Scary landings and free iguanas
 

Getying my airplane annual'd a hole in the wing fixed meant it ended up in St Barths.

The repair is excellent no sign of any damage repair - well other than the hole in my bank balance;)

So St Barths, to fly in and out of here one needs special training, thought why not - looks scary on the you tube videos, seems the video removes scary, yup even scarier in real life. Just got back from my first hour of circuits, did one doing all the flying - the techique is very interesting - no looking at the airspeed, did one with the airspeed covered up.

The iguanas - no100LL no St Barths, so over to St Martin - got to report "iguanas on the ramp" huge things, some four/five feet long, they came on to drink from persisting puddles from an earlier rain shower - they sent out the fire service to chase off the iguanas with brooms. The iguanas may be big sluggish looking things, they sure can run at the sight of a man with a broom, up on tiptoes or their hind legs and one heck 8f a speed over 50m or so.

My birthday today so memorable events.

Back for more scary circuits in the morning; very thpughtful of God to sprinkle small islands and rocks around to give perfect spots to make turms and such.

A recommended destination for pilots who like to be scared and also iguana fans; on yes and those into ogling topless supermodel types (shouldn't be allowed, ooh missus, I didn't know where to look - shocking!)

Thanks for the tale Ebbie!

Ebbie,

I've stood on that hill where all the videos are made. It's very impressive watching a Twin Otter come over your head and then dive for the runway. Do you know what the approach angle is?

Having seen some of those videos, I never cease to wonder why everybody lands downslope. Surely the basic rule for a sloping runway is to land upslope and take off downslope?

Slope is only one of the factors, usually dominant but not always when other factors are abnormal, weather, terrain for instance.

How are you going to outclimb the hill if you need to go around ?

Things learned so far,

No diving for the runway, do that and the speed builds up, especially in my Archer; the idea is to fly using the white aiming marks in the crotch of the hills for reference, cant see them too low, all visible too high - the airplane must "parachute" - coupd do with an extra 10 degrees of flap, I do have it if I hold the lever, but need that hand for the throttle, none of the set it and lave it stuff

Hold off, do not try to touch down - that's why you see everyone landing so far down the runway

Do not fly the extended centre line

Ignore the airspeed, but go slow

There is a road traffic sign sticking up on the right side of the roundabout thst it seems one will hit

Landing going west is even riskier, no chance of a go around, pass Eden Rock hotel and you have to land, did downwind landing, right hand - maybe today a left hand which seems scarier - maybe a dozen or so private SEP here, maybe they get used to it?

Oh, yes not flown for three months since I flew the plane up at the end of Feb - maybe that's is a factor in the seeming scary thing.

Off again in an hour, will let you all know what happens.

Well done it.

Still seems very scary.

Think it would have been better to have done it when I bought the plane up three months ago after flying a few times a week, my rudder poking skills, limited as they were, seem to have diminished.

Recommended thing to do, instructor very good.

Great post and thread, thanks!

If you get it wrong.

Well left St Barths yesterday, an interesting trip.

One has to do the training every six months, not be back for a year, so more fun next time.

Had a weird sense that there was doing to be a problem on the flight back to Barbados, about 400nm over the sea.

Airplane was on a slight sideways slope. Did a check of the fuel drain to the engine on each tank, right hand nothing - that delayed departure until figured out it was the slope, cured by realigning the airplane to the slope.

So off to Guadeloupe to refuel, about 1hr 20mins - about 2hr 45mins from Barbados direct. Gets dark here a little after six, pm landing paid and refuelled - now a one mile round trip hike to file the flight plan, time not looking too good. So thought call ground, decided to use my new ICOM, spoke to ground, they too the details and was away within 10 minutes.

7,500ft all looking good, dodged a new towering CN clouds.

Final hand off to Adams radar about 65 miles out. Got to about 33nm, island in sight, thought I could hear a very faint beeping sound, called Adams to let them know I was descending and nothing - thought, radio failure, just out of annual, switched boxes, switched to speaker and nothing, noticed the NAV flag popped up on the VOR tuned to Adams. Put 7600 on the transponder. As I had spoken with I had the handheld in reach, not easy to use in a noisy cockpit, spoke with them, got cleared to land from about 15 miles out.

Was thinking, it may be the audio box - we had an issue in St Barths with the radio and thought that may be it, so though it's that thing again, that box needs swapping out; niggles that come when one's airplane sits for three months.

Landed no issues.

Went to the tower, I park right next to it. The guys there said that the landing time given on the flight plan was ten minutes earlier, when not only only no comms but the transponder disappeared - they were getting ready to get the coast guard out when I called on the handheld. Started thinking something here is odd.

The charge needle was at zero - it shows charge to the battery, long flight, not at all odd, fully charged. I had the airplane lit up like a Chrustmas tree, strobes, landing light, couple of GPS's, autopilots, two comms, one of two navs, DME - so sucking power, the nixi tubes on the radios were illuminated.

Now the very, very faint beeping I mentioned earlier - I think it was the annunciator - there is an illuminated panel, it is tucked up under the coaming I sit very high, did not duck down to look at it. Thinking it was an alternator failure, likely the belt, only occurred to me once I got home - will be going over to check it this afternoon.

All very mysterious, the adventure of flying, could have been swimming - no matter what next time I have lost comms I will be switching off all but one box.

Isn't flying fun;)

And what's the difference between an ammeter and an - ahem - alternator load meter? Does the latter indicate megaergs per second, perhaps?
Myself have an old-fashioned ammeter in my home-concocted dashboard, and comfort myself with a quick glance right after starting: it shows a brisk charge peak, to go back to "almost zero" very soon, and remain so for the rest of flight. It is a bit coarse, though, at 60-0-60 Amp - I'd much prefer 10 or 15 amp each way. Some promise in the lawn-mower market, but I must find the time to investigate.

Mine is a 1976, my A&P says it is low equals a charged battery ie. good

Went over today to check it over, not really up to it last night sure enough a shredded alternator belt, off the pulley and delaminated, but still a ring even if only just.

Best thing really, cheapest alt failure to fix:)

I have to do something about making the low/fail voltage visible, thinking a UK style light in addition the annunciator; had this happened ahaof an hour earlier, this would have been a tale of going swimming and judt how difficult it is to get into a raft!

As soon as the belt is on over to Mustique for the training to land there, not as scary looking as St Barths but close to Barbados so I will be able to keep it current:)

My A&P says zero good - maybe it has been changed over the past 40 years - when I can get a new belt - hard to get things here - I will fire it up and see what happens - worrying thing was the annunciator panel not being visible to me tucked up under the instrument panel coaming and I am 50% sure I heard a faint beeping about the time the fail happened.

I understand that in the UK there is an AD that requires a low volt light - anyone know if that is correct and where to get the kit for it? - hope not an FAA STC matter and a 337 would keep them happy.

Alternator fail is not good - especially if one doesn't realize it has happened - did not think at the time but the two bright lit up GPS's led me astray (forgot they had battery back up) and the nixi tubes on the comm and nav sets were illuminated too - I think I know exactly when it failed as I watched the nav flag slowly come up on the VOR.

Ebbie,

Get a JP Instruments EDM electronic engine monitor. Not only will it help you manage your engine more efficiently, but it has a setting that shows your battery voltage. The key feature of this instrument is that regardless of what you are currently displaying, if any of the the preset limits are exceeded - low voltage for example, the display will flash and show you the current voltage. It's diagnosed alternator problems for me twice - once a real alternator failure and once because I forgot to turn on the Alternator Field part of a Cessna split-master switch!

It's such a long time since I've flown a Piper, that I had forgotten about the stupid load meter. I much prefer a proper ammeter that shows when the battery is being charged and when it is being discharged.

That is a challenging landing, but such a shame at the same time :(