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What did you do with your RV this weekend? (11/14/2020 - 11/15/2020)

This morning, I headed up from Fallbrook to Oceano (L52). I had planned to go there today anyhow, but yesterday my friend Jason (an RV-14 builder), in town with his RV from Colorado, sent me a message saying that he was looking for a lunch spot midway between SoCal and Northern California, and asked if I wanted to join him. That was all that I needed to solidify my plans to go to Oceano...

I left around 10 AM and stayed fairly low, 6,500', as I made my way north due to stronger winds above. The winds were as strong as predicted, but fortunately I mostly just had a 25 knot crosswind at my altitude, with not too much of a headwind component (10 knot average).

I arrived a little earlier than Jason did, so I fueled up while I waited. Once Jason arrived, we walked over to the Rock & Roll Diner. After a pretty good lunch, we walked back to the airport and checked out each others airplanes for a bit..

Jason departed north, and I departed back south. Going home, I wanted to climb up to take advantage of the tailwind, so I climbed to 11,500'. I saw a pretty constant 180 knot groundspeed for the entire flight home... Really nice, smooth flight home.

All in, about 2 hours 45 minutes of flying, a fantastic flight up and back, and a great visit with a friend, made possible by our RVs.
 

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Flight Down the Hudson

Great flying today, 3 planes flew to Poughkeepsie for Bfast then down the Hudson Corridor over Central Park then by Lady Liberty on the way to Old Bridge to see an RV. A short 2 min picture slide show of the 3 RV12s over Manhattan.

Brent number 1 contacted ATC for the flight of 3 and we were give clearance and guided around the TFR left turn over Central Park and then down the East River.

https://youtu.be/Yu23CeT5wjI
 

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I flew over a Locomotive Graveyard - Lordstown, OH. The resting place of hundreds of old railroad locomotives is Larry's Truck and Electric (reporting mark LTEX) in Lordstown, Ohio. This yard sits right off the CSX mainline and contains old engines from numerous rail lines, including CSX, Norfolk Southern, Kansas City Southern, BNSF, Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific, Canadian National, and more. Sometimes these locomotives are purchased from Larry's Truck and Electric and receive new life on a railroad, while other times only parts from the locomotives are sold. Either way, these are locomotives that have been abandoned by their original owners and are awaiting a new stage of their life. See drone video... https://youtu.be/suxTRjcaBG0
 

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Visited several local airports

There are several local airports that I rarely ever visit. Some are in “fly over country” and some just don’t have any reasons to stop. Any way it was a beautiful day with clear skies but strong surface winds. Got some good crosswind landings in. I needed that!

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Getting ready to launch from Sparta 8D4


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Very smooth above the haze layer at 2500’

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First stop in Ionia, Y70

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Second stop in Hastings 9D9

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Next Allegan 35D

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Then Holland KBIV

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Holland and Lake Michigan headed NE from BIV

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Because the surface winds were continuing to increase to owner 15 knots out of the SE and my home field runway round NE/SW, facing a good crosswind landing. Decided to head home and cut out the last two planned stops.
 
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Panel's coming together. Got all the cutouts done this weekend, but only got to some of the hardware - the GPS-175 tray is still unattached, and I have to resolve an issue with the intercom. That didn't stop me from temporarily installing most of the stuff and hanging the panel in the canoe for a clearance check of all the stuff on the avionics shelf.

The only component I'm missing here is the SDS CPI2 controller, which I got ordered this past week. Once that's here, and once I get the rest of the panel hardware in place, I can finalize positions of everything, finish mapping out the harness layout, and start doing a whole bunch of wiring work.

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Great flying today, 3 planes flew to Poughkeepsie for Bfast then down the Hudson Corridor over Central Park then by Lady Liberty on the way to Old Bridge to see an RV. A short 2 min picture slide show of the 3 RV12s over Manhattan.

Brent number 1 contacted ATC for the flight of 3 and we were give clearance and guided around the TFR left turn over Central Park and then down the East River.

https://youtu.be/Yu23CeT5wjI

That's funny, We had a 4 ship going SW for breakfast at N40 and I wondered what the 3 ship formation was up to - we flew right by you and I took a screenshot on FlyQ. Had a nice breakfast at N40 in some warmer sunshine for this time of the year with some terrific company!
 

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Progress - Drilled rear wing spars.

Another milestone completed today at the hangar. Both wings sweep and triangulation less than an 1/8" difference, the incidence at 3 points on each wing at 0.1 degrees and the flaps fit great so I made the drill bushing for the pilot hole and drilled the rear spar! Checked again and nothing changed so I'm good to final drill the hole up to 5/16".

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Back in the air

After 6 weeks of minor maintenance no-goes, weather no-goes and a dislocated shoulder, I was finally able to get back up for a flight today. Just a local flight with a couple of steep turns, a couple of stalls and 3 landings, but it was a beautiful day to fly and it felt great!

Was also my first chance to try out the new ATC service at my home airport - it came up on November 5. CYQF Red Deer is now a class D control zone with control tower for 16 hours a day. Good change, it gets busy here and this makes things run smoother.
 
You flew right over my house in Newport Beach; can see my neighborhood in your first photo, between your cowl and the reservoir.

PERFECT day to fly in SoCal, as your images show. Sadly, I'm still grounded, recovering from foot surgery.

This morning, I headed up from Fallbrook to Oceano (L52). I had planned to go there today anyhow, but yesterday my friend Jason (an RV-14 builder), in town with his RV from Colorado, sent me a message saying that he was looking for a lunch spot midway between SoCal and Northern California, and asked if I wanted to join him. That was all that I needed to solidify my plans to go to Oceano...

I left around 10 AM and stayed fairly low, 6,500', as I made my way north due to stronger winds above. The winds were as strong as predicted, but fortunately I mostly just had a 25 knot crosswind at my altitude, with not too much of a headwind component (10 knot average).

I arrived a little earlier than Jason did, so I fueled up while I waited. Once Jason arrived, we walked over to the Rock & Roll Diner. After a pretty good lunch, we walked back to the airport and checked out each others airplanes for a bit..

Jason departed north, and I departed back south. Going home, I wanted to climb up to take advantage of the tailwind, so I climbed to 11,500'. I saw a pretty constant 180 knot groundspeed for the entire flight home... Really nice, smooth flight home.

All in, about 2 hours 45 minutes of flying, a fantastic flight up and back, and a great visit with a friend, made possible by our RVs.
 
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You flew right over my house in Newport Beach; can see my neighborhood in your first photo, between your cowl and the reservoir.

PERFECT day to fly in SoCal, as your images show. Sadly, I'm still grounded, recovering from foot surgery.

You're right...yesterday was so perfect that today, we decided to do it again. We headed up to Torrance to take a ten minute walk to enjoy what has become our favorite Indian food restaurant for lunch...

On the way up, we went east of the Camp Pendleton restricted areas. Then, basically right over SNA to join a ~5 mile final for the 29's at TOA. On the way home, we went along the coast, and hung a left at Oceanside, and made our way back into Fallbrook.

Another great day of flying!
 
Flyleds works kit, while I wait for wings to arrive.
 

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Departed Whiteman Airport at 7:50 AM , headed north at 6500 to Gorman .... then direct to PRB, ( Paso Robles). Got fuel and went south to L52, (Oceano).
Parked, took a short walk... noticed John Harmon’s Rocket II parked nearby.
Took off from Oceano, buzzed the beach at Pismo Rec Area, then climbed to 7500 and headed for Santa Barbara. Absolutely beautiful view of ocean and the islands.
Flew south to Ventura, then east over Santa Paula and then home to KWHP.
Probably the nicest flying weather this year!
Lovin this airplane!!
 

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On Friday we flew our 9 from home base 1A3 in SE TN to Memphis to visit our girls, grand kids and great grand daughter. A hellacious head wind slowed us down considerably. But smooth air at 6,000 feet. Headwinds were over 50 mph at times.
Yesterday on our return trip we were rewarded with a nice tail wind. We made it back in 1:28 comfortably at 9,000 feet burning 8.8 gph at 65% power.
Got to love these RV’s
 
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