For the past few months the Misfit Squadron has been doing some long group trips, meeting on Fridays and flying legs for a couple of hours at a time. We started out with a trip from Big Bear City, California to Oshkosh for the (virtual) AirVenture, and since then we've explored 1,400 miles of the coastal regions of Norway; 3,000 miles of the Great Rift Valley; and 2,600 miles around Italy. We started our latest epic flight last week, taking off from Wiley Post-Will Rogers Memorial Airport, Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost airfield on the North American mainland, and heading for (eventually) Malvinas Argentinas in the Tierra del Fuego, at the far tip of South America.

I don't fly in the cold. It's not that I actively avoid it, more that the places I usually fly happen to be closer to the Equator than the poles, so Barrow in November was an unfamiliar experience for me. The outside temperature at 8 am was 3 degrees F, about -16 C. Now, cold is not all bad. Because cold air is denser, airplanes are more efficient: more air means more fuel in the same intake volume and hence more power, and denser air means more lift for the wings, with shorter takeoffs and faster climbs. But it does raise a new set of considerations, particularly with planes like A2A's, where they take performance modelling very seriously.

The Mustang has an oil dilution system that you use before shutting down in cold climates; it thins the oil to make it easier for the engine to turn over next time. Unfortunately, the last place I shut down the Mustang was in Indonesia, so whether or not to dilute the oil never entered my head.

The next consideration was priming. A2A Accusim technology models the Merlin's quirks pretty accurately, and it's easy to over- or under-prime. Normally four seconds of primer is about right for a "cold start", so I went for six, since it was really cold.

Thus armed, I turned on the fuel pump and flicked the starter switch. The engine turned, reluctantly; I don't know if A2A model the degradation of battery performance in cold conditions but it wouldn't surprise me. After the requisite six blades I turned on the mags and got - nothing. The prop continued to turn and I gave it another couple of seconds of prime. Still nothing. I turned off the starter (you're not supposed to run it for more than 30 seconds at a time), let it sit for a bit, then tried again. And again. And again. Suffice it to say that despite various combinations of priming, mixture adjustment, and throttle setting, I managed to drain the battery without eliciting more than a few reluctant coughs.

A quick trip to the hangar restored the battery and I set up to try yet again. Much longer prime this time, and after about twenty seconds of cranking, throttle juggling, and MORE prime I actually got the thing to fire and run. I've since learned that in the conditions that prevailed that morning the recommended priming time is of the order of TWELVE seconds.

This flight was intended as a check flight before the start of the big trip, and an opportunity to get everything warmed up and ready to go. There was cloud from a few hundred feet above the field up to about eight thousand feet, so I decided to just go up on top, look around, and come back down. Climbing through the cloud I eventually noticed that I had lost my airspeed indication. Ah, yes - pitot heat. I turned it on.

The ASI never came back; I assume the ice encrustation was more than the heater could handle. Fortunately, with over 1,000 hours in this plane I've developed a reasonably good feel for her, and I was able to get back to the field, let down, and land without, I'm pretty sure, exceeding any of the flap and gear limitation speeds.

So I learned some stuff about cold weather flying, and it stood me in good stead at our first stop, Dawson City where, although it's almost 600 miles south, the temperatures are about the same as at Barrow. On the next flight, oil thinned and priming sorted out, she fired right up. And I turned on the pitot heat.

But, for another example of my inexpertness and subsequent ponderings, read on.

Going Around

I take my sim flying pretty seriously, but sometimes I catch myself doing things that would terrify me in real life. There's a little voice that still lurks in the back of my head that mutters something like "Hey, even if you have a catastrophic crash you won't get hurt, and you can always reload the plane." While that may be true, there are times when I'm embarrassed to reflect on something I've just done.

The other day I was in the A2A Mustang (again) and approaching to land. Because of the restricted visibility over the nose I tend to do a curving approach whenever possible; it works well if you can hold a steady descent rate and a more or less constant rate of turn. This time, as I got down near the threshhold it was clear that I was getting too slow AND too low. The Mustang is an airplane you have to handle carefully at the bottom of the speed range, particularly down low in a left-hand turn; injudicious application of power can have you over on your back and into the ground in very short order. So, with a very delicate power increase and appropriate rudder work I tried to stretch the glide to get me to the runway.

I got there, but very slow and still in a slight turn with the left wing low, and as I started to flare the left wing stopped flying. I was not high up, so she came down hard on the left main, bounced over onto the right, and proceeded to careen down the runway while I struggled with brakes, rudder, and power to keep her off the grass. I managed, and eventually brought the plane to a stop.

It was at that moment that I thought about going around or, more accurately, my attitude to it. There is a phenomenon in real-world flying known as get-there-itis, defined as "The determination of a pilot to reach a destination even when conditions for flying are very dangerous". It has killed a lot of people through the years, and its variation "real men don't go around" almost got me.

In an earlier article about engine failure on takeoff, I wrote that it is good practice during the takeoff roll and initial climb to ask yourself "What if the engine quit here . . . or here . . . or here?" Well, it's probably a good idea to ask yourself a similar question on approach, something like "Is it still safe to proceed . . . is it still safe . . . is it still safe?"

And if the answer is No, what do you do? The go-around sequence is much the same for all aircraft: power, pitch, flaps, and gear.

Power: apply appropriately. Slamming the throttle to the firewall might not be the best move.

Pitch: get the nose into climb attitude. The need to PUSH on the stick may be quite strong.

Flaps: retract per the manufacturer's recommendations. Lacking those, it might be a good idea to experiment at altitude, practicing balancing flap retraction and pitch to avoid sinking or stalling. And once you have the flaps down, if you haven't already, trim.

Gear: retract once you have a positive rate of climb. On some aircraft the retraction sequence can create more drag than if the gear were left down.

When should you go around? Whenever it's not looking good. It might be overcautious, but practice never hurts.

Spot The Difference

Preflight check, A2A Comanche.

Ratty's Ramble - Colorado Cruise

We just flew this deceptively simple 175-mile trip across central Colorado. Out of Denver's Centennial Airport you fly south, with the Great Plains to your left and the beginning of the Rocky Mountains to your right. The route takes you past Colorado Springs, the Air Force Academy and Cheyenne Mountain, before turning southwest to cross the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness. As you near the foothills of the Rockies you intercept the Rio Grande river, and follow it into the hills to land at Mineral County Memorial Airport, Creede.

Since Centennial Airport is almost 6,000 feet up and Creede Airport is almost 9,000, this one is most fun in fixed-gear singles.

Skyvector link