Plastic Pilot

Do you remember Samedan Airport (LSZS) ? It’s the higher airport in Europe (altiports excluded), at 5′600 ft. It’s located in eastern Switzerland, close to St-Moritz. There are no IFR approaches, but the runway is plenty long, and wealthy people often land their with business jets.

Even with small planes, the landing there is a bit impressive, particularly the base and final turns in the valley. Judge yourself, with these videos of a landing and take-off in Samedan with a DA40-TDI. You will also see the kind of business jets that sometimes land there in the video, and with this excellent shot of a Gulfstream landing, on short final.

If you think Gulfstream is kind of the bigger airplane that operates there, the next photo will make you change your mind.

Yes, this is nothing less than a boeing 737 ! It did obviously not followed the single engine pattern shown in the video, but it certainly was an impressive approach anyway ! Thank you the the airliners.net spotter who made this shot !

This post is the third in the series about good reasons to fly general aviation, be it very light, or business aircrafts. As any hobby should be, aviation is challenging, interesting, and can be extremely rewarding… in various ways.

Mastering flying technique, executing manoeuvers properly, co-ordinating altitude, speed and heading on approach are tricky things. Any pillot knows the theory of it, but there is quite a gap between theory and practice… so achieving a good flight from the flying technique point of view is certainly rewarding.

The extreme vision of flying technique is obviously found in aerobatics. Such flights are short, land at the airport they departed from… so they have no “objective” reasons… except the pleasure for the pilot to execute complex manoeuvers exactly as planned.

There is however much more than simple flying technique. A good flying day is also about choosing a good itinerary, interpreting metoroligcal signs correctly, managing the passengers expectations, and so on.

Flying on instruments (opposed to visual reference) is a mental exercise, different from other activities. It relies on spatial orientation, some geometry and calculus. On top of that, understanding the complex electronics on board modern aircrafts is not exactly easy… making the whole thing even more rewarding.

Managing all these factors is a complicated task, and having all done is really… a pleasure ! I guess this can apply to any hobby, from bowling to cheese boxes collection ! On the other hand, if there is a lot of possible satisfaction, the potential for frustration is high as well !

Missing a landing, or interpreting a procedure the wrong way can definetly make a flight much less enjoyable… but there is room for improvement everywhere, and this is also what makes it… rewarding !

Easy things are not fun… aren’t they ?

Few weeks ago I started flying AVGAS planes again, in a good old PA28, after having completed the FADEC challenge. Today, I took an instructor to re-start flying PA32 Saratoga, with its 150 kts in cruise and injected 300 HP engine.

Seating again in this cockpit made some memories come back… and I realised how deep some drills are buried in me. Engine, gear, prop, everything was like automatic.

Even the landings were acceptable. I can’t say they were perfect kiss landings, but given the strong winds we had, they were well within limits… happy me !

Next step will be to fly the Saratoga IFR again, to renew my rating, which I can possibly do from February next year… lucky me !