Just saw you landing on RWY06 (airport webcam), taxiing back on the parallel twy where the follow-me picked you up near the main apron and was guiding you to the GAT 
Looking really busy at Dortmund right now
Dortmund is actually a very convenient airport. No handling and very modest landing fees. We paid 37EUR for landing+parking. That fee included 10EUR for the portable warning lights they put around our aircraft.
And I pay €10 just for a practice ILS approach at EDLW? No wonder we all tend to fly to EDDG where a practice ILS costs nothing……
That’s right guys and gurls… I have been away, buying up all the TB20GTs I could find so that when the market price hits $1M I can sell mine and buy the logical next step which is a Jetprop However, a very good friend who flies the various PA46 variants and a TBM says the TBM totally outclasses either of the the PA46Ts, so I am looking at a really tough choice 
A gurl can get into either without damaging her nail varnish, so the choice will have to be based on more boring factors…
Anyway, here is a quick and dirty report on the Dortmund flight.
Cloudbase ~1000ft, tops ~4000ft. The typical winter high pressure situation with poor vis underneath and wonderful above
Metar
EGKK 110650Z 12004KT 090V160 9999 BKN014 05/02 Q1025
EDLW 110650Z 11006KT 070V140 9999 OVC009 03/00 Q1027 RMK ATIS F
TAF
EGKK 110458Z 1106/1212 16004KT 9999 BKN020 PROB30 TEMPO 1106/1111 7000 BKN010 PROB30 TEMPO 1202/1209 8000 BKN012
EDLW 110520Z 1106/1206 13006KT 9999 BKN009 TEMPO 1106/1109 BKN012 BECMG 1109/1112 SCT020 TEMPO 1122/1206 3500 MIFG
Maybe Putin was visiting NIK because I could not get anywhere near the filed route and got sent to LNO instead
Over Germany it thinned out a little
with some odd formations (despite a near total absence of turbulence)
Somebody is digging themselves a big hole here (usual male activity in more ways than one )
In the descent and going for the ILS (of course)
Instead of having been given a heading towards the LOC I got a DCT LW009 which was definitely a first! Luckily the KLN94 database has all these RNAV waypoints (despite the box being non-compliant for PRNAV SIDs/STARs ) so it was easy enough. But got no “cleared for the ILS” so went straight through it. It was deliberate by ATC, apparently
Final approach, with the damn prop blade in the way (I had only my phone, for still pics)
A follow-me car
Got a nice hangar place for the night for about 20 quid
A TB20 friend lent me his engine heater, which is SMS-controlled and after ~3hrs brings the engine oil temp up to almost the bottom of the green arc, which is amazing! They allow this in the hangar provided it has the appliance test sticker
A couple of nice sunset pics from the apron
The total cost was €55 or so.
On the way back the next morning, very similar weather
Metar
EDLW 120920Z 18003KT 8000 BKN007 01/M01 Q1022 RMK ATIS K
EGKA 120920Z 03003KT 6000 BKN018 03/M00 Q1021
TAF
EDLW 120525Z 1206/1306 18005KT 8000 FEW015 TEMPO 1206/1209 4000 BR BKN004
EGKA 120822Z 1209/1218 VRB03KT 7000 BKN016 TEMPO 1209/1218 9999 BKN014
Nearly home now, got a DCT SFD EGKA at FL100
This will be the last bit of blue sky for a while…
Here is a quick and dirty video I made, mostly with the Canon G10 camcorder (but I didn’t have the mike for that, so that bit is silent) and with a bit done with my Nokia 808 phone (and I had a mike for that, which gets pushed inside a headset earcup). It was done in Vegas and took about an hour to sort out, plus 30 mins to render to full HD (1920×1080×50i), plus 15 mins to convert to a more compact size in Handbrake for upload to Vimeo.
I am also uploading the .mp4 file itself (274MB) here, just as an experiment… it was done in Handbrake using the “web friendly” setting so is supposed to start playing right away in the browser, and not wait till the whole lot is downloaded (which is how videos always used to work).
The routes I flew (the black ones) were a long away from those filed, to an extent which is very strange
Is that the 3kW heater? The GSM switch is on the power cord right?
I guess it is 2-3kW. Yes the GSM switch (with a timer also, I believe) was on the power socket.
It’s a very effective system but no way would be allowed in any UK hangarage situation I have ever seen, unless of course the aircraft owner owned the hangar
It means that half your engine starts are the “warm” starts, or nearly so. The temperature was around 0C yet the oil was +77F which is +25C. The bottom of the green arc on my plane is +91F.
Did you also record the CHTs prior to starting? Did you seal the cowl with plugs?
No and Yes.
I can’t believe the CHTs matter much for starting.
I’m considering to get a Wilms heater like the one you used, those are high quality products, cost is 379 Euro. I just wonder if the hot air might melt some plastic under the cowling. From an efficiency point of view, it must be terrible (99% of the energy is wasted) but it’s much simpler than a Reiff/Tanis heater and I’m not being charged per kwh in my hangar…
I have one blower in industry quality already but the air is too hot (i.e. the airflow too low), it would cook my airplane
