23 July 2005

Cirrus factory and on to Oshkosh

A good flight to LA, overnight, and up early the next morning and on the 6.50 AM flight to Minneapolis . Rent a car from there and drive to Duluth , enjoying the sights along the way. There we met up with my contact at Cirrus Lori Stenzel. She had everything organised and we inspected the plane. It was great, built as ordered, and to a very high standard. Here is a photo of Kate, the Cirrus test pilot and I about to go on the delivery flight.

Next morning it was the first of three days of intensive training with James Henneman, a University of North Dakota Cirrus Instructor . A nice young guy and he knew his business. Ground school then high pressure in flight training covering every conceivable failure and then some. There are a lot of airports around Duluth so as soon as I levelled off it was on with the hood and into a simulated emergency landing with half the panel U/S and a fire on board! We would start at 8, finish at 6. Inevitably there were a couple of minor issues with the plane, twisted seat belt, a probe not reading right, a fuel cap not sealing. Well the team from Cirrus were there to get any issues sorted overnight, and every morning it was ready to go! I can’t speak highly enough for all of the staff there. They had a commitment to quality and to deliver as close to perfect as possible.

Friday morning we flew down the coast of Lake superior , (photo) then training again.

That night, James signed me off, so we had a hamburger and went through the route planning from there. We had decided to go down to Oshkosh a day early so after about an hour and a half we were flying in over the railway tracks to the busiest airport in the world (For this week anyway!) We were pretty apprehensive about this, but we did the homework, read the instructions and it turned out fine.

We had organised a hanger so we left it overnight and went to the pub in a limo to celebrate! (Actually, we had  a car booked, but not until the next day, and Hertz couldn’t give us one early, so while we were asking about transport to our hotel in Appleton , the next door town up walks Richard, dropping his cards off. He had just bought this old Lincoln and is trying to make a go of it! Talk about pimp my ride!!)

Yesterday (Sunday) we took the plane around to the shop for a 25Hr oil change, Bruce the owner is a great guy and let us work on the plane and gave us plywood etc, so I took out the back seats and made a floor for the ferry tank while Clyde fixed a little temperature probe issue.  

So it’s Sunday night, we have just had a great steak and a good wine down stairs, and we are ahead of schedule. Things are going well so far.