As I mentioned in yesterday’s marathon flight blog entry, I had to fly N66591 up to Columbus, IN today so that the transponder could be inspected before my check ride. No problem – it’s a short flight, and free time in the airplane is good time in the airplane! It’s just too bad that Columbus isn’t on the other side of the 50 NM radius from BMG so that I could count this as cross country time. But I like the opportunity to deal with as many airports as possible, so I gladly jumped at the chance to fly this ferry run today.

Flight out of BMG was uneventful – a bit bouncy, but nothing to worry about. Made horrible time the entire trip – had calculated a ground speed of 93 knots and the GPS said I was making 80 – 82 knots. I think some of it is that I’m calculating based off ideal cruise speed and need to knock off 5 or so knots for “reality check” – I always seem to be about much too slow on calculations. Anyway, finally got around the Camp Atterbury restricted airspace and found the airport right where it should be. Active landing runway was 5, and I wasn’t far off, so I was instructed to line up for a final approach. I started line-up just fine. The pattern was a bit nutty, but no big issues (BMG does the same thing from time to time). All the sudden, I brain farted when I looked at my DG and saw a heading of about 45 degrees. 45 != 5, so I was suddenly convinced I was lined up for the wrong runway. There was someone acting weird in the pattern, so I announced that I was possibly in the wrong location. Tower was kind enough to point out I was right where I should be and to please not do anything drastic ;). Thankfully, he and I both came to the conclusion that all was well and the brain fart ended. Then tower announces that I should prepare to go around because it’s quite apparent that the damn twin prop on the runway lined up for takeoff is in no hurry to get going. So around the pattern I went. It was the most wretched pattern I’ve ever flown. Since I was forced to go around, I was now in the back of the line for landing. The two planes in front of me got on the runway, and I was clear to land. Got my butt in the right location, ran through landing checklist on base, lined up for final a tad high, got on the glide scope for the VASI, and was good to go. There was about a 50 degree gusty cross-wind, which was entertaining. Made a good approach, but floated a bit, which made the cross-wind truly suck. But kept it straight on the float and put her down with no drift at touchdown.

There was much confusion with taxing — I didn’t know where the communications shop was, and neither did the tower. Some circling around taxiways and I was finally where I needed to be. Or so I thought. Turns out I did find the communications shop, but he wanted to work in the big maintenance hanger. So I had to start up 591 and taxi over to the hanger. Unfortunately, the engine in 591 really doesn’t like being shut down and then started up shortly afterward. Give it 15-30 minutes to cool down and it’s happy. 5 – 10 minutes makes it mad. So it took a couple tries to get it fired for taxi. Oh well, so I thought.

* Brian now chills out in the Columbus FBO, happy they have wireless internet. Actually gets some work done. Gets call that I should come over to the plane. I think I’m done and can go home. Ha! *

Turns out the altitude encoder for the transponder is nuked and needs to be replaced. Of course, he doesn’t have one in stock. Call up Bob (BMG owner) and get him and the tech talking. They decide to order a new one and have it overnighted. I figure 50/50 I get to do this again tomorrow (which is true). Ok, so we’re done now, I preflight very carefully, because I have this bad mojo feeling. Everything looks ok, so I hop in and go through the startup checklist. Get to the “turn the key to crank engine” step and discover that the battery doesn’t have enough charge to crank the engine. At this point, I should probably talk about the electrical system in small planes. So, it turns out lead acid batteries are heavy and unreliable. So the engine on a plane does not fire its plugs from power from the battery (as a car does), but from magnetos (2 independent sets, wired to 2 independent sets of spark plugs per cylinder). Almost every airplane engine can run with the battery totally removed without any problem at all. Because of this and the fact that the engine normally runs at medium to high power, the battery in a plane is small and weak – just enough to deal with preflight and starting the plane. The rest of the time, the alternator is providing power for accessories and the mags are firing the spark plugs. Anyway, back to the story at hand. Since I had cranked the starter to try to restart to taxi (and then didn’t get to cruise power or run the engine long) and the tech had to run the electrical system to work on the transponder, the battery drained. So when I hit the starter, there wasn’t enough left to turn the engine over. The tech offered to hand prop the plane, which I tried to politely let him out of (hand propping a tricycle gear plane isn’t as safe as a tail dragger because the prop is lower). He insists, and we go through the hand prop sequence. I swear to god, it fired on the first try. It’s never fired on the first try when using the starter, but an 80 year old man pulls on the prop and it fires the first time.

Flight back to BMG was uneventful, and the wind was straight down 35, so the landing was boring. Ran into Bob on the way into the FBO and he asked if I’d fly 591 back tomorrow. I’m a sucker for free flight time, so I’ll get to repeat the task tomorrow afternoon.