I already posted about our flight to UT here, but now I've got a video to add.
Showing posts with label Skylane. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Skylane. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
You'll have to wait
Michelle and I made it home from our Utah trip and very exciting scenic tour of so many things. I've been downloading movies and pictures to the computer for over an hour so you'll have to wait before I get anything organized and posted.
The scenic trip I had planned would be a bladder stretcher and would have taken us as far north as Moab and Arches, but would have missed Monument Valley. The weather was forecasting turbulence to the north and my uncle had additional ideas of places to visit so we narrowed our trip. We flew over Paria Canyon, Page, the dam, Lake Powell, Navajo mountain, Monument Valley, Bridges (yes we saw some from the air), San Juan river, Escalante river, hole-in-the-wall, Rainbow bridge, Bryce Canyon, and Panguitch.
On the flight back to CA we flew back to page and over the dam and also saw Marble Canyon, the Grand Canyon, the skywalk (U shaped walk that hangs over the edge of the canyon), Lake Mead, Hoover dam, and Las Vegas.
All of the flights were incredibly smooth and enjoyable, definitely brings out the reason I love to fly.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
We made it to UT!
Michelle and I have been anticipating our trip to UT for a while now and we finally made it. We had to cancel last week due to weather and we almost had to cancel this week, but we shifted the trip a day instead to be Sat, Sun, Mon instead of Fri, Sat, Sun.
The air temperature at Inyokern was about 28 degrees so I really would have liked a preheat, but we don't have those services available. I've been trying to get into a hanger since I got the airplane, but the manager still hasn't worked anything out for me. I'm not sure if it helps at all, but the morning sun was shining under the shade hanger and directly on the nose of the airplane, I'll never know if this lessened the crime. I backed the airplane out to get some sun on the tail to get rid of the trace frost on the elevator, which was gone quickly.
The flight was absolutely wonderful, this is what flying is all about!!! The heater worked just fine to keep us comfortable, but the cool air made for an extremely smooth flight. The snow covering the landscape made it even more scenic. I was cleared through China Lake and Echo restricted airspaces and we headed right for Vegas. Unfortunately, we didn't get to directly overfly Vegas and Lake Mead since we'd interfere with the Las Vegas airline traffic.
The scenery got incredibly better the further we got into Utah. We overflew Zion and circled around getting some pretty good video. It was difficult to find slot canyons that Zion is such famously known for. After flying around Zion, we descended and headed towards Cedar City. The winds were calm so we entered a right downwind for right traffic for runway 20, the calm wind runway. As we were flying parallel to the runway, I called and asked for the conditions of the runway, which were reported as pretty clear and dry. The runway looked pretty patchy with snow and ice, but the landing was uneventful and I rolled without using brakes until I slowed down and wouldn't have to worry about skidding or sliding.
The local FBO had some space available and I was able to put it into their heated hanger. This will eliminate the need for a preheat and prevent frost from forming on the airframe. My Uncle Errol met us at the airport and took us to check into our hotel room. We got some quick lunch then went back to go over the plan for tomorrow where we're going to do a scenic overflight of Lake Powell and several surrounding National Parks. Errol's daughter Kimberly invited us over to dinner and we enjoyed an excellent spaghetti dinner where we met her daughter Tarren (sp?).
Here's a picture of the four of us at Kimberly's house. I'll post again once I have the videos downloaded.
The air temperature at Inyokern was about 28 degrees so I really would have liked a preheat, but we don't have those services available. I've been trying to get into a hanger since I got the airplane, but the manager still hasn't worked anything out for me. I'm not sure if it helps at all, but the morning sun was shining under the shade hanger and directly on the nose of the airplane, I'll never know if this lessened the crime. I backed the airplane out to get some sun on the tail to get rid of the trace frost on the elevator, which was gone quickly.
The flight was absolutely wonderful, this is what flying is all about!!! The heater worked just fine to keep us comfortable, but the cool air made for an extremely smooth flight. The snow covering the landscape made it even more scenic. I was cleared through China Lake and Echo restricted airspaces and we headed right for Vegas. Unfortunately, we didn't get to directly overfly Vegas and Lake Mead since we'd interfere with the Las Vegas airline traffic.
The scenery got incredibly better the further we got into Utah. We overflew Zion and circled around getting some pretty good video. It was difficult to find slot canyons that Zion is such famously known for. After flying around Zion, we descended and headed towards Cedar City. The winds were calm so we entered a right downwind for right traffic for runway 20, the calm wind runway. As we were flying parallel to the runway, I called and asked for the conditions of the runway, which were reported as pretty clear and dry. The runway looked pretty patchy with snow and ice, but the landing was uneventful and I rolled without using brakes until I slowed down and wouldn't have to worry about skidding or sliding.
The local FBO had some space available and I was able to put it into their heated hanger. This will eliminate the need for a preheat and prevent frost from forming on the airframe. My Uncle Errol met us at the airport and took us to check into our hotel room. We got some quick lunch then went back to go over the plan for tomorrow where we're going to do a scenic overflight of Lake Powell and several surrounding National Parks. Errol's daughter Kimberly invited us over to dinner and we enjoyed an excellent spaghetti dinner where we met her daughter Tarren (sp?).
Here's a picture of the four of us at Kimberly's house. I'll post again once I have the videos downloaded.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
N951CC flight to Mojave, December 20th 2008
Since we didn't get to fly to Tehachapi last week for the anniversary of our engagement, we decided to try again. This time instead of the winter storm preventing us from getting there, there were some clouds in the valley, but worse there were notices to airmen for ice and 6 inches of snow on the airport. We decided to Rosemond instead, we went there a while ago and they had a great buffet.
Rosemond doesn't have any wind information so I got my wind information from the nearby Mojave airport light out of the east (070@4). Since Rosemond prefers runway 25 in light winds to avoid overflying the nearby houses, I decided to land runway 25 (with the wind). After turning to final I noticed that even though my airspeed was right at my normal approach speed I was significantly faster over the ground than expected. I was able to compensate, but it wasn't the prettiest landing, I should probably intentially practice these. They are not standard landings and are rarely done, but sometimes a downwind landing is safer due to terrain (such as Kernville).
Unfortunately the restaurant wasn't open, they changed their hours to open at 4pm instead of 11am except for Sundays. Great now the last two restaurants we've gone to have been closed, next time I should check! We decided to fly back to Mojave since we've been there more recently and it's a very short flight on the way home. Mojave was open, but they were extremely slow since Scaled composites (Burt Rutan's company) had brought a large party in (we didn't see Burt or Dick). There was only 1 waitress and she was very overworked. The food was excellent as usually and I filled up with cheap gas before we took back off for home.
On the way home, I decided to try to find Kelso valley. Our neighbor lent me a book about flying around here in the olden days. It's a very intersting book to read. A woman wrote the book about her and flying adventures with her husband who flew into all sorts of crazy places; mostly dried lakes and old dirt roads. One of the locations they flew into was Kelso valley and I think I knew where it was. I looked on Google Earth and I think I could see a desert scar from a runway decades ago.
The air was extremely smooth so we flew low over the mountains and I believe I found the right valley. It was easily wide enough to descend down into and land. There were a few homesteads scattered around, but I didn't see the runway. I think it was buried in the snow. After flying over this valley, we cut back over to the Owen's valley and flew back to Inyokern.
Rosemond doesn't have any wind information so I got my wind information from the nearby Mojave airport light out of the east (070@4). Since Rosemond prefers runway 25 in light winds to avoid overflying the nearby houses, I decided to land runway 25 (with the wind). After turning to final I noticed that even though my airspeed was right at my normal approach speed I was significantly faster over the ground than expected. I was able to compensate, but it wasn't the prettiest landing, I should probably intentially practice these. They are not standard landings and are rarely done, but sometimes a downwind landing is safer due to terrain (such as Kernville).
Unfortunately the restaurant wasn't open, they changed their hours to open at 4pm instead of 11am except for Sundays. Great now the last two restaurants we've gone to have been closed, next time I should check! We decided to fly back to Mojave since we've been there more recently and it's a very short flight on the way home. Mojave was open, but they were extremely slow since Scaled composites (Burt Rutan's company) had brought a large party in (we didn't see Burt or Dick). There was only 1 waitress and she was very overworked. The food was excellent as usually and I filled up with cheap gas before we took back off for home.
On the way home, I decided to try to find Kelso valley. Our neighbor lent me a book about flying around here in the olden days. It's a very intersting book to read. A woman wrote the book about her and flying adventures with her husband who flew into all sorts of crazy places; mostly dried lakes and old dirt roads. One of the locations they flew into was Kelso valley and I think I knew where it was. I looked on Google Earth and I think I could see a desert scar from a runway decades ago.
The air was extremely smooth so we flew low over the mountains and I believe I found the right valley. It was easily wide enough to descend down into and land. There were a few homesteads scattered around, but I didn't see the runway. I think it was buried in the snow. After flying over this valley, we cut back over to the Owen's valley and flew back to Inyokern.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Flying to Mammoth, CA
Michelle and I had planned to fly to San Diego on December 13th and to Tehachapi on the 14th, but the weather ruined both of those flights. We were hit with a major winter storm system on the 13th and couldn't fly anywhere and the system lingered in the mountains preventing us from flying to Tehachapi on the 14th. Instead, we decided to fly up the valley to Mammoth where I could get some more high altitude practice taking offs and landings.
Flying to Mammoth also was a good opportunity to test my new configuration for recording the flight. I ordered a ground loop isolator which is just a special cord that was supposed to get rid of the alternator noise in the audio, I modified the camcorder mount, and I bought a digital voice recorder so I could have independent audio of the intercom and the cockpit. I also bought a SPOT messenger to track our flights as safety equipment and this was it's first flight as well.
It was a very scenic flight on the way up with the mountains covered with snow, although there was continuous light turbulence, which just got annoying. I didn't leave the video on the entire flight this time, but instead turned it on once and a while to get different scenery and angles. I really liked how some of the side shots turned out.
Unfortunately, even though I got slightly less dash in the view, there was still more than I had hoped for and the angle was low such that I was usually recording below the horizon. The intercom audio still has alternator noise on it, the cabin noise was worse than expected, and I still have the propeller flying off the screen even though I played with the different frame rates. I still have some work to do when editing it to see if I can improve it at all.
Back to the flight itself, the pattern at Mammoth is pretty interesting. There are tall mountains to the south and a smaller ridge to the north. The winds were 10 gusting to 15 knots from the south-west so I flew the right hand pattern around the smaller ridge to runway 27. I thought that I would always maintain sight of the airport, but I soon found out that as I started my descent on downwind, I quickly lost sight of the airport. It's not until your turning final until you see the runway appear from behind the ridge. This caused me some trouble, but I didn't have my approach fully stabilized since i didn't know where the runway was and I couldn't use my standard power settings because of the higher altitude. I ended up being high and fast on the first approach and floated a long ways down the runway. The second time around, I ended up being short and needed significant power to get back on the glide slope by the time I saw the runway. Long story short, I wouldn't feel bad about doing a straight in approach to the uncontrolled airport in the future.
After two time around the pattern, we decided we better head back to Bishop for lunch since we were both getting hungry. After my 3rd not so wonderful landing of the day, we walked into the lobby of the Bishop airport to find that the restaurant was out of business! The airport is also too far from town for us to walk. Fortunately they had a snackbar there and I was rummaging through that until a lady came in looking for the fuel attendant (who was out to lunch at the time). She was very nice and offered us a ride into town and back for lunch since she would have to come back to see the fuel guy after his lunch. She dropped us off at a very good Mexican restaurant named something Amigos and we were able to catch the bus back to the airport (she had thought it wasn't running).
After lunch we headed back to Inyokern where I made one of the nicest landings in several months. Once I finish editing the video from this flight, I'll post the link here. The SPOT messenger worked pretty good, but I'm still not sure what to think about it. On the way there, there was a 100 mile gap in the tracking from Owen's Lake all the way up to Mammoth, although it did have very good tracking the whole way back. It's absolutely better than nothing, but I really wish it didn't have those gaps. I guess more time is needed to tell how reliable it really is.
Flying to Mammoth also was a good opportunity to test my new configuration for recording the flight. I ordered a ground loop isolator which is just a special cord that was supposed to get rid of the alternator noise in the audio, I modified the camcorder mount, and I bought a digital voice recorder so I could have independent audio of the intercom and the cockpit. I also bought a SPOT messenger to track our flights as safety equipment and this was it's first flight as well.
It was a very scenic flight on the way up with the mountains covered with snow, although there was continuous light turbulence, which just got annoying. I didn't leave the video on the entire flight this time, but instead turned it on once and a while to get different scenery and angles. I really liked how some of the side shots turned out.
Unfortunately, even though I got slightly less dash in the view, there was still more than I had hoped for and the angle was low such that I was usually recording below the horizon. The intercom audio still has alternator noise on it, the cabin noise was worse than expected, and I still have the propeller flying off the screen even though I played with the different frame rates. I still have some work to do when editing it to see if I can improve it at all.
Back to the flight itself, the pattern at Mammoth is pretty interesting. There are tall mountains to the south and a smaller ridge to the north. The winds were 10 gusting to 15 knots from the south-west so I flew the right hand pattern around the smaller ridge to runway 27. I thought that I would always maintain sight of the airport, but I soon found out that as I started my descent on downwind, I quickly lost sight of the airport. It's not until your turning final until you see the runway appear from behind the ridge. This caused me some trouble, but I didn't have my approach fully stabilized since i didn't know where the runway was and I couldn't use my standard power settings because of the higher altitude. I ended up being high and fast on the first approach and floated a long ways down the runway. The second time around, I ended up being short and needed significant power to get back on the glide slope by the time I saw the runway. Long story short, I wouldn't feel bad about doing a straight in approach to the uncontrolled airport in the future.
After two time around the pattern, we decided we better head back to Bishop for lunch since we were both getting hungry. After my 3rd not so wonderful landing of the day, we walked into the lobby of the Bishop airport to find that the restaurant was out of business! The airport is also too far from town for us to walk. Fortunately they had a snackbar there and I was rummaging through that until a lady came in looking for the fuel attendant (who was out to lunch at the time). She was very nice and offered us a ride into town and back for lunch since she would have to come back to see the fuel guy after his lunch. She dropped us off at a very good Mexican restaurant named something Amigos and we were able to catch the bus back to the airport (she had thought it wasn't running).
After lunch we headed back to Inyokern where I made one of the nicest landings in several months. Once I finish editing the video from this flight, I'll post the link here. The SPOT messenger worked pretty good, but I'm still not sure what to think about it. On the way there, there was a 100 mile gap in the tracking from Owen's Lake all the way up to Mammoth, although it did have very good tracking the whole way back. It's absolutely better than nothing, but I really wish it didn't have those gaps. I guess more time is needed to tell how reliable it really is.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Test flight with our new camcorder
For the past few years I've been watching videos on YouTube of people flying into different areas and capturing their adventures. I've been jealous and wanted to buy a camcorder to tape my own flights, but haven't been willing to spend the money. Michelle and I decided long ago that we would wait until we start our family before we buy a camcorder.
Here is a link to another pilot who posts his flights. This is his flight into Kernville, I figured I'd link this one since this it compares to the flight we just made.
Now that we have a girl on the way, we made the purchase. Granted she's not due until the end of February, but that's just too long to wait. It kind of goes along the lines of getting the new TV in time for the football season and the new camera in time for a long anticipated trip. The anticipated trip is to Panguitch, UT to visit my Uncle Errol and to fly over Lake Powell, the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, and Las Vegas.
We decided that since we have a fancy new HD TV, we wanted to get a nice HD camcorder. We also want it to be digital since we will be posting both flights and videos of our daughter on the web for friends and family to see. The hassle of DV tapes eliminated that category, and since hard drives don't operate at altitude, those versions wouldn't work either. Hard drives rely on airflow between the disks so that the head "flies" between the platters. When the altitude goes up, the pressure goes down, and the head crashes and the disk fails.
This left us looking for a solid state HD camcorder. I also had 2 requirements for flying, an image stabilizer and a microphone input. All the HD camcorders come with image stabilization so that wasn't a problem, but finding one with external audio in was. Canon is really the only manufacturer supporting external audio anymore these days and we ended up with a Canon Vixia HF100.
My airplane just got out of maintenance so I was anxious to get back up and flying so a flight for lunch in Kernville to test the new camcorder setup was perfect. We also decided to take the dogs with us. They've each flown before, but this was the first time they both flew together and Michelle wasn't in back to calm them down.
The dogs did ok, but they both ended up being nervous at some point. Emmett was much worse off, but I think he'll get used to it. He's always not been a fan of bouncing around. When we drive up to trailheads to go hiking, he always lays down in the back of the Jeep, but he's never gotten sick.
The video turned out pretty good, but there are a few things I found that I want to change. I made a little stand the camcorder attaches to that has a sponge between as a shock absorber. I noticed that the sponge allowed the camera to shake more than if it was just attached firmly. The angle also didn't turn out too good, it was looking down too much and the dash takes almost 1/2 of the screen. This also causes issues since it tries to focus on the dash instead of outside. I also want to work on the audio a little. I have it tied into the co-pilot audio jack, but there seems to be a lot of noise in the audio.
I used a trial version of CyberLink PowerDirector to edit the video, but I think in the future, I'm going to try to use Microsoft Movie Maker so I don't have to pay for the software. I decided to shoot the trip in HD since I had more space on the card than the battery would last. The video was incredible when it was focusing on the terrain. After editing and down converting to HQ, the file was about 10 minutes and 652 Mb. Good thing YouTube just started allowing up to 1Gb uploads... It took about 1 hour to render the video on my PC and the clip is still trying to upload after almost an hour.
Tomorrow I'll be working on the attic since I spent all day playing...
Here is a link to another pilot who posts his flights. This is his flight into Kernville, I figured I'd link this one since this it compares to the flight we just made.
Now that we have a girl on the way, we made the purchase. Granted she's not due until the end of February, but that's just too long to wait. It kind of goes along the lines of getting the new TV in time for the football season and the new camera in time for a long anticipated trip. The anticipated trip is to Panguitch, UT to visit my Uncle Errol and to fly over Lake Powell, the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, and Las Vegas.
We decided that since we have a fancy new HD TV, we wanted to get a nice HD camcorder. We also want it to be digital since we will be posting both flights and videos of our daughter on the web for friends and family to see. The hassle of DV tapes eliminated that category, and since hard drives don't operate at altitude, those versions wouldn't work either. Hard drives rely on airflow between the disks so that the head "flies" between the platters. When the altitude goes up, the pressure goes down, and the head crashes and the disk fails.
This left us looking for a solid state HD camcorder. I also had 2 requirements for flying, an image stabilizer and a microphone input. All the HD camcorders come with image stabilization so that wasn't a problem, but finding one with external audio in was. Canon is really the only manufacturer supporting external audio anymore these days and we ended up with a Canon Vixia HF100.
My airplane just got out of maintenance so I was anxious to get back up and flying so a flight for lunch in Kernville to test the new camcorder setup was perfect. We also decided to take the dogs with us. They've each flown before, but this was the first time they both flew together and Michelle wasn't in back to calm them down.
The dogs did ok, but they both ended up being nervous at some point. Emmett was much worse off, but I think he'll get used to it. He's always not been a fan of bouncing around. When we drive up to trailheads to go hiking, he always lays down in the back of the Jeep, but he's never gotten sick.
The video turned out pretty good, but there are a few things I found that I want to change. I made a little stand the camcorder attaches to that has a sponge between as a shock absorber. I noticed that the sponge allowed the camera to shake more than if it was just attached firmly. The angle also didn't turn out too good, it was looking down too much and the dash takes almost 1/2 of the screen. This also causes issues since it tries to focus on the dash instead of outside. I also want to work on the audio a little. I have it tied into the co-pilot audio jack, but there seems to be a lot of noise in the audio.
I used a trial version of CyberLink PowerDirector to edit the video, but I think in the future, I'm going to try to use Microsoft Movie Maker so I don't have to pay for the software. I decided to shoot the trip in HD since I had more space on the card than the battery would last. The video was incredible when it was focusing on the terrain. After editing and down converting to HQ, the file was about 10 minutes and 652 Mb. Good thing YouTube just started allowing up to 1Gb uploads... It took about 1 hour to render the video on my PC and the clip is still trying to upload after almost an hour.
Tomorrow I'll be working on the attic since I spent all day playing...
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Furnace Creek Inn Brunch
Today Michelle and I flew to the Furnace Creek Inn for brunch. We flew south of the China Lake restricted airspace from Inyokern towards Trona and turned north over Trona between the China Lake R-2505 and Echo Range R-2524 restricted airspaces. Once we were north of the Echo range, we turned back east to cross the Panamint mountains into Death Valley. We turned north and flew up Death Valley over Badwater as we approached to land at the Furnace Airport L06. The was no wind and we landed runway 15 since the Mooney ahead of us had used that runway. There were cables to attach tie-downs to, but no tie-downs. I didn't have my tie-downs with me since I removed them for weight when we flew up to San Jose. I pulled the parking break, put the plugs and control lock in and called it good; we'd only be gone an hour and there was zero wind.
The airplane was still there safe and sound and there was still no wind. Michelle decided she wanted to head up the valley to take a look at Scotty's castle and the Ubehebe crater. We took off and headed north at 2500 feet to maintain 2000 ft over the national park. I called up Riverside Radio and asked if they were familiar with the Ubehebe crater or Scotty's castle for waypoints and they said they were not. She wanted to file me from Furnace Creek back to Inyokern, but I thought that would be dumb since we were flying 45 miles north of that route. I told her my route would be Furnace Creek L06, Stovepipe Wells L09, then up to Bishop BIH before heading south to Inyokern IYK. We weren't going to fly even close to that far north, but that put a line across where we would be flying in case something were to happen. That we at least they'd be looking in the right area. We circled around the sand dunes and airport at Stovepipe Wells and then continued north. We climbed up to 4500 ft as the valley floor started to climb to the north.
Obligatory mugshot
Telescope peak, I've climbed this 2 or 3 times.
Badwater
Furnace Creek Inn resort
Furnace Creek airport L09
The Mooney pilot already had called for the shuttle to the Inn so it arrived just as I finished securing the airplane. The Mooney folks were staying the week at the Furnace Creek ranch so the driver dropped them off first and then drove us up to the Inn, it was probably less than 5 minutes, but I'm glad we didn't walk it. There's only a gravel shoulder and it's uphill for about a mile. There was no wait for the brunch, which I guess is unusual, but the staff said this was because this is the first weekend they are open for the season and not everybody knows they are open again yet. The driver said they usually get between 12 to 40 pilots a weekend, today I was number 3.
The food was excellent and came with eggs to order, an entree on the menu, and the buffet. Michelle and I got omelettes that were way bigger than they needed to be, but they were very good. I ordered the french toast/pancakes/crepes (they were all mini) and Michelle ordered the Pasta Primavera. We also had fruit and too much desert from the buffet. Definitely a top notch brunch although it was a bit pricey at $21.95 per person. After brunch we walked around the resort a little before taking the shuttle back to the airport.
She really loved that dessert buffet
The airplane was still there safe and sound and there was still no wind. Michelle decided she wanted to head up the valley to take a look at Scotty's castle and the Ubehebe crater. We took off and headed north at 2500 feet to maintain 2000 ft over the national park. I called up Riverside Radio and asked if they were familiar with the Ubehebe crater or Scotty's castle for waypoints and they said they were not. She wanted to file me from Furnace Creek back to Inyokern, but I thought that would be dumb since we were flying 45 miles north of that route. I told her my route would be Furnace Creek L06, Stovepipe Wells L09, then up to Bishop BIH before heading south to Inyokern IYK. We weren't going to fly even close to that far north, but that put a line across where we would be flying in case something were to happen. That we at least they'd be looking in the right area. We circled around the sand dunes and airport at Stovepipe Wells and then continued north. We climbed up to 4500 ft as the valley floor started to climb to the north.
My altimeter is below zero!
Sand dunes near Stovepipe Wells
We circled around the crater once, which was very easy to find from the air then headed back east to fly over Scotty's castle. I climbed a bit more since they were nestled in the mountains a bit. After we left Scotty's, we climbed up to 10,500 ft and headed east through a pass and flew over Saline Valley on our way to Owen's Lake. I couldn't reach Joshua approach until we reached Owen's Valley even though we were pretty high. They responded near Lone Pine and I got flight following back to IYK. On our way down the valley, we could clearly see Mt. Whitney, Olancha peak, Owen's Lake, the cinder cone, and Fossil Falls.Ubehebe Crater. Michelle and I visited here with my parents a few years ago.
Scotty's Castle, we also visited here with my parents.
Mt. Whitney, it's the one below the space between "visited here" in the title of the above picture. Kevin and I climbed this a few months ago.
Lava flow and Fossil Falls.
More Lava flow
I started a nice slow descent towards Inyokern, but we never felt any bumps. The wind was out of the south, which is not too common and we landed straight in runway 15 to avoid the tow-plane operation on runway 2-20. I recorded the tach time at 2.1 hours and the timer at 2.4 hours. Fuel burn was a bit high at 13.8 gph, but we did do a bunch of low level flying, which does take more fuel. I love flying this time of year because the air is smooth and cool, the flight was perfect. This is the first flight I'll enter into my new logbook (I just filled my original logbook).
The link to the photo album for this flight can be found here.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Breakfast in Hesperia
This morning Michelle and I flew down to Hesperia for breakfast and to fuel up the airplane (their gas is 64 cents cheaper than at Inyokern). The flight down there was very smooth and we were cleared through Edwards restricted airspace above 5000 ft; we flew at 7500 ft. We flew around the unmanned vehicle airspace west of Victorville by overflying the Victorville airport. Hesperia's airport L26 was very difficult to spot as we were approaching, another reason the GPS is so helpful. As you can see from the picture, the airport is not much more than another road in a congested area. We did hit a gust just before touchdown, but I actually made a fairly nice landing.
The fuel price was $4.55 as advertised, but my Citi card was being denied again. They keep turning it off when I buy gas as an fraud early warning flag. I called them again telling them I'm a pilot and I have to use a credit card to buy fuel and when the keep shutting my card off, I'm going to get stuck since I won't be able to refuel. Breakfast was very good with portions twice the size of what I should have eaten.
On the way back to the airplane, I saw gas dripping from my right fuel vent. This is normal when fuel expands, but it was quite a bit of leaking. I didn't notice it earlier, but now I did notice the very slight angle I was parked on. The gas was flowing from my left tank to the right tank then leaking through the vent. This is a common problem with airplanes and is usually only fixed by not completely filling the tanks or parking perfectly level. I don't know exactly how much fuel leaked, but I think it was enough to offset the fuel savings gained by the cheap price.
The flight back to Inyokern was just a little bumpy, but nothing to complain about. It took awhile to get flight following since the controller was pretty busy. I managed to make a nearly perfect landing in Inyokern and that was a good feeling because I feel that even though I keep trying, my landings typically seem to be in the safe, but not great category.
Round trip I put 1.7 hours in my logbook and filled my last entry in my logbook. This was still my original logbook, which started back on January 23rd, 2000 and ends today with 422.2 hours total time, 615 landings, and 85 instrument approaches.
Here is a picture of the solar panels near Kramer Junction.
Here is a picture of the airplanes at the graveyard at the Victorville airport.
Here is a picture of the High Desert Mavericks stadium near Adelanto, CA.
Final approach into Hesperia, L26.
The fuel price was $4.55 as advertised, but my Citi card was being denied again. They keep turning it off when I buy gas as an fraud early warning flag. I called them again telling them I'm a pilot and I have to use a credit card to buy fuel and when the keep shutting my card off, I'm going to get stuck since I won't be able to refuel. Breakfast was very good with portions twice the size of what I should have eaten.
On the way back to the airplane, I saw gas dripping from my right fuel vent. This is normal when fuel expands, but it was quite a bit of leaking. I didn't notice it earlier, but now I did notice the very slight angle I was parked on. The gas was flowing from my left tank to the right tank then leaking through the vent. This is a common problem with airplanes and is usually only fixed by not completely filling the tanks or parking perfectly level. I don't know exactly how much fuel leaked, but I think it was enough to offset the fuel savings gained by the cheap price.
The flight back to Inyokern was just a little bumpy, but nothing to complain about. It took awhile to get flight following since the controller was pretty busy. I managed to make a nearly perfect landing in Inyokern and that was a good feeling because I feel that even though I keep trying, my landings typically seem to be in the safe, but not great category.
Round trip I put 1.7 hours in my logbook and filled my last entry in my logbook. This was still my original logbook, which started back on January 23rd, 2000 and ends today with 422.2 hours total time, 615 landings, and 85 instrument approaches.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Kevin and Shelvey Tajii's Wedding September 6th, 2008
This weekend Michelle and I flew up to San Jose for our friends Kevin and Shelvey's wedding. Kevin and Sarah Ford also flew up with us so we were able to planepool and save some money.
I needed to burn just a little gas so that we'd be under the maximum weight of the airplane so I flew for 15-20 minutes or so doing practice takeoffs and landings before we loaded the airplane for the trip. After burning the gas and checking what the Ford's brought for baggage, we were good to go. The trip was extremely smooth the whole way up there and I logged 1.9 hours on the tach including the practice takeoffs and landings.
After pier 39, we went at drove past the famous Lombard street then headed back to the hotel. After a little swimming we were in bed for the night.
Saturday morning we went to tour the Winchester house. This is a crazy house that the widow of the second president of the Winchester gun company built since a psychic told her to keep building to appease the spirits of those killed by Winchester guns. Since she had to keep building the house at all times of day for decades, there were several unique features. A few interesting things were a staircase that went to all the way to a dead-end at the ceiling, a door out the second floor to nowhere, pillars mounted upside down, etc.
After the house it was time to get ready for the wedding. Unfortunately, we don't have many good pictures of the ceremony itself, but it was a good ceremony. I'll have to talk to Kevin when he comes back from their honeymoon about it. I thought they were going to do a traditional Buddhist wedding, but even though there were some unique parts, it seemed very traditional.
The wedding was fun and I didn't make a fool out of myself since I was the designated driver (only I was on the rental agreement).
Sunday we took off in the morning for the trip back. This trip was a little more interesting with much busier traffic coming out of the Bay and being swapped a lot by ATC while I was getting flight following updates. Then there was a jet that wasn't talking to anybody that was flying right at me. The controllers were finally able to reach him although he still seemed oblivious. While they were trying to figure out what he was doing, I climbed to 12,500 to get out of the way.
I was hoping to stop at Kernville for lunch, but there was a NOTAM that 100LL fuel was currently unavailable and I didn't have all the much fuel. I was worried if I descended all the way down there, I'd be too worried about our fuel level climbing back out to head home so we decided to skip Kernville and head home with 2.0 on the tach. This was Sarah's second trip that we weren't able to get lunch at Kernville, maybe we'll have to dedicate a trip some time...
I needed to burn just a little gas so that we'd be under the maximum weight of the airplane so I flew for 15-20 minutes or so doing practice takeoffs and landings before we loaded the airplane for the trip. After burning the gas and checking what the Ford's brought for baggage, we were good to go. The trip was extremely smooth the whole way up there and I logged 1.9 hours on the tach including the practice takeoffs and landings.
I decided to fly into Reid-Hillview airport (add another to the map) since it would be cheaper and more convenient to fly into the San Jose International. After we got the rental car (which ended up being a huge extended cab truck since they were out of cars) we went and checked into the hotel early. Normally it would take 6+ hours to get up here not counting stopping for lunch, but were checked in to the hotel in less than 3.
After pier 39, we went at drove past the famous Lombard street then headed back to the hotel. After a little swimming we were in bed for the night.
Saturday morning we went to tour the Winchester house. This is a crazy house that the widow of the second president of the Winchester gun company built since a psychic told her to keep building to appease the spirits of those killed by Winchester guns. Since she had to keep building the house at all times of day for decades, there were several unique features. A few interesting things were a staircase that went to all the way to a dead-end at the ceiling, a door out the second floor to nowhere, pillars mounted upside down, etc.
After the house it was time to get ready for the wedding. Unfortunately, we don't have many good pictures of the ceremony itself, but it was a good ceremony. I'll have to talk to Kevin when he comes back from their honeymoon about it. I thought they were going to do a traditional Buddhist wedding, but even though there were some unique parts, it seemed very traditional.
The wedding was fun and I didn't make a fool out of myself since I was the designated driver (only I was on the rental agreement).
Sunday we took off in the morning for the trip back. This trip was a little more interesting with much busier traffic coming out of the Bay and being swapped a lot by ATC while I was getting flight following updates. Then there was a jet that wasn't talking to anybody that was flying right at me. The controllers were finally able to reach him although he still seemed oblivious. While they were trying to figure out what he was doing, I climbed to 12,500 to get out of the way.
I was hoping to stop at Kernville for lunch, but there was a NOTAM that 100LL fuel was currently unavailable and I didn't have all the much fuel. I was worried if I descended all the way down there, I'd be too worried about our fuel level climbing back out to head home so we decided to skip Kernville and head home with 2.0 on the tach. This was Sarah's second trip that we weren't able to get lunch at Kernville, maybe we'll have to dedicate a trip some time...
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Add KVCV to the airport map
Michelle and I flew down to Victorville today to look at new TVs. Currently we have an overhead projector that works ok on movies that aren't real dark and as long as all of the windows are covered with black-out coverings. Now that we'll be having a kid, it probably won't work out to well to have the room pitch black while trying to watch tv. This means we're looking for a new TV. Since we're used to the 99" screen we have right now, it'll be hard to step down in size.
Originally I was thinking about getting a plasma, but I can see them flicker and it drives me crazy. This leaves us with LCD (since we want to hang it on the wall). I've been looking at online reviews and seeing some at peoples houses and narrowed it down between the Samsung LN52A650 and the Sharp Aquos LC-52D64U, which are both 52" LCDs. Michelle's principal had the Sharp at their house and it looked great.
As I was reading reviews, it seemed that the Samsung had an edge in picture quality and features, but was more glossy and susceptible to glares. Since we have our house set up to eliminate all light for the projector, there should be no glare issue. Also, Best Buy and Circuit City both were out of the Sharp model and do not have the new model in stock that apparently became available this past January.
As I was shopping for prices, it was obvious that Amazon.com was by far the cheapest vendor and there was a lot of good reviews for them. Since you can't see what the TVs really look like from the internet, we flew down to Victorville to see them at Best Buy. It was a bit bumpy on the way down, but I was cleared through the Edwards restricted airspace above 6000 ft (I was at 7500 ft anyways). Million Air had a really nice Dodge Minivan courtesy car. It didn't cost anything and they didn't take a tip. They even told me to not put any gas in it! I feel bad since I didn't do any business with them, but used their car; I'll get over it quickly. The way back was much smoother and we made it home with 1.4 hours on the tach.
The final results, we're getting the Samsung LN52A650 with a tilt wall mount. This way if light glare is an issue, we'll be able to angle it down to avoid the lights. So far there has been a little glitch with Amazon, and I don't think this will work out as intended, but will still end up good. They had a deal for 2 years of no interest if you sign up for an Amazon credit card. The problem is, the limit is so low it doesn't even cover the cost of the TV. Amazon doesn't allow you to split an order between two credit cards either. After talking to customer support, they suggested buying a gift card with my personal credit card, then applying that to the purchase so that the balance that needs to get applied to the Amazon credit card is lower than the limit. Now I'm just waiting for the gift card I had emailed to myself to show up...
I'll post again once I have the TV up and running.
P.S. We also found out we'll probably have to update our receiver to handle the new HD cables. The plan for now is to have the S-video from the receiver and the HDMI directly from the satellite box both go to the TV so we can avoid HD on the receiver for the time being; one thing at a time.
Originally I was thinking about getting a plasma, but I can see them flicker and it drives me crazy. This leaves us with LCD (since we want to hang it on the wall). I've been looking at online reviews and seeing some at peoples houses and narrowed it down between the Samsung LN52A650 and the Sharp Aquos LC-52D64U, which are both 52" LCDs. Michelle's principal had the Sharp at their house and it looked great.
As I was reading reviews, it seemed that the Samsung had an edge in picture quality and features, but was more glossy and susceptible to glares. Since we have our house set up to eliminate all light for the projector, there should be no glare issue. Also, Best Buy and Circuit City both were out of the Sharp model and do not have the new model in stock that apparently became available this past January.
As I was shopping for prices, it was obvious that Amazon.com was by far the cheapest vendor and there was a lot of good reviews for them. Since you can't see what the TVs really look like from the internet, we flew down to Victorville to see them at Best Buy. It was a bit bumpy on the way down, but I was cleared through the Edwards restricted airspace above 6000 ft (I was at 7500 ft anyways). Million Air had a really nice Dodge Minivan courtesy car. It didn't cost anything and they didn't take a tip. They even told me to not put any gas in it! I feel bad since I didn't do any business with them, but used their car; I'll get over it quickly. The way back was much smoother and we made it home with 1.4 hours on the tach.
The final results, we're getting the Samsung LN52A650 with a tilt wall mount. This way if light glare is an issue, we'll be able to angle it down to avoid the lights. So far there has been a little glitch with Amazon, and I don't think this will work out as intended, but will still end up good. They had a deal for 2 years of no interest if you sign up for an Amazon credit card. The problem is, the limit is so low it doesn't even cover the cost of the TV. Amazon doesn't allow you to split an order between two credit cards either. After talking to customer support, they suggested buying a gift card with my personal credit card, then applying that to the purchase so that the balance that needs to get applied to the Amazon credit card is lower than the limit. Now I'm just waiting for the gift card I had emailed to myself to show up...
I'll post again once I have the TV up and running.
P.S. We also found out we'll probably have to update our receiver to handle the new HD cables. The plan for now is to have the S-video from the receiver and the HDMI directly from the satellite box both go to the TV so we can avoid HD on the receiver for the time being; one thing at a time.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
My first annual with N951CC
I just got through my first annual with N951CC and my first annual as an airplane owner. I think I was lucky compared to most new owners, but I still have some squawks to take care of. I was nervous of this annual because I know the engine is starting to develop some issues (leaking from the exhaust valve on #1), and because of financial concerns due to the post I'll publish tomorrow after our party tonight. All of the other cylinders passed inspection with ok compressions, but you can tell the engine is showing its age (2300 hours with 2000 normal Time Between Overhaul TBO). The borescope inspection of the #1 exhaust valve showed no burning so it was allowed to continue in service until the next inspection.
My mechanic found the ailerons were not hitting the stops simultaneously and had to adjust the rigging so that the right aileron hit the up stop as the left hit the bottom stop and vice versa. He also found the elevator cable tension to be too high and had to reduce it a little. All of these things were fairly minor and no major issues were found. I had squawked a bad gyro bearing earlier, but was unsure of which one it was. As we were troubleshooting a burnt out strobe light, it sounded like the turn-coordinator (which was spun up since it is electric and we had the battery turned on) was making the same sound so I sent for an overhaul exchange from Pacific Southwest Instruments. As it turns out, I did my post-maintenance flight today and the gyro noise is still there so it's a different instrument. There are only 2 other gyros in the airplane, the directional gyro (DG) and the attitude indicator (AI).
My mechanic washed the engine once he finished with the rest of the airplane and pulled it out of the hanger and I was able to wash the exterior this morning after my flight. I cleaned the airplane while the interior was removed and I cleaned the carpeting as I installed it. Next time I go out there, I'll clean the plastic interior, the panel, and the seats and it will be just like new.
Below are some pics I took during the annual.
I spent last weekend (including Friday) out at the airport helping my mechanic with the mundane work of removing and replacing inspection panels, seats, and the interior floor carpeting. I also came in and tried to clean out the airplane inside the inspection panes. This was a pretty tough job, but I used 2 accordion type oil fillers from Wal-Mart and duct taped them to my shop vac so I was able to get into to some of the tough areas. I also had the plastic right elevator cap replaced with a new fiberglass one since it was crushed and bent. I was also able to help by removing the wheel pants, cleaning the grease from the rims, replacing a burnt out landing light, and removing the gear and strut fairings.
My mechanic found the ailerons were not hitting the stops simultaneously and had to adjust the rigging so that the right aileron hit the up stop as the left hit the bottom stop and vice versa. He also found the elevator cable tension to be too high and had to reduce it a little. All of these things were fairly minor and no major issues were found. I had squawked a bad gyro bearing earlier, but was unsure of which one it was. As we were troubleshooting a burnt out strobe light, it sounded like the turn-coordinator (which was spun up since it is electric and we had the battery turned on) was making the same sound so I sent for an overhaul exchange from Pacific Southwest Instruments. As it turns out, I did my post-maintenance flight today and the gyro noise is still there so it's a different instrument. There are only 2 other gyros in the airplane, the directional gyro (DG) and the attitude indicator (AI).
My mechanic washed the engine once he finished with the rest of the airplane and pulled it out of the hanger and I was able to wash the exterior this morning after my flight. I cleaned the airplane while the interior was removed and I cleaned the carpeting as I installed it. Next time I go out there, I'll clean the plastic interior, the panel, and the seats and it will be just like new.
Below are some pics I took during the annual.
Just going in starting to get disassembled.
Wings with the inspection plates removed.
Interior removed, inspection plates not removed yet.
Interior with the inspection plates removed.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
4th of July 2008 trip to Oceano and Santa Paula in N951CC
Since this last year when we knew that Michelle would not be teaching during summer school, we had planned on taking a bunch of trips this summer. Once I bought our airplane in December, those trips became a bunch of flying trips. Unfortunately, we've been so busy that it's been hard for us to get out and have some fun. With the 4th of July holiday and the extra day off from work, Michelle and I decided to try to fly to Oceano for the weekend, again.
We've tried to get there before, but the fog has prevented us from ever getting there. This time there was fog in the morning, but it was forcasted to burn off so we waited for that and checked the visibilities due to the 2 fires burning near us. The flight briefing came back with Oceano fog lifting and visibilities poor, but plenty good to make the trip.
It was a nice sight to see $5.08 for avgas so we filled the tanks before tying down the airplane for the weekend. The airport provides a nice little camping area for pilots and we pitched our tent. We had to be sure to close the windows when we left though because they watered the campground daily from noon-2pm. With cheap gas come expensive tie-downs. The price was $10/day for tie-down and $10/day for camping with no mention of the tie-down being waived for campers as is the norm.
We've tried to get there before, but the fog has prevented us from ever getting there. This time there was fog in the morning, but it was forcasted to burn off so we waited for that and checked the visibilities due to the 2 fires burning near us. The flight briefing came back with Oceano fog lifting and visibilities poor, but plenty good to make the trip.
The air was nice and smooth out of Inyokern and we flew south to California City before turning west over Tehachapi, to avoid the temporary flight restriction (TFR) area due to the Piute fire. The smoke was blowing north-east and was the main source for the smoke in our valley. Once we were south of that fire, the air cleared up and the visibility was great. The flight was incredibly smooth and right on time with 1.5 hours enroute to Oceano(L52). With no fog in sight, I flew an upwind leg over the airport and entered into the landing pattern after flying over the beach. The runway looks short since I've been spoiled with very long runways, but we had no problem getting in.
It was a nice sight to see $5.08 for avgas so we filled the tanks before tying down the airplane for the weekend. The airport provides a nice little camping area for pilots and we pitched our tent. We had to be sure to close the windows when we left though because they watered the campground daily from noon-2pm. With cheap gas come expensive tie-downs. The price was $10/day for tie-down and $10/day for camping with no mention of the tie-down being waived for campers as is the norm.
Once we were settled in, we walked to a nearby diner for lunch. The Rock-and-Roll Diner is two train cars attached together for the dining area. They had excellent food and their BBQ was over a Oak (or Hickory I forgot) wood fire. After lunch we walked down to the beach and watched some kite surfers, it's amazing to watch how high they can jump into the air with those kites. I'd definitely buy one of those if I lived in the area. This is the only beach in California where they allow cars on the beach. There are cars, trucks, and RVs as far as you can see on the beach and you can get a permit to camp on the beach with your RV as well. Off road vehicles are also allowed on the sand dunes just south of oceano. They are pretty hard core sand dunes so SUVs won't make it, but 4 wheelers and dune buggies are everywhere.
After wandering around for awhile, we headed back to the airport and ate dinner (beef stew back packing meal). Trying to start a fire was a terrific effort since the wood was incredibly green. Even using the grill to start logs proved useless. Eventually we found some cut branches that were pretty thick near the bathroom and I chopped them up with our little hatchet and soon we had a fire.
On Friday we wandered around for awhile and ate lunch at a little BBQ stand, we eventually decided to take the bus to Pismo Beach. After realizing we missed the bus at the stop right outside the airport, we decided to walk to the next bus stop. The next stop is where we needed to connect to a different bus to get to Pismo so maybe it was on a different schedule. After over a mile of walking, we finally got to the bus stop. The sign didn't label the 4th as a day the bus wasn't running, but after calling the hotline for a schedule, they said it was not running. So we walked another mile plus to Pismo Beach.
It was another very nice beach, but without the cars on the this one. We walked around for awhile and decided we were still hungry so Michelle got a brownie strawberry shortcake and we walked back to the Lion's club so I could try their tri-tip. Very good again and this time they had a sax quartet playing. We listened to them for awhile, then headed back to Oceano taking the beach instead of the roads this time. We found a little salt water taffy shop next to the beach so we decided to stop in and get some taffy for Kevin and Sarah. I know they love taffy and they're back in Inyokern watching our dogs so they definitely deserve some taffy.
After resting for awhile at the campground, we walked to a fine Italian restaurant and ate some pizza, which was very good; the thinnest pizza I ever ate. We took our folding chairs to the sand dunes and set up a spot to watch the fireworks. Once it got dark people started shooting fireworks. Pismo Beach was firing their fireworks off the pier, but unfortunately, we were far away and even though we could see them fine, they were as spectacular from that far away. There were plenty of other fireworks to watch though since there were 40 billion people on the beach and half of them were launching pretty cool fireworks. At about 10, most of the fireworks died down and we headed for bed.
Saturday morning the fog had rolled in so our flight to Santa Paula was delayed be a few hours, but we eventually got out just fine. We flew down to Santa Barbara and south over the coast and around to Ojai to avoid another fire TFR just north of Santa Barbara. The Santa Paula airport is right next to a mountain ridge so you have to fly a tight pattern. This ended up being one of my worst landings, which I won't bore you with more than to say something is screwy with that airport on final and over the runway itself and it wasn't just me. It seemed that almost everybody that came in had a hard time as well. Of course this wonderful landing was made in front of Michelle's sister Lisa who is already not to fond of flying in smaller airplanes.
We had a great visit with Lisa and Matt and were able to even get out and see the June Brides in concert. Concert is used pretty liberally here since it was in a carport in the back of someone's house. It was still entertaining and worth seeing. I love Lisa's new place since it has so many extra hidden spaces and rooms. There is a soon to be pottery room in the garage, lots of storage, a room for her therapy business and a loft over the garage for the perfect office / guest bedroom. The front yard was huge with all sorts of flowers and birds.
Like all vacations, we had to leave Sunday morning. We were planning to rush out bright and early to beat the desert heat, thermals, and winds, but the fog at Santa Paula forced us to take our leisurely time before heading to the airport. After eating a muffin at the terminal, we took off for Inyokern. I'm convinced there is something out of whack with the airport since the takeoff was a lot of fun as well. Air traffic control was definitely out numbered today since it took me almost 15 minutes before Hawthorne radio got back to me and I was able to activate my flight plan. I was never able to get flight following on our hour flight back to Inyokern over 4 different approach and center sectors since they were swamped.
The flight was incredibly smooth until Lancaster where there was only a few very light bumps to about the California City area. From there we started our descent and had just a little bit more chop. In general, it was very nice flight considering we were coming in just after noon in July in the desert. By 1:30 we were home and the dogs could stop whining with excitement to see us. Another thanks to Kevin and Sarah for watching them.
See the complete album of pictures here.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jayson.brouchoud/4thOfJuly2008/photo#s5220064572343079874
Saturday, June 28, 2008
N951CC flight to Lancaster Fox Field (KWJF)
Michelle and I had planned on flying to Bakersfield yesterday for her to change her name at the social security office, but due to bad visibility from the nearby Clover fire in the Kennedy Meadows area (visibilities creating IMC in many locations and in some mountain passes), we had to drive there. We didn't have any plans for today, but the visibility was much better today and since we couldn't fly yesterday, we decided to fly to Big Bear for lunch since we've not yet made it all the way there. The weather was good, the TFRs along the route were avoidable (rocket launch to 27,000 ft and fires), and the winds and turbulence wasn't forcasted until 1pm.
It was a great day for flying, there was no wind at the airport and there was no turbulence on climbout; cruising at 8,500 ft was smooth. Unfortunatly the Edwards restricted airspace was active (it isn't usually on weekends) so we had to make a large diversion to fly around. Then, Michelle started to not feel so good.
It took us longer to get to the airport and airborne than expected since we hadn't actually planned on flying today. She hadn't eaten anything all day and flying to Big Bear would put lunch around 1pm and that means we'd be in the turbulence coming home. So again, we didn't make it to Big Bear and decided to divert and eat in Lancaster instead.
Not getting to Big Bear didn't bother me much, I really don't want to rush in there. They are located very high at almost 7,000 ft and the density altitude was already at 10,000 ft when I got my pre-flight. The approach into the area is over mountains that will produce lots of turbulence, so I'd rather delay the flight to another day instead of push an uncomfortable flight into terrible one. Michelle still is not sure how much she likes her new headset. She said it's comfortable with the exception that it pinches along her ears. Here's another mugshot of us, you can see Michelle's new headset as well.
It was a great day for flying, there was no wind at the airport and there was no turbulence on climbout; cruising at 8,500 ft was smooth. Unfortunatly the Edwards restricted airspace was active (it isn't usually on weekends) so we had to make a large diversion to fly around. Then, Michelle started to not feel so good.
It took us longer to get to the airport and airborne than expected since we hadn't actually planned on flying today. She hadn't eaten anything all day and flying to Big Bear would put lunch around 1pm and that means we'd be in the turbulence coming home. So again, we didn't make it to Big Bear and decided to divert and eat in Lancaster instead.
Not getting to Big Bear didn't bother me much, I really don't want to rush in there. They are located very high at almost 7,000 ft and the density altitude was already at 10,000 ft when I got my pre-flight. The approach into the area is over mountains that will produce lots of turbulence, so I'd rather delay the flight to another day instead of push an uncomfortable flight into terrible one. Michelle still is not sure how much she likes her new headset. She said it's comfortable with the exception that it pinches along her ears. Here's another mugshot of us, you can see Michelle's new headset as well.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
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.
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.
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