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#7 Ahmenabad to Kolkata
Tuesday, 13 October 2009 11:30
Refuellers promised to be ready to start at 6.30am so we got to the aircraft at 6.20. Some time later they turned up to tell us they first had to collect the drums. They came back 1hr 30 min later with 18 drums. Now you would think, with 20 "workers" this would be done in no time. They were going to test each drum, then start the fueling, then the pump battery went flat, then the cable to the pump fell apart. Eventually our blokes chased them away and got the job done. Departed around 1030 local instead of the planned 9am. Right engine started playing up at about 500 feet on t/o..backfiring and surging intermittently. Made it to 9000 ft with reduced power on that engine, where it settled down. Appears be running lean with auto-rich selected. Then left engine started cutting out and backfiring, occasionally at first, becoming worse. Turned one magneto off and it ran quite happily on the remaining one. Weather quite good across India, with just the odd diversion around cloud buildups. Sun went down about 90 minutes b4 arrival into KOL. Right engine stopped after we cleared the runway (a known problem usually prevented by keeping the elect. fuel pump running). However the fuel pump circuit breaker popped, and Norm traced and fixed the problem. Got it going (impossible to turn toward the live engine with only 1 going), taxied to the bay, more Indian officialdom and into transport. Drove through grubby streets to the fanciest hotel I've been in.