Wings over Republic fly in

This weekend Harry, Jeff, Paul (Harry's friend), and I flew to Republic WA for their annual fly-in.  It was a fun flight as usual but the fly in itself was a bit of a bust.  The parking crew had us taxi on a field that felt like it was plowed by gophers.  Harry actually almost had a prop strike due to one of his main wheels falling in a hole of some sort.  His tail came up but fortunately didn't go all the way forward.

Hard to see in this picture but there are two small specs in the sky behind me.  This is Harry and his friend Paul.

There were some amazing cloud formations visible.  These particular clouds indicate some nasty bumpy weather up there.

Our parking location in Republic.

Paul's RV-6 as we do our run up after fueling up on the return trip home.

Look at the top of the cloud in the middle of the picture.  It looks like I jiggled the camera but its actually a layer of cloud on top.  This particular cloud spells turbulence with a capital T to me.

RV-10 Engine teardown

This past weekend I began the process of tearing the O-540 engine I bought down.  From my inexperienced perspective it looks like this engine is in great shape.

left side of the engine.  I am going to have to replace at least one of these drain back tubes.

right side of engine.  Another drainback tube is going to have to be replaced on this side

A quick pic of the accessory case before I started pulling it all apart

Cylinders removed.  Pistons look pretty normal to me.  No hotspots on the valves in the cylinders either.  Visually it looks like this engine could have gone another 2000 hours!

A few of the piston pins had some buildup on them that required me to use the piston pin removal tool.  You can see it attached to #5.

Another view of the piston  pin removal tool.

A few shots of the cam, cam followers and crankshaft follow....

Camshaft has no spalling I can see and the case looks great from my inexperience perspective.

Crankshaft looks good in there!

Not sure what it takes to get this darn oil pressure adjustment cover off but it takes more than I have currently.

Huge pile of parts.  Oh, and one coffee cup.  :-)

Piston on the left is after cleaning it up, the one on the right still has all the crusting on it.

I can't believe how big these piston pins are!  They weigh a pound or two and are solid steel.  I took this picture to try and give some perspective.

All thats left is the block with its internals (Crankshaft, Camshaft, cam followers, lifters).  I put the desiccant material under the plastic bag and then wrapped it up to prevent any dust and debris from getting inside while I wait to send it out for inspection.

Alvord Desert 2016

Last weekend I flew to the Alvord desert in south east Oregon with Harry, Jeff, Chad, Becca, and about 20 other FATPNW people.  We met up with Scott and his wife in Burns during fuel up and flew into the desert in a group of 5 airplanes.  I have a video that I am going to have to figure out how to publish here some day.... EDIT... Here is the video..

The pin marks the spot on the map where the Alvord desert is.  Technically its a dry lake bed and in Google maps it shows it as a lake but as you can see from the pictures below its far from a lake this time of year.  

Stopping for fuel in Burns Oregon

Jeff doing his pre flight run up at Burns

Harry doing his preflight run up at Burns

As usual Jeff got a great shot of me as I taxied over to the camping area after landing

Stepping out of the airplane at the desert

Pano of the airplanes that had arrived before us

Here we are and look at the clouds on the horizon

Early morning picture of the camp site

Jeff flying his drone. Those "glasses" on his head allow him to see what the drone is doing through a camera on the drone itself.  Very cool.

Oh yea, I had to throw this one in there but its actually a Harry special Pina Colada that we indulged in the day after we arrived.