Last week in Thailand, and back to it in England

After a week up in Chiang Mai I took Thai Airways with too many bags (but not over weight) to Suvarnabhum Airport, and then on the 143 Baht bus to Jomtien.
Back to do a few more flights from BFA at Pattaya Eastern Air Park.

On Pancake Tuesday I missed out on thin English pancakes with crispy edges, and sugar and lemon juice on top. Instead I flew with Bobby to Nong Khor to do some circuits.

I was supposed to go to Langkawi in Malaysia in a Cessna Cardinal that afternoon, but there was a VIP flight (Royal Flight) scheduled later on Tuesday and so the airspace was closed for most of the day.
Then the door handle broke on the Cessna and so I flew with it's owner in the Citabria the next day, some steep turns and stalls, and a touch and go at Nong Khor.

BFA's Zenair 701 was sold to a chap at Khlong 11 (sip et) which is north east of Bangkok. Khlongs are water courses that provide both irrigation and drainage and are numbered. The straight fields between the khlongs are ideal for building small airfields.
Routing was along the VFR route through the Bangkok controlled airspace via Bang Pakong, Bang Nam Priao, and then direct to Khlong 11.

Even though I gave the Zenair 701 a good head start, it is one of the slowest flying machines in the air, and so I caught up with it by Bang Nam Priao.
I was of course flying the Citabria.
The Bangkok ATC controller was very good, and easy to talk to. I was asked if I had the 701 in sight, but I asked for a hold over Bang Nam Priao to let the 701 go on ahead... What was realised afterwards was that with the 701 in sight I could have passed it and gone on ahead myself!
But I was in an expectation mode since in Thailand when two aeroplanes are within a few miles of each other ATC get very concerned. This controller was however comfortable with two light aircraft in close vicinity.
Daniel took the 701 to Khlong 11, and he took the front seat and flew me back to Pattaya.

On other flights, when talking to U-Tapao, when an airliner was 9nm away and 10,000 feet above me, I was instructed to descend below 1,500 feet.
Even when operating at 2,500 feet over Dok Krai which is miles away from the departure and arrival routes from/to U-Tapao, I was asked to descend to 1,000 feet for traffic that would be at least 20nm away, and thousands of feet above me, and so it was a surprise when Bangkok were happy with VFR traffic being within sight of each other.

Early mornings suit me well, I get up in the cool morning air.

Nong Khor is where they do a lot of death defying parachute jumps from a PC6.
Nearby the company owner has set up an impressive FAA approved aircraft restoration business,
and it also has approvals to do maintenance and hot section checks on PT6 and PW100 engines.
I visited this facility, it is clean, professional, and very impressive.

Depending on the duty controllers, U-Tapao can be very friendly to light aircraft or not.
Most of the time during quiet periods we can go and do some circuits there.

Pattaya Eastern is 500 metres long with obstacles both ends, 'made me concentrate on my landings.
Best approach was at 65mph IAS with a slip passing the water tower, or over the intimidating fence.

Tristan wanted to see a wheel landing.

Martin greets a new day.

I did some enjoyable flying in the Citabria.

Khun Mao is a good friend, and he asked me to help him with (forward) slipping his Cessna 172.
My first demonstration was without flaps, and we landed smoothly, nice and short.
Mao had not seen a flapless landing in the Cessna 172, so this was a first for him.

Back in England I face a multitude of problems.
I arrived back at Heathrow on Wednesday evening. Thursday morning I drove to Devon, and then back to Popham for lunch, and back to Guildford for Pub Night.

My CR-V is due for it's MOT inspection on Thursday but needs a lot of work. Four new tyres, and the front brakes need repair.
This MOT is set to cost me a lot of money.
Joy oh joy, I received a letter to say my pension is going up to £360/month in April, but it seems I can not have Pension Credit and so I need to find an income; get back to work Michael!
The Aircoupe will need it's Annual check soon... say goodbye to another £3,800.
All of this will drain the investment account I set up in Canada, needs must, and such sacrifices have been the norm in my life.

Sunday, 16th, I flew Brian's Sling 2 for it's first two flights from Dunsfold.
The aeroplane flew well, and was able to be trimmed to fly level without any rolling tendency, no snags appeared during the two test flights I did.
On the first I approached the stall flaps up and then flaps down to record when the buffet began, 52KIAS and 43KIAS.
On the second flight I took the aeroplane to the stall in both configurations. The stalls were normal and easy to recover from.

I take my camera with me, it's the best way to record instrument indications. Of note was the EGT indications as these were a problem with the engine before.
It did not achieve it's maximum power when first fitted and so had been removed to be run on a test bed... The rotating coils that provide power to the ignition system were incorrectly set in the back of the engine, and when these were gapped correctly the engine ran properly. Now the engine was back on the airframe and up to speed to fly, I paid attention to the engine parameters displayed by the EFIS.

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