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OSH'17 PIREPS, Picture URLs, Reports, etc...

Had a great flight here with Carol in the RV-14. Two legs, with one GPS approach into Danville, Il. Stumbled upon a really cool war bird restoration shop that had a T-6, P-51, and a Messerschmidt 109 under restoration. Got a shop tour by Steve Schultz, who also built and RV-8.
The weather cooperated and we were able to VFR up the shoreline and see Chicago, then cut inland and entered a left base for 27. Lots of volunteers here already, but not many airplanes. It's the earliest we've been here, and it was kind of fun to park at the Van's tent with no one there!
Good weather this morning, but the forecast for later today calls for lots of rain, perhaps 1-2". 😟


HBC pavilion looks great and we are headed there this am.

Vic
 
I was going to stop overnight in southern Minnesota, but when I got there yesterday, I looked at the forecast, and it looked like a better idea to get in to Oshkosh while I could! Turned out the forecast was accurate, so glad I pushed on the extra 45 minutes - this wouldn't have been a good morning to fly that last little bit!

Helping a little bit to set up the new Pavillion - the REAL volunteers are working much harder. It's a slow day for arrivals so far - like Vic, its the earliest I have gotten in for the show, but I expect this afternoon will pick up if the western doesn't shut things down first.

Paul
 
steve schultz and rv8

vic i own the 8 that steve built. had it since aug 2013. he did a great job! bob
 
Had a great flight here with Carol in the RV-14. Two legs, with one GPS approach into Danville, Il. Stumbled upon a really cool war bird restoration shop that had a T-6, P-51, and a Messerschmidt 109 under restoration. Got a shop tour by Steve Schultz, who also built and RV-8.
The weather cooperated and we were able to VFR up the shoreline and see Chicago, then cut inland and entered a left base for 27. Lots of volunteers here already, but not many airplanes. It's the earliest we've been here, and it was kind of fun to park at the Van's tent with no one there!
Good weather this morning, but the forecast for later today calls for lots of rain, perhaps 1-2". 😟


HBC pavilion looks great and we are headed there this am.

Vic

Danville is my default stop on the way to and from Osh. Shop is always closed on Saturday :(
 
The cookies are in the oven! They often fail quality control, so I wouldn't get your hopes up, but we'll see ya' tomorrow (hopefully)...

Jeff, it seems you WILL want to look for us late in the afternoon.
 
We stopped for the night in Southern Indiana to visit friends. Well we had an IFR slot for this morning into OSH but it looks like that ain't gonna happen due to a large complex of T-storms along the route in Northern Illinois. Oh well, we'll just have to wait for it to pass and get VFR weather on the route and at OSH.
 
I notice Bob Leffler (N410BL, RV10) changed his IFR flight plan to go from central Ohio to Oshkosh through Michigan and across Lake Michigan rather than his first plan of curving around the south side of Chicago. It looks like he went between two areas of storms about 100 miles apart in northern Ohio and is now getting ready to cross Lake Michigan. It's really amazing what an airplane built at home can do these days.
 
Our new plan is to see what the route and OSH looks like later today around 3-4pm EDT. If it's not VFR, we're going to try IFR to UNU early tomorrow morning (I went ahead and got a 0715 slot) and if OSH is VFR we'll cancel once we get IVO UNU and fly the VFR arrival into OSH.
 
Shantel and I arrived at 3:15 central after a huge deviation to the west to miss the crud that was sliding Southeast of Chicago. We stopped at 3LF Litchfield IL for fuel. We spent the last 100 or so miles under the cool and smooth overcast at 1500-2000 ft agl.

Got here in between two mass arrivals. Was a cluster at RIPON but we got sent to 27 where it was easy peasy!

They parked us in the HBC annex across the ditch. We have a shower right in front of us.

We are now filling up at Friar Tucks!
 
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We arrived at about 1:30 local time after detouring west to StLouis. Arrival was easy, the new pavilion is nice, and all is right with the world.

The Stovall's arrived 45 minutes ago...
 
Even we locals were fighting the low weather on Saturday morning. Window for the short flight from West Bend WI to Ripon opened in the early afternoon. We are parked in row row 355. Camping in Scholler, 37th St. south of Lindberg.
 
Mayeux's made it

Kelli and I 2-hopped KELLI GIRL through KFTT Hensley Memorial Missouri to KUES Waukausha WI, where we shot an LNAV through 800' OVC. There we met up with Bugsy and Kathy Gardetto for lunch while the ceilings lifted. After lunch, Bugsy and I flew VFR to the Fisk arrival and parked. Kathy and Kelli followed with our camping gear, which the Gardetto's have graciously stored in his hanger between Airventures.

It's great to be back, now somebody hand me a Spotted Cow!
 
All aircraft camping at KOSH was full sometime before 6P tonight. Heard it monitoring the FISK arrival... Schiller is hopping too....
 
Sunday ride to North East

I am making a last minute audible, and flying with a friend in a PC12 from AZ to OSH Friday. Anyone have an open seat headed to the east coast Sunday? NJ is my destination, but not too picky...

Cheers,
Frank
908-577-one 6 two 5 cell
 
Cool Temps

I heard temp of 19 C on the KOSH ATIS. That's 66 F! Wow, what a good year to go to Oshkosh! No wonder they are having large crowds. :eek:

Have any numbers on total attendance been published?
 
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Still room in Homebuilt Parking?

Planning on arriving this morning. Just an early check to see if boots on the ground see anything? Missed last year and looking forward to getting there if only for a day.
Doug
 
I had a great first-time experience flying to Osh. The -9A performed flawlessly at maybe 10-20 lb. over gross, with a rearward cg well within limits. Increased pitch sensitivity was not an issue at all, but I made the mistake (once!) of standing on the step at the same time as my co-pilot, resulting in a static tail strike. Just a little rash on the rudder cap, nothing a little touch-up paint won't fix!

From our base at Cable (CCB) in the Los Angeles Area, we cruised at 9500' and shot for a ground speed of 170 mph or so; 145 ktas at about 7.0-7.2 gph. We had enough tailwind to bump the ground speed to 185 mph or so at times.

We planned for 3.2-hour legs or so, stopping in Gallup, NM; Garden City, KS; and overnighting at Carroll, IA with friends of my co-pilot. From there, an easy 2.5 hours to Osh, with a stop at Baraboo/Wisconsin Dells for fuel so we wouldn't need to summon the fuel truck at AirVenture. Hospitality at these little Midwest airports is incredible; three times we were offered free hangar space and courtesy cars. Friendly folk, for sure!

Ripon wasn't too busy at our 6 pm Saturday arrival...maybe four planes looking to get in the queue. Our first attempt had us behind an L-19 doing about 70 kts, so we peeled off and rejoined at Ripon, where we found ourselves about a mile in trail of a 172 or something. At Fisk, we were assigned the approach I was hoping for: Fisk Ave. to a left base for 36L. Going very smoothly on base until the tower had us looking for a Marchetti doing a straight-in approach. We spotted him and did a funky tight S-turn to open up spacing.

I was assigned the purple dot, but mid-approach it was extended to the yellow, so I flew 10 feet off the deck at 65 kts and was able to put it down right on the pigment.

We left Tuesday night to get out before a storm, launching at about 6:30. We made Carroll, IA in time for a twilight landing to stay with our friends again. I hope Don at KCIN reads this...he and his wife were so accommodating and generous, and their airport is a beauty. Fantastic runway lights and taxiway lights! He's building an RV-7 that I didn't get a chance to see.

The next day was clear skies and smooth air, and we gave 'er a little more throttle to deal with mild headwinds. 155 ktas at 8.0 gph. A stop at Hays, KS (KHYS) and then to Dalhart (KDHT) in the Texas Panhandle. We opted to stay there for the night, as the air was getting bumpy, and it would be a good launching point for a pre-sunrise departure to get through the thunderstorm-prone New Mexico and Arizona. Drove into town with a courtesy car and had a nice meal at the Great Wall Chinese buffet, a nice change from the Pringles/beef jerky menu en route.

We awoke to significant T-storm activity, and drove to the airport a little later than we had planned. We saw a break in the weather to the south, so we launched to do an end-run around that weather. We had to dodge a couple more storms, with enough precip to keep the plane clean until we broke out into sunny skies. A fuel stop in Winslow AZ, and then a little diversion east of Flagstaff to check out Meteor Crater. Cool! I really enjoyed this leg of the trip, as we were at 8500' but only about 2000 ft agl, and really boogeying so there was a sense of speed as the ground rolled beneath us.

Big fun. We accrued 26 Hobbs hours, landed at 10 new airports, went to AirVenture and got the T-shirt. Several in fact. Met a lot of neat people, including Dan Horton and Paul Dye, and had a great time with my co-pilot Tom Wilson, whose vastly greater experience helped me with weather decisions and other aspects of flight planning. What a way to spend a week!
 
....had a great time with my co-pilot Tom Wilson, whose vastly greater experience helped me with weather decisions and other aspects of flight planning. What a way to spend a week!

I'm guessing tall Tom would appreciate a -14 for the next trip. Bit tight in there was it? Bet he took off his boots ;)

I bugged out first thing Wednesday morning, while the overcast was high. First time for a straight out launch on 18R; just a short taxi from HBC, and gone. Cheap gas at East Troy, then nonstop to south Alabama, dodging the usual Dixie thunderstorm welcome. Ran about 183 KTAS on 8.4 at 11.5K; I was hauling three cases of Spotted Cow.
 
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Smart guy, that Horton fellow departing on Wednesday.

We left late morning on Thursday and spent ALL day playing an airborne version of Frogger, avoiding thunderstorms, IMC, etc. in a wood propped, VFR RV-6. Fly a while, land, launch, fly, turn around, land, talk with the FSS, consult local radar, hop in, fly, dodge, etc... We landed at home (just NW of Atlanta) at about 9:30.
 
Good to hear you're back safe, Dan. Fantastic speed/economy numbers for your craft!!!

Loafers in, cowboy boots out for Tom. :) Actually, the -9A wasn't too cramped considering the combined 450 lb. of humans stuffed in the seats. We both test-sat in the -14 at the Van's booth and it didn't feel that much wider. The latch mechanism for the tip-up on the -14 gets in the way of elbow room too, and the fact you can't get a slider canopy ruled out the -14 entirely for me.

I've got a minimalist interior in my plane (seat cushions, armrest pads and a lot of painted metal) so that helps with elbow room too.
 
Good morning from Home after sleeping in my own bed for the first time in a week. We arrived Sat. afternoon with little excitement and left Friday morning. I think we've concluded that this is one day more than needed for us.

Being on "the island" (over the creek, across the bridge,...) was a new experience for us. Back at home, TC measured the distance to the beautiful new HBC pavilion at 1/4 mile each way. That means it is a 1/2 mile for the daily half bag of ice. I think she measured that to be twice as far as the furthest "normal" HBC parking from previous years. Many times, that precluded us from being a part of the intended community. Way fewer trips to HBC central just to see what's shaking or who is around to chat with. That effected Tanya's 'fun meter'. We found that those that had no interest in hanging out at the pavilion to chat with anyone that would walk by thought camping on the island was great. On the other hand, it was pretty weird to step out of the tent and be downtown at show center. That was neat.

The "receiving line" at HB HQ for doughnuts was just plain weird, and made sugar acquisition time take longer.

This isn't our first rodeo, but I enjoy learning new Oshkosh tricks each year. How do you get your dog into the show? Either put it in a pink baby carriage and walk right in, or slap a "service dog in training" vest on it. For the latter, we saw a couple that were totally true and more than a couple that I called complete BS.

For the first time, we went to see a movie at the fly-in Theater Tuesday evening. "Sully" was playing, which we hadn't seen. That was a neat experience. I'm not one for thick crowds and usually run the opposite direction. This qualified. I got 'lost' after getting up from our seat and had to call my wingman for directions back through the crowd. I was shocked that she actually answered the phone.

How do you get your hands on a new QT Halo headset, given that they are always out of stock? Show up at Phil's booth at OSH on Monday morning 9am. You'll find him with his receipt book out, writing as fast as he can to take your money. Below the table is the mother load of product that you'll soon realize he's been stockpiling so he has something to sell at the show :). I've been using mine for 10yrs and picked up another.

Finally, this was the year that we've finally started to congeal a plan to upgrade the RV9 instrument panel. We've been talking about it for a couple years, but with the original GRT equipment visibly beginning to fail (don't PM me), it will be GRT out, G3X IN. I've had a new instrument panel hanging on the shop wall for a decade just waiting for the big upgrade which shall begin this morning. The logistics officer has approved about 80% of the project. I was relying on Stein to sell the other 20% but he didn't quite fully complete his end of the deal (just kidding, Stein and his guys are great. I think they need a booth babe help sell!). I guess I'll just have to accept the heat for the last 20% as "scope creep".

We had a great time at OSH '17. It was great to see all the usual suspects and many new ones. See ya' next year if not sooner!

(We could really use a Mod. to fix John's image above. Slap a size tag on that sucker.)
 
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We left first thing this morning-- picked up our IFR clearance north of OSH, flew over Lake Michigan and finished up with a GPS approach back into my home base of Manassas, VA.
 
This isn't our first rodeo, but I enjoy learning new Oshkosh tricks each year. How do you get your dog into the show? Either put it in a pink baby carriage and walk right in, or slap a "service dog in training" vest on it. For the latter, we saw a couple that were totally true and more than a couple that I called complete BS.

Man, I agree - I bet there will be some cracking down on this in years to come. I'm a dog guy ... but there were tons of "therapy dogs" in training around this year - far far more than I've ever seen!

Whoever sells the "in training" harnesses is doing well!
 
Shantel and I blasted off Thursday around 10:30 Thursday after 35-40 minutes waiting for takeoff on 36. The engine was hot on the roll with a bit of hesitation but once the fuel got flowing that quickly resolved. Made the turn well before the tower.

Just about passing the edge of the D, bam! Sounded like something smacked the bottom of the plane with a dead blow hammer! Scared the pooooo out of my wife! I felt nothing in the controls, no shudders, nobody around me visually, nobody around me on the ads-b, quick glance at the tail and it is all there, quick shake of the stick and it all still works, quick look at the wings for dents or blood and nothing. I thought we must have hit a bird with the gear or something.

Nerves calmed down and we keep going. Severe clear for a while till we got down south a bit then a line of crud showed up. Fuel stop METAR and TAF was overcast so we decide to stay under it to prevent issues when we got there. It kept getting lower and more fuzzy till it pushed me down below my personal comfort zone so we stopped a bit early in Danville, Il. A guy landed 15 minutes after me in a Christen Eagle and he said it had gotten even worse.

After looking at all the METARS, forecast and radar for the route, I made the call that I was not going to push it. From Kyle's post above it seems like we made a good call to spend the night! The wife would have killed me if I got her home after dark!

Due to the slow speed of that cold front, yesterday started out with Danville being IFR till almost noon. The low ceilings and poor visibility covered almost my entire route along with all the thunderstorms. After the field went MVFR, the FBO started filling up with people trying to get South - Southeast. To me it looked real crummy with my home field being slammed with storm after storm.

So we just stayed another night. My wife and I made a date out of it. Went to watch the movie Dunkirk (meh!) The Airplane was in a hangar with a Christen Eagle, P51, a T6 and a German Messerschmitt 109 being restored. The guys working in there were very friendly and gave me a complete tour with all the details! The 109 spent 50 years or something like that at the bottom of a river!

Fast forward to this morning and we blasted off in severe clear with 1:49 to go. Climb up to 9500 and I got another bang! Just like the one coming out of Osh. Then a few more bumps from the engine a few minutes apart. I realized that these must be after-fire bangs from a sticky valve. Normally my engine runs like a sewing machine. Never has had morning sickness.

About 100 miles from home at 9500, suddenly we were now over solid under-cast. I knew we were gonna cross this area from the preflight weather checks. Bases were ~3000, tops were 3500-4000 so no big deal as we were on top. As we approached my home field, suddenly the clouds were now scattered. Got a couple more bumps from the engine on the rapid decent. This were more than the normal downwind pop you sometimes get from closing the throttle too fast.

Nothing will prepare you for how a sticky valve will scare you when it sticks while in cruise! I am certain that my wife will need new underwear!

So now I am ready to wobble test/ream the guides on all 4 before any additional flights! I am not fooling around with this kind of stuff. A miss or after-fire bang every now and then seems like a warning sign of an imminent bent pushrod or worse!

I change my oil and filter every 25-50 hrs. I have used Aeroshell W80 since break-in. I am guilty of not flying often enough however at times due to the FAA and their SI medical bologna. Glad that is behind me now!

Anyway, home safe, another great Airventure! Glad to see all the friends and make some new ones!

Last but definitely not least, huge thank you to Jerry and Jeff and their teams! The volunteers are what makes Osh run and your groups are at the top of the list! Thanks to whoever made to call to build the new pavilion! It is awesome!

I agree with Scott, the receiving line at the HB HQ doughnut affair was just like last year....awkward! Don't get me wrong, love the free doughnuts and the fellowship, just not the method used to create interaction with the council.

We too were ushered to the "Island" or "Annex" upon arrival Saturday. This was strange since the regular area was totally empty. Seems they started on the outside and worked their way in this year. Also seems like there was some sort of effort to mix up the airplane makes and models in the camping area. While I did not mind the area at all, it was further to the pavilion and I think as a result, we spent less time there. The shower and porta pots there were really close and that was nice. Shantel did get one cold shower one morning for some reason. Rest of the days it seemed like unlimited hot water. Her only complaint was that the sinks are too high for short people. (Jerry, please never let them take away the nice showers!)
 
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My arrival on Saturday at 1220, having an extended flight, as I had to circle St Louis on the west to get by the big mass of storms going west to east.

This enabled me to solidify my 1000 hours enroute to the show.

I bugged out Friday morning to head back to St Petersburg.

First half of the trip home, I was averaging 222 mph. Ran into the descending Low frontal line after my fuel stop & was forced to go around the east side of Atlanta.
The rest of the way, a comfortable 200mph.

It was great catching up with old friends and making new ones.

I had a prime spot right in front of the showers and the brand new HBC pavillion.

Thank you Jerry, Jay & Carol and the rest of the group for taking excellent care of us this year once again.

See you all in 2018.
 
I blasted off this morning in "Mikey" after Louise left on Thursday in Tsam. We had arrived the previous Thursday, which gave plenty of time for the wheels to sink in to the grass and slightly soft soil - it took three of us to free the left wheel from its rut, but we got it out.

I pulled out onto the paralle taxiway to head down to the departure end of 36 right behind a Lancair that took the "never taxi faster than a slow walk" rule seriously. No one else on the pavement all the way down, but I had to come to a full stop several times to prevent running him over. Then he pulled off in to parking three rows from teh southern end....

Took off behind three Cubs, and after I turned to 150 degrees it looked like I was going into hyperspace as I zipped by them getting to the edge of the Class D - then pulled up into a climbing turn to point the nose at the Twin Cities. I have a few stops to make on the way home, so I'll be traveling a couple more days - but we'll chalk this year's Oshkosh up in the "win" column.

(Oh, I hear the words about the "receiving line" at the donuts....)

Can't say enough good things about all the hard-working volunteers at the show - folks that showed up a week (or two) in advance to set things up and then worked their tails off all week long to make it a good experience. Absolutely selfless, helpful, and ready to serve. Thanks to the few who make life great for the many!

Paul
 
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Made it back to SoCal. Logged about 29 hours out and back, with some detours on the way home to Mackinac Island and Kalamazoo to visit friends. I'll eventually get all of my photos into an online album on my web site. My wife took just as many, if not more photos than I did, but she got dropped off in SLC, UT to visit our daughter for the week (taking Southwest to get home!), so the photos will wait until she gets back with her iPhone so I can download them.

Had a great time for the 4 days we were there, and look forward to doing it again. Met a bunch of folks who commented on using my build web site to help with their projects. I'm very humbled by anyone thinking I know anything about building airplanes! :D
 
it's all about people and friendship

It's my fifth Oshkosh and was great too.

Meeting people that I read only on social or magazines it's incredibly cool.

Here some photos (more guys are missing)

It was a joy, hope to see you soon my friends.


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Number of visitors Oshkosh 2017

Just arrived home from OSH17. And we are already looking forward to the next year... ;)

It has been a great honor to volunteer for the third year in a row. My wife and I had a great time parking the home-built campers with the fantastic group of EAA Chapter 18. We probably escorted a lot of you (never thought I would be an "escort" in my life, but anyway... :D), it was fun to see you all. Most might remember me as the one with the funny English accent as we live in Belgium.

As the number of visitors are posted on Facebook, I suppose they are open to the public.

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Enjoy!
 
Another one in the books!!

Departed KEBG (far south Texas on the Mexican border) Saturday at 6:30 AM. Two fuel stops and 7.5 flight hours later landed on the red square at KOSH. Enjoyed the beer tasting and visited with the Beer Fairy as well. Departed KOSH 9:30AM Saturday and landed back at KEBG 7.2 flight hours later. Had a great trip, met some new folks, saw some old friends, ate well, walked a bunch, and saw some amazing airplanes. The RV9 is such a great traveling airplane. If you don't believe it just ask Vlad!!
 
Catching Up

Finally catching up this week. Tiny pic was acting up, so I had to switch over to Imgur for pics.

All said and done, we flew about 3600 miles. Left KMYF (SD) on Thursday the 20th and returned on Sunday the 30th. Flew from KMYF-KSAF-KEOS on day one, took a day off, then into Chicago, then an easy early morning arrival at Osh on Sunday.(Sooooo much easier than what we got caught in last year onSunday afternoon). Fisk was actually asking folks what runway they wanted. Nice and relaxed. All of that with my buddy in his turbo Mooney. Ironically we were never very far behind, if at all.... Except he did do one leg at FL 20 just to do it...

Won't bore everyone with all the cool shiny things at the show.... Plenty of those pics out there

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Leaving KEOS into Chicago (Schaumburg)bright and early before it got too hot..

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Flying over Lake of the Ozarks

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Exact same parking spot as last year

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When we left the show on Friday, we headed west to Rapid City SD. Just to break the trip up and relax, just the 2 of us. One the ground, we ran into Steve and Les in Steve's beautiful RV-7. Ironically, it was his plane that we saw last year that inspired the chrome on Misswhiskeydelta. They hadn't figured out a hotel or shuttle yet either, so my wife did her thing, and bing bang boom, we had rooms at the hotel Alex Johnson. Great place right in downtown. We shared the shuttle both ways. Grabbed a drink once we checked in.


Early morning head out to the flightlline.

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Les and Steve. (funny, we joked about watching 2 B1's taking off out of Elseworth AFB and banking huge tuns right over our heads... "Meh... just saw that all week...
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Got to over fly Mt Rushmore after we picked up our clearance from Elseworth AFB.
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Had been wanting to go visit friends on in Crested Butte. The weather was looking iffy and I wasn't comfortable flying IFR in the mountains. We stopped for gas in Delta (east of Grand Junction, CO) and waited for the weather to lift in Gunnison. That paid off as we were rewarded with a nice hope over the clouds to find a clear, lush green Valley

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Leaving Gunny the next morning, from 7700 feet, the 10 just did't have that Umph it usually does... But hey, we had a 7000ft runway to work with. We were still off the ground in the first 25-30% We broke the trip home up with a lunch stop in Page, AZ. Got to fly over Lake Powel and the Grand Canyon(well, the edge of it).

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All in all the plane performed perfectly. We were 160-165KTAS most of the trip and somehow had a tailwind virtually the whole trip. (Good planning. ahem!) Mostly up at 11k-14k... With all of our stuff and the cooler Air conditioner, we were close to gross everytime we fueled up. Gotta love these machines
 
Bruce:

Thanks for the photos. Beautiful! I looked at each one. It is mesmerizing. I love the great American West, and you showed us a lot of it.
 
Thanks for sharing Bruce

Fun to see some things from another perspective. You had a few items in there that I missed seeing at EAA.
 
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