World Tour 2 - Leg 49 - Hualien to Shimojishima

After repairing the Baron, my passengers seem to have disappeared.... without paying. So I need to find new jobs to pay the bills. Luckily, I found a group of people willing to go to Okinawa, so I decide to forget about Taipei and fly towards Japan right now.

As soon as I take off, I head towards the Pacific Ocean. I climb high, as usual over the sea, and fly over Taketomi and Ishigaki islands.

From here I continue towards Miyakoyima, but I realised about a problem. The weather radar is broken and the skies are not precisely clear. I'm having plenty of failures lately on the Baron, maybe it would need a rest... So after thinking a bit, I decided not to take the risk of finding clouds and rain over the sea without the radar. I'll make a short stop at Miyakoyima then, to fix the radar.

I hope these passengers don't fly away this time...

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Technical details:

 

RCYU RORS (RODN)

YNE GKE NAE (SJE OWC)

Distance: 200 nm

Average GS: 260 kt

Altitude: FL175

METAR:

N/A
RORS 041700Z AUTO 19012KT 9999 SCT014 BKN017 BKN019 29/26 Q1007

World Tour 2 - Leg 48 - Tainan to Hualien

 Originally I accepted 5 passengers to fly to Taipei. So we embarked, I ran the checklist and quickly left from Tainan, heading towards the East coast, over the mountains.

I found some clouds right after the mountains, but not dense enough to be worried about them. So I went on flying along the coast, heading North, enjoying the landscape.

But suddenly, on cruise, I get an alert. Right engine exhaust gasses are too hot. Certainly they are hotter than they should. I check that the thrust is still fine, so I decided to lean that engine differently and to open the right cowl flap, to lower the EGT. I also reduced the RPMs to 2300 and the manifold a bit, to release some pressure off the system, and decided to continue towards Taipei on that configuration.

However, suddenly I hear a nasty beeping sound. The CO alarm system is activated. That means CO in cabin and lack of oxygen. This is far more serious. I quickly applied the protocol for CO detection, which begins by closing the heater, and it worked. Apparently the CO is coming from the damaged engine.

I consider now an emergency landing on a nearby airport. The situation seems to be controlled but too risky to continue flying with passengers. And, luckily, I was flying right over Hualien airport, at 9,500 ft over the ground. So I decided to land at Hualien and have that engine checked before continuing North. I did a sort of spiral descent till entering in the traffic pattern and landing. I had to desynchronize the propellers right before landing, since there was a different in thrust at low speeds and I was not sure the engine would eventually stop on air.

Safe landing, although my passengers are not happy, obviously. I tell them to wait while I talk to the technicians at the workshop. Apparently a magneto is broken, which caused the differencial RPMs and the overheating of the engine. The CO leak came as a consequence. Luckily, it will take just few hours to fix, and won't be too expensive.

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Technical details:

 

RCNN RCYU (RCSS)

ZHUOXI HUALIEN (YILAN)

Distance: 150 nm

Average GS: 230 kt

Altitude: 9,500 ft

METAR:

RCNN 021600Z 00000KT 9999 FEW012 27/24 Q1012 RMK A2991
RCMQ 021700Z 20005KT 9999 FEW010 SCT200 26/24 Q1012 RMK A2991 AWOS R36 WIND N/A