|
Hi folks, back home after the trip to Florida. It
was sort of a good news/bad news trip.
Took off Thursday morning about 1015 after ground fog had
lifted. Cool morning and engine hit 6200 rpm on take off
roll. Landed shortly after 1pm at Shady Bend on
Thursday, after making a low 200 MPH pass down the strip. Was
welcomed by Tracy's delightful wife Laura as I taxied up to the
house. Spend Thursday evening in great
company including Jessica, Tracy's grandchild who is staying with them.
That was the good news.
The bad news {:>) was that Jessica was now
occupying the "guest" suite, the good news was Laura had reserved the living
room couch for me. The best new was - nobody snored. (different
story)
During Thursday evening it was clear from looking at
the forming weather patterns and despite the favorable forecast of a day
earlier, a two pronged front was rapidly advancing on the Southeast. It
was clearly looking like any flights from north of Florida on Friday would only
happened in the very early morning. Later that evening a small secondary
pre front line formed out over the gulf and moved over northern Florida
precluding even an early Friday flight.
Poor Laura is the one faced with making the decision
whether to Postpone the Flyin or not (after all that work). Well, it
finally became clear that even if the Flyin was held with mainly Florida
attendees, that Saturday was going to be cold, windy and miserable at
Lakeland. So Laura made the courageous decision cancel the RV
flying. That's the bad news.
The good news is it was not cancelled but only postpone
until next week end, so those of you still desiring and able to make it, I
encourage you to do so.
Then Laura had to notify a list of people that would
have made the pentagon emergency recall program boggle. But, she
pressed on until the job was done. Great lady! I called Cappy
early in the morning so he could post the news on the RVSoutheast
list.
The good news is I got to spend three days at Shady Bend
with Tracy and Laura. Managed to help Tracy with a few things on the
airplanes, discussed my AOA project and contributed a radiator cap to his
RV-4. (Yes, I do fly with a spare).
The bad news was I got a phone call from the wife (which
was unusual) on Saturday and Laura had clearly detected a stress
level in my wife's voice which she let me know when she called me from the work
shop. The good news was that the wife was stressed, but there was no
tragedy.
The bad news was - my wife reported that my hangar had
blown away Friday night. Laura reminded me that I ask the wife three
times during the conversation to confirm the news {:>).
That's right the hangar is gone! The good news is that my
aircraft was not there but in Tracy's new hangar. Well, nothing I could do about it, so decided to continue my
very enjoyable visit and we all went out to dinner Saturday night.
I had attempted to show Tracy my new fuel monitoring
system in operation. The bad news was that upon touch down at Shady Bend
it stopped working. The good news is I found If I wiggled
the cigarette lighter, power would be restored and it would work - so got
to show it to Tracy. The bad news was that when I flew back and any time I
wanted to check my fuel burn/ Air Fuel ratio, etc, I had to reach across the
cockpit and wiggle the cigarette lighter. The good news was that it would
then work.
I launched out of Shady bend at 0945 with 6500 rpm showing
on the tach! Stopped to refuel at Waycross, GA at 1030 and took off again
(naturally in to a 25-30 MPH headwind). I normally cruise burning 7 GPH
and today that was giving me a ground speed of 138 MPH. I finally said to
hell with fuel economy and push the engine up to 10 GPH burn rate. Ground
speed moved up from 138 to 168 MPH - that was more like it!.
Made it back to North Carolina and home airport at
1230. Made one pass and the bad news was that the bad news had been
accurate. The hanger had been lifted up and blown backwards off the
concrete slab and crumpled up. The good news was neither hangar to the
side was even touched.
It was amazing, the storage cabinet was upright,
empty cardboard boxes were right where I had left them, empty buckets had not
been moved, even paper on my work bench were undisturbed. But, the hangar
including my recently installed electrical wiring were all gone in the rubble
and the end of the hangar. As Laura had put it, it appeared that I had
been hit by a micro-burst, surgical strike (tornadoes had been reported in
adjacent county).
So the bad news is NO Hangar for my airplane!
The good news is a neighbor has room for my aircraft in his hangar.
I finally concluded that the gremlins that normally plague
my flights missed my take off and couldn't find me so took it out on the
hangar.
So now have to start deciding what to replace it
with. It took me six weeks of day long labor to put up the first Quonset
hut standing on scaffolding 15' above the concrete pad back six years ago
leaving me with tendenitis in both elbows that took six months to go away.
So I am 99 percent certain I am going to have the new hangar built rather than
build it myself - life is too short.
So have not added up the good news/bad news column, but my
aircraft and I can still flying- so that's the best news.
Well, that about wraps it up.
Otherwise just your ordinary Ed Anderson trip {:>). I will post some
photos of the hangar tomorrow - right now, going down to fix myself a cold tall
one. Will catch up on any e mails addressed to me tomorrow
also.
|