September 27, 2009
I began drafting this post before Todd shut down the flight school. I'll withhold comment.
Steve was out of town this Sunday morning and I couldn't find anyone who wanted to fly so I was on my own. Or so I thought. At my regular time on Sunday morning, I made the trip to the airport. As I was walking through the FBO, I could see Aggie waiting for me. I had called ahead and asked the line crew to give her some juice and bring her to the front of the line. There she was, just waiting to take me to the mountains for some fall leaves photos. Just as I was about to step through the doors onto the tarmac, I spotted Todd - the owner of the flight school where I learned to fly and later rented planes. Todd was speaking to the manager of the control tower when he noticed me walking through. He asked me where I was headed. I told him and asked if he wanted to join me - we've flown to Kentucky and Pinehurst together. He responded by asking if I wouldn't mind flying right seat in a nearly new Saratoga. Now there's an offer I can't refuse!
The Piper Saratoga is a beautiful aircraft. It seats 6, sports an electronic cockpit and just about every bell and whistle you can imagine, including a full autopilot. Aggie would have to wait for another day. I asked the line crew to tie her back down and Todd and I headed to the North end of the ramp.
After a quick pre-flight of this beautiful Piper, we climbed aboard. Compared to what I normally fly, this thing felt like a space ship. First, the interior was leather and smelled great. Second, the layout was extremely well laid out. Clearly Piper spent a great deal of time thinking about the cockpit on this bird. Even with all the bells and whistles, at its heart, it's still an airplane which is based on the airframe of mine. In fact, it has significant weight limitations. With 4 passengers, it has less range than mine and with full fuel can only carry one adult. Nevertheless, it's a technological wonder.
She started right up and we were cleared to taxi to Runway 20. Todd wanted to check a high cylinder head temperature the owner of the aircraft had been reporting. We rolled down the runway and the first thing I noticed was how much less noise there was in this aircraft. It didn't sound like it was working all that hard and before I knew it, we were climbing off of the departure end. Todd turned us East and we headed toward the practice area while the engine got to operating temperature. Todd decided to show me some of the features of the Garmin 1000 electronic cockpit. There were more map options than I could fathom, but the thing I loved the most was the full autopilot which handled changes in altitude as well as roll and pitch. As we got the engine to temperature, we saw that one of the CHT readings kept cycling into the warning range. But, the way it was reading, it became clear that it was likely a bad temperature probe and NOT a cooling problem.
Todd decided to head to Rowan (KRUQ) for a landing before we headed back to Concord. So he set the autopilot to fly the ILS approach and we set up North of the field. The avionics took over and flew us down to about 100 feet where Todd took over. It was really cool to watch the plane at work this way. As we landed, a pair of birds stubbornly stayed on the runway - one a bit too long. As he took off, we caught him with the 3 blade prop. No more bird.
We taxied back to Rwy 20 for takeoff to go home. Todd offered to let me take off. I declined. I simply wasn't familiar enough with the plane and wasn't willing to deal with the 500k price tag if I screwed up! Anyway, we flew back to concord and Todd flew a hand ILS approach and did a fine job. A smooth touch down and a taxi back to the ramp. No time in my log book, but a great flight nevertheless.
