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

I flew the A36 Bonanza to Newquay yesterday to drop off my wife climbing to flight level 100 on both the outward and return journey. The Bonanza flew beautifully and today I decided that while my wife was away I would visit some friends in Milton Keynes. I loaded up the plane, strapped in the kids and filled up with fuel and was ready to taxi to the hold when I noticed that the attitude indicator was toppled to the side. I had never seen this in four years of flying the A36.

I called ATC and notified them of the problem and taxied back to Hangar 3 at Blackpool and sat and fiddled with everything I could think of including switching on the standby gyro and everything came back on.

I shot down the plane and Scott from Hangar 3 had called G-FOZZ's engineer who had already diagnosed a vacuum pump failiure which I believe is fairly common. All I can say is I am very glad that didnt happen in hard IMC to me. I am also glad to have expereinced the failure so I can put it and the symptoms down to experience.

The only problem now is how I get Mrs Forrest back from Newquay on Monday! Thankfully another helpful plane owner has agreed to take me to collect her in his Mirage so that will be a treat.

A few years ago I purchased some Senheisser noise cancelling headsets. No they were OK but I have always wondered how they compared to the Bose X ones fitted to most high end planes and today I found out.

The Senheissers have the clamping force of a an elephant standing on the side of your skull so become a little uncomfortable after about one hour of flying and I often find myself taking them off and putting the intercom speaker on in case any ATC calls come through.

These headsets have also been pretty poor from a reliability front with wires coming loose several times and odd strange noises coming through the headsets during flight that go away on their own.

The Bose ones despite being expensive are fantastic and address the clamping force issue as they advertise. In addition the noise cancelling was hugely superior to the Senheissers. In the Bonanza I would normally use the squelch on the intercom and the noise cancelling but now with the Bose the squelch has no effect because all pointless background noise has already been removed I guess.

It seems you do pay for what you get in life!

Would you believe the my first flight in my Beech Bonanza A36 was on today. Now that doesnt get me off to a great start for 2008 in building my hours does it?

Today I managed to get roped into a dropping a colleague off in London who had been visiting our offices. It seemed a pretty nice day for flying with very clear skies and pretty good visibility so I happily volunteered for the trip.

I managed to get the first 2.5 hours of my year under my belt and did a wonderful (if I say so myself) landing at Denham in a bit of a crosswind.

I have been so frustrated during 2007. As usual I have flown nowhere near as much as I would have liked. Despite the utility of owning a plane and being able to jet off (or is it piston off!) wherever I like, the whenever has been a bigger problem.

What with seemingly hundreds of small kids (four), a very busy business (that pays the bills to fly) and a wife that demands at least some attention I have just not been able to dedicate the time I should to my hobby of flying.

That said, last year I managed a trip to Paris, a trip to Inverness, several beach days with the kids at faraway places and lots of other small trips and I thoroughly enjoyed being a Beech Bonanza owner.

Roll on 2008 where again I will make some prediction of flying hundreds of hours and miss my target by much the same amount!

Its that time again, it comes around too soon where our wonderful regulatory authority make sure that aviation costs too much for most people. To be fair I think most authorities are much the same on time frames for annual inspections but it does cheese me off none the less that you must have a full detailed annual inspection for my A36 Bonanza (or indeed any other plane) every year despite activity and the bill is usually huge.

Now to be fair again, on one of the annuals they did discover low compressions which meant it was an even more expensive operation that year but I still cant help feeling that there could be a better way to decide when you need inspecting and to what extent. Take the example of a plane that spends most of a year sat in a warm hangar, no in fact all of the year, now I know there are things that can go wrong sitting still but does it really need a full strip down and inspection to the same degree as a commercial plane that has done 1000 hours in the year?

Surely there could be a more intelligent regime that means that we don't all have to spend ludicrous amounts for our planes to sit still. Surely it could be longer periods for low hours planes perhaps based on hours and with a sensible time frame if the hours are not reached.

Now to back up my argument, there are very few accidents that come about because of failure of the plane in any way including engines (please don't let me become a mechanical failure statistic to prove me wrong). In the cases that do, in most circumstances no amount of inspecting would predict the problem (my low compressions excluded). Now you could argue that the accident rate is so low for mechanical reasons precisely because of this regime but frankly I think that is not true. Pilots are the weakest link and therefore the argument should be to encourage more training and practice but its a catch 22 because pilots are spending all their cash maintaining their planes so cant afford to go flying!

As a last point on this, how do you feel flying your plane immediately after an annual inspection, I am always worried that the inspection has made rather than found a problem, perhaps a pair of pliers left somewhere or something.

Before anyone send me messages saying I am wrong I am not arguing for no inspections because actually it is quite nice that some checks that the cables that connect the rudder etc to the wiggly bits in the cockpit but I just reckon it could be made into a more cost efficient setup. Then again isn't that the same for all aviation.

Keeping my fingers crossed that my Beech Bonanza A36 is back in the air tomorrow and without requiring too much to pass it fit for another year!

Well what a great day out I had to St Marys in the Isle of Scilly yesterday to recover the A36 Bonanza.

I like most pilots are desperate for a mission, just tell me your cat needs running to a specialist vet in France and I am your man and the Bonanza is the plane for the job. Last year I picked up two ancient clocks from Biggin Hill for a friend. I think the fuel cost more than the clocks!

Now yesterdays mission, if I chose to accept it, along with my two musketeers was to fly to St Marys on some island just off my favourite place (Cornwall) with a new tyre which need to be fitted to my Beech Bonanza and then I was to fly off the island from a 600 metre strip with a severe upward slope along the first 60% of the runway.



I have to say I was a little apprehensive but I thoroughly enjoyed my day out in the end and the Bonanza is safely back in Hangar 3 at Blackpool who look after G-FOZZ so well when it is not slumming it on a windswept island somewhere.

The flight down in M-GINZ was interesting as it was the first time I had been in a TB20 and also seemingly the first time a Manx registered plane had been into Scilly as they were confused about the registration.

The wind was 360 at 20 gusting 28 knots and the runway was 310 so it was an exciting approach. My willing volunteer pilot made a fantastic job of getting us down which if I am honest I didn't envy having to do. In the end the TB20 was stopped in under 300 metres with three on board so I couldn't grumble and within minutes we had the wheel changed and were off for a quick lunch in the island capital which was very nice. (if you have been to a nice village in Cornwall you will know what it looks like)

Now when it came to leaving I have to say I had a little apprehension about the take off run up a severe incline and only 600 metres to play with so like a gentleman I let a Warrior with only 140 horsepower go first, then my friend in the TB20 and assuming they didn't end in a field or the sea I deemed it fit to go. In fact I lifted off at the top of the hill with at least 250 metres remaining so it wasnt too bad. I would have been worried if I had been heavy however.

The flight home mostly at FL70 was great despite picking up a little ice. A pit stop at Sleap for tea and cakes in the cafe there run by a delightful filipino lady who made her own cakes. (If you are thinking of dropping in she is away for 6 weeks she says now).



Now the Bonanza A36 performed fantastically and it is the first day out playing in planes that I have been able to enjoy for a long time so I wasn't too unhappy about the mission but a word of caution for fellow pilots going in to Scilly. It really is a challenging runway and you must be very familiar with your steed if you want to avoid embarrassment or even death. Its a lovely place to visit but just make sure you are comfortable with your landing technique including crosswinds, short field, wind shear etc. The Scilly landing can provide you with all sorts of excitement and this tale proves that.



Having said all that dont let me put you off going there as it is a lovely place and well worth seeing.

This weekend one of the members of my group took the Bonanza for his first away day trip and chose to go to the Isles of Scilly. A beautiful place just about 25 miles off the tip of Cornwall. Unfortunately the Bonanza was not to return.........

...........well at least not the same day because the pilot was to suffer a blow out on the runway that made news on the Scilly Isles, blocking the runway for a while.

Unfortunately Scilly does not have a maintenance facility and not even the equipment to jack up the Bonanza so the pilot was forced to leave the plane parked safely and return to Blackpool via a combination of a helicopter, a train and a long car journey.

The Bonanza A36 is currently well and truly stuck just off the runway at St Mary's so if you see a Beechcraft Bonanza looking sorry for itself with a flat tyre down there you please tell it I still love it and will be down soon. :)

I have the pleasure of going down on Wednesday with the new tyre and a mechanic with the appropriate jack to change the wheel and then fly out of the 600 metre airport that serves these lovely islands.

I am however strangely looking forward to it. Its a great excuse to take a day off work and go flying. Best of all I am getting a lift down in a well equipped TB20.