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.