TEX '08 Flyin

Sandi and I departed OWI at 6am and met up with Bill and Tab in the air and headed south. Between ride down, great sunrise, a little tail wind. Arrived at Midway Regl. at 8:30am. Not bad.. KC to DFW in 2.5 hours. We sat on the flight line and watched planes arrive for awhile and then walked around looking at planes. At 12:00 they started serving the BBQ. We dinked around a little longer and then headed out. We headed over to T13 for $3.65 gas. Airnav guaranteed. 3800 grass strip. Made Bill land first (tailwheel) to give a runway report and we came in behind him. It was true... $3.65/gal! Another RV was there and just finished filling up. Bill started topping off his tanks but the pump quit pumping gas. He ran his card through again and got another 3 gals to finish filling the tank. I pulled up, got 3 gallons and the tank went dry! DAMN! We had to head north to Mesquite to get $4.15/gal gas. Ride home was OK.. typical afternoon cloud build-up. Had to go to 12.5k to get over the clouds at Tulsa then shot down to 7.5k to get under the clouds as we weren't sure what was ahead. Of course the ride at 7.5k was bumpy. Landed, unloaded and headed up. Put 6hrs exactly on the hobbs.

Taxi'ng in for cheap gas!

Notice.... all unpainted airplanes in line for cheap gas!

ELT Education

As part of the annual inspection, I need to test the ELT. I replacd both the unit batteries and the remote batteries. I noticed that when I tried to set off the ELT from the remote, it wouldn't come on. It worked fine when I did it from the unit itself. I got to talking with our local IA and mentioned it. Turns out, that I did not have the main unit in "Arm" mode. The AK unit has 3 positions: Up = Test, Middle = Off and Down = ARM. I had it in the middle position... and I think it has always been that way. That was good to discover! I also found out you are supposed to check the g-force sensor each year at annual as well. You remove the unit, arm it and then smack it against your hand (hard) and it should go off. After doing this, you put the switch in the OFF position and preset the reset button, then back to ARM once it is back in the plane. Good education! Go check your ELT switch to make sure it's armed!!