Pulsar Adventures

October 2000, Sonja Englert

Most people would probably think that I must be out of my mind to travel from Florida to Montana just to look at a little homebuilt airplane. But I wanted to buy that airplane. If I wanted to find out if it was as good as the owner described it, I had to go there and fly it. I had bought a ticket for an early morning flight with Delta out of Fort Myers. The night before, I was already dreaming about the trip. I had gotten up too late and had to rush to make it to the airport. I was almost sure that I would miss the plane, but I was at least going to try it. I was running to the car, almost forgetting my bags, when I realized that a few things did not make sense. Why did it look like I was in Germany, and what was my sister doing here ? Rule number one about dreams: when you are in doubt whether it is reality or a dream, it is always a dream. I finally remembered this rule, and was relieved to realize that I was only dreaming. But now what to do to wake up and get rid of that dream ? I don’t know what I did, but I finally woke up. I looked at the clock, it said 4 am. I was again relieved, I still had an hour before I would have to get up. But something did not seem right. I looked again and saw that the clock was not running! What time was it really? Now I did get up to look at another watch. This was a good idea, because it really was a few minutes before 5 and I needed to get going if I did not want to turn that dream into reality.

I made it in time to Fort Myers, left my car at the FBO so that I would not have to pay for parking it and got on my flight to Atlanta. From there the connection was to Salt Lake City, where I had to wait several hours for the flight into Helena. The 737, that was to take us there, was an hour late coming from Seattle. When we finally boarded and thought we were ready to go, the captain announced that there would be another delay because they had to change a tire. When we were finally airborne, the crew promised us clear sky, more than 10 miles of visibility and temperature in the seventies upon arrival. Great, I thought, I will have nice weather to try out the little airplane. Salt Lake City had been warm and sunny, so I was hoping this would continue. But as we flew on, the clouds started to get very numerous below us. We descended into grey mist and it was only a few minutes before landing with the 737 bouncing around in the gusty wind that we caught some glimpses of the ground about 2000 ft below us. Once underneath the clouds the visibility was good enough to give us a good view of the rain showers 5 miles west of the airport. As I left the plane, I could not help making a remark to the pilot:

"Now what was that with this clear sky? And what about the IFR conditions over there?"

His answer: "Well, it said actually clear below 12000 ft, and we were surprised about it too." (Helena is almost at 4000 ft, and a front was moving in fast).

I was picked up by the owner of the experimental airplane and two of his friends. It was already late, but we drove to the little airstrip of Deer Lodge, where he had the plane. On the way we crossed the Continental Divide, where up on the pass a sign reminded of the first aerial crossing in 1911. Then we got to the hangar. There it sat, looking a little lost in a building designed for an airplane twice its size. It was white with a dark tail, stripes along the sides of the fuselage and dark green leading edges. It was one of those 50 ft paint jobs. That means it looks good from exactly that distance, when you get closer, you see all the runs and other flaws. But I had been told about this, and did not mind too much.

I forgot all about being tired from the long trip and started to go over the plane with a fine toothed comb. I found a lot of small things which I would like to improve, but nothing major that would keep me from flying it. I spent the night in a motel and continued my investigations the next morning. It was rather cold in my opinion, being used to warm and sunny Florida weather, but for Montana at this time of the year it was not bad at all. It was raining on and off, and I managed to make a few flights with the owner in the left seat. The Pulsar is a two seat, composite airplane, with one stick in the center, and flaps, throttle and brakes only on the left side, where only the pilot can reach them. I was flying it from the right seat, with "voice controlled throttle and flaps". It is powered by a Rotax 912 engine. Because of the high elevation of almost 5000 ft, from where this plane was operated, the owner had installed high compression pistons which boost the power to about 95 hp. It also had a mechanically controllable pitch propeller, which further helped the performance. I liked how sensitive it was on the controls, it reminded me of the high performance gliders I used to fly. After a few landings I felt comfortable in the plane, and we returned to the hangar to wait out the next rain shower. There were more little things to be fixed before I could think of taking the plane, but the only two things that were not quite as they should be were an inoperative transponder and the flaps. One of the flaps would come down less than the other, thus producing some undesirable aileron forces. The total flap deflection was rather small for such a clean airframe and did little to slow the plane down. But I found I could safely fly it the way it was and handed over the money. We had spent the whole day flying and fixing, and now I took it up once more, solo and practised a few more landings.

Picture 1 Pulsar in Montana getting ready to leave its home

The next morning the weather had greatly improved, the mountain tops had received a sprinkling of snow and were now sparkling in the bright sunny air. I had received a key to the hangar and the airport car, so I could get to the plane and leave. The night before I had been instructed on how to open the hangar door, which was an electrically operated bifold door. I unhooked the latch and pressed the "open" button. It moved a little and stopped, the motor still grinding away, without any result. Something was wrong. I hit the "Stop" button to shut off the motor. It became quickly obvious that the instructions had not been complete enough. I had been shown to open one latch, but there was another one on the other end of the door, which I had not noticed. Now the thing was jammed and the motor would not run anymore. The plane was inside and I was already fearing I would have to spend another night in Deer Lodge if I could not get it out. Fortunately just then came the owner of the hangar. He managed to unhook the jammed latch and fumbled around with the wiring until it worked again. Finally I was on my way. On the first leg I headed northwest (not quite the direct way to Florida), because I wanted to visit friends in Oregon and this was the best way to avoid high terrain. I also could stay reasonably close to a road, just in case. I climbed to 10500 ft and enjoyed the beautiful view in the clear cold air. Of course I had a substantial headwind, and my little GPS, which I had brought along, announced a groundspeed of 85 kts while flying at about 120 kts true. I had selected my first stop close enough to check out the fuel consumption. After I landed in Pullman, WA in a strong, gusty wind, it turned out that I consumed only 3.5 gallons per hour. This is considerably better than the average 9 gph which I am used to when I fly Mooneys. Of course the Mooney is a bit faster, but I already had several ideas how I could reduce the drag of the Pulsar once I got home and make it fly 10-15 kts faster than now. I soon took off again and was now cruising over lower mountains. The scattered cumulus had disappeared and the clear sky allowed a nice view of the snowtopped volcanos of the Cascades. The color of the landscape had changed from dark green to light brown, dotted with scrub and small trees. In the valley east of the mountains, canals provided water to the otherwise dry, yellow landscape. The occasional irrigated green fields looked quite out of place. The wind got less and less and was all but gone when I landed in Bend, Oregon, where the Lancair factory is located. Now I got to see how difficult it was to get this airplane on the ground without the use of good flaps and no wind. It just does not want to slow down, but fortunately the runway was long enough. I had barely shut down and climbed out of the plane, when a high wing tube and fabric type airplane tried to land. I did not see what exactly happened, but its pilot must have done something wrong, because on one side the gear collapsed and he ended up in the grass next to the runway. While I refuelled at the FBO, I watched a rescue team bring the damaged plane to the ramp. Other than the gear nothing else seemed to be broken. I taxied over to the Lancair hangar to meet my friend Dieter Köhler, who works there as an engineer. I also had some work to do with them on one of the AGATE projects, so it was doubly convenient to stop there. Their large buildings were still quite empty, as their production of the Columbia was only slowly coming up to speed. Their hangar for completed airplanes ready to test-fly was also empty except for a Nimbus glider, and it gladly shared the space with my little Pulsar for the night.

Picture 2 Almost empty Lancair hangar

That evening I got the best dinner of the whole trip at Dieters house; his wife, also a German, is an excellent cook. Apart from my work for AGATE there, I used the next day to take care of a few small problems that had come up with the Pulsar. Dieter had dug out a list of approved oil for the Rotax engine, and I changed it to the correct sort. I cleaned the air filters, tied up some wires, made brackets for the exhaust end pipes, which had been unsupported so far. Dieter did not have to push me very much to fly their new turbocharged version of the Columbia. In the instrument panel it had two large screens showing all normal flight instrument information and moving map data with only two conventional round gauges. It has side sticks, and with active noise cancelling headsets flies very quiet. Stalling and spinning it is impossible, and the speed and rate of climb are impressive. Yet it is very easy to fly. There was only one thing they neglected to tell me: the elevator travel is limited to make it stall resistant, unfortunately this in combination with a forward CG problem makes it impossible to flare the plane normally with full flaps. Of course I found out about it the hard way, making a "perfect" 3-point landing a little sooner than I had anticipated. I must say the landing gear is certainly going to withstand a lot of abuse.

Doing all this took the major part of the day, so after a test flight to check my work on the Pulsar out, I decided to spend another night and leave in the morning. This way I also ensured another excellent dinner at Dieter’s house. He lives quite remote from other houses and has two dogs and four horses. Unfortunately there was not enough time to go riding. The weather was still perfect with clear sky and little wind. The satellite picture showed a hurricane dumping a lot of rain on the Florida east cost, I was glad I was not there. My plan for the next part of the flight was to cross the mountains southwest bound, and then fly south through Oregon and California. The visibility was so good that I could see five of the volcanoes in a row to the north of me.

Picture 3 Chain of volcanoes, looking north

I was cruising comfortably at 10500 ft, underneath me only 7000 to 8000 ft mountains, trees and a few lakes. I thought if I had an engine failure here, the best thing would probably be a water landing, since that would do the least damage to me and the plane. But I was not really thinking that this would ever happen to me. A few minutes later the engine started very suddenly to shake violently and lost most of its power. My first thought was: "This is not happening." This did not help, it was happening. Then came an adrenalin rush. The first action was to find a place to land. I had just crossed the worst part of the mountains and was within 5 miles of an airport, as the GPS moving map showed and a quick look outside confirmed. Almost by a miracle, there was a beautiful black runway within easy gliding range. This brought my heartbeat back to normal. Now that this most immediate problem was solved, I turned my attention back to the engine. I switched the fuel pump on and off, no change. I switched tanks, no change. I switched to left and right ignition, no change. I reduced the prop pitch, no change. Now I pulled the throttle back, and at a little above idle speed the engine smoothed out. I did not know what had happened and my guesses ranged from a loose spinner to problem with the fuel supply. In any case I was flying a glider now. I had plenty of altitude, so I looked up what airport it was, dialed in the frequency and circled overhead to loose altitude. No one answered my calls, so I just flew a pattern and landed. Because of the almost useless flaps, I had to slip the plane almost to the ground, straighten it out and flare to get rid of the speed. It was an almost perfect landing, so those more than 1000 glider landings I have in my logbook were good for something after all. I rolled to a stop and tried to get some power from the still idling engine, but it just shook and refused. I shut it down on the runway, got out and started pulling the plane back to the east end, where I had seen a hangar and a phone. There was no FBO in Oakridge, Oregon, but a few houses nearby hidden by the trees. If I should get stuck here, at least this was a nice place. From the air I had seen a creek run in the valley next to the runway, and down a slope was a small town. I parked the plane next to the phone and took the cowling off. I could not see anything unusual or obviously wrong. I went to the phone to let Dieter know what had happened and ask him for his opinion on what it could have been. He promised to call some Rotax experts and call me back. In the meantime I took the fuel system apart with the few tools that I had. Up to the carburators it was all clear. Dieter called back and confirmed that the most likely thing to be wrong would be something with the carburators. The Rotax 912 has two carburators, each feeding 2 cylinders. Fortunately I had all the manuals from the previous owner with me. I started reading on how to take the carburators apart. I examined the membrane, the needle, the holes, the floats, and then the float chamber. At one point I was wondering how the fuel would get from the float chamber to the intake air. It ought to have something to do with the main jet needle, because this was the only moving part. But I could not see a hole for the fuel. And then it dawned on me that I could not see the hole because it was so completely plugged with something that it had disappeared. I scraped at it with my knife and out came a little silicone plug. It looked like some jelly coated with something hard. Now I could see the hole and the reason for all my trouble. The engine simply did not get fuel anymore as the silicone was suddenly sucked into the jet. The other carburator turned out to be clean and had kept the engine barely running. The inside of the float chamber had some more of this silicone coating on its walls. I scraped it thoroughly clean and reassembled the carburator. I started the engine and ran it up to full power. It was running as smooth as if nothing had happened. I had solved the problem. I called Dieter to let him know about the results. He then told me that some Katanas, which also have the Rotax engine, had had the same problem several years ago, and needed to have their carburators cleaned. The carburator manufacturer had used silicone as a release coating while casting the aluminum parts. Obviously they had neglected to clean them before selling them. Needless to say I was quite mad at this manufacturer. It was now early afternoon, and even though I had had enough excitement for the day, I decided to fly on. I might as well find out right away if the engine behaved itself from now on. I did another careful runup and took off. I climbed to a safe altitude and from now on, for the rest of the flight, I stayed as close to landable areas as possible. And the engine ran fine for the rest of the trip as if nothing had happened. After only an hour of flight I decided to land in Grants Pass, Oregon for fuel. The mountains were lower and more like gentle wooded hills. It was warm and dry, and after tying the Pulsar down, I went for a nice walk. I found a lot of very large, ripe blackberries and stuffed myself with them. Back at the FBO the guy was very nice. He offered me the only green, grassy area available for my tent. It was green because it was the only irrigated place, everything else was brown and yellow. He even remembered to turn off the sprinkler system. The airport attendent, who had a trailer nearby gave me the key to the FBO building and an extra blanket, because it would get cold, he said. Back in Bend there had been light frost at night, here it got close to freezing, but I was warm enough.

The next morning I started early, trying to make up for the time I had lost yesterday with the engine trouble. There were more airports along my route now, and I was more or less following the highway.

Picture 4 Southern Oregon

I passed impressive Mount Shasta, the last of the volcanoes that I would see on this trip. It towered majestically with its snow covered cone above me with its peak topping 14000 ft. Then the long Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley received me with hazy air. So far the visibility had been excellent and there still were no clouds in sight. From now on I had plenty of big, level landing fields and airports available, but now I did not need them any more. I selected Marysville as a fuel and lunch stop. The large airport was almost deserted in the noon sun. The FBO operator gave me a car, so I could drive to the next store and get something to eat and some more oil. Although this engine was very good about its fuel consumption, it burned up oil at a high rate. Maybe the new pistons had something to do with it. I had no desire to investigate about it now, but bought 4 quarts and just kept feeding it. This was our first takeoff near sea level. So far all airports had been at fairly high elevation, mostly 3000-4000 ft. The prop setting had to be adjusted somewhat, otherwise the only difference was the remarkably improved take off performance. The initial climb was so steep, that I could not see anything in front of me. I had to get the flaps up quickly to avoid accellerating beyond the flap speed. At low altitude the high mountains to the east and west remained hidden in the haze, but as I climbed to my cruise altitude of 7500 ft, their blue peaks began to show against a distant horizon. I passed Sacramento and San Francisco, but the big city remained hidden in the haze. I made another fuel stop in the big valley, in Hanford, California. The airport served double purpose, as any surfaces unused by airplanes were planted with cotton. The white puffs almost looked like big snowflakes, but it was too warm for the real thing. Not much going on here either, a lot of dry farmland around, some fields irrigated and green, most others brown and dry. I soon took off once more and climbed through the haze. Now I was approaching the end of the valley and the Tehachapi pass, which separates it from the Mojave desert. As soon as I got to the mountains, I left the haze behind me, which is contained in the valley like soup in a bowl. The clear desert air allowed me a view to the east of 50 miles and more. Up on the pass the thermals where bouncing me around and some light showers, which never reached the ground, splattered the canopy. The forest of windmills, which generate electricity in this windy area, were turning only lazily. Descending over the pass, I called Mojave tower. We chatted a little over the radio, because he did not know what a Pulsar was and I had to explain what this airplane looked like. He cleared me to land straight in on runway 8 and reminded me just in case to put the gear down. Of course I informed him that it was alsways down, unless I had lost it on the way.

Mojave is a very small town, its airport covers more area than the houses, and it seems to consist of little more than some gas stations for the trucks that pass through it. As far as you can see there is only flat empty desert, bordered by mountains to the north, west and south. I walked into the building underneath the tower, but nobody was there. I had arrived a little too late to buy fuel, everyone had already gone home. I went back to the plane and used the radio to ask the tower how I could get fuel. Security heard it and a truck drove up to me. A friendly guard explaind that I would have to wait until next morning for fuel, which was o.k. by me, since I had flown long enough for the day. Instead he invited me for a tour of the airport. There was the National Test Pilot School, several aircraft modifiers and the huge ROTON hangar, which contained the rocket that could land using a rotor. The project had run out of money and was on ice at the moment. A group of remote controlled F-4‘s was sitting on the ramp behind the Pulsar. They were being used as target planes for games out over the Pacific.

Picture 5 Mojave ramp

A brand new Boing 737 was here to be outfitted with the latest avionics. A lot of older airliners were just parked out there somewhere to wait. Maybe they would be used again, some of them might get junked. KC-135 tankers were lined up in a row for installation of new equipment. Scaled Composite had one of their airplanes mounted like a statue next to their hangar, maybe to test the durability of composite under desert conditions? Unfortunately their hangar door was already closed for the day. There always are some interesting projects inside. One rich airplane owner could not fit all his toys into a hangar and had a Catalina and an old military jet parked outside. It was now getting dark and I accepted the offer to sleep in the pilot’s lounge on the sofa. Inside the building the corridors were lined with pictures of all the exotic and unusual aircraft and famous pilots that had been to this airport. The airport manager was an unusually talented business man, who had attracted all these companies to this remote location. He had made a giant book (a page measured 2 x 3 ft) with lots of newspaper clippings telling the history and developement of Mojave airport, about air races, test flights, 110-mph winds and accidents. It filled the rest of my evening reading through it and would have been well worth a visit by itself.

The next morning I finally got fuel and discovered that one main wheel pant was coming loose because of a lost screw. First I thought I could fix it by replacing the screw, and one of the fire rescue people helped me find the right one by driving me all over the field from one place to the next because no one seemed to have an ordinary hardware store screw. After we found the right screw, I realized that the threads were also stripped from the aluminum backing plate, not a good design to begin with. I removed the wheel pant and put it in the baggage compartment. I lost more than 6 kts in speed and had to keep up some rudder pressure to keep flying straight. With such a small, clean airplane a missing wheel pant is quite obvious. I departed to the south, to avoid the restricted airspace of Edwards Air Force Base and climbed to 9500 ft. The air was still and clear, so I could see their runway and the big salt lake bed, where all those famous test flights had been made. To the southwest and south of the mountains, fog covered the Los Angeles basin and I was glad I did not have to go there. Once I was clear of the restricted airspace, I was able to turn east, finally heading towards Florida. I passed some big mountains which were higher than I was, but gradually they got lower, and there was actually quite a lot of flat desert underneath me. Once in a while I would pass some houses or a small town, and I was wondering how these people made a living there with nothing to grow and little water. After 2.5 hours I landed in Blythe, California. This was just a few miles from the Arizona border and in a green valley supplied with water by the Colorado river. The airport was right next to the highway and a truckstop, so I could walk over and get a much needed lunch. Here was at least a little more activity than at most other airports which I had overflown on the way: a yellow Lufthansa Beech was practising approaches. I was soon in the air again and followed the highway, which led me straight to Buckeye, Arizona, west of Phoenix. In Buckeye was the flight test hangar of the Groen Brothers, a company that was building and trying to certify gyrocopters. I had done some work for them on engine cooling in their pusher installation, so I wanted to stop by and see how they were doing. They were just running their latest version of turbine powered gyrocopter in front of the hangar when I arrived. I was invited in and shown around. It looked like somebodys playground inside with several different projects going on at the same time. One of them was a mutilated Cessna Skymaster. They had cut off the tailbooms and reattached them upside down. Then they had cut off the rear end including the engine and were replacing it with a cargo door. The front engine compartment was getting prepared for the installation of a Roll Royce turbine. They had cut off the wings outboard of the tail booms and attached tip tanks to the stubs. They had not yet started to install the rotor, because naturally they were going to turn it into a gyrocopter. A well equipped shop was now exactly what I needed. I brought my damaged wheel pant in and in short order had all the materials which I needed to repair it. An hour later the resin had set, holding new nutplates on and I continued on my flight. This would be only a short hop to Estrella Gliderport, where I wanted to meet my friend Captain Mike. Now I was pointed southeast over the desert, avoiding all Phoenix airspace. Soon I saw a nice new blacktop runway in the middle of nowhere. I was a bit confused because my book said Estrella had only a short paved runway, with two dirt runways next to it. When I got closer, I finally read the big letters on the runway "PRIVATE, LUFTHANSA". So this was not my destination, which was about 8 miles further on. There was not much activity at Estrella, because the air was too stable for thermals to develop. Several gliders were parked in the middle of the paved runway, so I landed on the rather short dirt strip next to them. By now I had enough practice to get the Pulsar down even without good flaps. Some curious people came over to look at my plane and find out what it was. Wherever I landed, I always got some questions about it, because there are not that many of them around, and those that exist, are probably spending most of their life in a hangar. The Estrella hangar was quite full with some old and some new gliders, one of them a Genesis. If the thermals had been better, I would even have been tempted to fly them. Mike had not arrived yet and nobody had heard from him or knew where he was. He had started out several days earlier from Florida, from where he was ferrying a Pilatus Porter to Estrella. A small skydiving operation wanted to have the plane near Phoenix for the winter. The next day sarted with nice clear weather, as I was used to it by now. I was really low on food, my last decent meal had been the day before in Blythe. Unfortunately at this airport was no restaurant, and the next "town" 8 miles away. Only by mid morning I had talked one of the skydivers into giving me her car to go to get food in exchange for bringing ice back. The town consisted of two gas stations, a small shop and a few houses, but that was all I needed. I bought enough for the next few days and drove back to the airport. The skydivers had been waiting as impatiently for Mike and the Porter as I had. They were tired of their worn out Cessna, which was taking too long to get them to altitude and could carry too few people. Finally Mike called and reported being delayed because of bad weather to the east and starting problems of the turbine with a bad battery. He finally made it to Estrella in the evening, in time for a sunset load. He had had an adventourus flight with some scud running, where even a helicopter crew had refused to continue. Everyone was relieved that he had finally arrived.

Picture 6 Captain Mike is refuelling the Porter, still wearing his parachute

The next morning the wind woke us up. The world looked hazy, and soon the blowing sand found its way into everything. This was a real dust storm. The mountains to the north of the airport were gradually disappearing. The skydivers were eager to jump from the new plane, but after two loads they gave it up because the visibility had become too low. So we waited the whole Sunday for the dust to disappear. Towards the evening it finally improved, but now everyone had already gone home. Just the few glider pilots, who were living in the "bunkhouse" were still hanging on. Most of them were here for flight training, and had managed only a few flights during the day. Because me and Mike both had a lot of baggage with us, we could not use the Pulsar to fly anywhere. But Mike had gotten the use of a Jeep and he convinced me to drive with him to Tuscon, from where he could catch a train to Deming, New Mexico. He had a hangar there, where he had a car in storage. I could then return the Jeep to Estrella and continue my flight. So we drove off and soon it was beginning to get dark. We finally got to Tuscon and spent the night there. In the morning we went to the train station and found out that the train would not be going for some time because the previous day’s wind had damaged a bridge. The alternative was to take a bus, but it would not leave for some time either. Mike ended up talking me into coming with him to Deming and drive the Jeep back all the way. I agreed, as I was in no particular hurry, and that way I would get the chance to see the route from the ground for a change. The weather was nice and it would have been an easy flying day. After several hours over the seemingly endless highway we arrived in Deming, another small town in the desert. We had a good lunch and found the airport and his hangar. Inside it he had enough stuff to fill a museum with World War II stuff, but no room for a complete airplane. His car was still there and needed some battery charge, but seemed o.k. otherwise. I did not want to stay long, because I still had to drive all the way back to Estrella. So I left him there and spent some hours of the most boring time of the whole trip driving that Jeep. I arrived back at the glider airport some time after dark and noticed the sky was getting cloudy. Already a few raindrops had made it to the ground. During the night it rained some more, but I was staying dry and comfortable in the skydivers trailer. In the morning everything was wet and little rivers were flowing through the sand. The wind on the ground was blowing hard from the east, but above me the big clouds were coming in from the southwest. A storm like a black wall with rain curtains hanging from it obscured most of the western half of the sky. If that stuff caught me here, I would be stuck for a while. I got the Pulsar ready as quickly as possible, and took off just before the rain hit the airport. Over the mountains were more rainshowers, but they were far enough away for the moment. I landed soon again for fuel in Pinal. This is another airport which is used to store airliners in the normally dry desert climate. Now there were puddles everywhere. Four Mexicans showed up with the fuel truck and stood around the plane while one of them filled it up and tried to convince me that this was not their normal weather.

Picture 7 Pinal, near Tuscon

I soon took off again and headed southeast towards Tuscon. It became quickly obvious that the big shower, which was obscuring the city and the mountains around it, would not go away quickly, so I landed on the next available airport, which was Avra Valley. I taxied to the ramp and tried to shut the engine down by switching the ignition off as usual. But now I had the opposite problem, it would not stop running. I already knew what this would be, it was not the first time this had happened to me. Unfortunately this engine did not have a mixture control, so I had to turn off the fuel selector and wait. It just continued to run and run for several minutes and did not want to quit, until it had finally used up all the gas in the lines and died. I removed the cowling and easily confirmed my diagnosis of a broken ground wire. There was a hangar not far from me with a huge B-26 sitting in it. The mechanic who was working on it helped me out with a crimping tool, and I soon had the loose ground wire under control again. The shower was still in my way and I ended up waiting for two hours before I could continue the flight. After I passed Tuscon, I just followed the highway we had driven over the day before.

Picture 8 Rain showers in Arizona, I am following the highway

The mountains were not all that high in that area, and most of the rain was not in my way. Just between Bowie and Lordsburg the rain became heavier, and I had to be careful not to loose sight of the highway. Past Lordsburg it finally cleared up and the last 40 miles to Deming were in bright sunshine. Mike greeted me with the remark why I was so late, the weather looked so nice. He would hardly believe me that this time I was the one who had trouble with the weather. We went for lunch and soon the weather caught up with me, blowing in from the west.

Picture 9 Deming in the evening

But this time I was not upset about being stuck somewhere for the night. We found a decent motel and only by the next morning we were ready to think about moving on. Low clouds still covered the sky all day, with an occasional shower. The weather radar showed better weather to the east, and more stuff coming in from the west. So finally we returned to the airport, untied the Pulsar and dried the water off the canopy. I had already filled it up with gas and oil the day before, so I could get airborne without further delay. At first the clouds were at 500 ft above the ground, but after a few miles the low layer thinned and eventually disappeared. High clouds kept the sun away, but it was rapidly getting better. Between Las Cruces and Texas would be a long distance without any fuel available, so I landed in Las Cruces after having been in the air less than half an hour to top off the tank. I think the line boy was somewhat amazed to be able to squeeze only 1.3 gal in the tank. I was quickly back in the air, to cover some more miles that day. The visibility was great, the sun came out and I passed El Paso only a few miles to the north to avoid higher mountains and a restricted area. Now a vast, almost flat expanse streched in front of me. Very few places still showed traces of green, like those round irrigated fields.

Picture 10 Fields in the desert

The houses and roads were getting fewer and fewer, until there was nothing left that resembled civilisation. I was now in 9500 ft over Texas, the elevation of the ground averaged over 4000 ft here. From quite a distance I could already see the last major mountains on this trip: the Guadeloupe pass with rocks up to 8700 ft.

Picture 11 Gouadeloupe Pass

Just west of it I spotted Dell City, the only little airstrip in the area, near some salt flats. This 100 nm stretch was really deserted. Once I was past the pass, it would be downhill until Florida. It was nice to have a little tailwind now, which occasionally pushed my groundspeed to 130 kts. Soon the first oil fields appeared. There were lots of little roads with what I suppose a pump at the end of each. But no people in sight. More oil fields, and finally the airport I had picked for my next landing: Winkler, Texas. I landed with quite a crosswind on the deserted airport. Taxiing with the unsteerable nosewheel in the crosswind was a bit of a challenge, at least taxiing in a straight line. It was cooler here and a man in a truck drove over to the gas pump where I had stopped, which was a few hundred feet from the FBO building. It still was dry and looked like desert here. I filled up with fuel and decided to fly one more leg before spending the night somewhere. Winkler was not exactly very inviting to set up a tent, and there was no town with food nearby. Gradually the oil fields were mixed with farming fields. To the east I could see a thin layer of low clouds, but the sky was still clear where I was. I headed towards Midland and landed after 56 nm in Skywest, Texas, which had a single, narrow but long runway into the by now quite strong southeast wind. Farms and houses around it made it look more like a residential airpark. I stopped the plane next to the fuel pump and filled it up again, although the last fuel stop was not too long ago. The FBO’s were certainly not making a good deal with this economic plane. But it probably impressed the owner of the FBO. He invited me to put the little plane in his hangar for the night and went even further by offering me a bed in his guest room. His house was right next to the FBO, where he, his wife and a little dog lived. I had arrived just right for dinner time, and they took me to a nice restaurant in town. From the outside it looked like an ordinary, but large building. Inside it looked like a wooden barn somewhere in the Wild West. Saddles, cowboy boots, deer heads and farm equipment lined walls and ceiling. The waiting area walls were rusty, corrugated steel, at least that’s what it looked like. And everyone seemed to have a good time, judging by the noise around the tables. We had a good dinner and talked about — airplanes, what else. He questioned me extesively about the Pulsar, about Rotax engines and about composite airplanes in general. He was operating a fleet of Cessnas, and they had thousands of hours on it and were getting worn out. He was considering the Katana as a replacement trainer and wanted to know about fatigue and durability of composite. I explained him that the fatigue characteristics of composite are much better than metal, and that those "plastic" airplanes were not likely to fall apart. The main problem that composite airplanes have to overcome in the US is that all pilots are so used to flying metal airplanes that they are reluctant to try something new, even if it is better. Then Pat found out that I work for a company doing STCs, and he assigned me the task to redesign the aluminum carburator air box on the Cessna 172, because it kept breaking. In the morning I took a look at one, and it did not surprise me that there were structural problems with it. It did not take me long to come up with ideas on how to improve it, and promised I would work on it as soon as I got back home. I had breakfast in the FBO rome, where the resident cat was already waiting to jump on my lap and get petted. It was a big ginger fellow and he purred loudly while he tried to find the warmest spot on me. The clouds from yesterday were now covering the sky completely. Pat reported the ceiling to be 700 ft, with good visibility underneath, after he returned from a flight checking out a plane. I waited a little longer, but nothing changed. I called weather for a briefing, and they did not recommend VFR, but said it would clear up further east. But first I had to get there. I took off in spite of the low clouds. The terrain was almost flat, no obstacles in the way. For a while I followed a highway low level. Then the ceiling started to get lower and light rain obscured visibility. I wish I could have gone IFR, climbed up through the clouds and not worry about this mess. But this was not an option on this flight. It was time to pull out a contingency plan. So as I started to fly through the first low hanging wisps of grey mist, I only had to make a 90 degrees left and there was a runway in front of me. Colorado City is a cropduster base in Texas, and I had decided to land there and wait for a while. A row of agplanes was parked along the taxiway and a group of men was gathered around some trailers, where they lived while working in this area. They were friendly and inquired about the weather where I came from. For quite some time no airplane moved, but finally one of them started his big radial engine to warm it up. The ceiling had lifted somewhat, and two planes took off. I watched them turn on course, and since they neither came back nor disappeared into the clouds, I figured it was time for me to leave as well. There were now lots of fields underneath, most of them brown, either plowed or harvested. Little by little the ceiling lifted and I climbed with it. First 3500 ft MSL, then 4000ft, and eventually all of the low clouds disappeared. Based on the weather picture I had seen in the morning, I had decided to pass to the north of Dallas and landed for fuel in Decatur, where I found a brightly polished, shiny Beech 18 was sitting on the ramp. The owner was standing next to it, enjoing the sun while a lady was walking around it with an instructor. "My wife is getting her multi-engine rating in our plane", he explained. The Beech was not only in top shape from the outside, also the interior looked first class. I ate some of my food and climbed back into my small cockpit. On take off I had to adjust my prop to a smaller pitch, it seemed like the lower elevation with its denser air made some difference. So far most of my take offs and landings had been a elevations above 3000 ft, and the Pulsar had performed very well. My only complaint was about the nosewheel. It would shimmy, if I did not take the load off it soon during take off. Because it is not steerable, I could only push the power in slowly and hold the direction by tapping the brake until the rudder became effective enough, or it would veer off the runway to the left. This effect was more pronounced at higher elevations and less of a problem near sea level. Now I had only some clouds left at about 9000 ft. I climbed as far as they allowed me and circled the Dallas class B airspace. I still had a little tailwind ,but the further east I flew, the less it became until it turned into a 5 kt headwind. The clouds disappeared completely and it stayed that way until I was home. Now without the weather challenge, I spent the time trying to spot every airport in the vicinity. The excellent visibilty from the large Pulsar canopy made this fairly easy. Even though the sun was shining into the cockpit, it became somewhat chilly at my altitude and I opened up the cabin heat. The fields and meadows became greener and greener, and there were a lot more towns and cities than in any place in Arizona or New Mexico. I passed the Texas border into Louisiana, and because this state is so narrow there, I skipped it completely and landed after a little over 3 hours just across the river in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Now I was really back in the east, with green grass and trees and slightly humid air. It was a beautiful calm evening. The airport building was made from bright red bricks and it seemed to glow in the setting sun. I went for a little walk to stretch my legs after sitting in the plane for more than 5 hours that day. Then I set up the tent right next to the plane. It was still covered with Arizona dust, I would have to wash it when I got back. I talked for a while with a man, who was starting an aerial photography business at the airport. He was working two jobs: his regular job during the day, and at the airport in the evening. He was hoping to turn it into a full time enterprise eventually, but in the mean time this was nice for me, the airport building was open for a long time that way. A while after I had gone to bed in the tent, he came to offer me the key to the building for the night, and told me I could stay in the pilot’s lounge, if I wanted. But I was quite comfortable where I was and anyway to lazy to get up again.

In the morning I ate some of my dwindling food supplies for breakfast and got on my way. The weather was clear again, so I went straight line for my next stop, Autauga, in Alabama. This was a small airport near Montgomery, and when I climbed out of the plane at the fuel pump, nobody was there. Inside the FBO building there was no one either, just a note to call a certain number for fuel. It turned out the FBO guy was working on a plane in a hangar, he came when I called him. He had not heard the quiet little Pulsar arrive. The plane was not very low on fuel, but I was getting really hungry. I was very grateful when he offered me his truck and described me how to find the nearest restaurant. It was called "Fat Boys", certainly because that’s what one could become if eating there to often. The food was really good. One more flight for the day would get me within easy reach of home. I decided to fly from here to Quincy, Florida, which is north of Tallahassee. I had been there once before and remembered the gliders and skydivers, which were operating from there. This time though, on a Friday afternoon, not much was going on. The three people who were hanging around in the FBO, came out to look at the Pulsar. One of them, of somewhat heavier build, observed that this plane would make a nice single seater with a conventional stick for him. It would have been certainly overloaded with two of his size trying to squeeze into it. While the sun was still up, it was warm, but I suspected it would become quite cold at night. So I was happy to hear that they would leave the FBO open for me and I could stay inside. There was a TV, VCR and a bunch of movies, but I failed to find something interesting and settled for the evening with a book. Early in the morning, way too early for my opinion, came the first airport bums to start their day drinking coffee at their favorite hangout . It was still dark, and I was lying in my sleeping bag and wondered what could cause them to arrive here at 7 am. After listening to their talk for a while I gave any pretense of sleeping up and got up. When I looked outside, there was just a little ice on the wings of the Pulsar. So what was better: spending a short, warm night inside or a long cold one outside? It was my last night on this trip anyway. Today I should make it home. I checked the distance to Punta Gorda, less than 300 nm. I would be able to do this in one hop. I waited until the sun was up a bit higher and warmed things up. Then I packed my bags into the plane and took off for one more time. I climbed again to 9500 ft, and began picking up some tailwind as I got further south. I hardly needed a map now, this was all familiar from many previous flights. The panhandle with its endless pine forrests, the Gulf with its calm, hazy water, the tethered ballon near Cross City. Zephyrhills with the skydivers’ red Twin Otter sitting on the ground, Tampa airspace with airliners threatening to run me over from behind. Now I went past Lakeland, where I had landed many times to visit Sun’n Fun, further south the lakes left from mining , some of them which I had given names because they were so familiar: Labyrinth Lake, Lake with the Arm, Four Seasons Lake. Remains of a cold front had left some scattered clouds underneath me, and I was now descending towards Punta Gorda through them. The Pulsar had behaved itself after all for more than 3000 nm and 40 hours of flight, and I flew some circles to see if everything was still there after I had been gone for two weeks. The final landing on runway 3, and my exciting trip was over. One chore remained, I had to get my car back from Fort Myers airport. Fortunately one of our mechanics, who lives in Fort Myers, was here and ready to go home, so I got a ride just after I had tied the plane down. When we arrived at the parking lot of the FBO where I had left the car, I saw it sitting there looking very sad. Why ? Because it looked like an abandoned dog with its tail hang down. My car’s tailpipe was hanging down because it had rusted through, so that’s what it looked like. But it started right up and took me home.