Memorial Weekend Flying
It is the first Memorial Weekend we've been around home in the last 5+ years. Typically we make our way down to southern missouri to go camping and canoeing. This weekend's plans were to watch Ray's first flight on his RV-10 and hopefully get Sandi some time in our plane with Joe, our instructor.
Joe was scheduled to fly commercially into MCI on Friday afternoon, so I took the afternoon off to go get him... in the -9. I flew into K34 Friday morning where Ray loaned me his car to get to work. I left work around 11:20 and met the RV crew for lunch at Wally's in Gardner. Lunch over, I hopped in our bird and headed north to MCI, Class Bravo airspace. As soon as I got off K34, I called KC approach and got my clearance to MCI. Straight in approach to runway 1 Left and taxi'd up to the GA ramp. Ground controller commented on my fine approach and landing. He's building an RV-8. Small world sometimes! (We chatted a little more on my nearly 1 mile taxi.) I arrived early and so I waited for Joe to arrive. After his arrival, we hopped in and departed back to K34.
Back at K34, Ray prepared Joe for the first flight. Sandi called from work and asked that I come pick her up, so I taxied behind Joe and watched the first take-off sitting in my own plane. As I was departing, I heard Joe announce he was returning to land, so something wasn't right. Flight to Ottawa was short, and Sandi and I were on our way back to K34. When we landed, Joe was sitting off on one of the runways with the chase plane and a small crowd. Seems the oil temps were WAY to high.... 250's. They had the cowl off to let the engine cool off. As we taxied for the ramp, the taxied behind us and departed again, only to return once again. RPM's weren't high enough and the oil temp was high again. Back at the hangar a dozen shade tree mechanics tried to diagnose the problem. :0-)
With the RV-10 flying done for the night, we moved over to the party hangar, where Ray's wife Michelle was grilling. We had some dinner and yacked for awhile. Since Joe couldn't fly the RV-10, it was the perfect time for Sandi to get a little time flying with Joe. They departed for 30 minutes and returned to the airport with a couple of LOW approaches down the runway with a magnificent climb out and steep turn to go along with it. (May have a video of it.. we'll see.) They did a couple of landings and I found out after they taxied up that Sandi did the 2nd take-off and landing on her own! We spent a little more time hanging out and then headed home.
Sandi spent about 45 minutes flying with Joe which really boosted her confidence. She's ready to start getting some more stick time and really get into flying some more.
The rest of the weekend was a bit of bummer from a flying point of view. The winds were blowing like crazy! We drove up to K34 on Saturday afternoon to have some lunch with Joe's family and hopefully watch the RV-10 fly! Ray discovered an incorrect tach setting in his Dynon that was causing an incorrect RPM reading. When we arrived, Joe was up flying... the oil temps were still high though. Sunday morning came and winds were blowing at 19kts and gusting but it was right down the runway. Itching to fly, we dpearted for Gardner (K34) to get some gas and see how the test flying was going. The climb to 5,000ft was in moderate turbulence that Sandi wasn't enjoying too much. Once up above 5k, it was smooth.... but we had to come back down, right back into the turbulence. On our downwind leg to 17 at Gardner we caught a pretty big burble that put the right wing up 45 degree's or better which put Sandi over the edge. With Sandi's nerves already frayed, we headed back home. First attempt at landing on 17 back home resulted in a go-around as the plane was all over the place. I called for winds and they were 19 gusting to 29! Ouch.. this would be interesting. Our second landing approach was much more stable and we put it down safely and put away for the afternoon.
Monday wasn't any better... only we were smarted and didn't even attempt to fly. We stopped by Gardner on our way into town and said goodbye to Joe and see how things were going. Turns out the high oil temp problems were a software bug in the Dynon and corrected with an update. Saying goodbye to the gang, we headed for the theatre where we watched the new Robin Williams movie "RV". Pretty funny movie!
Certainly not the weekend we'd planned on but there are many more weekends to come. I think the hobbs reads ~79 hours now.
Joe was scheduled to fly commercially into MCI on Friday afternoon, so I took the afternoon off to go get him... in the -9. I flew into K34 Friday morning where Ray loaned me his car to get to work. I left work around 11:20 and met the RV crew for lunch at Wally's in Gardner. Lunch over, I hopped in our bird and headed north to MCI, Class Bravo airspace. As soon as I got off K34, I called KC approach and got my clearance to MCI. Straight in approach to runway 1 Left and taxi'd up to the GA ramp. Ground controller commented on my fine approach and landing. He's building an RV-8. Small world sometimes! (We chatted a little more on my nearly 1 mile taxi.) I arrived early and so I waited for Joe to arrive. After his arrival, we hopped in and departed back to K34.
Back at K34, Ray prepared Joe for the first flight. Sandi called from work and asked that I come pick her up, so I taxied behind Joe and watched the first take-off sitting in my own plane. As I was departing, I heard Joe announce he was returning to land, so something wasn't right. Flight to Ottawa was short, and Sandi and I were on our way back to K34. When we landed, Joe was sitting off on one of the runways with the chase plane and a small crowd. Seems the oil temps were WAY to high.... 250's. They had the cowl off to let the engine cool off. As we taxied for the ramp, the taxied behind us and departed again, only to return once again. RPM's weren't high enough and the oil temp was high again. Back at the hangar a dozen shade tree mechanics tried to diagnose the problem. :0-)
With the RV-10 flying done for the night, we moved over to the party hangar, where Ray's wife Michelle was grilling. We had some dinner and yacked for awhile. Since Joe couldn't fly the RV-10, it was the perfect time for Sandi to get a little time flying with Joe. They departed for 30 minutes and returned to the airport with a couple of LOW approaches down the runway with a magnificent climb out and steep turn to go along with it. (May have a video of it.. we'll see.) They did a couple of landings and I found out after they taxied up that Sandi did the 2nd take-off and landing on her own! We spent a little more time hanging out and then headed home.
Sandi spent about 45 minutes flying with Joe which really boosted her confidence. She's ready to start getting some more stick time and really get into flying some more.
The rest of the weekend was a bit of bummer from a flying point of view. The winds were blowing like crazy! We drove up to K34 on Saturday afternoon to have some lunch with Joe's family and hopefully watch the RV-10 fly! Ray discovered an incorrect tach setting in his Dynon that was causing an incorrect RPM reading. When we arrived, Joe was up flying... the oil temps were still high though. Sunday morning came and winds were blowing at 19kts and gusting but it was right down the runway. Itching to fly, we dpearted for Gardner (K34) to get some gas and see how the test flying was going. The climb to 5,000ft was in moderate turbulence that Sandi wasn't enjoying too much. Once up above 5k, it was smooth.... but we had to come back down, right back into the turbulence. On our downwind leg to 17 at Gardner we caught a pretty big burble that put the right wing up 45 degree's or better which put Sandi over the edge. With Sandi's nerves already frayed, we headed back home. First attempt at landing on 17 back home resulted in a go-around as the plane was all over the place. I called for winds and they were 19 gusting to 29! Ouch.. this would be interesting. Our second landing approach was much more stable and we put it down safely and put away for the afternoon.
Monday wasn't any better... only we were smarted and didn't even attempt to fly. We stopped by Gardner on our way into town and said goodbye to Joe and see how things were going. Turns out the high oil temp problems were a software bug in the Dynon and corrected with an update. Saying goodbye to the gang, we headed for the theatre where we watched the new Robin Williams movie "RV". Pretty funny movie!
Certainly not the weekend we'd planned on but there are many more weekends to come. I think the hobbs reads ~79 hours now.
posted by Matthew at 6:45 PM
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