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What did you do with your RV this weekend? (5/21-22/2022)

I flew down for the second day of the Great Minnesota Aviation Gathering, sponsored by the Minnesota Pilots Association. Very nice event, lots of good speakers and vendor booths. Donuts were $2 :mad:. RVs were well-represented, including a presentation "50 Years of RVs - The Story of Van's Aircraft" given by Doug Weiler (President of the Twin Cities RV Builders Group).

The capper for the day, however, was getting fuel on the way back. Rather than paying $6.59/gallon to have the line guys at my home airport fuel me up at my hangar after I put the plane up, I stopped at a little airport about 12 minutes west and self-served some 100LL at $4.13/gallon. Saved me about $57 on a 23 gallon fill. Downside...I had to pump it myself. I'm OK with that.

THAT was exciting.
 

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I volunteered to pick up some blood from a blood drive for a local blood bank. They only have about six hours from the blood donation until the blood has to be processed, or else it is no longer usable. So, I flew out to what I consider to be a hole in the wall. Yucca Valley, L22. It is the kind of airport that has weeds growing from the pavement, and not much of anything going on. Located in the high desert, just a little bit north/northeast of the Palm Springs area. After picking up the blood, I dropped it off in San Bernardino, and then flew back home.

Southern California has had an overcast layer that goes probably 20 miles inland from the coast the last few days. Rather than look for a hole, as I did on my departure from home, I filed IFR to get back home. Smart move.. I am not so much a fan of scud running these days.

Only flew a few minutes under an hour and a half, but at least I was able to do something good with the fuel that I otherwise would have wasted doing something less impactful to mankind.
 
Checked out a few new small airports in the Northern Sierra. All less than 3300ft. Not short for RV standards, but with elevations of ~5k, definitely gotta pay attention as it warms up. You can never go wrong with a roll over Tahoe either!
 

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Checked out a few new small airports in the Northern Sierra. All less than 3300ft. Not short for RV standards, but with elevations of ~5k, definitely gotta pay attention as it warms up. You can never go wrong with a roll over Tahoe either!

A full airplane shot inverted over Lake Tahoe is guaranteed calendar material!
 
We flew to the Second Annual Flying Horseman Ranch Fly In, hosted by the Landis family. They have a beautiful 1900 ft. grass strip in Virginia, just over the NC border. As you can see, the woods were very sparsely populated with RVs but we enjoyed the day anyway.
 

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It never gets old. I just do. Here's a selfie from our breakfast flight to Okeechobee this morning with my daughter, Chloe, in the RV-6. I was photo bombed by my friend Dave in his RV-6.

 

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Low clouds kept me in the pattern

I went up today but clouds at 2200 kept me in the pattern. I was in the pattern with a Cessna Cardinal and I had to keep extending my cross wind turn and base leg to stay behind him. A couple times I had to pull out of the pattern and re-enter to keep from catching up! It was still fun just burning holes in the air and tires on the ground!
 

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There's been lots of stuff going on but I've been trying to stick with the "do something every day" mantra, generally working towards getting my panel and stuff painted and labeled. As of now my panel pieces and switch console have been cleaned, primed, and painted; I'm going to give them a few days to cure before I lightly wet-sane and then apply my dry-transfer labels before top coating with clear.

In other news, my engine arrives tomorrow. Rather than borrow a neighbor's engine hoist, I decided to just buy my own...any excuse for a new tool, right? Except when I tried to assemble it, it seems the two part boxes contained two different versions of the hoist. The legs are a quarter-inch wider than the sockets in the base they're supposed to go into. Guess I'll be borrowing the neighbor's hoist after all...first thing in the morning.
 
Yesterday I continued in my never-ending quest to beat electrons into submission.
 

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Snapped this pic of downtown Seattle with Cu-Nim's building in the background over the Cascades, on the way back from lunch at Chehalis on Saturday.

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Yesterday I continued in my never-ending quest to beat electrons into submission.

No need to beat them into submission as they are pretty well adapted to go the way of least resistance. Really the electrons are beating you into submission to go the way you want them to go. :) Anyway that is how I always felt.
good luck
 
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The Utah back country is an amazing place - the terrain & scenery is spectacular!! The flying was actually last weekend when a weather window opened up. This weekend was spent processing video.

I camped at Escalante (1L7) with two other RV's from San Diego and a friend in a Bearhawk. Fuel at Cal Black (U96) was the least expensive in the area. Many hours spent enjoying this amazing area!! Utah and RAF have done a really fantastic job with their aviation facilities.

The first of the videos is here.

 
Touch grass

My soaring club hosts an annual Family Day at one of our member's private strips in the Shenandoah valley. Naturally, I chose a 15 minute flight in the 4 over the hour+ drive on 66 and 81. They parked me front and center and there were a lot of questions from the floppy hat crowd, most of whom don't fly power planes.
 

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Polishing

Started polishing the 8.
Before, during and after photos.
Only 3 passes of "C" compound.
Skin was quite abused during the 9 year build and successive moves.

Still to do, the fuselage and the "S" compound.

No plan to spend thousands of hours to get the perfect mirror finish.
This is and will be a regularly flown airplane, not a museum piece...

Considering how smooth the skin becomes after polishing, I have to expect some extra speed... :D
 

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Wow, great video. I would love to know your camera settings. PM sent. Thanks

The Utah back country is an amazing place - the terrain & scenery is spectacular!! The flying was actually last weekend when a weather window opened up. This weekend was spent processing video.

I camped at Escalante (1L7) with two other RV's from San Diego and a friend in a Bearhawk. Fuel at Cal Black (U96) was the least expensive in the area. Many hours spent enjoying this amazing area!! Utah and RAF have done a really fantastic job with their aviation facilities.

The first of the videos is here.

 
only slightly jealous

Snapped this pic of downtown Seattle with Cu-Nim's building in the background over the Cascades, on the way back from lunch at Chehalis on Saturday.

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This weekend was a great day to fly around here! was supposed to do my IFR stage check Sat. but the plane went down for its 100hr :(
 
RV weekend

Finally had a friend (non builder) help with the buck bar on some rivets.
I may have not stressed the importance of holding said bar parallel to skin.
inside
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outside
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After, second time, thought wiser to take a break.

How do I "fix" these blemishes?
Thanks for any input.
 
Back to the future...

Last weekend I attended an F16 squadron reunion at Gaston's resort in AR. It was a reunion in more ways than one as a squadron bro in attendance arrived in his RV8, one I am intimately familiar. Way back in 99' when I lived in CA I assisted my (then) neighbor BH in building it, then test flew and later sold for him. I've screened the buyers since and it's now owned by "RedDog"!
:)
How cool is that?
V/R
Smokey

 
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When does the weekend start?

Friday I flew another recent Hensley transplant to KTYS for his commercial flight to CA so he can fly his RV-9A to it's new home.

Saturday Capt Sandy and I joined a Kitfox, a Stinson and an RV8A from Hensley for brunch at Johnson County Airport (6A4) - some of us had breakfast and some had burgers! Sandy and I flew another 15nm east, crossing the state line, to Ashe County (KGEV) to get less expensive 100LL - $5.15/gallon. Both airports were very picturesque, friendly and offer a courtesy car. We will probably return to each to explore more.

Sunday morning I took Capt Sandy up to get some overhead pictures of our house and hangar that are under construction.

Regards,
 

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When does the weekend start?

Friday I flew another recent Hensley transplant to KTYS for his commercial flight to CA so he can fly his RV-9A to it's new home.

Saturday Capt Sandy and I joined a Kitfox, a Stinson and an RV8A from Hensley for brunch at Johnson County Airport (6A4) - some of us had breakfast and some had burgers! Sandy and I flew another 15nm east, crossing the state line, to Ashe County (KGEV) to get less expensive 100LL - $5.15/gallon. Both airports were very picturesque, friendly and offer a courtesy car. We will probably return to each to explore more.

Sunday morning I took Capt Sandy up to get some overhead pictures of our house and hangar that are under construction.

Regards,

So excited for you guys, you’ve made a LOT of progress!
 
Last weekend I attended an F16 squadron reunion at Gaston's resort in AR. It was a reunion in more ways than one as a squadron bro in attendance arrived in his RV8, one I am intimately familiar. Way back in 99' when I lived in CA I assisted my (then) neighbor BH in building it, then test flew and later sold for him. I've screened the buyers since and it's now owned by "RedDog"!
:)
How cool is that?
V/R
Smokey


Hey--I know this airplane. I owned it from 2007 to 2012. Bought it from Ron Miller, an Air Force guy, and sold it to Nick, (Can't remember Nick'S last name anymore,) but a Delta Pilot and an F-16 driver in the reserves. Got so depressed without "this" 8, that I bought the one you see in the avatar picture above.
Nick, if you see this, could you maybe post a picture of what the instrument panel looks like now??
 
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Next Time....

Smokey....my apologies for not making the trip! I talked to Rascal and would've been there, but my plane is still in paint!

Next time Bro!
 
Smokey!
The Halkett machine. I'll see if I can find pictures of it from AWO '02 trip, it wasn't painted then.
The SNJ is flying, come out to sandy eggo.
 
... The capper for the day, however, was getting fuel on the way back. Rather than paying $6.59/gallon to have the line guys at my home airport fuel me up at my hangar after I put the plane up, I stopped at a little airport about 12 minutes west and self-served some 100LL at $4.13/gallon. Saved me about $57 on a 23 gallon fill. Downside...I had to pump it myself. I'm OK with that.

Even at over US$6/GAL you guys don't know how lucky you are! I put 90 litres in my plane yesterday and it cost me the equivilent of $14.15 per gallon here in NZ. Its getting seriously expensive... and the price increases haven't stopped yet.
 
Even at over US$6/GAL you guys don't know how lucky you are! I put 90 litres in my plane yesterday and it cost me the equivilent of $14.15 per gallon here in NZ. Its getting seriously expensive... and the price increases haven't stopped yet.

We may get there too! I stopped at the fuel pumps on May 28th at my home airport (Arlington, WA, KAWO) to top off after a short lunch flight with a buddy in our RV-8s, and found another whopping price increase, putting the price of 100LL at $7.640/gallon.

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Those that are building or buying should not underestimate the cost of operating their new RV. And the replacements for 100LL will probably be more expensive.
 
RV9A

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Those that are building or buying should not underestimate the cost of operating their new RV. And the replacements for 100LL will probably be more expensive.

The main reason I picked a 9A instead of a 14A, so many thousand of (build) hours ago.
 
Not quite the weekend yet, but nonetheless a good demonstration of the fabulous utility of our airplanes.

I left my home strip 73XS yesterday morning and flew up to KPSO Pagosa Springs Colorado for lunch, and pick up a family friend and bring her back down to KSJT San Angelo Texas for a baby shower, then I flew back home from San Angelo, in a total of 7.3 hours flight time burning 49 gallons of 93E10. My flight up to Pagosa Springs was IFR (for departure conditions) at 12,000 and the return was VFR initially at 17,500 for smooth air, later dropping to 15,500 once we got out of the mountains and mechanical turbulence was no longer a factor. It turned an 11-hour drive for her in to 3:25 by air and made the trip reasonable to come down and see family/friends for the weekend.

With my long-range tanks, I left home with full fuel (67 gallons), flew up to Pagosa Springs, then down to San Angelo, and back home again and landed with 2 hours fuel still in the tanks. :cool:

Saw some really beautiful scenery, and got a nice shot of Ruidoso NM rising up through an overcast.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N16GN/history/20220602/1400Z/73XS/KPSO - flight up to Pagosa Springs

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N16GN/history/20220602/1904Z/KPSO/KSJT - Flight back down to San Angelo

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N16GN/history/20220602/2316Z/KSJT/L%2031.66250%20-101.45017 - short hop home from San Angelo at 10,500.
 

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