We went to Africa
 
Went to Africa after having heart surgery the previous year. Obtained my African pilot's license and hired a Cessna 182 with guide from Bushpilot Adventures in Pretoria. We had an amazing time flying out of Wonderboom airport in South Africa, up through Zimbabwe to a resort near Bulawayo and then on to the Zambezi River in the Mana Pools area where we stayed at Chikwenya Lodge and Goliath tented camp on the river.
Low level flying up the Zambezi to Lake Kariba where we stayed at Bumi Hills Resort before spending a night at Victoria Falls. Our final game park destination was Mashatu in Botswana where we were given the room frequently occupied by the President of Botswana.
We flew commercially to Rwanda to trek into the mountains to spend an incredible hour with the gorillas before flying back to the Serengeti in Tanzania where we had the good fortune to witness the crossing of the Mara River by the Wilderbeest and other animals on their annual migration.
From a flying perspective, the commercial flights of Cessna Caravans into the high and remote gravel strips on the Serengeti where they landed and took off within seconds of each other would make our ATC shudder in fear even though our ATC are great at what they do.
When we got back I then had a pacemaker fitted and our flying has been somewhat restricted getting CASA medical certification.
That in turn lessened the enthusiasm for writing about our experiences but one day I might get around to it.

South African flying safari and more
 

This year, June 2014, Megan and I are off to Africa on a flying safari. Starting with five days in Cape Town, we will fly to Johannesburg where I will try to pass the Airlaw exams and the flying component to obtain validation of my license and obtain a South African VFR pilot license. Last year we planned to do this safari with four other pilots, but two, including me had open heart surgery and didn't go. We have hired a 1969 or 1970 Cessna C182 with aged instrumentation and a pilot/guide to accompany us, having heard of the difficulty with Customs, Immigration, understanding the Air Traffic Controllers, probable bribery, refueling and methods for protection of aircraft when parked and easily accessible to the wild animals.

Our flying safari takes us to a number of rather luxurious game park lodges and tented sites in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe and will include a one day stay at Victoria Falls.

This will be hard to take, and a really tough assignment, but we are made of the 'right stuff' and I am sure we will be able to handle it.

After the flying safari, Megan and I are heading for Kigali and into the mountains of Rwanda to spend an hour with a family of gorillas.

We then fly commercially to remote dirt and clay airstrips near tented camps in the northern and north western Serengeti on the Mara River and Grumeti River respectively, to experience the annual migration of the wildebeest, gazelles and zebras as they head north to the Masai Mara.

For the last four days we head to the island of Zanzibar.

Piper Turbo Arrow III VH-HKZ

Piper Cherokee Turbo Arrow III - PA28R-201T

Serial Number 28R-7703010

Year of Manufacture - 1977



Engine - Factory engine 2015 - Teledyne Continental TSIO-360-F
Six cylinder, Direct Drive, Horizontally Opposed, Air Cooled, Turbosupercharged and Fuel Injected.

At Dec 2015 - TTIS 4427 hours; engine TSN 37 hours


Three blade Hartzell PHC-E3YF-1RF/F7663-4T; S/N EE 4673 B. Placed in Service 4th Feb. 2004 - TSO 37 hours

Paint excellent; Seats leather; new carpet. Some side window yellowing & due for replacement; good tyres. Oxygen (no recent check)


Avionics - IFR:
Garmin 430 GPS
Garmin GMA 340 Audio Panel
Garmin GTX 320A Transponder Mode C



Piper Autocontrol IIIB Autopilot
Second radio Narco Comm 11B
Narco ADF
2 - VOR with Glideslope. One Glideslope inoperative.



Clock, Artificial Horizon, Air speed Indicator, Vertical Speed Indicator, Vacuum guage, Exhaust Gas Temperature guage, Cylinder head Temperature Guage, Oil temperature and Pressure Guages, Digital Gyro, Manifold pressure guage, RPM Guage, fuel flow guage, Turn co-ordinator, Altimeter.


Internally wired four place headset jacks and auxiliary hand microphone.

Present owner since 1989 - Now for sale due to purchase of 2000 model Saratoga II TC in December 2009.

VH-HKZ serviced by Blue Demon Aviation Pty Ltd Moorabbin (03) 9587 1502 since 1994



This aircraft is hangared at Great Lakes (previously at Bairnsdale) airport in eastern Victoria

Click on images to enlarge

Contact:
Tom Courtney

03 5156 0412
0412 389 294
courtney@datafast.net.au

The final Chapter

It is now time to finish this blog.

Ray Clamback & Lyn Gray at Redondo Beach - not a good one Lyn - sorry.

When I decided to buy a Saratoga in USA, nothing was further from my mind than the thought of flying across the Pacific. To the contrary, never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever do such a thing. I had never given much thought to who brought planes across the Pacific, how many came across, how many didn't make it, how many did and who it was that flew across in them.


It wasn't until David Ind told me that he had flown back with his Saratoga two years earlier, that the thought occurred to me and was rejected even quicker. However, given the delays due to the winds, I had time to contemplate the possibility which then took me on a journey where I looked at what the real risks were, and if in the event that we finished up in the Pacific, what were the chances of survival. After doing all of that and reading the reports of Ray Clamback's two swims, the chances of survival looked pretty good. Overcoming the fear is really about overcoming your mindset rather than the real prospect of a ditching followed by drowning or being taken by a shark.

Dan McGowan at Torrance

Having come close to deciding to do the trip, I bought a download of a Saratoga II TC for use with Microsoft Simulator and 'took off' from Torrance, flew to Santa Maria and then took off from Santa Maria and flew for 1 1/2 hours out over the Pacific toward Hilo, Hawaii. Whilst not real, it had a mentally calming effect on me and I thought that this wouldn't be all that dangerous.



The preparations with Ray, Lyn & Dan in Torrance were confidence building as they went about checking everything, getting all the safety gear together, making sure everything worked, and where the life rafts, ELB's, strobe lights, rations etc would be placed for quick access and exit.

When it came time to give the Saratoga full throttle for take off at Santa Maria, all doubts, fears and nervousness had gone, and as we climbed out, it was just like any other flight.



Would I do it again? Probably not!

Jose Gamero awaiting his fate at Torrance
 
If I bought another aircraft I would probably fly out with it. Having done it once was exciting and an adventure that few undertake, but at this time there doesn't seem to be any point in doing it again.


Going to faraway places and even utterly remote locations has it's exciting moments, but it is not glamorous. There is little (virtually no) time for sightseeing or exploring and most of the photographs were grabbed opportunistically in the few spare seconds or minutes available between fueling and packing and traveling to and from 'hotels' or Customs offices and for a lot of the time it was hot, humid and uncomfortable.

It was a good experience and one I can look back on as some sort of achievement.

Megs in the President's chair - AOPA, Frederick, Maryland
 
Ray said to me on a number of occasions "You will be in a very select group of owners who have ever done this trip. I could probably count them on one hand". I now know of two other members of the Australian Piper Society who flew their newly purchased Piper Saratogas to Australia - David Ind, who has been mentioned several times in these posts and Pat Evans from Queensland. Lyn told me that she flew out with Pat a couple of years ago. Ray qualified his comments later, by saying that there might be more than a handful but it wouldn't reach 20. I suppose that is quite amazing given that there are 12,000 - 13,000 aircraft currently on the Australian Register and a very large percentage of those would have been flown here.

When you consider that over 2700 people have climbed Mt Everest and it has been climbed more than 4700 times, even if 20 owners flew the Pacific, we do form a reasonably select group.


Tom Courtney at Du Page airport Chicago - 2008
 
Maybe I could try to claim a world record for the Guinness Book of Records as being the only 70 year old, balding, fair haired, Australian owner who was flown his own 2000 model turbo charged Saratoga across the Pacific, leaving from Santa Maria at dawn on a Wednesday morning in February, accompanied by a Bonanza and a Mooney in a race against five FA 18 Super Hornets, arriving at the Gold Coast and completing the flight at Moorabbin. This is a feat, meeting all of those criteria, which will never be repeated!

It is easy to set records if you manipulate the parameters to suit.

I recount Ray's conversation with me, telling how he kept list in his office of people who wanted to do the flight across the Pacific with him. If the timing and logistics of the flight suited both, he would take another pilot as safety back up. At one time he had over 20 people on the list who wanted to do the trip across. Then he ditched in the Pacific and spent 9 hours swimming in a life jacket. When he got home and went to the office, the number had shrunk dramatically to just 2.

In the next couple of months, Lyn and her husband are moving from suburban Sydney to a small farm at Cowra. She is looking for a Piper Warrior or Cherokee and intends to continue instructing around Cowra, Orange, Bathurst area.

Megs (Megan Jackson) doing what she loves most

For those who may buy an aircraft overseas and import it into Australia, whether you fly back with it or not, the process is really very simple. There are matters which you will need to attend to personally. The problem  I encountered was lack of knowledge of the requirements until it became necessary to provide a form or obtain the authority or get the approval etc. The AOPA US Members Only web site was most helpful, with an article on the procedures for exporting an aircraft from the USA.

The most stupid aspect is that surrounding the importation of refrigerant gas into Australia. The Permit requirements are stupid enough on their own. Although I had several weeks to organise a $300 permit, which would have taken about 2 weeks to get, I didn't find out about it until too late in the process and we were never sure whether or not we would be taking off in the next couple of days, so I couldn't afford the 2 week wait. That will eventually cost about $700 and we didn't have the air conditioning available at those hot, humid airports.

If you intend to personally buy an aircraft overseas, then:

1. Get a quote for the ferry flight
2. Appoint an Agent in USA to handle the local issues.
   
   
   
   • Prepare a Contract or Bill of Sale (you can do this yourself - 2 pages).
   • Arrange an escrow agent who checks ownership, liens etc and arranges the exchange of funds and registration. Again, you could do this yourself via the FAA register.
   • De-register the aircraft with FAA if flying out on Australia Register. You can do this yourself.
   • Arrange and oversee a maintenance to meet FAA Export Certificate of Airworthiness requirements - virtually an annual maintenance, but it is not an airworthiness certificate.
   • Obtain and charge you for hangar facilities.
   • Remove and certify compliance if you are stupid enough to take the refrigerant out of the unit.
3. Appoint a US Customs Agent to handle the export documentation
4. Appoint an Australian Customs Agent to handle the importation documentation, GST and other charges.
5. Get a permit to import the Refrigerant gas into Australia.
6. Obtain an Australian Certificate of Registration andCertificate of Appointment of Registered Operator.
7. Appoint your LAME organisation to carry out checks and upgrades to meet CASA requirements for a Certificate of Airworthiness - virtually an annual maintenance plus any ADs required.
8. See you Bank Manager or Finance Company to see if you can afford it.
9. Check with your wife or partner to obtain final approval.
10. Get a better job or rob a bank so you can pay for it.

If you wish to fly the aircraft yourself, the rules are:

1. With a US pilot certificate, you can fly a US registered aircraft
2. To fly an aircraft with foreign registry in a foreign country, you must have a pilot certificate (licence) issued by the same country in which the aircraft is registered or obtain a validated foreign pilot certificate for that country. Eg to fly a VH registered aircraft in foreign countries ie US or New Caledonia you must have a pilot certificate issued by that country.

Megs and me at Bar Harbour, Maine - 2008
 
In my case, I could fly the Saratoga VH-HKZ in foreign countries because I have an Australian License. I could have also flown the Saratoga as N6PL because I have a US license issued by the FAA.


Thanks to Ray, Lyn & Dan for their friendship and their good company and a special thought for 18 year old Jose Gamero who at a moment's notice, jumped into the pilot's seat as the official ferry pilot and who has almost certainly become the youngest ferry pilot to cross the Pacific.

Click on images to enlarge

Contact me at:
courtney@datafast.net.au
tel: 61 3 5156 0412
mob: 61 412 389 294
http://courtneyeastgippsland.com

Chapter 50 - Summary & The End - coming up

I have uploaded Chapter 49 A which is a a photo gallery.

When I receive more photos from Lyn, Dan & Jose I will load them as Chapter 49 B, C etc

I will then (or maybe before) end this blog with a final summary.



Angus Haygarth and me (left) on the Australian Piper Society trip to the Cape and Thursday Island July/August 2009 with our (Megs and my)Turbo Arrow III  VH-HKZ which will be on the market later in the year.

Absolutely nothing to do with flying or with the Saratoga. 
Eating raw salted fish in Amsterdam - and survived!


Hope you enjoyed some of it or learned something from it or if you did neither, I hope you used it to relieve you of a few hours of boredom when you had nothing to do but spend a few boring hours reading it.

Click on images to enlarge

 

Chapter 49 A - Gallery of photos

Lyn and Dan said I have to put some photos of me on the site. They said that there is no visual evidence that I even flew across the Pacific with them. Barry Matulick said "Now I should know how the Apollo II astronauts would have felt".

Lyn Gray on a previous ferry flight looking out for oncoming aircraft





A suitably worried me, talking to Tom McCrea on the Satellite phone from Christmas Island when we had grease on on windscreen.









Dan McGowan sharing a tail with me at Santa Maria

Something technically wrong with the way the photos and text are jumping about, but you get the picture.

A

An American version of a burn out on the way back from the Mojave Desert




 


 Zamperini airport - Torrance

They gave me the short, narrow runway for landing on my first flight in the Saratoga






Zamperini airport - Torrance
Another view




Park your cars wherever you like. This in the country under attack from terrorists.

In Australia, John Howard sucked the ignorant into believing we needed saving from imminent attack and spent millions $ needlessly, 'saving us'.

The success of his strategy is confirmed by no terrorist attacks involving light aircraft since that time. 

I don't see Kevin Rudd as having sufficient brains to change it and cut back on the wasteful spending.

In the Melbourne Botanical Gardens we laid elephant repellant pellets and they have been an outstanding success, because since we did that, no one has been trampled to death by an elephant within 50 miles of Melbourne. 


Santa Maria airport















Hilo airport - Hawaii



















Tafuna airport - Pago Pago

Mojave graveyard

Inside a C-130 Hercules, 20 years on.















And more still

And more yet again













And even more
Not from a Mad Max movie

And more yet
Maybe from a Mad Max movie
















Pretending I know how to do a Weight and Balance calculation before departure from Zamperini Field, Torrance.
















Looks like a handy device for moving the heavier aircraft, now that I am getting older. Have ordered one. 28v rechargeable battery powered tow bar.

Click on images to enlarge

Chapter 48 - Certificate of Airworthiness

Although Saratoga VH-EXS had to have an annual maintenance service and checked to ensure that all ADs had been complied with prior to being given an Export Certificate of Airworthiness by the FAA, the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority requires a further annual maintenance service, checking that all ADs (including any peculiar to Australia) have been completed before they will issue a Certificate of Airworthiness to allow the aircraft to be flown in Australia.

Since the annual in the USA the Saratoga has logged 51.3 hours Flight Time and 54.5 hours Hobbs. As most of us do, I have great faith in my particular maintenance organisation, which is Blue Demon Aviation at Moorabbin and I am more than happy for them to go over the aircraft from nose to tail before I am let loose with it.

There are a few minor problems which surfaced on the flight, being HSI out by 25-30 degrees, MAP, rpm & mixture control levers being unusually tight, elevator trim needle dis-engaged from the wheel mechanism and grease from the hub of one of the propellor blades.

The twin Garmin 430s have had WAAS upgrades and a new Jeppesen subscription is required. The Garmin GMX 200 shows the terrain and the Australian airspace but requires a Jeppesen subscription to have Departure, Approaches and Instrument procedures overlaid on the moving map.

For anyone who is insane enough to labour over figures, the following is the data from the flight:

Leg 1 - Torrance, California to Santa Maria, California
Leg 2 - Santa Maria, California to Hilo, Hawaii
Leg 3 - Hilo, Hawaii to Christmas Island, Kiribati
Leg 4 - Christmas Island, Kiribati to Pago Pago, American Samoa
Leg 5 - Pago Pago, American Samoa to Tontuota, Noumea
Leg 6 - Tontouta, Noumea to Gold Coast, Australia, via Magenta, Noumea
Leg 7 - Gold Coast, Australia to Bankstown, Australia
Leg 8 - Bankstown, Australia to Moorabbin, Australia

Maximum Ground Speeds below mean nothing as they were probably on descent to the airports.

                                 Leg 1      Leg 2      Leg 3      Leg 4   
Ave Speed                149.20    146.56   147.13    162.09 
Max. Grd Speed        180.46    163.49   176.73    179.99 
Trip Time                  00:53      13:54     07:33      07:48   
Trip Distance NM       130.6     2028.7   1113.4    1265.7   
Est.fuel @ 17.8 gph     15.7       247.4     134.4      138.8    


                                    Leg 5      Leg 6      Leg 7      Leg 8
Ave Speed                   152.57    154.68    136.84   153.54 
Max. Grd Speed           185.10    183.65    167.11   174.65
Trip Time                     09:04      05:20      02:45     02:44
Trip Distance NM         1377.5      824.0      377.1     418.6
Est.fuel @ 17.8 gph       161.4        94.9        49.0      49.0


I have been using the turbo Continental engine for around 19 years. I needed information on Lycoming engines and found a publication called the Lycoming Flyer on the web. I have used this 71 page publication as my basis for power settings in conjunction with the Piper Saratoga POH. For a Lycoming Turbo Charged engine, the recommendations I settled on were those recommended by Lycoming for maximum engine life. Whilst operating at 75% power, peak Turbine Inlet Temperature and at Cylinder Head Temperatures of 435 degrees F is approved, tucked away in little paragraphs within the publication are the following recommendations:

• Conservative climb power of 2400 RPM, 35" Hg manifold pressure is recommended for all cruise flight.
• Conservative cruise power settings of 2200 RPM and 31"Hg manifold pressure is recommended for increased engine service life.
• For cruise, a maximum of 1,450 degrees F exhaust gas temperature and maximum cylinder head temperature of 420 degrees F is recommended.
• The preceding conditions correspond to a power setting of about 63% ISA.
• For maximum service life, maitain Engine power setting of 65% or less; Cylinder head temperatures of 400 degrees F or below; Oil temperature 165 - 220 degrees F; Turbine Inlet Temperature 100 degrees F on rich side of maximum allowable. (TIT will be around 100 degrees F higher than EGT)

It also states that using individual cylinder EGT for leaning is not recommended. This renders our EDM 700 as somewhat less important than it might at first appear.

For mine, reaching maximum TBO by travelling a few knots slower and using a bit more fuel, is the most efficient and cost effective way to fly.

Knowing three owners who, in the last two years, have had an engine rebuild on a Lycoming engine at about 1/2 engine life due to rusting of the camshaft, it might pay users of Lycoming engines to read pages 55 & 65 of the Lycoming Flyer. Basically it states that to avoid this problem you must fly the aircraft more than twice per month and get the oil temperature above 165 degrees and change the oil every 4 months. This puts a totally new perspective on finding a 'bargain' 30 year old aircraft which only has a few hours on the engine. Probably indicates that when buying a second hand aircraft more emphasis should be placed on the regularity of hours flown as shown in the Maintenance Release.

Whilst a lot of the above applies to Turbo Charged Lycoming engines, the Lycoming Flyer covers both Turbo Charged and Normally Aspirated engines. Download it from the web.

Some may have noticed that the RAAF has purchased new Super Hornet F/A 18F aircraft. These were at Lemoore NAS where the Australian pilots trained. This was just 100 statute miles N/E of Santa Maria. They were to fly to Amberley, just west of the Gold Coast. We challenged them to a race across the Pacific. Route taken was to be determined by each party. The winning team would be the one which took the least time to cross from USA to Australia. They chose to fly almost the same route as we did - Lemoore, Hawaii, Pago Pago, Auckland, Amberley.

We took off on 17th March, they took off 19th March.
We arrived 23rd March, they arrived 26th March.

Clearly, we won by about 24 hours.

Admittedly they had about 120 NM further to fly but they had the advantage of in-flight re-fueling and one less stop than us.

It just goes to prove that even though Ray is 72 years old and I am 70 years old, we still have more stamina and guile than these younger men of the RAAF.

Another example of the tortoise and the hare.

Tom Courtney (left) Ray Clamback (right)

Click on images to enlarge