Ridgecrest Flooding Sunday July 20th, 2008

It didn't seem like it rained that long (only an hour or 2), but it did rain pretty heavy. All the rain that fell in the mountains made it's way into the valley and created a flash flood through the city. Here is a link to a video of the flooding. Most of this video was shot 2 blocks from our house at Gateway and Church.



http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-48192



We decided to walk around and let the dogs play a bit. Here are some pictures that we took. Notice how close our backyard was to being flooded!









We were also watching a co-worker's pool. I didn't think about it, but he called and asked me to check the water level and drain some water if it was too high. After the water level in the streets went down so we could drive again, which was about 10pm, we went over there. Sure enough the water was about 8 inches too high. The worst part was that his flowerbed overflowed and put a bunch of dirt in the pool. It was so murky that you couldn't see the bottom, even in the shallow end.



We put a hose onto the filter output and let the filter run for a few hours. After seeing that it was only half way, we decided to go home and leave it running. Michelle went back over there at 2am to turn the filter off and the water was finally down to the correct level. Filtering the water for those 4 hours also cleared up most of the dirt that was in the pool. The next day I went to check on it again to see how it was doing. The water level was good, but now it was green. You could tell that the algae had started to grow. Good think the owner would be back later in the day to add some chlorine. Too bad I don't have any pics of the pool :(

N951CC OiL Change

As I was going through the reams of information about my new airplane, I realized I didn't know when it had it's last oil change. Cessna recommends that you change the oil every 50 hours, but the Cessna pilots association recommends 35 instead and my mechanic recommends 25 hours. I haven't decided on what I'll do yet, but I'll probably go to 25 hours since this is a high time engine and could use some extra TLC now. I know I've put a bunch of hours on it when I flew it back from WI so it was probably up for a change. Looking back into the logbooks, I found that the last change was in 2006 since it hadn't flown many hours since then. It was now 58 hours since the last oil change!

There is a local oil company that carries the aviation oil I use Aeroshell W100 so I bought a case and my mechanic and I changed the oil yesterday. This was the first time I was able to actually see my engine since I was sick during the pre-purchase inspection and the vacuum pump was replaced when I was working. Changing the oil is no different than a car. It's easier since I don't have to jack it up and crawl underneath, but more difficult since I have to remove the cowling and the filter is mounted upside down at a 45 degree angle, which means it spills all over when you remove it. The oil pan has a quick release valve on it so all we had to due was attach a hose and put it into a bucket and push the valve in. This part is a lot easier than pulling out a bolt and getting hot oil pouring everywhere.

My engine is most happy around 10 quarts even though it has a capacity of 12 quarts. I need a minimum of 8 quarts to fly. If I fill the oil to 12 quarts, the first 2 will get blown out the breather port and I'll be right back down to 10 quarts. So I filled it with 11 quarts since almost 1 quart will go into the filter.

While we were changing the oil, my mechanic was casually looking at everything to see what kind of shape it was in. Tug on this lever to see how loose the bearings are, see how tight that is, etc. He found that the airbox, which is the piece that connects the air filter to the carburetor had several sheared rivets. It was still held in place, but was loose. He took the air box off and we pulled out some of the sheared rivets and sure enough you could see they had been sheared for awhile. If they broke recently, the break would look like shiny metal, theses weren't. He also notice that one of the rivet tails was missing and most likely was already ingested into the engine. Good thing he caught this now before more go through the engine. All the pieces are still in good shape so he only has to re-rivet the box back together. Hopefully he'll be able to fix this quickly and we'll be flying soon.

Here are some pics of my engine.

Local flight on Memorial Day with Anthony

Today I went on a local flight with my friend Anthony. The winds were bad to the south, the clouds were low to the north, and it was raining and the clouds were obscuring the mountains to the west, so we decided to stay local. I guess we could have flown east to Vegas, but I was more in the mood for a shorter flight today. Next time we'll go get lunch somewhere.

We took off and flew south and circled Robber's Roost for awhile. Then we crossed over the El Paso mountains where I go Chukar hunting over to Garlock road. I let Anthony fly as we turned back west towards California City, then we headed north over Red Rock Canyon. We circled just a little more for traffic then landed runway 10 with 0.8 on the tach. We got to watch a glider come in on approach right over us and land on runway 20 while we held short on runway 10 after landing.

Here's another mugshot with Anthony. He had a blast and I feel bad that the weather wasn't better and we didn't get to go anywhere. I promised we'd go again.

N951CC Flying to North Las Vegas KVGT

Michelle and I flew to North Las Vegas today for breakfast. It was a good flight and I wanted a quick flight there to get acquainted with the airspace. With the mountains immediately to the west and the McCarren class B airspace, I wasn't sure how much room there was for my descent to land. I flew through a saddle in the mountains that was further north than the last time I flew since this was in line with North Las Vegs, last time we flew into Henderson.

It turns out that the class B extends closer to the mountains than it seemed on the map so I had to descend close to the mountains just on the east side. This was incredibly scenic since we were flying right over their Red Rock hiking area. We were kind of pinched between the mountains, Nellis restricted airspace, and Vegas class B airspace that I was not cleared into. After a few passes north and south I lost enough altitude to fly under the class B shelf into KVGT. There are a lot of taxiways under maintenance and closed down so I asked ground control for taxi instructions, instead a "follow me" van was already right in front of me waiting. I followed him just a short ways to the transient parking.

There was supposed to be a 24 hour Bar and Grill across the street, but we didn't see it so we walked down the street to the Fiesta Casino and ate at their restaurant. Incredible breakfast specials and the food was good, but it was breakfast at a casino.

The flight back was pretty much the same but in reverse. I wanted to climb to be able to get over the mountains, but I had to stay low until I cleared the class B shelf. This put me right at the mountains so I had to circle to climb to get over them. I was hoping this trip would have been faster than it was since I figured I've got more performance in this 182 than I did in the 172 and I should be able to climb straight over the mountains. I didn't realize that I was going to be still limited, but by the airspace. Total round trip time was 2.6 hours, which is 2 hours and 36 minutes, so it still wasn't too bad.

The trip to Vegas was very smooth and was a great flight. The flight back was hot and bumpy, but we the bumps eventually went away as we cleared the mountains near Vegas. The air was cool at 10,500 feet so I never turned on the air conditioning. I did turn it on as we descended into Inyokern. The AC is nice because I waited until my downwind landing check to turn it off and from there, its only a few minutes until we were on the ground. I put the AC back on as soon as we were rolling out and it was way cooler than opening the windows. Too expensive of a toy to buy, but a heck of a nice one to come with the airplane!

North Las Vegas airport provides a free courtesy shuttle bus to the strip so it's a great airport to use when coming in to gamble on the strip. You do have to get your own taxi back, but that is the only service that isn't provided by the airport. Michelle has plans for next weekend so I'm smelling a poker trip with the guys...

Sorry no pictures, but we did find the camera now for next time. Here is a Google Earth look at the moutains flying into KVGT.

Vacuump pump replace, lock fixed, up and running!

My A&P finished replacing the failed vacuum pump and was able to fix the pilot door lock. He found all the pieces inside the door and had to lubricate it and it's working fine now. While he was working on it, I asked him to install some Rosen sun visors due to the intense sun out here.


I flew around the patch on May 2nd just to make sure everything was up and running smooth after the maintenance; it flew great.

May 3rd we drove down to San Diego for the Red Bull Air Races, see the next post for more info.

Michelle and I went on our favorite buger run on May 11th to Kernvill L05, but this time the service was terribly slow. We got there early before all the crowds, but they forgot our order and it ended up getting stuck behind a few large groups. It took an hour to get our food while we watched others come in, eat there food, and leave before we even got our food.

Here is a picture of the flight to Kernville in the Sierras. This is for road directions, but I pretty much have to follow the highway through the mountains. Once I clear the eastern mountains I fly down the middle of the valley and over the lake before turning up the narrowing valley towards the airport. The pattern is right traffic for runway 17 since the airport is right at the western base of the mountains.

I also have a picture of flying into Kernville a few years ago in another airplane, but the airport is the same. It's a lot of fun to fly into.


I got out to the airport for a few touch and gos today after taking part of the motorcycle training course. I already have my license, but the course is required for me to be able to ride the bike to work. I didn't fly for very long because I was getting hungry.

Michelle and I are planning on flying to Vegas for breakfast on Sunday. That will be a fun flight, I'm going to fly into North Las Vegas this time instead of Henderson since it is closer to down town. I doubt we'll go into town for breakfast, but this will be a nice flight to determine how long it takes to fly in and how to negotiate the terrain and airspace.

N951CC to CA Day 4 ** UPDATE **

Well like I said, sometimes they just put out AIRMETs for turbulence for an entire area. This was the case today. I checked the weather again about noon and there were 2 pilot reports of no turbulence along my route of flight. Also, the forcast for China Lake was updated and it was supposed to be calm winds. With this news I quickly asked the motel staff for a ride to the airport. The person who would give me a ride to the airport was a town meeting so I had to wait awhile for him, but I was airborne by 1:45.

The ride was pretty rough during the climb out and I leveled off at 8,500 ft since the were stronger head winds higher. There was continuous light chop at this altitude so I decided I would rather have a longer flight if it was smoother so I climbed up to 10,500 ft and it was smooth. I did lose about 12 knots of groundspeed, but it was a nice ride for the most part all the way into Inyokern.

Through the Palmdale - Mojave area, I was flying through smooth up and down drafts. I was getting + / - 1500 ft / min rates of climb / descent. It was pretty hard to keep a constant altitude. I called approach control to verify there was no conflicting traffic and to verify he was seeing the same altitude variations (so it wouldn't just be my pitot-static system). He confirmed and shortly after a Gulfstream jet flying into Palmdale reported updrafts as well. Anyways, they were smooth so it wasn't so bad. I had a tough time descending down into Inyokern because of the updrafts, but I circled for a while and eventually got down to pattern altitude.

The airplane is now tied down in it's shade hanger at Inyokern safe and sound. I'll have my mechanic take a look at the vacuum pump and door lock soon. Oh, the pilot door lock broke too. I think it might just be the retaining clip. I heard something fall inside the door and then the tumbler pulled out of the hole still on the key leaving a hole in the door. "Due to national security..." I have to have my door locked so I need to get this fixed ASAP.

I didn't take too many pictures of the trip. I guess I should have taken pictures of the airports I landed at, but I only got one of it tied down at IYK. Anyways, here is a slideshow of the pictures I did take.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jayson.brouchoud/N951CCToCA/photo#s5187462314526446306

UPDATE: Here is the GPS track of day 4 to CA

N951CC to CA Day 4

Well today is going to be a short post. I woke up bright and early and took a look out the window of my motel room. I could see the trees bending over in the wind. I called and got a briefing anyways and that confirmed the same story as yesterday afternoon. I'm not going anywhere today. After breakfast I walked over to the laundromat since I was out of clean clothes. Of course they are out of business. I talked to the motel staff and they said there was not other place in town to do laundry. So here I sit in yesterdays clothes typing about my trip to CA on my blog since I've got nothing else to do.

Home remodel status update

Wow its been a long time since I posted an update. So the last post was that we finished laying the tiles and just got a carpet quote back. We decided to pursue other quotes further because the quote was very high. True Value had a nice carpet at a nice price too and when they measured, they were only going to need 102 square yards (the other place needed 120). I even called to make sure they didn't screw up the 2 and the 0, but they said they needed that much due to the layout of our house and the seams. We decided to go through True Value and saved almost $1400.

Since finishing the tiles we have also grouted and sealed the bathroom and entryway, finished painting all of the walls and ceilings, replaced the outlets, switches, and plates to white (instead of almond), painted all the trim bright white, replaced the rusty vents, moved everything in the carpeted areas of the house to the garage, had the carpet installed, and we are now currently installing new baseboards and moving stuff back into the house. Yeah that was a long sentence, but we've got a lot done in the last month. By the end of today, we'll be completely finished with our master bedroom and our 3rd bedroom, which is now becoming our new office. We'll finish the old office next week.

I mentioned in an earlier post that we were having troubles picking our kitchen paint color because of the red wall in the living / dining room. We also had a lot of issues picking the neutral color we used in the rest of the house. We wanted a khaki tan and thought we found it so we bought a 5 gallon pale. The problem is that it kept looking peach; It was really bad. Michelle was worried that we wasted all that money on bad paint, but I begged the guys at Home Depot to take the peach out. One of their specialists (used to own the paint store until Home Depot came in and he had to close up shop) figured out how to fix it. He said he added a bunch of yellow to kill the red. I can see that the colors are different when you look at two color samples, but I can't see that one is more red and the other is more yellow and which one would look better on the walls, but we tried the fixed paint and it looks good. It is a nice color and strikes a nice contrast with the bright white trim.

Here is a link to photos to show the progress on the house recently.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jayson.brouchoud/RemodelUpdate

Finished laying tiles!

Yesterday I finished cutting the tiles for the guest bathroom. For some crazy reason, I thought I could quickly cut the tiles for the entryway and tile them all at once. Of course cutting the tiles in the entryway took way longer than expected and the thinset started drying out on me before I finished with just the guest bathroom. I had to work really hard to get the thinset to spread out properly for the last few tiles in the bathroom, but I got them set. The rest of the batch of thinset was totally wasted.

Today my flight back home was 2 hours early so I had the entryway tiles laid before Michelle even got home from work. Tomorrow the thinset will be cured enough for her to grout both sections. Tonight we have to clean up the garage and start moving stuff from the bedrooms into the garage so we can paint them. Gotta keep moving when the momentum is rolling.

The carpet quote came in today, I was hoping to get a better price, but they did not come down much on price. It's the nicest carpet, but they are almost double that of the other carpets we are looking at. I think we won't end up with the really nice soft carpet, but any new carpet will be WAY better than the crap we have now.

There are some updated pics on the tiling photo album
http://picasaweb.google.com/jayson.brouchoud/TilingTheKitchen/photo#s5157436591087299458

Last of the linoleum

I finished scraping the linoleum by the front door and started the guest bathroom. I pulled the toilet and Michelle finished the last of the linoleum in the guest bathroom! Now we just have to tile the guest bathroom, front entrance, and front closet and we are finished with the tiling!

Michelle finished painting the kitchen and dining room ceiling and I finished the trim behind the stove and fridge so we finally put the kitchen back together today. I still have to finish the rest of the trim in the kitchen, but that will probably wait until after the carpet is in since we have to wait for the carpet before doing the trim in the rest of the house.

Painting

Here's the link to the painting progress. We were having some problems picking the right kitchen color, but I think we're set and will start making progress again. We need to finish the kitchen so we can put the fridge and stove back in there and stop having to eat out everyday.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jayson.brouchoud/Painting

Tiling

I have a Google Picasa web photo album of our home improvement projects. This string of projects all started because we need to replace our carpet (really badly). Since we wanted to also replace the linoleum and paint at somepoint, it only makes sense to do it now while we don't care if we spill paint on the old carpet. I also want the carpet people to butt the carpet to the new tile instead of me trying to butt the tile to the new carpet, so the tile has to go in first. Go here to see the progress on our tiling project.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jayson.brouchoud/TilingTheKitchen