Piloting, Owning and Operating a Beech Bonanza A36 - www.gotoair.com

Well I actually made it out in the Bonanza last Saturday and even made it to a new airfield in my logbook, Shobdon. it was was a lovely day for flying and to cap it all I noted that the Bonanza A36 has finally had its over keen gear up warning horn fixed.

Prior to this flight and for about two years the gear up warning horn and has been sounding at 21.5 inches of manifold pressure meaning whenever you wanted to do a nice slow cruise you couldnt without hearing the hooter go off. Now thanks to the help of a certain Mr Menzies from Hangar 3 (Private Air Management) at Blackpool airport this problem has been resolved. He has been able to get the engineer who looks after the Bonanza to adjust the warning microswitch in combination with flight testing to get it to only go off at about 17 inches that the manual suggests meaning you wont hear it in level flight anymore!

Well it seems like ages since I managed to get out in the Bonanza. This years hours tally was going ok until work interfered. Now my flying has ground to a halt. Luckily Mrs F has agreed that this Saturday is going to be quiet so i have a pass out to go somewhere. now i just need the weather to play ball for a day out. Fingers crossed!

Today I took a friend to a meeting in Cromer, near Norwich. I had initially decide to go into Little Snoring as the strip was longer than several strips I had been into in the Bonanza but on the day of the trip I noted that Cromer strip had recently been lengthened (actually moved elsewhere) and despite what my 2 year old AFE guide said, this was now 665 metres. I also noted that the wind was blowing straight down the main runway at 18 knots. A far cry from my last crosswind landing with similar wind.

We decided to give Cromer a go with the option of a diversion to Little Snoring or Norwich at worst. The flight was lovely and uneventful both ways and the landing at Cromer was an absolute peach to restore my confidence in putting the Bonanza A36 on the ground.

Now Bonanzas are not reknowned for leaping off the tarmac but I had calculated with zero wind we would need about 450 of the 665 metres, in the event we needed possibly about 300 to get away.

Back at Blackpool I got another chance to practise my crosswind technique with an 18 knot wind that was giving me 10 knots across. This landing was much more succesful than my one two weeks ago and was quite smooth.

In summary Cromer is a lovely little strip that I wouldnt want to go into on a calm, sunny, warm day, fully laden with the family and bags so I will probably not go there too often but I heartily recomend it to anyone who fancies a day out. The trip into Cromer was a fiver in a taxi and the landing fee was £6

Yesterday I made my worst landing ever in the Bonanza A36 at Exeter to attend a football game. I learned a bit about how much crosswind the Bonanza can handle and also how much crosswind I didn't want to handle again!

We I set off to Exeter the weather was great, if a little windy at this end and after a FL100 jaunt we descended into Exeter on the ILS and as we got down to 2000ft it became apparent that the forecast decrease in the crosswind had not materialised. I ended up on finals with a 1 mile wind check of 18kt directly across the bows. The Bonanza recommended crosswind limit is 17 knots. I thought I would give it a go because it was a long runway. I applied my best crosswind technique and managed to position myself over the runway about 30ft up and drifting one way then the next. I finally chopped the power and slammed the sturdy rears onto the tarmac with a thud. This was not my finest piloting hour. The landing was utterly crap!

After landing we got a windcheck at gusting 23kt's so I guess in fact we were substantially exceeding the recommended limits.

The match was great and the return flight was uneventful but I learned from this that the recommended limits are just that. If a skilled test pilot suggests that then I should knock an amount of it and make that my limit. I also learned that I didn't enjoy that landing.

The landing fee was an outrageous £51.03 including non existent handling. The only thing they handled was the bill! That said they were very pleasant.

I recently purchased a Zaon XRX passive traffic monitor box to use in the Bonanza. Having owned a previous version of this companies products that was totally rubbish I was very nervous of what I would find and waited much longer to buy one than I would have as they have been out for at least three years I think.

I was however pleasantly surprised at how effective this box is. Whilst you do get the odd false positive (twice from behind a contact appeared on the device and collided with me but I never felt the bump!) but the box regularly spotted planes that it took me a little while to make eye contact with. In fact sometimes I couldnt see them when the Zaon could.

They do say on their website that accuracy from behind is most troublesome in some planes and I would suspect that the Bonanza A36 is a candidate for causing trouble having no rear window. I do eventually intend to fit a full glass cockpit and proper TCAS but in the meantime I strongly recommend this device. They are tiny and dont cost that much and just could save your life.

I went to Welshpool in the Bonanza on Saturday after filing an IFR flight plan to Cambridge went "missing" in the system. I had not been to Welshpool previously having overflown loads of times. What a nice little place with very pleasant people. We will be going again!

While we were there I got the chance to take advantage of the nice nature of the airfield manager (who let me do a free circuit) and my passengers camera to get loads of shots of me taking off and landing in the Bonanza A36. I have always wanted to get some in flight pics like this for my office wall.

As you can see my spot landing was nice. Take a look at the full album here

The Bonanza's interior is now 15 years old and despite some nice repairs last year it has worn through to a point where we need to take some drastic action.

I am meeting with the interior fitters, to discuss replacing the whole interior with leather including all the seats and side panels which will make for a nicer seating experience for poor pilots bottoms. It is considerable expense but I feel it would make it a better plane.