Went Flying Today........2019

That has to be a kick, flying that. All I did was ten Cub landings. Tomorrow we exercise the inverted oil on the Dec.
 
It is... but don't let the boss know it :) . Love to get back up in a Decathlon sometime and relearn all I forgot.
That's my son up front, base to finale.
 
I took one of my hangar neighbors flying the other day. He's working on a path to commercial jobs. Just sold a time builder Cherokee 140 and has a fresh tail wheel endorsement earned in his father in law's (other hangar neighbor) Husky. These were his first two landings. Not bad for a rookie.

He was in love with the old crate by the time we got back home.
 
I should get a picture or two. 23 landings today, almost evenly split between Cub and Stearman. I think my electric fuel pump died in the Decathlon, a month and a half early.
 
Left the Citabria in the hangar today. Took advantage of a weather window to reposition the T-6 for replacement Nav/Com (Garmin 255) and ADS-B out/in transponder (Stratus ESGi) which is supposed to start early next week.

My guest was an older gentleman who I know from my local field. He flew T-6s in the South African Air Force (and Tiger Moths, DC-3, Dornier Do -28 then on to fly Mirage III and F1). He later went in to deliver 777s across the globe for my employer. He had been hoping for a ride just to feel the radial so I have kept his contact information handy.

Well today was the day because the weather is going to tank tonight. Tony showed up exactly on time and off we went. With a bad COM in the plane I have to use my hand held, which means no intercom when I may need ATC. Once safely in class echo I plugged into the plane and had him do the flying.

He's a pro. I was head down checking weather at our destination and prepping frequencies and he was doing steep turns. He had a blast.

The flight could have been under ten minutes but that hardly seems worth warming up 10 gallons of oil for, so I let him go for a while.

Weather at our destination appeared to be going down even though the ATIS was favorable. Rather than get stuck out on top I decided to get us on the ground. Once past the low scud the airport was indeed as advertised.

The best part is that he's going to teach me acro in my Citabria.
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Flying the - new to me - Scout up in the Nampa Idaho area My first time flying into grass and dirt strips. Started on the easy stuff, Garden Valley and Idaho City. The river approach into Garden Valley 28 was really fun. Going out today for some shorter field training. Weather is good, great flying temps, 40 to 50’s C379CE56-1CE6-4A38-A790-7EB6644EFDA3.webp
 
Heater is amazing. Front and back. Flew into Hells Canyon today, Big Bar, over the hill Slate Creek, New Meadows, Donnelly. Fuel and lunch in McCall.
 
Flew the Scout down to San Diego from Idaho yesterday. Had to take a more westerly route because of weather-Nampa to Carson City, over the hill at Lake Tahoe and down over Pine Lake and stop in Bakersfield Muni, then home to Montgomery Field, San Diego. No wind over the Sierras-it was perfect flying weather. Valley was very hazy. Would have rather gone down the Owens valley but the weather was iffy. Flew over LAX at 10.5 because of cloud layers blocking the lower VFR corridors. SOCAL couldn't let me down until John Wayne and then it was dark and flew under and around the layers into KMYF. First night landing in the Scout-landing light is aimed perfect-no panel lights, thankfully I was prepared with a red light flashlight that I remembered to get out at the last minute. Plane ran well, averaged around 95 kts at 2400-2450 rpm burning about 8.4 gal per hour. Lake Tahoe-sorry about the upside down image-I wasn't doing acro. Lake Tahoe 2.webp
 
Took advantage of sufficient cloud clearance and visibility today (I hesitate to call it good flying weather). Wind was 6-8 knots quartering but was predicted to be gusting 18 soon.

On days when the weather conditions are sketchy I typically watch any planes in the pattern to see if they're enjoying themselves or white knuckling it. It looked like it would be a bumpy ride but before I could talk myself out of it I noticed the pilot of a very pretty 7ECA in the tie down area doing his preflight. We've met previously and between us we decided that venturing far from the pattern was not a great idea.

We decided to take on the two spam cans in the pattern as a show of force.

There was an ATP school plane that informed the tower of "moderate turbulence" off the departure end, which has a 300' bluff. I was taught that it's called mild turbulence until the seat belts start leaving bruises, and my fat hookers (uh, seat belts) did not leave bruises - but I will admit it was quite bumpy.

I think the two of us Citabrias were waiting for the other guy to blink. I called it first. I made 7 touch and goes (3 wheel landings) and managed to not embarrass myself.

It was very cold air with a density altitude well below sea level. I was seeing 1400 ft/min on upwind.
 
I finally had a chance to fly yesterday-- first time in a month! I really miss the long days, when I could easily go fly at 7pm or even 8, after dinner on a weekday, or better yet-- 6:30am, and still be in my office by 9.
 
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