2007/10 Delivery PCA (OE-DRG)

click on the title to see the video

We followed Harry's advise to have a look at the Diamond DA40 at Wings over Holland. August 2007 we had our first demo flight in the PH-TDG at Lelystad Airport. We liked it immediately. Even with our limited experience in the Scheibe it felt pretty natural from the start. Of course the origin of Diamond lies in TMG so perhaps a lot of basic characteristics are similar. Nose wheel in stead of tail wheel was not really a problem. Basic flying with the Garmin 1000 is also quite intuitive although at first we might automatically have looked at the analogue primary flight instruments on the top of the dashboard. Of course it takes time to learn all the possibilities of the G1000 in combination with the autopilot, but it is not necessary to know everything upfront.

It didn't take us long to decide. Wings already had an option on a demo plane of Diamond with just a few hours on it, and it would be available within weeks after we made the final decision.
Timing was perfect, since we left our jobs in the same period, so now we had the chance to focus a lot on our flight training (still a long way to go to the left seat at KLM :-)).

October 2007 Wings' Luuk and Patrick accompanied us to Wiener Neustadt for the factory delivery of our first airplane at Diamonds' Headquarter. First to Vienna with SkyEurope and then we would fly the airplane back ourselves via Tempelhof and Aarhus where final delivery took place.

I can't remember much of the first time we where at Diamond, we were just to excited about the flight we were going to make. Until then we had only flown in Holland or just across the German Border and this would really be something completely different. The weather added some suspense to the whole story because it was foggy with a thick cloud layer, we were between Austrian hills and the freezing level was a lot lower than we had to fly. Even for our instructor Patrick it did not seem an easy decision, as the laminar profile of the Diamond is not very keen on ice.

After departure we got into clouds almost right away and it did not take long for the first ice build up. The most difficult thing for Marijke and me was the complete lack of reference. Is this just a little ice or already a lot? How much can the aircraft take? What can we do if the speed keeps on dropping? How long do you try to go further up and is it still possible then to make a safe return descent? Not a very relaxed atmosphere for someone with my fear-of-flying background.

After climbing to about 9000ft Patrick was just about to decide to return as we saw the first glimpse of the sun. At 10.000ft we were completely above the clouds and the ice starts disappearing gradually from that point. Further on we had to climb a little bit more to stay on top, but once you are on top the whole experience changes 500%. Where the airliners keep on climbing to levels far above the clouds, I really love it to be just above them. Both during the day where the sun is lighting up the clouds, but especially in the evening where the colors are getting indescribably beautiful.

First stop was Tempelhof, the famous Berlin airport (closed since Oct08), where Marijke made her first ILS approach. It almost looked like we were real pilots, with the follow-me car and the impressive old airport buildings. The next morning again, with a big fuel truck filling up the tanks for our onward route to Aarhus (EKAH) in Denmark.

Again IMC but a lot less scary this time, and just before we reached our destination all clouds disappeared all over sudden. Aarhus has two long parallel runways, and just when we were about to turn final the tower kindly ask us if we had a problem to take the smaller one. After landing we see why: a commercial airliner lands on the other runway and in the opposite direction.

Final delivery of the aircraft to us was performed at Aarhus, and everything went that smooth that we decided to check whether we could get a night slot at Lelystad. No problem, so back into the plane again.

The flight back during twilight with both the sun and the moon present is still one of the most beautiful legs we flew. Of course everything was very new to us, but see for yourselves. An impressive moment to me is when the plane gradually descents into the clouds again, especially with the magnificent light effects.

The approach looked quite complicated, we had to fly a procedure turn in IMC towards Pampus followed by an NDB approach. Next time we would use the LLS waypoint on the OBS and arm the approach on the autopilot for an automatic intercept. Sorry we couldn't film the actual landing in the dark at Lelystad, I ran out of batteries after everything we had to record all day.

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Pancake Airlines Crew is trained by Dwarf Powered Gliders (www.dwarf.nl) and Wings over Holland (www.wingsoverholland.nl). Information on the PH-PCA Diamond DA40 can be found on www.diamond-aircraft.at. You can click on the title link to see the video on DailyMotion.