Monday morning dawned, cold and gray. We were experiencing our first real cold snap of the year… in fact, over the course of a week we’d gone from mid-70 highs to a frost warning Monday morning. It was barely above freezing when I pulled out of the driveway and headed for Advanced Aviation at PDK. Morning traffic wasn’t too bad, and I got there with a few minutes to spare before 8:00. Up in the office, I got to meet Scott, whom I’d only spoken with by phone previously.
As we chatted a bit, I learned that Scott had fairly recently actually left his full-time job so he could instruct instead. It gave me a good feeling that he was teaching because he really enjoyed doing it, rather than just trying to build time for the next career move. I also learned that he was the proud owner of an RV-7A- proud enough to break out the laptop and show me some construction photos. Since I have a latent desire to build an RV of my own someday, this was all very interesting to me.
Back to the day’s flying- the immediate topic of discussion was the temperature. Remember that frost warning? Well, it had left a decent scale on the DA20, which had to be removed prior to flight. And since the PDK Advanced office was new, there was no deicing stuff to be found. A tentative plan was formed. Scott and I headed down to the ramp with a stiff cleaning brush in hand, in hopes that it would be able to knock the frost off. We also considered moving the plane into the sun to get some help from Mother Nature.
The brush turned out to work fairly well. The ice on the wings came off readily, and as we worked on that, Scott also gave me a rundown of carrying out a preflight check. Unfortunately, the ice on the horizontal stab was a little tougher, so we decided to taxi into the sun. Into the cockpit we climbed. My first impression was that at 6′4″, I was probably about at the limit of comfortable height for the DA20. But I was actually pretty comfortable, though once I got the headset on, the top would occasionally bump the canopy overhead. No biggie.
After starting the engine and taxiing out of the shade, we got back out. The sun immediately started doing a number on the ice; within 20 minutes or so, Scott decided we were good to go flying. Back in the cockpit, Scott had me run the before-start checklist. All systems go, ignition to start… she doesn’t want to start. Again and again we tried, with no luck, until it was clear the battery was getting low. There would be no flying this morning- Scott offered to take me up in his RV, but after checking the time, I decided that I should head on into work. We decided that Tuesday afternoon would be a good time for a do-over.
Scott apologized profusely, but I wasn’t really disappointed at all. Just being out there, soaking up knowledge, was a great experience, even if I did stay on the ground.
