Flying Home

The second weekend in November was the Tequila Cup acro contest.  I had left my Pitts in Tucson after the US Nationals with the plan of flying the Cup and then home. 

The weekend before we flew commercial down to Phoenix to visit some friends and family.  And me being who I am, we stopped by the Scottsdale Air Fair to check out that event.  It's a small event but had a number of jets there that surprised me.  Well done!

The Tequila Cup contest went fine, it was nice to get one more in at the end of the season.  There were some fun events around the contest, but most of all hanging with my friends was the best.  In the end, I did walk away with third place in Intermediate.  Next year... Advanced!

The flight home was a great end to the two month round trip.  It took a day longer than anticipated due to weather.  Not sure if I'd want to make this trek again in Winter while flying a heaterless, drafty airplane!

Monday the 12th

KAVQ KBLH KAPV KMAE KDVO

Nothing too exciting this day.  Lots of desert, frustrated that the batteries fell out of my camera before Edwards and I couldn't reach them.  Thought for a second about taking the ones out of my GPS, but decided better of it...  I was amazed at the smog as I crossed the hills east of the LA Basin.  Persisted well north of the metro area.

Tuesday the 13th

KDVO KRDD KLMT KLKV 

This day was a bit more challenging.  Clouds were at the top of the hills crossing from Redding to Klamath Falls.  No real options in case of power failure other than the occasional clearing and my chute.  Once north of Klamath Falls, the clouds went from the surface to over 10,000, I was at both those extremes.  After a bit of back and forth, called it a day and headed for Lake County hoping for cheap hangar, car and hotel.

During my search for a path to Redmond, I was using flight following, which wasn't an issue at 10K.  When I decided to take a peek underneath, I lost radar services at about 7K.  Center notified me that I was too low and radar services were terminated, to which I acknowledged and squawked VFR.  I guess they never heard my radio call.  After I had been in Lakeview for an hour or so I got a call from the FAA saying they were looking for me.  That was shortly followed by a call from USAF SAR.  And not long after that a message through this board from a member who works for the NTSB asking how I liked Lakeview!

Lesson learned, when Center says services terminated, frequency change approved, hang around on the freq for a minute to make sure they heard you acknowledge!

Wednesday the 14th

KLKV KBDN KDLS KTTD KRNT

Based on the weather briefing, this should have been a fairly straightforward flight.  Bend was not my original choice for a stop, I wanted to land at Redmond to check it out.  However, en-route from Lake County it went from clear to 200' overcast.  As I approached I could see a band of low clouds covering about a 10 square mile area.  But Bend was clear so no problem scooting over there.

The hop to The Dalles was without issue.  From there it should have been non-stop to Renton.  However, north if the metro Portland area clouds were to the ground and a solid overcast beyond.  So I turned around and landed at Troutdale, grabbed some fuel, warmed up and checked WSDOT webcams.  By then Kelso and Toledo were under big holes.  Fired up to head north and go over on top.  However, by then it had cleared underneath so I just shot up I-5 to Chehalis, then direct to over Puyallup and on home.

Overall a fun and challenging cross country.  Cold and weather played a big role in decision making, some better than others.

I took a number of pictures, if interested.

The Rest of September's Adventure

Well, I made it all the way to Texas, and then on to Tucson. My schedule was pretty packed so I wasn't able to make regular updates as I had hoped. 

Rawlins, Wyoming was a neat surprise.  The guy at the FBO came out to guide me to a parking spot and immediately pulled out his camera and started taking pictures.

He couldn't have been more friendly, even brought the (free) courtesy car out to the airplane so didn't have to carry my bag across the ramp.  The car was great, a mid-1990's Thunderbird with a stick shift! Actually pretty fun to drive.  Off I went in search of a hotel room, of which there weren't many.  Lots of hotels, but all booked.  Finally found one with a restaurant and after a crappy steak, headed off to bed.

The next stop was Greeley, Colorado.  A nice airport with friendly staff in the very modern FBO.  While refueling, ran into another IAC member and Skybolt pilot that was local to the field.  Damn if I can remember his name though... Had to tear myself away from biplane and acro talk to get on with my journey.

In Hugoton, Kansas a local pilot observed that my little Pitts wouldn't be so great for dusting crops. Guess I won't bother going to duster school...  That was a long leg of my flight, the last 20 minutes I just wanted OUT of the cockpit.

My last stop before my destination was Elk City, Oklahoma.  Yet another character of an airport employee.  Guided me to a parking spot a few feet from the fuel truck, but on the wrong side.  Repositioned the truck by drive down the ramp 100 yards or so.  Kept me laughing with his political commentary of current events. 

From there it was a straight shot to Denison and the US National Aerobatic Contest!

Had a great time at Nationals again, I can see how going can be addicting. Once you start to create the friendships with folks around the country, you look forward to seeing them every year. They always have one or two photographers there, you can see all the pictures here. I ended up 11th out of 19 in my category, not too bad considering I hadn't flown the Wolf Pitts most of the summer!

Once the Nationals was over, I had to wait one more day for the weather to clear.  But on Sunday the 30th I launched for Marana, Arizona.  The first stop was Sweetwater, Texas.

I swear the guy there walked straight out of a Dukes of Hazard episode.  It was fantastic!  Rebel flag hat, cut off shirt, homemade tattoos... Couldn't have scripted it better myself.  I poke fun but he was really friendly and ran back inside to get a camera to take pictures of the Wolf Pitts.

Next was Pecos, Texas, a small town pretty much on the Mexican border.  A really nice couple was at the airport office and she guided me to a parking spot while he got the gas truck.  I didn't stay too long as there were some thunderstorms brewing. She offered some free water after I paid for the fuel.  Had to make sure the cows grazing by the runway didn't decide to cross during my takeoff roll...

Had to navigate around the line of thunderstorms to Las Cruces, New Mexico.  They must have stretched 100 miles north.  After a while I heard one of the other competitors trying to communicate with Albuquerque Center to find a way around the storms, but they couldn't get clear communications.  After a bit of frustration on both ends, I offered up the route I had just flow to the other pilot via Center.  Thankfully, she heard me just fine and was able to get around them safely.

A quick gas stop at Las Cruces and I was racing the sunset to Tucson.  I must say, the landscape from Pecos to Tucson was some of the most desolate and beautiful I've seen.  I'll have to go back and explore someday.  Shortly before sunset I made it to Marana and was met with a beer from my friend Will Allen, he'd arrived there a day earlier.

Now the Wolf Pitts is tucked away in Arizona awaiting my return to bring her home.  But first, we'll fly the Tequila Cup aerobatic contest in November.

Washington to Wyoming

It all looked so simple during planning. Plug the airports into the GPS, climb to 11,500 for the best winds and enjoy the view. Oh... no.... Can't be that easy! Just for fun, Mother Nature decided to throw in a bunch of smoke from forest fires!

Had to double back once north of Boise, the smoke got so think I couldn't see the ground anymore. Never did see Boise, and I was within 10 miles of downtown! Wasn't until Wyoming that visibility got above 5 miles.

The front of my airplane has a thin layer of ash on it from the fires. All that crap is floating up there for us to suck in our engines and lungs. Pretty amazing.

Spending the night in Rawlins, Wyoming. This is as far as I could get safely before sunset. I was ready anyway to get out of the cockpit, 5 hours is a lot when most of my flights are only 15 minutes!

Tomorrow I'll stop in Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma before arriving in Texas. Unless the smoke is thick in the morning, there's no reason not to finish the journey tomorrow.

More then!

Practice is Over!

The fifth day of practice has come to an end here is smoky Ephrata. Over 200 forest fires in Eastern Washington has severely reduced visibility. Made for some interesting training when you can't see the horizon!

Many, many thanks to the exceptional Lew Shattuck for spending his time driving all the way over here  to provide me my own personal aerobatic camp!  He is a critiquer extraordinaire, clearly explaining and fixing problems with my flying.  I am extremely fortunate for his assistance.

While at Nationals, I'll be sharing the Wolf Pitts with an Aussie named Ben. He came here to Ephrata to get familiar with N240WP, and did quite well for the most part. He'll be some competition down in Texas.  It's cool to watch someone else fly the Wolf Pitts, otherwise I never get to hear how wonderful the airplane sounds!  Ben is a good pilot and he's taking care of the airplane, can't ask for much more.

Tomorrow morning I start my trek to Texas. I'm hoping to make it to at least Rock Springs, Wyoming.  Maybe Laramie, or maybe even Cheyenne, but probably not.  The key is to just go one leg at a time and see where I end up.

Should be some fantastic scenery....

Renton to Ephrata

Well, the first leg of my journey is complete. Chose to leave a day early as the weather is supposed to turn ugly overnight and that would have kept me in Seattle until the afternoon or even Sunday.

The first cross country flight after major maintenance is always a little unnerving. But except for a few (imagined) noises, everything was fine.

Passed four impressive forest fires, but silly me had my camera and cell phone where I couldn't get to them. The picture below is of the sun around 6pm in a cloudless sky. The iPhone camera doesn't do it justice, the color was a deep pink.

Now to get ready for five days for practice to get back in the groove...

Cutting Corners

One of my key mentors in airplane ownership is a guy named Dave Womeldorff. He was the driving force behind the creation of my Eagle partnership back in the late 1970's and has taught me a lot about maintaining airplanes.

He has a couple mantras that are painfully true. "Anything you do, you'll do three times before it's right." and "There's a right way and a wrong way."

After my initial test flight there was a bit of oil leaking. We identified the culprit, the oil pressure line fitting, but to fix it required removing the engine... again... Something I wasn't too hip on.

The general consensus was that it would be fine for my trek to Texas and I could wait until I got back to fix it proper. One suggestion I got, and followed, was to put some fuel tank sealant around the fitting. That slowed down the leak quite a bit.

"There's a right way and a wrong way."

That phrase kept me up at night. Dammit. So yesterday I pulled the engine to fix the fitting. Removed the sealant gooped on there and put some correct thread sealant on the fitting.

Still leaked. Dammit.

Got a new fitting and again, pulled the engine to replace the fitting entirely. Turns out I did damage it while putting it in and that's where the new leak was from.

9 hours after I got to the airport the engine was started for a second time... NO LEAKS!

"Anything you do, you'll do three times before it's right."

1. Sealant
2. Damaged fitting
3. New fitting

Funny how he's so right on all this...

Tomorrow the adventure begins!

Flying Truck

Helped a friend out today by transporting his broken canopy to a shop for repair. The traffic between Renton and Arlington is abysmal weekdays, it could easily be a 4 hour project to get there and back.

In an airplane, 25 minutes each way.

These are the times I'm glad I keep my share in the Cessna partnership.