Cooling Off

KFAM 231335Z AUTO 27003KT 10SM CLR 08/04 A3033

The seasons are changing. During July and August, I would try to be at the airport at sunrise, or just soon after, so that I could finish my flying before the heat of the day set in. Now, I do my flying in the mid-morning so that the temperature isn't too cold. When it was hot, I did my preflight in the hangar and pulled the airplane out just when it was time to start it. Now, I untie it and pull it out so that I can do the preflight in the warmth of the sunshine.

I thought that by living closer to the airport than I did in New York, that I would fly more often. It hasn't seem to have worked out that way. This morning< I shot a couple of landings, but mostly I just stooged around. I tried to match some features with the sectional chart-- sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't. I don't know how frequently the Feds update terrain features, but I suspect it isn't often. Once, I lived in an apartment complex in Virginia Beach that several years later, a sectional chart showed that a drive-in movie theater was there. Can you identify this airplane?

It is a Hummelbird H-5. It has a VW engine and burns 3 gallons of gas per hour.

Hot Flying

KFAM 301155Z AUTO 00000KT 10SM CLR 23/18 A2993

Note that was about 73F at 0655 local time. Later on, it was considerably hotter.

KFAM 301855Z AUTO 19009G15KT 10SM CLR 39/16 A2989, or 102F.

Two days before that, it reached 108F.

I flew yesterday morning, I was airborne before 0700 and back down around 0800. Unlike last weekend, the air is starting to have the summertime "milk-bottle" haze that builds up when there hasn't been a front push through for awhile. The KFAM area has not had any significant rainfall in weeks. The city canceled its fireworks for the Fourth.

Around 0900, this bird showed up:

There was a forest fire in the next county. The governor came to fly over the fire.

Normally, KFAM on a Saturday morning is pretty quiet. There's not a pilot shop or a restaurant to generate traffic. But not yesterday. The helo disgorged a number of National Guardsmen and cops started showing up; first a state trooper, than more troopers and county cops, as well as a couple of photographers. A rather bemused transient stopped in for fuel and a bathroom break; he and his family got out of there as soon as they could.

I left about 0920 or so, long before the governor and his entourage arrived. There was a trooper outside the terminal building, smoking a cigarette. I told him that I was leaving before the circus showed up. He laughed and said that was a good idea.

When it is getting warm, oil temperatures are something I watch. Normally, I fly at cruise with the throttle wide open, enough carburetor heat to get a carb inlet temp of 5-10C and I control the engine speed with the mixture control. It is an efficient way to fly, but it does generate more heat in the engine. Using fuel for cooling isn't a terrific idea, but in these temps, it's what one does. (Or fly higher for longer flights.)

No-Go Markings

KFAM 161155Z AUTO 17004KT 10SM CLR 22/18

KFAM 161635Z AUTO 23012G17KT 10SM CLR 32/18 A3012

After reading On a Wing and a Whim's post about hangar rash, I thought it a good idea to paint guide lines and warning lines on the asphalt just outside my hangar.

I went flying this morning. When I finished and I was pulling the airplane back into the hangar, I stopped as the wingtips were even with the vertical I-beams that support the roof. I used a piece of rope to measure the distance from the I-beams to the wingtips, then took off about four inches for a buffer zone. I scratched a mark on the asphalt with a rock.

Then it was off to the hardware store for red paint, white paint and masking tape. I measured to the center and outlined a guide stripe for the tailwheel, then I measured for guide stripes for the mains. I measured the scratched-in markings for the wingtip warning stripes, they were pretty damn close to where the arithmetic said they should be. I laid out the stripes with masking tape and painted them.

As you can see, I was slightly off-center when I pulled the airplane in after my flight. As long as I keep the mains inside the red warning stripes, I'm not going to smack an I-beam with a wingtip.

Flying around here is a morning affair. It gets hot by mid-day. Even at 0700 local, it was 72 degrees this morning, it's now 90. It gets uncomfortable flying when it is that hot, at least down around a few thousand feet above ground. Better to be done flying by mid-morning. Fortunately, I have a four-legged furry alarm clock that'll get me up for a "dawn patrol" flight.

There has to be a decent restaurant at KDXE, which is about 72 miles south-southeast of here. I heard a number of airplanes calling in position reports on Unicom for that field. One morning I'll have to get up a little earlier and go check it out.

Saturday Morning

KFAM 021255Z AUTO 16003KT 10SM BKN100 10/08 A2998

There were a couple of decent fly-ins this weekend that I didn't make. The airplane had a bad tailwheel shimmy on the trip out. The mechanic here (MacAir) took a look at it-- his opinion was that some of the nuts on the tailwheel clamps were tired and needed to be replaced, which he did. I shot four landings this morning, including 3-point landings, and nary a shimmy.

It is a joy to once again live near the airport. And that shade-hangar is nice. A rain shower passed overhead as I was doing my pre-flight, which drove home that point.

Gas here is self-service, $5.24/gallon for 100 LL. The city also has a fuel truck for Jet A, for those who don't want to pump their own. I think that the truck is available during normal business hours during the work week, but since I don't burn Jet A, I haven't paid much attention to it. (Jet A is $4.80/gal.)

There is also at least one courtesy car, maybe two. If you fly in for lunch, I recommend the Factory Diner (7am to 2pm) in the Factory, Casa Sol (also in the Factory) or Bauhaus Kaffe, which is on the north side of the courthouse square.

My only gripe about the town is that I haven't found a good bookstore. But thanks, in part, to Amazon, I don't expect to find them.

A New Home

KFAM 202155Z AUTO 28011G17KT 10SM VCTS FEW036 BKN070 OVC120 19/16 A3009 RMK AO1 LTG DSNT ALQDS TSB2057 P0001

Shade-hangar at KFAM:

The engine cover is pushed back because I was cleaning the bugs from the cowling and the wings.

A Long Day, Indeed.

KGON 191256Z 35005KT 10SM CLR 18/07 A3016

KFAM 192315Z AUTO 20008KT 10SM CLR 29/15 A3000

9.4 hours of flying time, 11.5 hours overall, all hand-flown. I'd have killed for roll trim. And a turbo. 333C will climb to 10,500', but it takes a long time for the last few thousand feet. It was worth it, for the air was smooth and cold.

The last leg of the flight was down lower, under the late afternoon cumulus clouds. Air temps were in the low 90s; pretty much summertime flying with all of the fun that entails. At least there weren't any thunderstorms.

Tomorrow I'll go clean the bugs off the leading edges. I was too tired when I got into KFAM to do that, although I did clean them off the windshield.

Onward.......

On the ground at I12. I've had a bit of tailwind, so I've been extending my legs.

400 or so miles to go!!!

A Long Day Approaches

KGON 181156Z 02004KT 10SM CLR 13/10 A3022

Early tomorrow morning, I am going to launch on my ferry flight from Groton, CT (KGON) to Farmington, MO (KFAM). Today would have probably been a better day to go, at least as far as weather goes, but it is what it is. I had a long day traveling back east and a day to rest is a better idea.

One of the really nice flight-planning tools is Airnav's fuel flight planner. It computes the great circle route and then finds the best places to fuel, based on your preferred airspeed, fuel burn and leg length. You can opt for safest (depart with full fuel each time, cheapest (leave with minimum fuel when you can save money) or you can pick the routing. Since I hold that the only time you can have too much fuel is if your airplane is on fire, I plan using the "safest" mode.

One gripe is that it doesn't avoid Class B airspace. In the northeast, you'll have to tinker with it. One routing would take me to Harrisburg, PA, but that would require going smack-dab through the NYC TCA, which I prefer not to do.

Anyway, I'm off to the airport today to do an extended preflight.

UPDATE: Pumped the tires, topped off the tanks (the line guys did the first two), added a quart of oil, and did a ground-turn of the engine with a full run-up. I did that all early so as to finish before most people started flying and demanding line services. Looks good to go!

The Winds Doth Bloweth

METAR KGON 081956Z VRB04G18KT 10SM CLR 14/M04

I relocated the airplane to KGON four days ago. There have been strong winds from the northwest since a couple of days before that.

I am moving to the KFAM area. The flight out will take about ten hours of flying time, in no-wind conditions, which don't ever exist. I need very good weather for the second leg of the flight, as that would be the one where I fly over the Appalachian mountain range. The Appalachians are a very old mountain range, many times older than the Rockies. They probably rivalled the Rockies in height and grandeur when they were geologically young; a few hundred million years of erosion have worn them down quite a bit. But the range is littered with the carcasses of aircraft whose pilots underestimated them.

It was my hope to have the airplane out in KFAM before my move. But that may not happen.

Cold and Windy, Ah, Spring

KDXR 271153Z 32013G21KT 10SM CLR M02/M18 A3022

That's -2C, or about 29F. The wind chill knocks the temperature that one feels down into the teens. Last week, people were outside wearing t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops. Record high temperatures were being seen everywhere.

Not today.

Flight Planning, the Old School Way

With sectionals, a plotter, and a string marked with distance markings.

I do use online tools, as well. But there is no substitute for laying it out on the charts themselves and seeing the big picture, at least for me.

Snow

Or really, "lack thereof".

KPOU 291453Z 24007KT 10SM CLR 02/M11 A3015 RMK AO2 SLP208 T00171106 51008

The ground is bare here, unlike last year. A storm dropped a few inches early last week, which were then obliterated by rain and warmer temperatures. I have not removed the wheelpants from my airplane, I cannot remember ever not having done so by late December. It's normal for there to be snow on the ground from late December into March. But not this winter.

Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about not having to brush snow from the airplane or shovel out the tiedown. It just seems weird to be approaching February without any snow on the ground. 44N was buzzing yesterday with airplanes bringing customers to the airport cafe. The cafe did a brisk business and the airport sold fuel. People wanted to fly.

Long Flight Ahead

For career reasons, I am relocating this spring to KFAM. That'a about a thousand-mile cross-country, longer than I've done in twenty years. The way I used to plan a flight like that was to buy the charts for the trip, lay them out on a floor, and then use a string which was cut to my maximum leg length to plan fuel stops.

But brother, have things changed. Runway Finder allows you to plot a great-circle course between airports. I used that to eyeball where the stops would be along my proposed route.

But then a friend told me about AirNav, which I have used for years to compare fuel prices and to get airport information. Ah, but how little I knew! AirNav has a flight planning feature where you can input a long flight like the one I have in mind. then you tell it your speed, fuel burn and your maximum comfortable range. It asks for minimum runway lengthy whether the runways need to be paved, do you need runway lights, IFR approaches, and other stuff. And then AirNav spits out a number of routes for you to consider.

I'm going to have to tinker some with it to avoid at least one Class B. And, at one point, I will be down on the floor with my string to look for things like big obstacles and places where funnily painted jets do strange things.

It should be an adventure of a sorts.

Cold

DXR 151553Z 34012G25KT 10SM CLR M10/M24 A3034 RMK AO2 SLP282 T11001239

That is some cold. The temperature was -10.0C, or 14F, and the wind chill was brutal. I heard one airplane today overhead doing some training maneuvers. I sure hope that the airplane had been either in a heated hangar or they pre-heated the engine. But if it was a flight school airplane and the airplane was a "lease-back" (leased to the school by a private owner), then your guess is as good as mine whether or not they properly warmed the engine.

Airplane engines are not as robust as car engines. Cars tend to have iron engine blocks and often iron or steel cylinder barrels. You generally can't do that on a light aircraft, the weight is too prohibitive. The engines are aluminum and they don't take kindly to being started in very cold temperatures. If you start an airplane engine without preheating, the damn thing will want to climb out of the mounts to go find some oil. (Don't ask me how I know this.)

A really old trick was to drain the oil overnight and take it inside to warm up. The airlines had huge combustion heaters to warm those radial engines back in the day. Jet engines don't have reciprocating parts, they tend to tolerate cold starts much better.

The ignition problems that I blogged about last month were repaired. I did fly the airplane twice last weekend, when it was much nicer out.

Next up, the annual inspection.

Oy.

I ended up missing the fall foliage completely. The fuel gauge gave up the ghost, it had to be pulled and sent out for rebuilding. Fortunately, it wasn't either of the sensors in the tanks.

Got a couple of flights in. Not today, the mag check failed on the left magneto for #6 cylinder. The old trick of running it up and leaning the piss out of it didn't work, still bad. #6 is one of the hardest cylinders to get a plug out of, and the bottom plug is the worst one of all.

Here's an economic indicator: There are four airplane on tiedowns at 44N for sale, going by the signs on them. One is a really pretty Cessna 140 that has been owned by a couple for many years. I think it was the wife's airplane. There are a couple of 172s and a Champ. I didn't drive around looking at all of the airplanees to see if there are signs on any others.

It is a bad time to be selling, the used market supposedly is softer than it has been in a very long time.

Fall

KPOU 191853Z 28004KT 10SM CLR 20/08 A3020

Yes, I know, it's not technically Fall yet, not for a few more days.

But the nights are getting cooler, blankets are being used on beds.

And when it is a nice day with a clear blue sky and terrific visibility, with just enough wind to light puff out the windsock, that's a great day to indulge in a little bit of VFR wandering through the sky.

Even if I had to take the wheelpants off in order to add air to the mains (six screws per side). Even if it wound up that the preflight was longer than the flight. Such is life.

What a glorious day to fly!

The Wind Doth Bloweth

TAF for KPOU (Poughkeepsie, NY), the nearest observation station to Sky Acres Airport:

KPOU 281137Z 2812/2912 05015G28KT 3SM RA BR SCT015 OVC035
TEMPO 2812/2814 2SM +RA BR OVC015
FM281400 05020G36KT 2SM +RA BR OVC009
FM281600 30025G40KT 2SM RA BR SCT006 OVC012
FM282200 28020G35KT P6SM VCSH BKN050
FM290200 28012G20KT P6SM SCT050
FM290500 26010KT P6SM SKC

KPOU is in the projected less-dangerous semicircle of Hurricane Irene.

They're Baaack!

The mud daubers.

A little out of focus (so sue me), but that is a fuel sample drain that is completely blocked by a mud dauber's nest.

Or it was.

It's getting pretty soupy up there. In-flight visibility was maybe ten miles or so.

You can see further, but as for seeing recognizable objects on the ground, ten miles, maybe. It often gets worse here in the summer, and VFR flying is not much fun when it seems as though you're flying inside of a milk bottle.

By the way, if you want a classic Champ, this one is for sale at 44N:

Hot

It is early afternoon here and the outside air temp is flirting with 90degF, 50% humidity. Most light airplanes are not air-conditioned and, if you are flying them in such a direction that the sun pours through the windows, it's like riding in an Easy-Bake Oven, with the added joy of solar convective turbulence.

Better to go flying as early in the morning as possible. Which is what I did today. The airplane was refueled, tied down and I was home by 11.

The good news is that the mud daubers have given up trying to build their nest inside one of the fuel quick-drains. Every other preflight this month has involved removing that crap from the drain.

One of the Joys of Ownership

Washing the airplane:

Not seen are the hose and the long-handled brush.

The airplane was filthy, I haven't washed it in awhile. I sprayed Simple Green Aircraft Wash directly on it, then scrubbed with a water-Simple Green mixture.

Washing an airplane is hot, hard work. It's like hand-washing several cars at once. I didn't wax it; the paint is pretty crappy and wax would not help at this point. But it is still a few shades brighter than it was this morning.

I flew it for a bit afterwards to make sure that it was completely dry.

Bugs

Turned out that the problem was a species of bug known as a mud dauber. I knew that they will build nests inside of pitot tubes (which is why aircraft owners should keep them covered if the airplane isn't being used), but I had never heard of them building a nest inside of a fuel quick-drain.

A friend advised me to take a paper clip, unbend one end and poke around in the opening. Sure enough, bits of mud and dirt came out. I stirred the wire around and then the mess just flushed out with the fuel sample.

So I went flying! The winds went from calm when I left to "hold onto your hat, Hannah" in an hour. They weren't too bad of a crosswind, though, so the only real joy was wrestling with the cabin cover to put it back on.

Bummer

I was away for two weeks, so the other day I went to go flying.

At least that was my intention. Hardly any gas dribbled out of the test drain for one tank. My first thought was "gorrammit, somebody stole my gas", but then I "sticked" the tank and saw that the tank was three-quarters full. So either the quick-drain is FUBAR or there is something in the tank. I don't have the capability to remove the drain and then catch 15 gallons of avgas flowing out of the tank like some fratboy shotgunning a beer.

I re-tied the airplane back down, put in a call to the shop and went home.

W00t!

I got to go flying today!

It's fairly warm here. It was MVFR until noon, with broken cirrus at 2,300' after that. Flew around for a bit and then shot three landing for the logbook. I did pretty well, even with a seven week layoff from flying.

Feels good, even with gas at $5.80/gal.

Annual

The airplane still isn't back to me.

That's partially my fault, as I have told the mechanic repeatedly that I won't pay for expedited shipping for parts, unless I specifically approve it. The cost differential for large or heavy stuff isn't worth it to me. Besides the muffler, which I wrote about previously, the gyrocompass shit the bed on my pre-annual test flight. Modern DGs don't seem to be worth a crap. I had an old horizontal card WW2 surplus DG in my plane and it worked up until 2004.

They truly don't make them like that anymore. There were four war-surplus instruments in my airplane when I bought it, now 20 years ago (DG, AI, VSI, altimeter). The altimeter was the last to go. The rebuilding shop wouldn't touch it because it had indicator needles with radium paint on them.

Anyway, I fly for fun. That means that if the mechanic has an airplane come in that somebody uses in a business, it gets priority, and I am cool with that.

But the weather is nice, finally, it's been weeks and I want to go flying.

The Five Words That Strike Terror Into the Heart of an Aircraft Owner

"The annual inspection is due."

This is an event that aircraft owners shorten to "annual". It could also be called an "IRAN" for "inspect and repair as necessary", but it is more than that. Depending on the airframe, engine and propeller, there may be periodic detailed inspections, maintenance or even replacement of components. Virtually every production aircraft and engine has inspection guides as to what needs to be looked at, lubricated, or replaced.

The work is done by an airframe & powerplant mechanic, or "A&P". The inspection is done (or at least signed off) by an A&P who has inspection authorization (A&P-IA).

Experimental aircraft do not receive annuals, they receive "condition inspections". The difference is that there is more latitude on what should be done. Condition inspections can be done not only by an A&P, but also by the person who built the aircraft. (The builder receives a repairman authorization that is good for only that aircraft.)

Annuals can run the gamut from paper-pushing exercises to extremely detailed rebuilds. If you own a piston-engined airplane, a bad thing to do is to take it to a shop that does a lot of work on turbine-powered airplanes, as their view of what is a reasonable cost and your view will differ.

One of the biggest cons in the aircraft dealing racket are the words "fresh annual", for it means nothing. I've seen mechanically sound airplanes that, from the exterior, look like flying bales of scrap. I've seen very pretty looking airplanes that were sold with a "fresh annual" and which needed five figures' worth of repair work soon afterwards. Caveat emptor rules in buying aircraft.

So far, one of the mufflers needed to be rebuilt. That was sent off by surface freight, I'm not in a hurry as to justify shipping big metal parts by second day air.

Narco: Wonderful. Just Frelling Wonderful.

Narco Avionics has gone out of business.

Speaking as the owner of an airplane with all Narco radios, I sure as hell hope that somebody takes over the repair side of their business.

Nine Days Later From My Last Post

Today tt was 60degF and sunny. It was a gorgeous day for flying, and I did.

Almost all of the snow that was there nine days ago is gone, only the remnants of large piles and some stuff on north-facing hills remain. The ground alongside the paved areas at the airport is soft and almost squishy.

There is a layer in the atmosphere of brownish shmutz at the surface that goes up a few thousand feet or so. It seems to me that the brown layer is worse this year than in years past.

Winter Flying

That is ice on the trees. It was sunny out, the ice had melted from my airplane where the sun could shine on it. That meant that the right side of the tail and fuselage were covered with about an eighth of an inch of clear ice.

I was able to taxi to another part of the airport and park the airplane to turn that side of it directly into the sunshine. Less than a half-hour later, I was in the air. Overall, though, I spent more time preparing for the flight than I did flying, which is not terribly unusual in the winter.

Avgas here is now $5.30/gal. I can check fuel prices on AirNav, but some of the reports are over three weeks old and given the volatility in fuel pricing, a three week old report is worthless. Unless the price of local fuel is outrageous, I'll buy at my home airport, as I have an interest in seeing that they stay in business.

Anyway, the airports in southeast NY state may see a bit more airplanes on the tiedowns this year. The governor of CT wants to add a personal property tax for airplanes, which will make it attractive for those who can stomach the extra driving time to move them to other states. That'd be good for my airport, but not so good for airports like 11N and DXR.

Winter Flying

333C is almost ready to go:



Almost. The tailwheel needed to be inflated a bit. The snow berms being what they were, there was no way I could get my car close enough to the tail in order to use my electric tire pump. So I had to move my car to another place on the field and then taxi over there.

Those snow piles are down a good foot from what they were two weeks ago.

I am glad that I had been keeping up with clearing the tiedown and the airplane after each snowfall. Even if I couldn't always get every bit of snow and ice removed, I moved enough so that one warm day was all it took to finish the job. There were pilots out at the airport this time shoveling snow away from their airplanes, while all I had to do was preflight and go flying.

It hit 50degF here today. It was warm enough that I removed my cheapo winterization kit from the oil cooler. The landscape was still covered with snow, though.



There has been enough snow this winter that a day or two of 50 degree temperatures isn't going to change that. But it has been nice that there has been a break from the weekly heavy snow storms that ran through from Christmas to the end of January.

I Love It When a Plan Comes Together

Today was supposed to be sunny with strong and gusty winds. The winds died down early this morning. I went to the airport, got most of the snow and ice off the airplane. The Sun did the rest and, while that was happening, I cleared enough of the tiedown to taxi out. That was fun, including freeing the tailwheel from about half an inch of ice.

Took two hours of work, but I got it done. I went to the cafe to rest, had a couple cups of coffee, glanced over the newspaper and then I went flying! I flew for about 1.5 hours and got in three landings.

No photos, unfortunately, I left my camera home.

First flight in a month, too.