This blog is my ramblings about building and flying my airplanes. Its purpose is to give me some kind of documentation of my build process but in truth its only here so I don't have to keep answering the question...what are you working on now? ;-)
Well another successful Oshkosh trip is in the books. This year we were suppose to be a group of at least 4 airplanes but unfortunately we ended up with just Jeff and I as Harry got called to work the week and Chad had to bail due to work related activities earlier in the month. Regardless Jeff and I had a great time and here is a brief recount of the trip.
We had planned on a Thursday afternoon departure with a stop in Montana for the evening. The weather looked pretty good during the week leading up to Thursday. On thursday itself the weather started to take a bit of a turn and it looked like we might be trapped behind some convective stuff if we departed as planned. Since we were all off of work early we made the call to depart early and it turns out that was a good idea.
Here is a video I took and edited of the arrival into Oshkosh...
Packed up and ready to go.
Obligatory selfie with Martin as we cruised at about 15,500' above sea level.
Tied down in Townsend Montana for the night.
We had a relatively uneventful flight to Townsend Montana where we were treated to a well deserved night of train horns and high temperatures at the Mustang Motel. What a treat to listen to the trains drift by about every 15 minutes during the night with their air horns blowing off and on. To add to the ambiance the hotel owner turned the central air conditioning off at about 11pm so we got to sweat as the trains serenaded us.
Ah yes...the mustang motel.
After a very long night we decided to launch for Oshkosh. Next stop, North Dakota. It wasn't until we were on the east side of Montana that we decided to go the north route and land near Fargo. Enroute we passed over Dickinson ND where my sister lives but thunderstorms and rain prevented them from seeing me wave.
Some cloud formations and rain as we passed Dickinson, ND.
This is what the central plains states look like....flat.
Filling up in North Dakota.
After filling up with fuel we launched for Oshkosh. It was a nice flight and as with the previous two legs we had a wonderful tail wind that pushed us along nicely. We arrived in the early afternoon, got a nice third row parking spot and set up camp for the week.
A panorama of our camp site.
A few sites to be seen at Oshkosh but only a few pictures...
Yep, we made it....
A few other planes made it...
A nice sunset
And a nice sunrise...
Oh, and a picture of a formation of warbirds flying over head as I laid under the wing of my airplane (to avoid the sun).
And a formation of fighters doing a bomber escort as part of the airshow.
Obviously there was a ton more to see and do but that's exactly what I was doing...seeing and doing...not taking pictures so if you want to see more....come to the Oshkosh and see for yourself!
This week I have been busy prepping the airplane (and myself) for the annual pilgrimage to Oshkosh. As with last year Jeff and I will be flying together to the show. Martin will be riding over with me but he has to be back by a specified time so he won't be coming back with me.
Anyway, this week I planned on doing a little injector nozzle tuning under the tutelage of Don Rivera from AirFlow Performance. I purchased 4 new restrictor nozzles that are suppose to replace the nozzles I already have in the engine. Well as luck would have it I have some very old injectors in my engine and they don't have adjustable nozzles. So I have ordered 4 new injectors as well. I took a little time and cleaned my existing injectors just in case the new ones don't arrive in time for the trip.
The GPS and chart databases are all updated as of today and the airplane is loaded with the exception of our clothes. I think we are ready.
I forgot to take pictures but I also finished painting the back wall of the hangar. Work on the walls is done and now I need to focus on the door insulation.
This year the Arlington fly-in was a lot of fun. We almost cancelled the trip due to rain forecast but on the day we were suppose to go we decided to brave it. We have great tents, and the weather actually cooperated during the day so the hard rain we had at night didn't impact the camping trip at all. The forecast did limit the number of people that showed up, particularly the pilot crowd that normally flies in. Here are a few pics.
Jeff at KPLU during the run-up before takeoff
Tents set up and airplanes tied down...15 minutes later the evening rain started. Perfect timing!
Another picture as the rains start moving our way.
The lights were pretty so I tried to take a picture with my iPhone. Didn't turn out great especially since my flash went off.
Not much better without the flash but its not quite as grainy.
Trying to be creative to capture the cool cloud formations with the 9A in the foreground.
Another shot of the clouds. Ok so its really not about the clouds but they prompted the picture...
Morning coffee going on day three without a razor...You can tell we had sun by the red nose.
I decided to have the airplane judged this year now that it's painted. Turns out I won a Champion award! Very happy with that.
Finally, Lane (Jeff's son) took this selfie as Jeff and I were formed up on the return trip home.
You frequently hear RV's being referred to as "Time Machines"...well here is a post that explains why. :-)
A couple of weekends ago Harry, Jeff and I decided to go golfing...RV style. So we loaded up, flew to Montana, golfed 9 holes with my Dad, and then flew home in time to have a few beers at the hangar. Now figure the drive to Montana from here is about 6.5 hours; that's 13 hours round trip and not a lot of fun. Flying we were able to do the entire trip in barely over 6.5 hours including lunch and 9 holes of golf.
After landing in Superior Montana
Jeff looking for his ball....ok, not really, he was taking a picture of the old train trestle that spans the St Regis river. You can see the trestle in the background.
Thirsty airplanes fueling up for the return flight.
If you have followed my adventures at all you know that the cooling plenum that I purchased from Sam James is not my favorite purchase. I won't rehash that tired story but it is relevant because I spent the last couple of weeks working on the plenum again. The short story is that my oil temps are still higher than I want them to be. When we flew on a warm day I had a hard time keeping the oil under 220 degrees. I've done several things to try to decrease the oil temperature on the aft side of the engine so this time I decided to try to do something on the forward side. The inlets that allow cool air to enter the plenum area are about 5 inches in diameter. The plenum necks that down to a much smaller size and then sits pretty tightly on top of the engine. My idea was that if I removed some of those restrictions the amount of air available to cool the oil would increase. So I did the left side of the engine a couple of weeks ago and it seemed to help (but still haven't flown extended periods in hot weather). I spent the past few days doing the same thing to the right side. This time I decided to take a few pictures to help describe the process.
On a related note we had our annual Young Eagles event last Saturday. That's when we volunteer our time, airplanes, and fuel to fly young kids from 8 to 16 years old. I flew 14 kids on Saturday and had a blast doing it. Those kids are so much fun!
First things first, here is the 9A sitting with other airplanes at the Young Eagles event on Saturday. The airplane before it should look familiar as I posted several pictures of it recently. It is Greg's and was in the same paint shop as mine.
Ok, so in this picture you can see the restriction in the right side. Its hard to see the top part but believe me its restricted.
Here I put a few lumps of clay on top of the plenum and then put the top cowling back on to measure how much room I have between the two.
Then I mix up some pourable foam and make a mess...
Another view of the mess
Starting to trim down the mess to a shape I can work with.
This is the foam product that I used.
Ok, foam is now sanded to the shape I want.
Now I lay up 4 layers of fiberglass over the foam. You will notice I used a lot of packing tape as a sort of mold release for both the foam and the fiberglass.
In this picture I have trimmed up the cured fiberglass, removed the foam, cut the plenum under the fiberglass away, and "glued" the new fiberglass piece in. I used an epoxy/flox mixture to glue the two pieces together.
Another view of the two pieces but this is after they had set up and I had done a little sanding on the final assembly.
This is the section of the old plenum top that I cut out. You can see the circles where I marked the clay locations and heights.
In this picture you can see where I cut the old top out and glued in the new. All that's left now is a little sanding and maybe a layer of micro or two to clean it all up.
Amy and I got a chance to fly to Gilroy CA last week. It was the first time I have had a chance to use my airplane to go on a work related trip and it was a lot of fun. We left early Thursday morning on an IFR flight plan that had us in the clouds for only a few minutes the entire trip. We stopped in Red Bluff for fuel and then again flew IFR the remaining 90 minutes. The plan was to fly over Oakland and get to see both big cities but ATC routed us around to the east so we didn't get to see much. I took a few pictures and Amy took a few (that I don't have yet).
All tied down for the overnight stay at South County airport (Gilroy)
climbing out of the San Francisco area.
Somewhere in northern California. Spent a lot of time and effort dodging clouds on the return trip.
So I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had purchased a new modification for the 9A that allows me to slide the canopy back another 8-10". Well I got a chance to install that modification this week. It really works well! I have the "Almost a 14" modification in my airplane as well which allows the seats to recline another 4" or so but it also reorganizes some of the parts that this slider extension modification needs to work with. Fortunately everything went together well as you can see in the pictures below.
Travis and I flew over to Montana to have lunch with Dad this week and since I was not thinking I didn't get any pictures. We flew over IFR and ran into some electrical problems with the airplane (nothing that affected the safety of the flight) so I have some work ahead of me troubleshooting the issue.
As you might have guessed, now that the 9A is back and flying season is ramping up quickly I'm not expecting to make much progress on the 10. I suppose this is exactly what I figured would be the case and I'm perfectly fine with it. :-)
