Cold Stream

[gtboss16]

Hello,

Does anyone or has anyone flown at Cold Stream?

Could anyone Please give me some feedback?

thanks

[eocvictim]

The strip is pretty good, gravel, but narrow and as such can give illusions on final. There are trees at one end and a sole tree at the other of the single runway 17/35. All circuits are to the east due to Lilydale and shares the YLIL CTAF frequency of 119.1. The circuit height is 1,500' due to the hills and noise abatement although the Ad elevation is closer to 250' (from memory). The circuit on 17 takes you south to the powerlines, parallel the powerlines until clear of the houses, downwind and base are normal spacing. To the north, off of 35, try to stay south of the Yarra river due to training area traffic. There is also a small private strip (well marked and manicured) on the corner of downwind/base of 17 which will broadcast on 119.1 of intentions. Be wary of flying over houses, a bullet has been found in the cowl of one of the training aircraft there.

I believe that RVAC are no longer there but last I heard anything about cold stream was 3 years ago. Last time I flew there is coming up on 5 years.


HTH :ok:

[gtboss16]

i was after like RA Aus and the RVAC.. i know about the place..

[VH-XXX]

Sending you a pm for that one.

[Sunfish]

Information on Coldstream is here, including circuit map. It's also PPR.

Also, do not try a touch and go at Coldstream in a Cessna with electric flaps 'cos if the flap switch sticks you will be heading for the wires and/or trees and not climbing. If you are practising short field technique, make it a full stop.

Ask me how I know this....

Royal Victorian Aero Club - Coldstream (http://www.rvac.com.au/coldstream)

[MyNameIsIs]

Have done circuits in a 182RG there. Only flown it once and years ago- i presume it had electric flaps...
Touch and go's were fine when i did them.

Got not much experience on Cessnas but I'd imagine that when light they would still climb with lots of flap still out...

[Sunfish]

MynameisIs:

Got not much experience on Cessnas but I'd imagine that when light they would still climb with lots of flap still out...

Think again, think very hard again.

We flew around the tree.

[Capt Fathom]

We flew around the tree

Well what's the problem then! :E

Sh!t happens from time to time. That doesn't mean you have to stop doing it!
By all means relate your experience, but don't get the poops when others don't necessarily share your concern!

I've never experienced that problem in any Cessna with electric flaps. But that's just me! ;)

[206greaser]

Coldstream is a nice little strip. Good practice for bush flying as it's dirt.

Sunfish, don't know what happened that day. I've done numerous touch and go's out of there and had nothing as exciting as what you've described! That must have been a brown undies moment!

Cheers,
Greaser.

[Sunfish]

Didn't know enough to have had a brown undies moment, I was still a student.

Flaps Forty was set for a demonstration of a short strip landing, this is in a C150. We were using 17, which means we are facing rising ground and powerline towers about a mile away.

The C150 flap indicator, from memory, was on the left pillar. The switch has a spring loaded "down" action, and moves past a detent when selected up, which 'should' retract the flaps all the way for you without further action.

After touchdown, flaps were selected "up" and full power applied by my instructor. There is very little time at YCEM to "confirm flaps moving up" and attention has to be paid in any case to keeping the aircraft centred on the narrow, crowned, gravel strip.

We accelerated a little slowly, which my instructor put down to the ground being perhaps a bit soft. As you would expect, we lifted off in ground effect and climbed to something like Forty feet (1.0 - 1.5 times wingspan.) Then she no climb further.

I'm not sure who was more surprised, me or my instructor who was flying. After staring at the approaching wires for maybe Five seconds, I looked back at the flaps and gave my instructor the bad news. My instructor elected to make a turn around the tree with stall warning blaring and accepted a loss of about half our altitude in the process. The landing was uneventful.

I was not game to try flipping the flap switch in the air because we would have had some sink. I was also aware of the possibility that something major was broken somewhere and that I could possibly trigger a fatal asymmetric flap condition.

Needless to say, we exercised the flap switch on the ground and couldn't duplicate the condition; there must have been a speck of crud on the contacts.

If we had been using 35 instead of 17, we would never have cleared the trees at that end.

If we hadn't had a brand new prop, our marginal performance wouldn't have been enough.

If we had full fuel or if my instructor was as portly as me we wouldn't have climbed.

It was since demonstrated, at a safe altitude, that the C150 would just maintain altitude at full power with something like MTOW and full flap.

So there is a little "gotcha" folks. There was plenty of room to stop at Coldstream if we had twigged to the problem immediately, but we didn't.

[Mark1234]

Not flown based at coldstream, but have flown in, and used to fly with the RVAC. I had a positive experience, pretty happy with them, but I know others vary, and coldstream is a different staff.

As for Sunfish's experience, I'm sceptical that the prop made much difference. As part of design certification, the a/c has to be able to achieve a certain climb gradient, at MTOW with full flap. That's why the 152's have less flap - it allows them greater MTOW to meet the same gradient!

With experience (the instructor's), it's not that narrow or tough, or even short a strip. Non-retraction of flaps should not have been missed, and the 150 WILL climb, even takeoff with full flap - but the technique needs to be careful, and you need to fly slowly - from memory Vy at flaps 40 is about 55kts... (or was that MPH?) Slower than most would be comfortable anyway. No danger in retracting the flaps airborne either, so long as you're over Vs0, all you need to do is increase the back pressure as the flaps come up.

[Sunfish]

I'm sure it has to achieve a certain climb gradient, however the terrain and trees climbed faster.

[Reading5]

RVAC is still at Coldstream, I believe. It is a good but challenging strip. Try and keep your rpm down while taxiing and powering up otherwise your prop and aircraft will turn into a stone chipped relic!

From memory the strip is about 760 metres, gravel and not wide.

If landing to the north, you have the high ground of the Dandenongs to the south and powerlines. When landing from the north, to the south it is a lot easier, but you have single power lines (above the road and indicated by the hedge of shrubs) and it is a bit of a 'feet up feeling' as you go over them as you have such a short runway.

If you have the time, go into the club house and have a chat with Bob or Dick. They are a wealth of knowledge and good guys.

All the best in flying.

[Biggles78]

Well in view of all that, I am glad I was flying a PA28-235 out of YCEM. As said above, it is a nice place to fly out of. It is a lot different to using sealed RWYs. It all adds to ones experience.