N951CC is flying again!

After 4 months of downtime, N951CC is finally flying again! Although there were some airplane fixes such as an exhaust leak and a fuel tank leak, it was really all the extras and new toys that made it take so long. Specifically, I had to wait over a month for a hose fitting for my backup vacuum pump. That kind of lead time can really extend a project.

I've been trying to do as much ground testing as possible along the way to ensure everything was working properly. The ground testing was going well and only found 1 issue, a burnt out low vacuum warning light. This was a new light that was dead on arrival, but fairly easy to replace.

When we were finally ready to run the engine, it ran pretty rough, but my mechanic quickly noticed that the right cylinders weren't firing. After working on that for awhile and checking different items, I found a slit in an induction tube that was leaking air into that bank of cylinders. It wasn't too long until that was replaced and the engine was running on all 6 cylinders.

I was able to take it for a test flight the next day after the fuel tank top panel was sealed back up. I came back with a new list of squawks. I had a hot mic, the fuel flow gauge was reading 0.0 GPH, the digital tach was reading high and the digital manifold pressure gauge was reading high. I was able to turn off the aircraft radios and use my portable in order to continue the test flight without the hot mic.

After inspecting the audio wiring, I was able to get the mic to disconnect. I'm not sure exactly what it was, which makes me worry that it could happen again, but I think it's the co-pilot push to talk wiring because it is in really bad shape. I've got a replacement cord on order. On the second test flight, I again noticed the high readings on the digital tach and manifold pressure gauge. I also found that I could not transmit on comm2. Comm1 worked completely, and I could listen and key the second comm, but not transmit.

I swapped comm1 and comm2 radios and the problem was still on comm2. I was down to thinking it was a bad audio panel or connection between the audio panel and comm2. A lot of wiring was moved/retied/pulled/pushed/etc behind the panel during the downtime so a bad wire between the audio panel and comm2 was a real possibility. I was really hoping that wasn't the problem because that would be a real pain to fix. I pulled out my audio panel while my mechanic was looking for a similar panel to swap for testing. While I was waiting, I decided to see if I could transmit from the co-pilot side. I had tested from the pilot and the factory hand mic, but not the co-pilot. While going through the logic of the connections, I was thinking that the co-pilot connections couldn't be the cause, but I decided to try while I was waiting anyways. Sure enough I was able to transmit on comm2 from the co-pilot seat! So I retested from the pilot and factory hand mic and they both now worked. Apparently the audio panel did not seat properly when I reinstalled it last time and it went in good this time. Comm2 problem solved!

Now I was down to high readings from the digital EI probes. I grabbed my mechanic's optical tach and an optical tach I have for model airplanes. The optical tachs seem to be right on, they read exactly correct when reading a light bulb and are identical between the tachs. I fired up the airplane and compared the factory mechanical tach, the 2 opticals, and the EI tach. Here are the results:

Factory / Optical 1 / Optical 2 / EI

1000 / 1080 / 1080 / 1100

1500 /1560-1590 / 1560-1590 / 1590

2000 / 2040-2070/ 2040-2070/ 2090

I'm not sure what to think of the optical tachs jumping back and forth between two values. They both jumped exactly the same way too! The documentation from EI says the RPM accuracy is 1% or better.

EI error assuming optical tachs are truth with 0% error

Based on average / Based on max

+1.85% / +1.85% @ 1000 RPM

+0.95% / +0.00% @ 1500 RPM

+1.70% / +0.97% @ 2000 RPM

So although the EI RPM probe is out of spec, it's not THAT bad. I figured my factory tach would read low, that's pretty common, but I expected the EI digital probes to be a lot closer to the optical tachs.

Next I was on to testing the manifold pressure gauge. First, we went around and took samples of MP readings on airplanes around the airport. We found 2 other airplanes that read the same as mine, 1 a half inch higher, 1 a half in lower and 1 an inch and a half lower! Obviously this was not going to help me verify the accuracy of the EI probe. After trying to figure out a way to get an accurate pressure reading to compare against, I found that I could correct the AWOS altimeter setting for altitude to obtain an absolute pressure reading. I also called EI for their suggestion and they emailed a troubleshooting guide that outlined the same calculation. Armed with the math, I calculated the absolute pressure and compared against the factory gauge and EI probe. The AWOS altimeter setting was 29.72 with a field elevation of 2457 feet so the calculated absolute pressure was 27.263 inches. With the space between 1 inch ticks on my manifold pressure gauge only about a half centimeter apart, the best guess of the factory reading was 27.3 inches. The EI probe was reading 27.9 inches, significantly higher than the calculated pressure. EI states the accuracy of the MP probe is 2%, but assuming the calculated pressure is 100% accurate, then the EI gauge is +2.2%. From the SuperAWOS website, there is a reference that states that the system meets accuracy requirements for Advisory Circular (AC) 150/5220·16B. I couldn't find a copy of this AC online since it was cancelled by 150/5220·16C, but 16C states a 0.01 inch root mean square error or 0.02 maximum error in the redundant pressure system. This equates to an AWOS error of 0.037%, which is an insignificant factor. Again, the EI sensor is out of spec on the high side, but not by much (0.2 percent above the spec).

I don't think it's worth sending the sensors back for new ones. I may just compare pressures and RPMs over time and develop calibration sheets. I expected the digital probes to be more accurate, but every measurement has it's limitations.

The EI fuel flow is still reading 0 and all of the ground testing looks good. I discussed my testing with EI and the confirmed the steps I took and also believe my wiring is correct and the error is in the transducer. After our flight on Saturday, we'll disconnect the transducer and see if there is anything blocking the turbine, but my anticipation is that we'll have to send the transducer out for a replacement.

Overall, I'm pretty happy that with all of the work completed, there has not been any lingering squawks besides the fuel flow, but we have a plan for that.

More videos from this summer

We flew down to Long Beach to attend an AOPA meeting. This was my first time this deep into LA and to Long Beach. I flew IFR and had no issues on the way in. After the meeting, we took a bus to the coast and watched Red Bull's Flugtag, where people push crazy parade style floats off a ledge and into the water. Most are just crazy, but the intent is to see who can fly the farthest. A friend was involved in the world record flight in St. Paul and although I saw the test flights of the glider, I didn't get to see it at the event; so we went to the one in Long Beach instead. You can see a video of the record breaking flight here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Im8VtLQgh4). After the flugtag, we took the bus back to the airport and flew out to Catalina and had their tri-tip buffet. It was pretty good, but it was very expensive and the line was long (and they charge a $25 landing fee). We made it past the mountains south of Palmdale just as it started getting dark and flew up the Owen's valley in the dark. I haven't done much night flying out here due the mountains, but it was a nice flight.

Katie learned her first magic trick!

Katie enjoying her first EAA Airventure. She was a real trooper for the entire time.

As we were waiting out bad weather at Jon and Kandy's house, Katie got some music lessons. I was a little late with the camera though because she was doing a lot better earlier.

Crazy college friends.

With the airplane, we were able to visit some Saia family down in Belleville, IL. I also got very lucky that there's a aircraft mechanic in the family who very conveniently was able to clean up a fouled spark plug for me - thanks Jim.

Looks like I never posted this video on the blog. Here was our camping trip in Payson. Payson has excellent campsites right at the airport, but there isn't much to do there. There is a supposedly a lake not too far that you can walk to. Not a problem, we were there to relax anyways. We also took the dogs and flew over Meteor Crater on the flight home.

Flying movies from our trip this summer

Since we were planning on flying through Colorado on our trip home, we decided to leave Thursday and fly to Grand Junction so that we'd be able to fly through CO on Friday morning and avoid density altitude and turbulence issues through the Rockies. It looked like some weather was rolling into the area so I left work a little early and we got out before it started to rain. It was hot and turbulent, but that was expected. We bumped around for 4.6 hours and made it to Grand Junction. We had an issue at the airport because the FBO didn't want to let us exit through their building, which was the only way out due to TSA policy, because we didn't buy fuel from them. I didn't realize the FBO didn't own the self serve fuel pumps. Luckily the manager came out and was really nice and not only let us through, but gave us a ride into town and let us in the next morning.

After some breakfast, we took off for the "long day". The flight through the Rockies was smooth and easy and the scenery was excellent. We flew past the Great Sand Dunes National Park and landed at La Junta, CO to pick up some fuel. The scenery in La Junta was amazing flat, especially since we just flew the Rockies. From La Junta, we flew to Butler, MO then on to Belleville, IL. We had to dodge some cloud build-up on the last 2 legs, but the weather was pretty good overall.

After visiting family in Belleville, we flew up to Flying Cloud, MN to visit some college friends. We stopped at Rochester along the way for fuel.

I don't have a movie of our flight from Flying Cloud to South St. Paul to visit some more college friends, but it was a very short flight.

After our MN visits, we flew down to Madison, WI to visit my brother Jon and his family.

Due to thunderstorms, we were not able to fly to Kiel, WI to visit Joe, but we were able to spend some time with them later in our trip. We were planning on flying into Airventure again this year, but we were going to fly in formation this time with the Cessnas2Oshkosh group. The staging airport was Juneau, WI so that was our next stop. After eyeing a gap in the weather and seeing it get bigger and bigger, I decided to call flight service one more time (I had been calling them throughout the day) while we were out getting some lunch. The flight to Juneau is very short so I didn't need a big window, but I'm pretty conservative when it comes to flying. The next wave looked like it was all the way back over Dubuque, IA almost 100 miles away. Although the weather looked as if it were improving, the briefer said several things were aligning to produce a large storm including tornadoes. That was the first forecast of tornadoes, but that forecast was enough for us to head back home for the day. I decided to call Madison and see if they were able to put my airplane into a hanger. Just as the FBO returned my call saying they got it in the hanger, the tornado sirens started going off. There was something like 7 or 9 touchdowns within the county. The next day, we made our flight uneventfully into Juneau on an IFR flight plan through some minor clouds.

I don't have a video of my flight from Juneau to Waukesha, WI, but that was also in light IMC.

Mark and Carley wanted to go flying and take the kids, so I took them up in turns and we were able to find their house as well as a corn maze.

This was my first real flight in IMC. We entered the clouds around 1200 feet and I was IMC the until about 800 feet on approach.

I was able to take Joe and Amber up for a flight, we lucked out with some really smooth flying. We flew around Woodland Dunes for a bit, then headed over to Kiel and found their house.

All trips have to come to an end at some point, so we were on our way back home. We had to dodge some pretty big storms on the way and 1 of the legs ended up being 4.6 hours. I've got over 6 hours of fuel capacity so that wasn't an issue, but that's a long time flying without stopping. We had planned at stopping near Salt Lake City for the night, but stopped short and landed at Evanston, WY due to thunderstorms. We lucked out coming into Evanston because thunderstorms were popping up in the area, but there none between us and the airport, although one wasn't very far to the north. You can see some lightening in the movie if you watch closely.

After 42.7 hours of flying over 22 days, we finally made it home.

N951CC goes down for annual and upgrade

There's been no updates with flights for awhile since my airplane has been down for maintenance for almost 2 and a half months with no near end in sight. The engine is still holding up and passed annual although it still has signs that an overhaul is coming in the next few years. That is OK since the engine is quite a bit past its expected life and I have anticipated an overhaul since I bought the airplane almost 3 years ago. We found 2 items that needed to be addressed during the annual, a fuel leak and an exhaust leak. The fuel leak has been addressed, but the exhaust has been more challenging. Hopefully we can have that all fixed up soon.

In addition the the typical annual, I'm doing some upgrades which has caused it to be down for so long. I've replaced all the switches, removed the ADF including the top and bottom antennas, receiver, indicator, and associated wiring. I also removed a lot of dead wires along the way. I've installed wiring harnesses for a UBG-16 engine monitor that I won this year at the EAA and a FP-5L fuel flow gauge. I also installed a mux box to download the monitor information as well as RPM, fuel flow, maniforld pressure, and outside air sensor accessories. I'm also going to hard wire my garmin 296 into the system so it won't use the cigarette lighter anymore and will provide GPS data to the mux for download and to the FP-5L for fuel economy calculations. To install all of this stuff, I had to add a new fuse panel where the ADF receiver used to be. I also disconnected some old headphone jacks that weren't connected to the radios anymore although the intercom was connected through them so the intercom was reconnected to the proper jacks. I installed a comm antenna splitter where the old headphone jacks were so I can use my aircraft comm antenna with my handheld radio for better signal. I also replaced the primer o-rings and replaced the co-pilot vent. I also found a used electric backup vacuum system online. I'm installing that between the back of my luggage compartment and my air conditioning system and running a hose up to tee into my existing vac system. Separately I bought a low vacuum warning light that tees into the vac gauge line and turns a light on when the suction drops below 3.5 psi.

That's all I can think of for now, I'm sure I missed some things. It's been slow going because my A&P has been allowing me to help with the work, but I can't get out to the airport during the week so I'm only out there working on the weekends. I'm really lucky to have a mechanic that works 7 days a week.

I wish I had taken some "progress" pictures, but I didn't; I even have a camera out at the airport...

You can tell your airplane has been down for too long when it's 100+ when you start and you need a swamp cooler and now it's in the mid 30s and I need a heater...

N951CC movie night camping at Oceano

Michelle and I fly to Oceano their movie night and to go camping for the night. We flew early to fly some practice approaches in the marine layer. We landed in San Luis Obispo, ate lunch at the airport, and took the courtesy car to the home brew store while we waited for the fog to clear up for us to fly into Oceano. We watched a movie about the Oceano day in May, a video of a hang glider in Yosemite, and the Rocketeer. Overall, the weekend was a lot of fun.

Finally catching up on some older flights...

BBQ Lunch at Lake Havasu with AOPA pilots.

Corona for breakfast and Lancaster poppies on the way back.

WI trip 2010, 1 of many

We've made the beginning part of our trip with minimal issues. We left Inyokern, CA Thursday afternoon with building cumulus clouds in the area, a pretty good sign of turbulence. They ended up getting thunderstorms after we left. We were able to get above the heat on the way to Las Vegas, but we were in the bumps. Between Vegas and Grand Junction, it got hotter and hotter and eventually it was the crappy flight we expected; hot and turbulent. We were on the ground at Grand Junction, where it was still 100 degrees, after 4.6 hours of flying. We ate at Applebees and Katie was so crazy from being in her car seat for so long that it was impossible to get a picture of her. We stayed overnight at the Quality Inn, which was just fine for the night. Unfortunately, Michelle told me that we didn't need our "camping bag" so I left that at the airport, but that had our swimming suits in it. We could have really used a dip in the pool to cool down after that flight.

I really need to start calling FBOs ahead of time to confirm services and times. It's really annoying since our flights can be so variable due to weather that it's difficult to call every possible FBO we could end up landing at. When we landed, we bought gas at the self serve, then taxied to parking. A line guy came out and told us that the tie-down was owned by West-Star and that the self-serve wasn't so that I'd have to pay $15 to tie-down or move over a couple of spots over for free parking. So I moved down a couple of spots and then the same guy comes over and says that since we aren't using any West-Star services, they won't let us out or in their security gate! The self-serve company doesn't have anybody around to let you in/out their gates so now we're locked in! How stupid is this, If I had known... I would have just tied down at West-Star and bought their fuel, but how was I supposed to know. Eventually Kraig from West-Star came out and was sympathetic to our dilemma and was very helpful. Not only did he say he's let us use the West-Star gate (this one time), but he actually drove us into town instead of having to call a cab. In the end, West-Star was very nice and helpful, but they are pretty strict about their policies, even the ones you don't really have any way of knowing unless you call ahead and ask the right questions.

On our way. These cumulus ended up producing thunder storms.

Climbing over Trona, CA

Michelle and Katie excited to be on our way.

Lake Powell

Lake Powell

Mountains on our arrival into Grand Junction, CO

SPOT messenger track.

Lifers

When my parents were visiting, my dad took me to some new birding spots. I got a bunch of lifers with him and since then I've taken Michelle to those areas and I've been taking pictures and videos of the birds we've been seeing for my record.

Yellow-Headed Blackbird

Ruddy Duck

Ring-Necked Duck

Ring-Necked Duck

Mallard

Gray Flycatcher

Gadwall

Eurasion Collared-Dove

Eastern Phoebe

Eastern Phoebe

Eared Grebe

American Coot

Black-Necked Stilt

American Avocet

Eastern Phoebe Video

Gray Flycatcher Video

N951CC flies in formation

Yesterday, N951CC and I flew down to Apple Valley for our first formation flight. We will be flying home again this summer and attending the EAA in addition to visiting family. Instead of flying the Ripon Arrival this time where everybody enters a holding pattern flying around a lake and entering the OSH pattern 1 at a time, we plan on flying the Cessnas 2 Oshkosh mass arrival. The mass arrival involves meeting at Juneau WI on the morning of the flight for a briefing then taking off in groups of 3 flying in formation to Oshkosh. The groups of 3 follow each other roughly 1/2 mile behind the group. You can check out the Cessnas 2 Oshkosh website at www.cessnas2oshkosh.com/default2010.aspx.

We had a training clinic in the morning that was very informative and there were quite a few experienced formation pilots that were available to fly as safety pilots. The lead representative of the Bonanzas to Oshkosh was also there as an additional resource and was my safety pilot. I think it was great to have a very experienced formation flight pilot fly with me and help me learn the ropes.

Since I was busy flying I don't have any pictures or videos. When we actually fly into Oshkosh, Michelle will probably do some filming and pictures since it is pretty cool to see.

Granted flying close to another airplane is more dangerous than not flying close to another airplane, I don't consider it to be dangerous due to all of the communication. You know exactly what you'll be doing so you are never surprised about where the other airplane is or what it is doing. I think flying formation into Oshkosh will be much safer than the Ripon arrival we flew in 2006.

I was amazed at how much I needed to adjust my power in turns. I understand that the inside turn is a smaller radius, but I figured it would be negligible compare to the size of circle an airplane flies in a shallow bank. A fairly large power reduction was required on the inside to prevent passing the lead plane and almost full power was required on the outside turn to avoid falling too far behind. I think that the magnitude of these power changes will go down as I become more proficient and am able to judge relative motion between the aircraft more quickly. Slow response requires large changes than a faster response.

Overall, we don't fly in tight formation as you'd see in a airshow, but we are close enough that you have to continuously be watching your lead airplane to make sure to maintain the proper separation and position. Cruising enroute we are spaced about 150-200 feet apart.

Hopefully I can get some more practice between now and Airventure, the SoCal AOPA fly-ins might be a good opportunity, several pilots that attend these lunches were at the training clinic.

After the training flight we had lunch at the BBQ restaurant on the field. This is my second time there and they have EXCELLENT BBQ. I had the pulled pork sandwich, but others were also raving about their ribs and tri-tip sandwiches. We'll be back there again. You can no longer sign the walls there, but they now have a visitor book you can sign. I just added a second date to my original signature from last time down. Check out some other comments on the restaurant here www.airnav.com/airport/KAPV/SKIDMARKS_CAFE.

Valentine's Day flight to Lone Pine, CA

N951CC, out 1979 Cessna Skylane flew the family from Inyokern up to Lone Pine, CA for a short flight and lunch for Valentine's day. The weather was great and the air was mostly smooth. You could see reflections of mountains and clouds in the water that has filled the dry lakes. Due to the hot China Lake restricted airspace, I had to hug the Sierras for part of the flight. There is no transportation that I know of, but it is a short 1/2 mile walk from the airport to town. It was a great day to go for a walk. Lunch was OK, but the scenery was more worth the flight than lunch was.

N951CC flies to Ontario, CA

Now that Katie is starting to stand and climb all over everything, we wanted to go and look for a mini chair for her. We also picked up a bunch of diapers, a toy chest, and a bunch of other stuff. We had taken the bigger stroller with us for all the walking we did so we had a heck of a time fitting it all into the airplane on the way back. We made it fit and the flight was great.

I had requested and been approved by approach control to circle north of the airport to descend after flying through Cajon pass. The tower however wanted me to fly direct to the runway. I'm not sure why I came back saying I think I could make it, but the controller said I had "miles" when it was right in front of me and I was 3000 AGL (2000 above the pattern altitude). Ontario is a class C airport, which means it's a busy airport with airliners, but not quite Chicago or Los Angeles (class B). I try to cooperate as much as possible in order to not disrupt the flow of other traffic. In this case, I should have said unable and re-requested to circle. I had to fly an extended forward slip to descend in time and I used most of the 2 mile long runway to touchdown.

Katie showing off her oxygen mask

Last year I bought an oxygen system at the EAA Airventure. The vendor gave me a free children's mask when I told him we had a baby. Now that we own a Cessna skylane, we are able to fly high enough to require supplemental oxygen. We are planning on flying from CA to WI this summer to visit family and to be part of the Cessnas 2 Oshkosh formation flight into the 2010 EAA Airventure.

In 2006 we flew through WA to fly north around the Rockies. In 2008, I flew through TX south around the Rockies (and weather). This year we plan on flying through the Rockies in Colorado and we will be flying high. Michelle and I have tested the O2 flying to Phoenix when we cruised at 17,500 feet enroute.

I've been gradually trying to get Katie used to the mask so that she wouldn't have a problem wearing it this summer. Up till now she freaked out every time I give it to her. This time she did great. She held it up to her face on her own and wore it for quite awhile without complaints.

N951CC flies to Santa Barbara

The family flew to Santa Barbara to visit with Lisa for lunch and to hang out on State st. This was the first time I landed at a class C airport. Seems weird that I haven't flown into one earlier, but I just haven't.

I heard a lot of reports of steep ramp fees, but those were waived with just 7 gallons of gas. Their rate was a dollar more than my home field so I really only paid $7 for ramp fees. I'd rather not pay anything, but this wasn't the end of the world. I certainly won't avoid Santa Barbara if that is the most suitable airport.

The flight there and back was nice and smooth, but we had to rush out in order to beat the sun. We won, but only by 30 minutes. Hopefully we'll have more time to spend there next time.

Michelle did some camera work to get some new points of view while flying. Here's the video.

Katie is now standing on her own

Katie started standing on her own this past Friday (2/5/10). Before then she would stand for maybe a second, but would sit down right away. Now she stands for quite a bit at a time. She walks if she's holding a hand so now we just have to convince her to take her first real steps.

SPOT messenger and flight plans

This was a post on the Cessna Pilots Association forums that I thought was worth paraphrasing here just in case any pilots read my blog.

"BUT??? Did the pilot have a FLIGHT PLAN??? Isn't that the standard statement whenever there's a (non-News media) accident or incident..."

This comment spawned a question whether flight following or a flight plan was better.

There were a lot of comments saying flight plans were a waste of time unless you would be flying in areas where you are out of communication with ATC. Some people also brought up the SPOT messenger from http://www.findmespot.com/en/.

Here are my responses to these posts that I thought were worth repeating.

I'm really surprised and I guess disappointed by the number of people who say they don't file flight plans? You have to get a brief (if nothing else to check TFRs and NOTAMS) so why not just file a flight plan at the same time. You need to make them work for you so you don't have to put every twist and turn in and if you know it'll take you 30 minutes to close after landing then just add it to your time enroute. It's better than not having anybody come after you.

BTW, it doesn't matter which one is better, what is stopping you from doing both? I file a flight plan when getting my brief, turn on my SPOT and clip my "close flight plan keychain" onto my airplane key during pre-flight, open my flight plan as soon as I leave the vicinity of the airport, then call up approach for flight following. When I'm securing the airplane and take the keys out of the ignition, I'm immediately reminded to close my flight plan by the keychain.

My issue with SPOT is if you were disabled during the wreck or if it launched out of the airplane during the wreck, then you wouldn't be able to hit the 911 button. In my case I'd be relying on people to realize I'm missing and then remember I told them how to track me down using my SPOT track.



--------------------------------------------------------------

I'm glad I read this message because it got me thinking after I wrote that last post... I was wondering if I can somehow connect my SPOT with the flight plan so that search and rescue would have access to my last known GPS location. I called SPOT and flight service to see what I could do.

First I called SPOT, my questions were related to if no 911 message was sent and the FAA or search and rescue called asking for the info, would they give it to them. The answer was NO unless they were one of my emergency contacts! I'm assuming that is unless you hit the 911 where they contact the emergency services. I asked if I could put "FAA" or "Emergency Services" as an emergency contact and he said yes. My primary emergency contact for my SPOT is now "Search and rescue and emergency services". I guess I do like the privacy considerations, but it seems stupid to let search and rescue have to search when they could be told where I am and to expedite the rescue.

I also called flight service and talked about the best way to get this information onto a flight plan. For VFR they said it was easy since the remarks field is free form type. He can put "Pilot has SPOT messenger on board" or "Contact family for last known GPS location". He said they only had 12 characters for IFR flight plans. I know some mountain search and rescue folks and they all know what the SPOT messenger is so I figure I can put "SPOT MSNGER" for 11 characters on the IFR flight plan and be good enough. I will be highly disappointed if they were to search for me and not google "SPOT MSNGER" if they didn't know what it was. BTW, the first hit on google for "SPOT MSNGER" is the company's website. I think this gives you the best of all worlds and is what I will be doing from now on.

Jayson

Furnace Creek Brunch 2010

Sunday we had the opportunity to meet Seth and Sue Dallob at Furnace Creek Inn for brunch. Seth writes a blog that follows his flights similar to my blog. The flight there and back was nice and smooth. Death Valley had a bunch of water from the recent rain and snow in the area. Hopefully they will have great flowers again this year, we'll have to fly back this spring for camping.

Furnace Creek Brunch 2009

On November 15th, after our first family pictures, we flew to Furnace Creek Inn for Sunday Brunch. They have a 5 star hotel there with an excellent brunch and they offer free transportation to and from the Inn from the hotel. The brunch was excellent as usual and we ate way more than we should have. Here is the video of the flight.

N951CC flies to Phoenix for the Packer game

This year Michelle and I didn't order DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket to watch the Packers and decided to actually go to our first game. We went to the last game of the season against the Phoenix Cardinals.

This was our first time both of us were away from Katie except for daycare. The weather looked good so we dropped Katie off with some friends and headed for the airport. It would have taken 8 hours to drive there not to mention stopping for meals and stretching our legs, but the flight took only 2.5 hours. It would have been shorter, but I've been wanting to see how high I can get my airplane to fly.

We are going to be flying ourselves home to WI again this summer and I'm hoping to fly through Colorado and the Rockies. The other 3 times I've made the trip, I either went well north through Washington or well south through Texas. So we spent a lot of extra time climbing on the trip to Phoenix, but I was able to get up to 17,500 feet. Although I wasn't at max gross weight, I wasn't light either. Climbing to 13,500 was no problem, 14.5 was getting slower and I was thinking I was going to barely make it to 16.5 and have to descend back to 15.5 (you are supposed to cruise at odd altitudes + 500 going east). The airplane kept climbing, although not very fast, but I was able to get all the way up to 17,500 feet. This will be great for flying home this summer, the only issue may be getting Katie to wear her oxygen mask - she doesn't like it so far.

The flight was nice and smooth and everything was well until we were switched to the Deer Valley tower. I didn't have too many problems with them, but I have NEVER heard controllers YELLING at pilots like this guy was. The controller wasn't very happy when I couldn't identify which airplane to follow. I could see 3 in front of me, but they were landing on parallel runways and I was 90 degrees to the runway so I couldn't figure out which one was landing on which runway. He vectored me and I had no other issues, but he really ripped into other pilots who were mostly students.

We had an unbelievable rate from Hertz, but we had to be there before noon to pick up the car. We scheduled our flight to get there just before they closed, but I forgot about the time zone change, so we were 50 minutes late and the guy was closing up. I begged for a bit and eventually the guy gave us a car, I gave him a fat tip and thanked him a lot. After getting the car, we ate lunch at the airport restaurant. It was good, but I'm not sure I'd fly there for a burger because I'd rather not deal with the tower. By the way, they had landing traffic land on the north runway and touch and go's landing on the south runway and parking and everything is on the south side, so they had a line of airplanes trying to cross the south runway. I think it took 10-15 minutes after landing to park, then on top of that, ground control directed me to the wrong parking spot.

Since we flew in, we got to our hotel around 2:30 instead of late at night so we went to the hot tub and then to go see Avatar in 3D and Cold Stone for dessert. I thought it was a good movie and had excellent visual effects. We had the worst night sleep in the past few years because of noisy neighbors. The people above us were having a wrestling match and were yelling and swearing all night. We called the manager several times, but that didn't help much.

In the morning we headed to the grocery store to pick up some brats and beer for tailgating. When we showed up at the public parking, there were signs everywhere prohibiting tailgating. You have to pay for premium parking if you want to tailgate! So we found someone selling parking spots and fired up the grill. I gave the left over brats to the Packer fans next to us and we headed in for the game. We walked around the stadium a bit then headed up to our seats. We had the first and second seats of the first row of the 2nd deck. I thought these were going to be great seats, but they ended up being right behind the stairwell. I would stand when they were playing along the 50 yard line since the stairs blocked my view and a bunch of people were harassing me. After a bit of an exchange and a visit by security, I told them to deal with it and go home if they wanted to watch the game sitting on their couch. I didn't have any more problems after that. It was a great game and the Pack game away with a W.

We switched rooms at the hotel because of the night before and the second night was fine, they were loud until 10 and started up at 7, but at least they were quiet through the night.

On the way home we decided to make a detour and head to Sedona for lunch. It was only 45 minutes or so out of the way so why not. The flight from Phoenix to Sedona was short and uneventful and the descent into Sedona was spectacular. The scenery was beautiful and inspiring and the approach to the "carrier" airport was pretty cool. The airport sits on a mesa high above the rest of the area. Thankfully, neither Michelle or I felt a vortex while landing and the arrival was safe and smooth. The food there was pretty good despite a few bad reviews. I'd definitely stop there again if we were in the area.

After lunch, we were on our way back home. Cruising at 14,500 feet, we made it home after a total flight time (including Phoenix to Sedona) of 3.8 hours. Now we're just waiting to see the 2010 Packer schedule so we can figure out what game we'll go to next year!

Here is the video of our mini-vacation.