A Few Pics From The Windsock

Some local photographers hang out by the windsock on 34L and snap photos of planes coming in for landing.  I luckily was pointed to these great shots of yours truly..  ;-)

My Wing Camera Catches Washington State Landslide 20 minutes after it happens

Bekah and I decided to fly the Cascade Loop on Saturday, turns out our camera eerily captured more than we bargained for.  We left Paine field at 11, and traveled East of Arlington (KAWO) on our way to Darrington before turning North through the loop.  We didn't even notice but the Camera out on the wing caught probably the first images of the Washington State Landslide.  We came from the West and the majority of the landslide fell to the East, so from our perspective we didn't even notice it.  The cameral caught it though as you can see by clicking the below link.

Look just in front and below the spinner during the length of this video.  You will see the slide and also some smoke coming up from the center.  Also, the beginnings of the river being dammed up by the slide.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B7R_k41mdyz1OHktUVREb0ZzWWc&usp=sharing

Also, just to be clear, this video took place approx. 20 minutes after the slide, so the TFR was not in place at the time of our fly over.



Ariel's First Trip

We had some uncommonly nice weather in Seattle, so decided to take our new puppy up for her first flight, as well we got our first trip of the year to Friday Harbor.  Can't believe we have a place like this that we can fly into so close to home.  Grabed some dinner at Blue Water, walked along the docks for a while, then headed home.  Smooth Blue Skies.  Was a great experience.

 

 

Its been way too long since my last post !

So I have been maintaining and flying my RV almost for a year now.  I  have over 125 hours on it and have seen many places in it.   I will be starting my annual condition inspection in about 2-3 weeks and will post any findings from that inspection.  Also, I have created a map of all the airports visited thus far.   You can see it at the pic/link below.  I will continue to keep this updated as time goes by and this summer Bekah and I visit tons more airports and venture out to all corners of the country.   ;-)

RV-704CH Visited Airports

First BIG Trip !

Bekah and I took the RV out of state for the first time over labor day weekend.  We took it way out of state..  Our first stop was Medford Oregon, just north of the Siskiyou Range (Mt Shasta).  Was a great flight, but 20 knot headwind the whole way.  At Medford we refueled and continued our trip to Santa Rosa, Sonoma County Airport.  Again with the 20 knot headwind, but all in all we still made it from Seattle to Wine Country in about 4.5 hours flight time.

Everything went really well with the flight except for two things.  In Sonoma it was 90 degrees and the canopy swelled up due to the heat and I couldn't close it.   WHAT?  I didn't realize that it swelled so much, the aft part was binding with the rear windshield.  I will work on sanding it down a bit more to get a larger clearance in that area.  We waited till it cooled down, and were able to close no problem.  Also, the CHT’s got a little warm as we were up at 9,500 over the Siskiyou’s passing Shasta.  The hottest I saw was about 389, no problem, but I am thinking I might need to open up the lower cowl a bit.   My 2 pipe heat box and 4 pipe exhaust kind of plug up the exit and I need more space for air to flow through.  I might put some louvers on the bottom of the cowl, we’ll see.  Also I think at similar power settings at higher altitude the air cooling isn’t as effective as at lower altitudes.

Coming home, that 20 knot wind had turned into a 30 knot wind, but this time was a tailwind!!   We were cruising across the earth at 220 mph most of the way.   This turned the flight home into a 3.5 hour event and even though we were delayed due to fog at Santa Rosa we still made it home by early afternoon.   We could have made it nonstop, but the plane is more efficient than our bladders.   Nature called around the Eugene area, so we stopped in for a quick pit stop.    All in all, what a cool trip !

Dynamic Prop Balance/ Oil Change and Continued Flying

So I am not updating this blog much anymore since really I haven’t’ been doing much work on the plane.   I don’t want to take it offline and risk missing a weekend, so I am waiting until later in September for some of the remaining fiberglass work.  I did get the prop dynamically balanced, which does make a noticeable difference.  The plane isn’t any smoother, but when you touch the metal structure, or the wiring up under the panel during flight you can tell there is less vibration in it.   So I am glad I balanced it knowing that it does make a difference.   I also changed the oil/filter for the 3^rd time after 25 hours.  I think I will stick with changing every 25 hours since from this point forward I will be putting consistent hours on the plane.

This weekend I took Bekah over the Cascades for the first time and we headed to Spokane to visit a friend from college and his family.   Was a great trip, had to go VFR on top at 11500 to get over there.  Coming back we were between layers but were able to get in at 8500, so some better views of the mountains.   All in all it was a great trip to eastern Washington, but I was anxious to get home when Sunday came.   Getting back over the mountains can be dicey no matter what time of year.  We made it though, so all was good.

 

 

 

Magical day to circumnavigate Puget Sound and the Islands !

What a fun day in the RV. !   Bekah and I took off from Paine field and I promptly gave her some exciting “unusual attitudes”  (RV Pilots will know what that means) followed by the short flight over to Port Townsend (Jefferson County Airport).   We landed there and realized that the Spruce Goose Café was closed due to fire a week or so back, but it will be reopening soon which is great.   But no problem for us because we are in an RV, so we taxied back, took off in route to Skagit Bay View airport.   Stopped and grabbed lunch at the Kitty Hawk Café which Bekah had never been to, so that was fun.   From there we decided to head up to Eastsound on Orcas Island.  Landed there and walked down to the water for a bit, then headed back to Paine Field.   What an amazing and magical day to circumnavigate Puget Sound !

Click "HERE" for a great short video of our departure from Eastsound !