Oshkosh 2006!

We made the big trip to Oshkosh, WI for Airventure 2006! We departed Ottawa Thursday morning in light sprinkles and made a stop at MO8 for $3.32 gas. We then proceeded north until we ran into a rather large thunderstorm parked over the Madison, WI area and to the west. We had to get down to 2500ft MSL to stay under the clouds and skirt around the system to the east and then back north. Once we got north, things cleared up nicely. We made the RIPON entry point and only saw one other plane in the area. We crossed the FISKE intersection and made our turn towards the airport for runway 9. There was a Piper Cub maybe a mile ahead of us, so our arrival was a piece of cake. A turn off on the taxiway and we were taken to row 310 in home-built camping area, right next to the showers.

On final for 09

We Made It!

The next couple of days were spent wandering around, watching the airshows, visiting with people, visiting a few vendor booths. Chatted with Allen Barrett for awhile at his booth. Sandi picked up some new foam plugs for her Clarity Aloft headset at their booth. We bought a few things we saw around. I did a lot of limping with my bum leg but it wasn't too bad, tried to keep it wrapped up.

We hooked up with Allen & Rhonda Barrett of BPE for awhile one morning. Finally met fellow RV-9A builder, Don Alexander and his wife. Don is from the Richmond, VA area and at one time we were on the same track before life interuppted Don. :-) Bumped into Tony Partain at the Van's banquet and sat with Ken Kreuger for awhile before getting kicked off the Van's table.

Our Sunday morning departure turned out to be extremely interesting. We got up around 6:30am and there was a thunderstorm brewing north of the airport. After showering, we decided to get out of there while the gettin' was good. We hurridley filled up the baggage area with our stuff and began our taxi... then it started to sprinkle on the windshield, the clouds above us were black and very ominous looking. Once we got on a hard surface taxiway, the Gator crew led us out to runway 18. By this time I was having a bit of a time keeping the airplane going straight due to the gusty winds. I was following a big old military plane of some sort and his prop wash bounced us around a bit. Honestly, I didn't pay too much attention to the ground controllers since they tower guys were just clearing every one right after each other, we were just pulling out onto the runway when the tower controller told us blue dot, position and hold. The plane in front of us departed and then we were cleared. I held the plane on the runway as long as I could to get some speed, the winds were a direct crosswind. Got in the air and immediately crabbed into the wind, black sky above us, clear sky ahead. Throttle to the stop and we were on our way at 1300ft, 500 ft off the ground. The ride was a bit choppy and I was fully prepared to correct for a big wind gust if one hit us. There was a Cub behind us for take-off but I don't know if he got off the ground in time as controllers stopped clearing take-offs and were sending people back to parking... winds were gusting to 55 knots! Whew... we got off just in time!

Hungry, caffeine-deprived, we started thinking about where we could stop on the way home for some food and coffee. It just so happened we would pass fairly close to Moline, IL which is where Sandi's parents live, so we diverted and ended up spending the rest of the morning/afternoon there. We departed Moline around 6:00pm and arrived home just after 8:00. Unpacked the airplane and tucked her in the hangar. Plane is very dirty from bug smashing and dust that settled into the dew that the plane had each morning.

A great trip! We are looking forward to next year, when we plan on going up the Saturday before so we can watch the mass arrivals.

(Pictures to come.)

Maintenance Mode

Did a bit of flying on Saturday to warm up the engine oil and then proceeded to take off the cowl, drain the oil and go into maintenance mode for the next week or so. Won't be doing any flying until we leave for Osh on Thursday the 27th. Our Osh trip is dependent upon good weather and my ability to WALK. I'm currently out of my hard cast and in a walking/aircast. I think by late next week I'll be able to walk pretty good.

Mystery Visitor - Who Are You? - Tony at the airport said I had a visitor Saturday morning in a polished/painted nosewheel RV. He didn't get a name and I can't think of anyone I know... if you are out there reading this.. let me know who you are! :-)

100 HOURS!

Saturday morning Sandi and I headed up to Lee's Summit Airport to help out with EAA Chapter 91 Young Eagles Event and to see the EAA's B-17 Aluminum Overcast. Sandi signed up to cook pancakes and I had signed up to fly but with the bum leg, grounded myself from flying kids, so I helped out at the registration table.

The first big highlight of the day was to see the B-17 fly. This is the first time I've seen a B-17 up close and personal and too see it start up and fly gave me the goose-bumps. Amazing! The pilots were having fun flying it as well... shortly after getting a litle altitude, the did a big left 270 degree turn to come back over thae airport.. and it couldn't have been more than a 1,000 foot off the ground.

The second hightlight of the day was when were rolled 100 HOURS just as we landed back home at Ottawa. That's 100 hours of flying in just over 5 months since first flight. The timing works out pretty good as I need to do an oil change and am going to do sort-of 100 hour inspection plus I have a laundry list of things to work on. Hopefully I'll get this cast off my leg this week and can spend the next two weekends getting through my list before we head up to Oshkosh.

Weekend in Moline and home on the 4th.

We arrived in Moline without a hitch.

On final for 31 at KMLI

Tuesday morning we went to the Great Cardboard Boat Regatta in Rock Island, IL. It was pretty cool... boats made out of cardboard and duct tape!!

We departed MLI around 2:00 and stopped at MO8 for some very cheap $3.35 gas and then continued on home. The flying was uneventfull. We flew over the top of some scattered clouds and saw some pretty nice cloud formations off on our left.

Clouds on way home.. picture doesn't do it justice. They were very cool looking.

Final for 36 at MO8 for cheap gas.

Kansas City Chiefs and Royals stadiums.

Our decent into Ottawa.

Total Trip: 6 hours even! Hobbs now reads 99.0 hours.

To Wichita and on to Moline (NORDO!)

We began our weekend of flying after work on Friday. Being on crutches with a broken leg meant that Sandi got to do most of the heavy lifting/pushing/pulling. Our first challenge was to see if we could get the crutches in the airplane. The only feasible way was to remove the top portion of the baggage wall and stick the crutches back in the tailcone, making sure they didn't get in the way of any wires or rudder cables. With those secured in place, we loaded up and headed southwest for Colonel Jabara airport in Wichita. We arrived around 8:00 where my Aunt Gwen and Uncle Gary were waiting to pick us up. We had a nice weekend but was limited to what we could do since I'm a 'gimp'.

NORDO! On our way to Wichita, we were picking up a high-pitched whine in our headsets. It was something we have never heard before. I turned down the radios and things to see if that was where it was coming from. It wasn't and I can only surmise that with the upper baggage wall, we were getting some noise from the tailcone area that we wouldn't normally here. Anyway, 20 minutes of flying go by and it comes to mind that the radio had been quiet. We've experienced this before but I glanced down at the radio only to notice that the volume knob was turned down! Ooops... so I turned it back up and just as I did I heard a blind call for 523 Romeo Victor. I replied and it was a United flight with a new frequency for me. I tuned to the new frequency and checked in. No biggie but 2 minutes later a familiar voice come on asking me why we went NORDO! It was Nathan Larson who is a supervisor at the KC ARTCC and a fellow RV-9A flyer. He just happened to be supervising the sector I was flying through and the controller who was trying to raise me grabbed him to let him know some goofball flying an experimental went NORDO on him. Of course as soon as he say the tail numbers he knew it was me. He actually called me cell phone to see if I would answer. After landing in Wichita, I called him on the phone just to make sure I wasn't in hot water or had caused any trouble. (I wasn't/I hadn't) They had only been trying to reach us for a couple of minutes. So lesson learned!

Final approach into Jabara (KAAO)

My Aunt Gwen and Uncle Gary

Beechcraft runway over road.

We departed this morning from Jabara around 10:30 am and headed northeast for Quad-City International (KMLI). We picked up a small tailwind at 7500 with a groundspeed of 155-160kts at 2500rpm. North of Kansas City we climbed up to 9500 to avoid some traffic headed in our direction and picked up 15-20 kts more of tailwind and we were crusing at 171kts with occasional bumps to 175kts. The weather was extremely hazy most of the way up. We landed at MLI and unloaded for the weekend.

Kansas City International - See how hazy it was!

Ground speed of 175kts.

The plan is to depart Tuesday early afternoon or so to make it back to KC in time for some fireworks.