were ablaze last night. No wonder I could hear so many pilots declaring that they were clear of the zone to the north en route to Stoney Lake while I was taxiing over to get fuel. Everybody was buzzing about the lake to check out the fire!

Given the number of planes loitering up north I elected to go south instead. I only had an hour booked so I stayed local and circled the house a few times, then turned south to Port Hope and Cobourg and then north towards the Northumberland hills to check out the barn that mom boards her horse at. Rice Lake and Elmhirst were next as I was curious to see if they've put their docks and the PA-12 back in the water, and failing to spot either I flew back along the lake to Bewdley before heading back to the airport for a hasty landing on 27 in time to beat an inbound Archer making the NDB approach for 09.

Just a nice, relaxing flight; the air was smooth at two thousand feet and the lake was calm and golden in the sunset. There were canoes out on the water and small boats, the radio was quiet and everything was quite tranquil. On the downside, thanks to the sunset my eyes were dazzled every time I looked west, which made the approach to 27 a bit of a squintathon. But I made a good stall-squeaker short field landing regardless and was stopped well before bravo, so hey to that.

This weekend is looking piss-poor for flying so far- nothing but rain in the forecast. I'll be at the airport regardless since my natural state of being seems to be, uh, at the airport, but I don't know how much flying I'll be able to do. Fortunately next week is so far promising to be a lot sunnier. Now that I can fly after work I'll be aiming to do so a lot more often.

Yesterday was hoo-waaay too windy for flying so I hoisted my belt and held out for three hours this afternoon of decent weather. And lo and behold!

( April 15: YPQ - NF4 )

Thanks to an ill-timed driving test I couldn't make it into the studio today. That sounds like a cue to head up to the airport if I ever heard one!

It was miserably grey and scuddy all morning but the clag had streamed away by the time I did the walkaround and the day had turned lovely and warm and sunny with thick cloud lingering to the north. No worries- I decided to head south to the lake instead. Just after getting a radio check from unicom, while taxiing to get fuel I was startled to hear an emergency call come over the radio- someone had suffered an engine failure and was making a straight-in arrival for runway 27. They were about seven miles back. My first thought was... wow. He's gliding that far? This sounds like it's going to be close.

I shut down at the pumps and anxiously scanned the approach for 27, trying to spot this inbound plane. Unicom had already gotten on the horn with the pilot and assured him that the runway would be clear and all local traffic would be warned to keep away. I think I was the only local traffic really, and I was more than happy to wait on the ground while I got my fuel. The fire truck pulled up and waited. I could see everyone in the FBO waiting and watching as well.

Eventually the plane appeared on the approach for 27. Aaaaaand it's a twin with one prop motionless and feathered. Whew! Well, not that I was happy about the poor guy's plight, but for a moment after hearing the emergency call through my headset I had a nasty vision of a single-engined aircraft gliding vainly for the distant runway. At least in a twin you have another engine to fly on.

Anyway, he made a beautiful landing and cleared the runway without incident. When he taxiied past the fuel pumps I saw that the left cowling was streaked with oil. He went straight for the hangers and shut down. I trotted out, did my runup and took off. Aside from the twin there were no other aircraft in the area. What a quiet day.

It was a very nice flight. I had accidentally left my map at home while dashing out of the house this morning to get to my driving test and so I kept the flight fairly local, but I decided to make a challenge out of it by staying around 1000' AGL and finding my way around based on familiar landmarks, without the advantage of altitude to give me a wide view. Not a problem whatsoever. G and I did a lot of low flying during my flight training in both good and poor weather to practice precautionary landings and diversions in bad weather situations, so it's not unfamiliar. I just made sure to steer well clear of any big towers in the area; the tallest ones extended up higher than I was flying.

I flew out to Rice Lake, to the house and circled it, then headed further south towards Port Hope and Cobourg, following the shore of Lake Ontario. Then it was north back up to Rice Lake, a leisurely cruise along the southern shore past Harwood and Gores Landing to Bewdley and then a climb back north to the airport and a brisk crosswind. The first landing was garbage and I wasn't at all pleased. I did another circuit and the second landing was much better. One of the instructors had given me one of those biscotti biscuits when I signed out the plane, only I had tossed it onto the right seat and forgotten to eat it; I taxiied back to the flight school with my mic pushed down and this thing jutting out of my teeth like a cigar, the window open and my elbow stuck out in the slipsteam, happy as a clam. And then tied down and ate the biscotti. Good stuff all around!

I'm booked to fly tomorrow if the flight school isn't closed for the holiday, and all weekend as well. Here's hoping the weather holds out; I keep hearing rain in the forecast.

(Oh, and I passed the driving test too. Now I'm back home doing some paintings for work for the rest of the night. What a nice, sunny, quiet evening. Perfect for painting!)

Another weekend at the airport! I was back at nine am for breakfast with the gang on Saturday morning and came home Sunday evening at six. I flew both days and had a marvelous time both in the air and on the ground around the hangers.

Today's flight was especially nice; the turbulence wasn't nearly as bad as it was yesterday (at six thousand feet people were still being jarred about) and at six to ten knots the winds were nice and light. At 2600' I ended up flying north up Chemong Lake, across Buckhorn and along Sturgeon Lake up to Fenelon Falls, past Cameron Lake, past Balsam Lake all the way to the oddly named town of Coboconk, where I turned around and flew back to Peterborough. I saw some typically gorgeous Ontario lakeland scenery and spotted a lot of great bridges, tiny islands furred in pine trees, submerged sand bars, locks and falls I'd like to photograph the next time I go flying that way- which shall be sometime soon, I think. It was busy as heck today but everybody in the area seemed to be largely hanging around to the south, especially between Oshawa and Lindsay. I had the lakes up north all to myself, and it was beautiful, wild, open and empty, nothing but freshwater lakes, ducks and trees. Outside of the circuit the only other plane I saw was nearly twenty miles to the south, flying over Devil's Elbow. Perfect! Toss in a nice short field landing at the end of the flight and I'm one happy camper.

For me, this is what flying is all about: exploring new places in an aeroplane. I can't wait to gain more experience and my own plane and really start expanding my range. Northern Ontario beckons!

Footnote: I've been invited to the local EAA meeting tomorrow night! I can't wait to go!

You don't need to speak a word of German to find this video terribly funny XD.

EDIT: And once again, Shep, this one is for you: Float the dog! XD

Time to add up another page in the logbook:

Total Hours: 84.9
Dual: 38.4
Solo: 38.9
Night: 7.6
Cross-Country: 27.9

Climb, my precious!

The past few days have been absolutely awesome for flying- and today was the only day I actually flew. The rest of my time was spent hanger flying about the airport, which I enjoy almost as much as the real thing.

Every Saturday morning the local pilots get together and have breakfast at the restaurant to eat and talk aeroplanes; last weekend they invited me to join them. Feeling rather like the kid who has been invited to eat at the adult table, I was more than happy to get up early yesterday morning for breakfast at the airport. There were about fifteen of us altogether and after pushing together a few tables we took up most of the restaurant. I got a happy glow when the wife of one fellow spotted me and remarked, "oh! You must be the girl who loves aeroplanes my husband has been talking about!"

Heh heh heh. Awww :D.

Anyway, I can't think of a much better way to start a rainy day than by chowing down on a grilled cheese sandwich and homefries and listening to flying stories from pilots with thousands to tens of thousands more hours than I do. Unfortunately it was a rainy day out, and while a little rain doesn't bother me, rain combined with low scudding ceilings do; although I held out for higher clouds to fit in an hour of circuits the weather grew only progressively worse as the day drew out and eventually I just decided to pack it in and head home. One of the older and most experienced pilots on the field offered to give me a ride back to the terminal rather than scarpering across the ramp in the rain, but when we arrived in the lot we ended up just sitting and talking in his truck for a good forty minutes. He gave me a lot of really wonderful advice towards flying (taildragger time for real stick and rudder skills!), the purchase of my own first plane (Citabria!) and warm encouragement for my flying career. I don't think I stopped smiling for the rest of the day.

Today was a gorgeous day for flying, clear skies, no clouds in sight, light winds and warm spring temperatures. I had CSJ booked for three hours and flew them all on a cross-country to the northwest (originally I was going to fly to Collingwood but their frequency was packed with the calls of arriving and departing aeroplanes; it sounded like a zoo, so I decided to do a little sightseeing over Collingwood and then land at Lake Simcoe Regional instead.) Rather than venturing through the training zones over Scugog and Cook's Bay I headed northwest instead and flew up the east shore of Lake Simcoe, which was pleasantly free of other aircraft.

I wish I had taken my camera; the air was silky smooth and the visibility fantastic. There is still ice on the lake but the rivers leading into it are clear and rushing with water, so everything was brilliant blue and sparkling. I spotted a long freight train rumbling through Beaverton at one point and circled it as it passed over a bridge, then continued north to Orillia. I saw a steep white embankment looming in the direction of Collingwood and thought 'what the hell?' and belted over to investigate. I circled that too, and it turned out to be a large ski resort- although nowhere near the size of Blue Mountain itself, which was a giant ridge further west. After staring with some amazement at Wasaga Beach, the world's largest freshwater beach, and the enormous Georgian Bay I turned south to Lake Simcoe Regional, made a very nice soft-field landing amidst a circuit full of traffic, grabbed some fuel and candies from the vending machine and flew back to Peterborough, following the same meandering route I had taken on the way up. Back home I made another good stall-horn howling soft-field landing and cleared the runway feeling silly and euphoric after a fantastic afternoon of flight.

Better still, no sooner did I toss my headset and bag into the trunk of my car than one of the pilots on the field invited me up for a local flight in his Zenith. So hoi, back up I went. This was a nice low flight over the Chemong Lake area, and a lot of excellent little private grass strips were pointed out to me along the way. He handed the Zenith over to me at one point and I found its smart, responsive handling a real treat compared to the 152 or the 172; there's no doubt about it, I like flying with a stick much more than a wheel, even from the right seat!

When I returned to my car after landing I found a flatbed truck with a wingless fighter jet aboard parked beside it. What a great day.

What a nice weekend for flying! Well, okay, Saturday was largely a write-off thanks to prevailing IFR weather, but Sunday was lovely to make up for it. I was at the airport all weekend, pretty much from ten in the morning to five in the evening both days. I love it there. I'd be there all week if I could. Hanging out and flying with all of the other pilots and AMEs there, whether professional or retired, is like real-life ground school and is a lot more fun than piddling around indoors all day.

I got up and flying yesterday and logged another 1.6 hours; I had planned to head up to Collingwood to check out the airport there but low cloud up north and rather rough turbulence made me change my plans. Even at 3500' it was bumpy as hell, but I had a great time following the Trent and the lakes east of Hastings and getting my knees cracked under the panel every time the plane hit an updraft. There is nothing more enjoyable than flying for the sake of flying and exploring new places. It's wonderful to spot an interesting looking glimmer of water and trees in the distance and being free to bomb over to take a closer circling look from an airborne perspective. Suffice to say I'm REALLY looking forward to getting my float rating this spring!

Speaking of which, while I was in the airport restaurant on Saturday I ran into a bush pilot I've been dying to meet ever since I ran across his name at Elmhirst while searching for information on their float training. He actually recognised me first, as I gather I'm becoming a bit of a familiar looking vagrant thanks to all of my tagging around the airport, and we got to talking about flight training and what sort of commercial flying I was interested in doing. When I said bush flying without the slightest hesitation (I have no desire to get into the airlines whatsoever) he gave me all sorts of really, really excellent advice towards getting into it, from good planes to buy for inexperienced pilots interested in building hours for the commercial licence, to the best ways to earn more hours on floats, to what the local operators are looking for in new pilots. On a side-note, I was absurdly happy to hear that a lot of them are pleased to see more young female pilots appearing on the horizon, as smaller female pilots provide a lot more leeway in regards to weight when carrying passengers and cargo. I got a bit of ribbing when it got around that I actually need to toss in twenty extra pounds to fly the 152 within the legal W&B; finally my shortness could pay off for something!

First! A little back history, blogged elsewhere:

Mar. 17, 2006 / 4:17 pm

The computer is still in the shop, alas. I'm hoping everything will be ready tonight, but I'm expecting to get the 'come pick it up' call tomorrow. Can't wait... to play... with new powah. I'm totally going to load up FS2004 and slap those bitchass real weather sliders all the way to max and into the kitchen TO MAKE ME SOME PIE.

Next upgrade: 2gigs of RAM!

Today:

BOO YEAH.

...

....

... FS2004: 2, ME: 0. Son of a bitch! One day I will defeat you, you fucking sim.

The new card rocks though, even if the drivers are lousy. But I'm getting two gigs of Kingston DDR400 RAM on Wednesday and I'll have them update the drivers to the new set then. In the meantime, hello HDR lighting effects! Vroom vroom tearass! Twinkle.

In other news, flying was a no-go this weekend thanks to the goddamn wind, which was goddamn ludicrous. That didn't stop me from spending both days at the airport though, ahaha. John Travolta's Vampire was there for some reason getting fuel lines replaced; yesterday they did some engine runups out on the ramp. Like bugs to a zapper every pilot on the ramp zombied over to stand in the bitterly cold wind and take a closer look, including yours truly. During the first runup you could see something was wrong, as fuel normally doesn't stream out the back while the engine is running. Everyone surrounding the jet took a big step back amidst the flames and smoke. Later on while I was warming up in the flight school I looked out and spotted the asphalt behind the jet on fire; the spilt fuel had ignited. We all agreed it was probably a good thing the airport operator wasn't on the field at the time, as he would have shit a kitten.

March 11/06: YPQ - CNB9, Peterborough to Barrie-Orillia/Lake Simcoe Regional

With CSJ booked for three hours of flight time and nice sunny pseudo-spring weather prevailing I decided to scarper off on that cross-country to the Barrie airport. It was a great flight, about 120NM altogether, taking me in and around the Lake Scugog/ Lake Simcoe region. Visibility wasn't great and at times you could see a grubby inversion layer of mist hanging about to the north and southwest, but I was headed northwest and nothing but clear skies and light upper winds were reported along my route. Giddyup!

( Those damn Duke boys! )

Yikes, I'm sorry- I haven't updated this journal in, like, FOHEVAH. I've been flying; I just haven't had the energy to sit down and type. Which is a little ass-backwards now that I think about it, but oh well.

But since I'm here now sitting in front of the computer with a mug of tea and my feet parked on the heater, I figured, what the heck, time to brush off the dust and get some use out of my, uh, totally free LiveJournal account. I did get up today, and it was a fairly nondescript flight, just a local trip to enjoy the lovely sunny weather and gusty winds. At 3000' it was blowing around 30kts and to escape the turbulence you had to climb all the way up to around 4000'. At 3500' I was definitely getting bumped around, but above that the skies were crowded with aircraft that had scarpered upwards to escape the rough air; since I don't mind turbulence I just stayed low to avoid them.

Alas! Originally I had the plane booked for three hours today and planned on making a trip up to Barrie. But at the last minute I heard that a pre-flight test student was having trouble with his booking and hasn't had much time to fly lately, and I gave him one of my slots. So, no Barrie this week. But there's always next week, and really, he needed that time more than I did.

Talk about a busy day. I was up at the airport all day yesterday doing the hanger rounds and admiring a new Pitts on the field, and while there were a few people flying the biting winds seem to have convinced most to stay down. I couldn't fly because my plane was grounded while it got a new starter installed- bummer. But today the wind had slackened a bit and so everyone and his aunt was up to enjoy the clear skies and fine visibility, including yours truly. I headed south to Port Hope and Cobourg, then northeast to Hastings, Norwood, Clear Lake and finally back to Lakefield and Peterborough, and I was eyeballing the skies like a hawk to avoid other planes. South of Rice Lake I got a pretty good look at a skiplane heading east that apparently didn't spot me while we were converging. I had right of way and was rocking like crazy to flash some light off the wings and catch his attention - I couldn't hear him over the radio on either the YPQ or X-country frequency - but in the end I just ducked around behind him when he continued bimbling on east. No skin off my nose, and chalk up one kill for jolly old Cessnia, Land of Spam. TALLY HO.

It was a nice little flight, 1.2 hours, bumpy but relaxing, and despite a rather gusty, shifty NW crosswind I made a good landing. Rather than sideslipping all the way down final lately I've been practicing the crab-to-short, kick the rudder, sideslip, touchdown method, which I really like so far- when the winds are strong, like they have been the last few weeks, the sideslip cross-control input feels really draggy, in that right on the edge of a stall sort of way. Crabbing down final and then straightening out to make the centreline takes a lot more footwork, but what the hell- you can never get too much practice on the rudder, right?

Et voila, my day. I just noticed LJ has a new 'autosave draft' feature. Solid.

SPECI CYPQ 171458Z AUTO 30022G38KT 9SM FEW026 SCT090 M10/M16 A2987=
METAR CYPQ 171500Z AUTO 30019G38KT 9SM FEW026 SCT090 M10/M16 A2988
RMK PCPN 0.5MM PAST HR PRESRR SLP130=

Holy crap, the wind. It's supposed to go down to around -30 tonight with wind chill too. It's time for FIRE, and lots of it!

I'm hoping the wind doesn't stick around for the weekend though; I'm booked to fly both Saturday and Sunday. Given the number of flights I've had to cancel already this week for weather-related problems (snow storms, rain storms, freezing rain storms, argh) I'll be right miffed if the weather this weekend isn't apologetically FABULOUS.

Last weekend was gorgeous for flying. And on Sunday I ended up spending four hours between the restaurant and the hangers talking to people and watching a couple of friends (M and P) strip a layer of paint off the firewall of their Taylorcraft. A crack in the exhaust system was spewing foul fumes back into the cockpit, so they took out the engine and had the cracks welded. When the engine came off the ugly painted firewall was uncovered. Underneath the paint was a lovely steel surface; why someone painted over it is a bit of a mystery.

Prior to this I got a chance to jump into their Yale for a look inside the cockpit; it's a beautiful aircraft, fully restored and in flying conditions. A group of visiting pilots were getting a tour of the hangers, and after checking out the Merlin they were shown the Yale and proved eager to see a demonstration of how to start the big beast. After checking that the mags were not live and the mixture was idle I held the ignition after M turned over the engine.

The sound of that big radial engine being cranked was marvelous!