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Well, this trip set a number of records for me. This
is a bit long so if you are looking for any germs of rotary information might as
well skip it {:>). Tracy, Charlie and Bill have already reported all
the significant things at the flyin - so here's something a bit
different.
1. First take off on skis
Starting with Charlie's place. Beat the heaviest
rain into Lower Slobovia and spent Friday night at Charlie's with he, his
lovely wife, Tupper, and Tracy. A great evening talking rotaries and
politics.
Next morning, I needed to taxi down several
hangars to get to the fuel pump. The all-night rain had make
the grass somewhat soggy - to say the least. I found that with my
nose gear aircraft that it took full power just to get me moving and
considerable power to keep moving. Was sure glad I had the bigger prop and
2.85 gearbox. Also, I got a taste for what it must feel like to have an
aircraft on snow skis. The grass would pile up in front of the wheels and
the wheels would stop rolling and start sliding - had some control with
the rudder - but felt that if I had stopped at a few of the lower spots they
would have had to come for me in a row boat.
Anyhow, Charlie got me refueled, and one of
the locals (David, I believe) offered to go down to the end of the runway to
weigh down the tail so I could turn around (thanks, David). Fortunately,
he did not have to as I got turned around in a rolling turn.
I slowly applied power and worked the rudder as I had no
differential braking and started the take off roll. I rolled and rolled
slowly applying more power, but acceleration was at a snail space. I had
the stick all the way back in my lap to unload the nose gear, but things were
not progressing very rapidly. Airspeed had not come off the peg and I was
starting to think about aborting the take off - not a pleasant prospect with no
brakes or differential steering (but, really had plenty of runway - so no danger
- provided I could keep it between the markers).
About, the time I decided to abort, I hit a bump and found
myself airborne in slow flight with the engine running full blast and just
enough rudder control to keep it more or less down the runway. Got it
stabilized above the ground and soon reached climb speed and climbed on
out.
I pass over once as Tracy and Charlie prepared for take
off and then headed west at a slow speed. I quickly found a hole in
the low lying clouds and climbed out on top. Charlie and Tracy stay low as
we all headed west. I finally climbed to 8500 MSL, but found the head wind
component there more than I cared for. By this time Charlie and Tracy had
gotten ahead of me down low and broke out into clear weather. Took about
30minutes to finally catch them and join up. Rest of trip was trying to
find an altitude with a little less head wind and/or turbulence.
Already mentioned it was 12F OAT, so a cold trip.
2. Lowest Fuel Reserve on
Landing.
Arrived at 0TX1 with the lowest fuel reserve I had
yet landed with - 6.7 gallons. Knew there was no weather out there and
several airports along the way if fuel got critical, but we all make it despite
the headwinds which had ground speeds down to as low as 115 mph. Still only took
us 2.5 hours from Mississippi to Dallas, Texas.
3. Highest Headwind Component
As best I figured it out, at times we had a headwind
component of around 40-50 MPH even down at 2000 msl. Pretty certain it was
even more higher up.
4. Auto Fuel fill up.
Bill Eslick kindly offer both Tracy and I fuel on
Sunday. Well, he and I were talking and he was wondering what I thought
was a fair division of the fuel. I told him to just fill me up and give
Tracy what was left. He looked a bit surprised at my answer and said he
wasn't sure that was fair division. I then (continuing to pull his leg)
stated that Tracy was always bragging about his low fuel burn and besides he
would have a healthy tail wind. About, that time, I wasn't sure if Bill
knew I was kidding, so stopped pulling his leg. So about 20 gallons of
auto fuel to make the trip to San Antonio, Tx. Most auto gas I've burned
in quite a while.
5. Highest Tailwind Component.
After departing OTX1 for San Antonio, it was a pleasing
change to find my GPS reporting a ground speed of 220 MPH, again looked like
about 50 mph on the tail. Considering I seldom find myself with a tailwind
component of any kind, this was especially nice.
6. Most hours flow without peeking under the
cowl
Total time flow on this trip was 17.3 hours and never had
the cowl off a time {:>). Normally would have taken it off at Bill's,
but the cold and windy conditions make it unpleasant to anticipate - besides
everyone wanted to see Tracy's Rensis installation rather than this decade old
13B. Guess its the beginning of that long down hill slide
{:>)
6. Most miles flow
Trip total 2460 miles (actually a bit more as that was the
straight line distance and I did wander around looking for an airport that had
gasoline when I took off from Louisiana. Took three airports before I
found gas - cash only - at $3.70 a gallon.
7. Fewest hours before SAG
After taking off (the final time) from Louisiana, I
noticed during climbout to 7500 msl that SAG had occurred on one of the
rotors. EGT was down to 1350F on the front rotor. Well, I had
reached 7500, so throttled back and leaned it down to 6 GPH flow. It took
about 5 minutes before the EGT went back up and everything was normal. It
happened again on takeoff from my refueling stop (same rotor), but cleared up
after level off. I put these plugs (stock) in just before the trip.
Jason's surface fire plugs are going to get a try. Also will try a few of
the stuff reported on cleaning lead from plugs.
Well, that's about it. Home again and no further
trips planned until Sun & Fun.
Sorry, some of you could not make the flyin - great fun as
always
Ed
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