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What did you do with your RV this weekend (6/12 - 6/14)

SPX

Well Known Member
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Yesterday, I helped out an RV-6A friend by finishing his checkout in the airplane. He needed a CFI to provide a checkout before he was covered by the insurance policy. We started the checkout about three weeks ago, and finished it yesterday.

With the checkout done, this morning I got in my RV-9A and headed up to Big Bear (L35). It was a dual purpose trip.. one was to grab something to eat, and secondly, to get some cheap(ish) fuel, $3.65/gallon. Well, a third purpose was of course to enjoy the day as well.

Taking off from Big Bear, it was me (180 LBS) + full fuel, and despite the 8,500' density altitude, the RV did great. I had a climb rate of 700+ FPM, and was climbing at 90 KIAS. I'm never left unimpressed by the performance of the airplane...


Approaching Big Bear
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Lake coming in clear view
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View from the fuel pumps, looking east.
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Obligatory RV photo
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I am really enjoying my new AFS panel. Snapped a quick photo since it was my first time having the RV up in the mountains since the panel upgrade, and I wanted to capture the PFD showing the mountains.

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Started back in with some canopy work. Did a little more flirting with the neighborhood (see Confessions of a Shop Flirt thread) as I prepped the canopy interior for coating with Discoat. Didn't work out as well as planned (see Discoat thread), but moved onto more prep work for canopy trimming. Conferred with Terry Lutz; hoping to have some help with the initial trim work this week while weather cooperates.
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I've been grounded for 2 years due to a medical issue until today.
In the last 2 weeks I've:

Got a 3rd class medical.
Got a BFR in a C182 Skylane, Like driving a bread truck but still fun
and had a great CFI.
Had the part 91 transponder check done.
Finished the condition inspection.

So this morning I did 5 touch and go's and then off to the practice area for
some slow flight, stalls and steep turns. I dropped into a local airport KSIF
for some cheaper gas then back home.

Some rust knocked off, still some more to go.
 
Graduation Fly-over

Our airport was used for the graduation ceremonies due to Covit. We were asked to do a fly over to kick of the afternoon's graduation.
The school had social distancing under control and the seniors still had a great Graduation with family in the cars.

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Finished up my annual condition inspection (and wrote up a blog post). Took the airplane up to Corona KAJO for lunch at the Cafe there with Ethan and his son. First time in months that I actually ate in a restaurant. Used the wash rack there to give the airplane a much needed bath.

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Alternator - Need I say more

Saturday - June 13, 2020
Well today was an eventful day. The plan was to take off at 5:30am pick up a fellow pilot in Dickson, TN and then we were going to fly to Delaware, OH to do a Pre-buy inspection on an RV7 aircraft that he was going to buy if the inspection checked out ok. Everything was going well until my roll servo kicked off, this happened one other time and I was supposed to remember what that was an indication of, the last time that it happened it was because I accidently turned my master switch on to the battery position rather than all the way up to the Alt position. When the battery voltage starts getting low the first indication is my roll servo, if on kicks off. We were at 7,500? and just exiting the NE side of Cincinnati?s Class B airspace. I was up with Flight Following the whole way and highly recommended it while flying cross country for this very reason. About 30 minutes from Delaware we saw that the weather ahead wasn?t real good and decided to change course to Springfield, OH. It was about 25 miles ahead. About then the engine monitor announces check voltage, I plan to raise the voltage indication at which that happens. I missed that cue when the servo kicked off. As soon as I got the low voltage warning I looked over at the voltage (I seem to remember 9 point something, but could be wrong about that) and checked my master. I realized that my alternator had failed. Quick announcement to Columbus approach: ?7BH I just lost my alternator and we are diverting to Springfield? they relayed with ?7BH you lost your alternator and I think you said that your diverting to Springfield if that is correctly IDENT?. I hit IDENT and then everything was going off line with the low voltage. My G3X screens went black and they were trying to reboot. I have a Dynon 10a with a backup battery but with the low voltage it was acting up and restarting (it finally started up on the backup battery and started working correctly) I also have a Garmin 660 GPS that never stopped working because it has a battery also. I noticed that my intercom stopped working before the radio, radio was receiving fine but with the intercom not working, I thought I wasn?t transmitting but I was. While all of this was trying register in my mind, I heard approach tell me that there was a closer airport to the west if I wanted to divert to it, if I did want to hit IDENT. They also gave me a phone number to call when I got on the ground, I would not have gotten that number written down if I was alone, but I wasn?t and my passenger wrote the number down. I hit INDENT and turned left to the west, I tried pulling it up on the 660, wasn?t seeing it right away and looked up and saw that it was about 2 miles in front of me and I was about to cross mid field. As I turned base a plane had just done a touch and go and as I turned final another plane pulled out on the runway. I didn?t try to make any radio calls because I was sure my radio was not transmitting at that point. I did a few S-turns to give the plane time to take off, ready to do a go around if needed. He took off and we landed just fine. After we parked the line boy asked if we needed anything and it was starting to sprinkle a little, I explained that our alternator quit working and asked if we could get in a hanger to work on it. We got it in the hanger and I guess this couldn?t have happened at a better time. I had a lot more tools with me than I would normally, because I was going to do a Pre-Buy inspection. I got the cowling off checked all the wiring, found it all good, removed the alternator, got the courtesy car and started calling auto parts stores. If I had an aviation alternator the story would have ended here until Tuesday when I could have had one shipped to me. Third call (Autozone) found what I needed $95.00. A part#14824 it also had part#14870 on it. I had these part numbers in my phone notes as an exact replacement for my original Vans alternator. My alternator was 13 yrs and 4 months old and had 1308 hrs on it. I also have a trickle charger in the tool bag I keep in the plane so I borrowed an extension cord and plugged it in before leaving to get the new alternator. By the time I got everything back together the battery had a good enough charge to start the plane and the weather had cleared out and we were off to Delaware to do the Pre-buy inspection. Got the inspection done, my passenger ?Stu? bought the plane and stayed the night so he could get a few flights in with the previous owner before heading home. I just got a text from him saying he made it home. I headed out right after finishing the inspection and climbed to 8500? where it was 44 degrees set the autopilot closed the vents opened the heater vent slightly for an enjoyable flight home. Heat off, vents opened during descent. I arrived about 1 hr after sunset, to a muggy 78 degrees. Oh, I want to give a big shout out to the Columbus approach controller who helped me out, nice to have that little voice in your ear helping you out when things are happening fast and he is helping you see things that might not be so obvious at the time. Thanks!

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Installed and tested my new Matco 7" pneumatic tailwheel. SO nice to not feel like my fillings are rattling out on taxi! And, it even fits my stock Van's tailwheel fork (I do have an ancient non-swivel version).
 
Last fly-in ever at Park Township Airport, MI

Park Township Airport was voted out of existence this past Spring and is closing forever this October! A bunch of us and others from the area visited for their last fly-in. Beautiful weather and a lot of planes showed up for the event. Fun but sad at the same time.
 
Started my second annual annual inspection. Washed off the bugs and grime, pulled the cowling off, drained the oil. Then I removed the oil filter and discovered that I'd bought the wrong replacement. Also uncovered some Vic Syracuse slide deck material. My alternate air door under my FAB broke away on one corner, and my filter has shrunk enough to pull back from the tab by a visible amount. Not sure how long I've been breathing in unfiltered air, but I guess now I fix it. Haven't found any loose jam nuts yet...

I'll be doing the thicker Matco brake disc mod while I'm down and a few other tweaks here and there, going to try to improve my baffle seal at the inlets and behind the flywheel.

Good time for downtime for maintenance, weather is not good around here.
 
I?m most of the way through IFR training and my CFII and I have noticed a couple occasions where the otherwise excellent Garmin autopilot in my G3XT system has had trouble keeping up. So today was a test and system settings flight out past Port Angeles, following Garmin?s test/configuration process, and I made a few changes as a result. Should see some improvement.

A mixed day in the Puget Sound area, weather wise, as is often the case this time of year.
 
NeW RV-7A has wings

Flew 20mn to Romuald's hangar to install the wings on his RV-7A.
And voil?, a new french RV almost ready for the first flight :)


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Made our first full family trip in the 10 this weekend. Took my wife and two younger sons to Beaver Island MI this weekend. Due to Covid, pretty much had the island to ourselves.

Larry
 
Made our first full family trip in the 10 this weekend. Took my wife and two younger sons to Beaver Island MI this weekend. Due to Covid, pretty much had the island to ourselves.

Larry

My significant other, myself and two of my neighbors flew from the Indianapolis area to Holland MI for a day trip and had a blast. Minimal crowds. We didn't go in May, because the tulip festival was cancelled (retarded politicians is all I'm going to say).

It was worth it. We lucked out with the crew car from the airport and didn't have to Uber anywhere. The weather was perfect.The RV-10 is the perfect vehicle to do this in!

I love to fly up to MI in the summer to canoe the Au Sable river, visit Mackinac Island, Beaver Island, Traverse City, and other spots. It's always fun. I sincerely hope this virus thing fades away soon, so this country can get back to what used to be normal behavior.
 
Flew from our home base of 1A3 to KNQA in the Memphis area to visit our daughters, grandkids and the great grand baby. 2 hours going on Thursday with a headwind and 1:43 for the return on Sunday. Great flights, great visit with an awesome airplane, RV9.
 
Congrats!

Larry,

Congrats on the first family trip! Flown over Beaver, but have not landed. Maybe this summer!


Made our first full family trip in the 10 this weekend. Took my wife and two younger sons to Beaver Island MI this weekend. Due to Covid, pretty much had the island to ourselves.

Larry
 
Flew out to lunch a couple hours from here with a group from my EAA chapter. Before coming home we (my cousin and I) practiced low altitude turns around a point as we circled another RV sitting in a cow pasture to make sure the pilot was OK, while my pax marked the location on his phone so we could go pick him up.

And no, I'm not going to say who it was... not my story to tell. I will say that the both plane and pilot were fine without so much as a single scratch, and yes, the FAA heard about it. Masterful job of handling an emergency landing. I hope I never have to do it, but if I do I can only hope I do half as well.
 
We flew the -7 back from SoCal To the Seattle area on Sunday. Had the opportunity to fly the grandson around a bit while down there. We departed vfr about 9:30 am, fueled in Red Bluff. Filed IFR and headed north. Had some IMC in layers along the way. Nearing home, runway was closed due to somebody?s gear up landing. Nobody hurt. Diverted to a friend?s AirPark runway and visited from opposite ends of their picnic table. Got word all was clear so flew to our home airport, put her away in the hangar and went out to dinner.

No long commutes to big airports, no long lines, security hassles, cramped metal tubes full of germs or parking hassles.

These are amazing time machines. Especially these days.......
 
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