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April has become quite a busy month with a satisfactory amount of flying and travel for me.
I am not well known here in England, but I have a couple of good customers to deal with. It's an interesting time; I've been fed, and my expenses have been paid.

Adrian, Brian, and me at Lee on Solent, 8th April.

To continue from the last update, I begin with a flight down to Lee on Solent from Blackbushe in the Cessna Cardinal for familiarisation with English airspace.
I paid the £31.90p landing fee, and went to the cafè whereupon I walked into Brian! "What are you doing here?"
Brian did both his Night Rating and his Commercial Pilot Licence training with me at Boundary Bay in Canada. He was here for four days and by coincidence he was at Lee on Solent when I turned up! Life is incredible sometimes.
Whereas it was Brian's first visit to England and only for four days, Adrian was born here.
When I met Adrian he showed me a picture of himself sitting in Tiger Moth G ACDC... I looked at the picture and told him the precise date the picture was taken! How did I know that?
In the background was me in my yellow Viva Van taking one of the wings of Cessna 150A, G ARFI, to my hangar.

Chilton DW1A

'Flew back to Blackbushe, engine stop at 14:10 BST, and I left to drive down to Slinfold to put another hour on the Chilton.
It's a bit like Vancouver again, commuting distances between airfields.
This was a simple running in flight in the Chilton.
The takeoff was interesting with me applying more and more left rudder to try to straighten the aeroplane on takeoff and during the climbout. The amount of left rudder required was excessive!
The answer to insufficient rudder control and directional stability is to gap seal the gap between the Rudder and the Fin.
The elevators were already gap sealed.

Cardinal

We went on a short flight to Popham and back to Blackbushe.
An introduction to the slant approach to Popham's runway 26.

Chilton DW1A

Now to test the gap seal in the Chilton, and what a HUGE difference this has made.
Directional control on takeoff and during the climb was now 'normal'; it was very easy to keep the aeroplane straight with 'normal' application of the rudder.
The Chilton has a marked right wing drop at the stall and so a wedge was fitted to the leading edge of the left wing... This had no effect at all!
Leading edge wedges are a negative way to fix a wing drop (it didn't). Vortex Generators on the other hand have a positive effect on the stall, rendering aeroplanes with a similar problem benign at the stall in my experience.
Vortex Generators are of course not in keeping with a 1930's design.

The purpose of this flight was to check the stall with various flap settings and then do a Vne dive.
0 flap: 42 KIAS, 13 degrees 40 KIAS, 30 degrees 38 KIAS, and 45 degrees 35 KIAS. There is a 65 degree flap setting, but I disagree with it, and we won't be using it! Each stall was accompanied with a right wing drop.

The Velocity Never Exceed (Vne) speed is 143 Knots IAS, and the Vne dive is frightening to most of us! If the aeroplane doesn't break up and crash, and if there's no control flutter followed by the ailerons coming off followed by the aeroplane breaking up and crashing, then it has passed the test.
Vne is truly the death dive, enough to concern the best of the best ace pilots.
For this particular hero (me) I put the nose down and reached 130 Knots, it was a little too bumpy for my liking and so that's as far as I went this time. The Vne dive should be done in smooth air, but below 3,000 feet the air was a little too bumpy.

A trip to Lasham

Annabel organised a trip to Lasham to visit the Gliding Museum for members of the Flyer Club, including Forum persons...
Lasham has a very good cafè which is open late, and so I sometimes go there after flying at Popham as the Popham cafè is closed at 16:00.
Roger was our guide... He reminded everyone that he had known me for 41 years, and so was allowed to take the p*** out of me at times...

Overall the tour was fun and very interesting.
Lunch at the club was good, and after the tour we had tea and cakes, or a scone.

The blue sailplane was once owned by Prince Bira of Thailand.

14th April we took the Cessna to Goodwood and back.

Chilton DW1A

17th April, was the weather good enough to do the death dive?
The morning started off well, but as the time to fly approached, so did some low clouds.
I took off to see what it was like... Headed out low level from Slinfold to stay below Gatwicks' airspace which begins at 1,500 feet on the QNH.
Headed towards Parham, my emergency landing ground (they don't know this; our secret). Here the clag was to the west whilst overhead Parham and to the east the cloud base was well above 3,000 feet, and the air was smooth.
The Chilton climbs very well, 1,100 feet per minute at this level, and so I was soon at 3,000 feet.
Now for the Vne dive: I applied full power and accelerated in level flight, and then lowered the nose, throttling back to keep the RPM below the red line (2,600), the speed built up quickly and I was soon at 143 knots Indicated Airspeed, a gentle feel of the controls, and there was no sign of flutter, so throttle back and gently ease out of the dive... Phew!

One more thing to do... I called Farnborough for a radio check and they received me strength five, but I read them strength 3, so we need to adjust the radio squelch(es), and try to cure radio noise...

We thought we had met the five hour flight test requirement, but no... I have to fly this lovely aeroplane a bit more...

 Cardinal to Devon

Flying the Cessna continued.
We flew to Bolt Head with a stop at Dunkeswell for fuel.
At Dunkeswell runway 04 was in use, and this meant a couple of go arounds for us... I had us fly at 80 MPH to fit in with traffic, but unfortunately an aeroplane ahead of us landed at the beginning of the runway and slow taxied along it's length.
We landed after another circuit, just before the runway intersection, and so made the runway available to other aircraft within a minimum time.
It's courtesy.
The weather has been superb this month with clean clear air and excellent visibility. It was an easy flight to the West Country.

Bolt Head had a squadron of Spitfires based there during the Second World War. I understand this was a Polish squadron.
A 25 minute walk further to the west is the Soar Mill Cove Hotel which is a nice place to escape the busy modern world and relax.
I stayed here, and had a nice meal of Dover Sole together with white wine on my own.

In the morning I had breakfast which is offered rather late, from 08:00, but very good nevertheless... After all why would anyone want to get up early except for an early morning swim in the frigid sea?
Indeed, after breakfast I went for a walk down to the cove where I met a mature Yorkshire lass who had had a dip in the sea, "for two minutes" she said. Yorkshire people are known to be tough, so that was a measure of the cold. Not for me!

From the cove I climbed up to the clifftop foot path and walked to the northwest along the coast.
The path leads you on and on to see what lies behind the next corner, it's fantastic on a crisp clear day.
Of course as far as I walked, I had to walk back, and so it became a long healthy walk.

Back at the hotel I met up with my customer, and we walked up the hill to Bolt Head airfield where there had been some more aeroplanes arriving.
It's a well tended grass strip with a £15 landing fee.
England has a lot of nice strips to fly to, though these are often under threat by developers who want to build millions of houses on the beautiful English countryside.
We reversed our route back to Blackbushe via Dunkeswell.

21st April we flew out to the west to do some slow flying, and stalls, with a lot of turning just above the stall speeds for the angles of bank. We felt for the buffet that warns of the stall.
If you want to fly your aeroplane with confidence you should explore and feel the corners where the aeroplane might bite you; at a safe height of course.
We returned to Blackbushe and did some circuits and landings with various flap settings and with zero flap as well.

Cardinal up to the Midlands

Family is in the Shrewsbury area and so this warranted a flight up to Sleap in Shropshire as well as a maintenance visit to Derby.
The new Transponder was having difficulty being seen by Radar, and I reasoned that the problem would be in the aerial (antenna) circuit.
So after a quick tea at Sleap we nipped across to Derby to get it sorted.
It was indeed the antenna which had a broken connection and had to be replaced (£200).
While we're at it the landing gear warning system was adjusted as it was going off at too high a manifold pressure...

This took a couple of goes, but now you can approach an airfield with ten degrees flaps at 16" MAP power without the horn blaring away. To fit in with traffic we need to be at 90 MPH IAS or so, and then for practice I had us fly at 80 MPH IAS!
There's a lot more traffic to fit in with here in England as opposed to Thailand, and so we need the ability to match airspeeds with a variety of different aeroplanes, autogyros, and microlights.

The Turbulent: I used G APNZ to commute in the late '70s/early '80s.
It was badly damaged (I believe in a storm) but has been rebuilt.
The engine now has electronic ignition and a new fuel system... For some reason an electric fuel pump has been fitted, and so such a modification requires due process with the LAA and this is taking time.
When I flew it, the ignition was via two Lucas magnetos, and there was no need for an electric fuel pump.

I spent the night in the olde Lion Hotel in Shrewsbury.
There's a lot of history here, and the town is very attractive on a bright sunny day with a feast of architectural styles dating over hundreds of years including the hotel in which I resided.

The flight back was straight forward, with the Mode S transponder and ads-b functioning perfectly.
We did a few circuits at Blackbushe after arriving there.
There was a lesson in fitting in when we joined the circuit, and during the circuits we carried out. All good, and my friend took his aeroplane for a few solo circuits.

We did a session of circuits here before departing to Blackbushe.
The Cardinal is not as easy as a Cessna 172 to land nicely, it takes practice.