What did you do with your RV this weekend?
12 noon Saturday, Dallas time:
v/r,dr
12 noon Saturday, Dallas time:
v/r,dr
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- Thread starter DeltaRomeo
- Start date
NZCS to NZVL (Manderville) to treat the wife a coffee and cinnamon scroll. The 30 minute flight had us bounce up to 6500' in order to get over the Old Man Range so no sooner are you in level cruise than you're at TOD and it's time to descend. While heading south the radio chatter was broken by a young child providing excited commentary to the pilot about the things she was looking at out the window. It was hilarious. Very cute. Turns out it was a friend taking his great grand-daughter for a fly and he told me later he had to pull her headset plugs out in order to make the pattern calls.
In Manderville did a tour of the museum. It's not big, but the $20 entrance fee is worth it and the shop has some great aviation-related items for sale. After softening up the wife with the cafe experience I carried out a pre-purchase inspection on a Rans S-7 before we headed home via Nightcaps to check out a friends' 500m strip. The flight home was at low level and was lumpy. I should've gone high. Overall it was only about 1.4 hours of flying but the skies were almost cloudless and you could see for miles.
Mental note to self - if you're going to take video footage of the flight, it helps if you don't leave the camera batteries on your desk at home. Argh.
In Manderville did a tour of the museum. It's not big, but the $20 entrance fee is worth it and the shop has some great aviation-related items for sale. After softening up the wife with the cafe experience I carried out a pre-purchase inspection on a Rans S-7 before we headed home via Nightcaps to check out a friends' 500m strip. The flight home was at low level and was lumpy. I should've gone high. Overall it was only about 1.4 hours of flying but the skies were almost cloudless and you could see for miles.
Mental note to self - if you're going to take video footage of the flight, it helps if you don't leave the camera batteries on your desk at home. Argh.
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Runways at many places are still ice/snow covered to varying degrees here in the North. No flying this weekend, just more work on the 10. Still enjoyable!
This from last Monday before the latest snowfall. It was -9C at 3000'. Not much heat in the cabin. Glad for the seat heaters!
One of our old wartime airports (Dunnville, beside Lake Erie) closed to planes and turned into a wind farm/car rally track. Sad.
This from last Monday before the latest snowfall. It was -9C at 3000'. Not much heat in the cabin. Glad for the seat heaters!
One of our old wartime airports (Dunnville, beside Lake Erie) closed to planes and turned into a wind farm/car rally track. Sad.
Milk run to Camarillo for... well, for nothing but the sheer enjoyment of it. I love those flights when you take off with absolutely no idea where you wanna go. Enjoying freedom for its own sake. Perfect weather, smooth in the air and 68 degrees on the ground.
I also had a visit from a local interior guru who's coming up with some ideas for ways to make the RV-6 more comfortable for my 5 yr old daughter and 10 year old son. My son flew from SoCal to Oshkosh and back this summer sitting on nothing more than a couple of cheap dollar store accent pillows. He never said a word about it, but I'd love to have something that would make the cockpit a little more ergonomic for him and allow him to reach the rudder pedals as soon as he is able.
(and yes, I did just use "RV-6" and "ergonomic" in the same sentence....
)
--Ron
I also had a visit from a local interior guru who's coming up with some ideas for ways to make the RV-6 more comfortable for my 5 yr old daughter and 10 year old son. My son flew from SoCal to Oshkosh and back this summer sitting on nothing more than a couple of cheap dollar store accent pillows. He never said a word about it, but I'd love to have something that would make the cockpit a little more ergonomic for him and allow him to reach the rudder pedals as soon as he is able.
(and yes, I did just use "RV-6" and "ergonomic" in the same sentence....
)--Ron
Not a particularly pretty day to fly in the Pac NW, but smooth air none the less and a really day to fly. First decent, flyable (VFR) weather day we've had in a couple of weeks. So ....... off to the airport. Of course the pattern was busy.
Did a little more LOP ops testing (successfully!). It's amazing to me that all four cyl reach peak EGT within 0.1 to 0.2 gph "out of the box" (no GAMI injectors necessary, I guess). I won't complain about that! Today was WOT at 6,000 ft (~24" MP), 2300 rpm, was able to get down to 7.0 gph before sensing a little roughness. 6.9 or 6.8 was a little too far to really run comfortably, at least at these settings.
Also familiarizing myself with ALL of the functions of the Trio autopilot and alt hold. The VS select and target altitude functions on the EZ-3 work pretty slick, as does the 180 'emergency course reversal' on the EZ-Pilot. With that and the alt hold, I just sat there and monitored things as the plane turned itself around and settled in on the 180 deg course reversal. So slick.
Love this plane! Sometimes it's hard to wrap my head around that fact it was built in my garage. What a great hobby.
The pic is the coastline in SW Washington State
Did a little more LOP ops testing (successfully!). It's amazing to me that all four cyl reach peak EGT within 0.1 to 0.2 gph "out of the box" (no GAMI injectors necessary, I guess). I won't complain about that! Today was WOT at 6,000 ft (~24" MP), 2300 rpm, was able to get down to 7.0 gph before sensing a little roughness. 6.9 or 6.8 was a little too far to really run comfortably, at least at these settings.
Also familiarizing myself with ALL of the functions of the Trio autopilot and alt hold. The VS select and target altitude functions on the EZ-3 work pretty slick, as does the 180 'emergency course reversal' on the EZ-Pilot. With that and the alt hold, I just sat there and monitored things as the plane turned itself around and settled in on the 180 deg course reversal. So slick.
Love this plane! Sometimes it's hard to wrap my head around that fact it was built in my garage. What a great hobby.
The pic is the coastline in SW Washington State
It was the Backcountry Santa 2025 mission last Thursday. 90 aircraft participated this year. I delivered my stuff to Monument Valley, UT25, then headed to Kayenta, AZ, 0V7, for fuel before heading home.
pazmanyflyer
Well Known Member
Ferried our Tundra to its “winter quarters” down in Big Bear today - Louise volunteered to log more hours in the low-and-slow bush plane while I took the high (and fast) road in the RV-8 at 13.5K. I never tire of the Owen’s valley route, and Mono Lake with the back side of Yosemite is always beautiful. If said this many time, but Mono was always my “go to” landmark when spotting the west coast from space-based cameras! Just shy of five hours for the round trip in the RV….hard to beat! (But I am beat…..)
I went up to Steamboat Springs (KSBS) on Friday to check on my condo. It was a nice flight with between 30 and 50 knots of wind at 12,500 and above. The Rocket was doing RV speeds on the way over and TBM speeds on the way back. I saw between 230 and 250 knots groundspeed on the way home. You’d think it’d be crazy bumpy over the mountains with those winds, but I only really got smacked around for about 5 miles worth right over the continental divide.
I spent a little time on Saturday bagging up some lead shot as ballast in Caldwell ballast bags purchased on Amazon. It’s nice to be able to load ballast in small chunks rather than the 65# box of vinyl floor time I had been using.
Today, Sunday, a couple of neighbors and I flew up to Granby, CO (KGNB) for breakfast. We had 2 Harmon Rockets and 1 RV-3. We could have had 3 Rockets, but Rhino was tinkering with his Rocket so he had to take his RV3. Oh Darn.
Not specifically an RV event, but my hangar in general is used to maintain and house my RV and my Rocket, so I’ll include it… I painted the wood trim on my recently-completed workbench.
I spent a little time on Saturday bagging up some lead shot as ballast in Caldwell ballast bags purchased on Amazon. It’s nice to be able to load ballast in small chunks rather than the 65# box of vinyl floor time I had been using.
Today, Sunday, a couple of neighbors and I flew up to Granby, CO (KGNB) for breakfast. We had 2 Harmon Rockets and 1 RV-3. We could have had 3 Rockets, but Rhino was tinkering with his Rocket so he had to take his RV3. Oh Darn.
Not specifically an RV event, but my hangar in general is used to maintain and house my RV and my Rocket, so I’ll include it… I painted the wood trim on my recently-completed workbench.
Flew in to the (in)famous Mena, Arkansas airport for static/transponder certification at a facility on the field. No sightings of any suspicious activities and no pictures were taken of anything that could get me in trouble. Applying for witness protection is on the table. 
Very nice folks at Hampton Aviation and they were very complimentary of my build. Kinda makes your chest puff out a bit!
Very nice folks at Hampton Aviation and they were very complimentary of my build. Kinda makes your chest puff out a bit!
I’m not a formation guy, but that looks like some very nice work!
