November 2010

21.11.2010: I of course could not stay on the ground during my whole holidays, so when the chance was there to fly with a Pilatus Porter to a glacier I could not say no.

The mountain in the back on the left is Mount Cook, the highest mountain of New Zealand, the one on the right of it is Mount Tasman.

I managed to sit next to the pilot and when I told me I am from Switzerland he said I should tell the guys at Pilatus that they shall continue making these great planes.

Flying in the Porter reinforced my idea that the next plane I am building should have a propeller turbine....

27.11.2010: Today I flew back from Sydney via Singapore to Zurich. There was quite some chaos in Sydney, as it is probably the airport where more Airbus A380s operate than anywhere else. Many of them have been grounded, including all from Qantas, after the engine in one of Qantas had a catastrophic engine failure. Singapore Airlines is still operating theirs, but with some restrictions as they have to take them one by one out of service for checks. The one form Sydney to Singapore was cancelled and replaced with an Airbus A330, but the one from Singapore to Zurich flew.

I read that the one from Qantas that had the engine failure landed with 50 tons over max. landing weight, as they did not dare dumping fuel. Quite some secondary damage seems to have been caused by the disintegrating engine, including to fuel transfer pumps that are needed to control the centre of gravity when dumping fuel. That reassures me that if ever I have to land shortly after taking off with 630 kg MTOW the max landing weight of 600 kg should not be an issue....

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