Good Day in June

My parents friends, Shell and his wife Gerry, were visiting so I volunteered to take them for a ride and asked my Uncle Don if he wanted to go. So I met them at Hood Strip and we each took a passenger. I took Hanna with me and left her to visit with my parents while we flew.


It was about 3.5 hours in the air and we had a great trip. Gerry flew my plane quite a bit and did really well - power on and off stalls, climbs, "landing" at an abitrary altitude... I don't want to be an instructor, but it was pretty fun.

I first took Shell over the Beluga power plant and gas field (where I helped install and start a turbocompressor a few years ago) and then up the Beluga River. I was looking for Olson Creek, but missed it - it's farther down the Beluga River than I remembered.

Then we landed on the West end of Beluga Lake. It's a real pretty spot I usually visit each year. The beach is nice (rocky), nice views, easy landing and it looks like the trees have been thinned so it's like a park. We walked around a bit and my Uncles friend stopped by in a taildragger C-150 who turned out to be the son of a guy I worked with in the late 80's :-)



Then we flew up to the Triumvirate Glacier - only about 5 minutes away. More nice views and a glacial morraine to climb on. The wind always blows down glacier so I worry about the takeoff into the mountain, but there's always plenty of room to turn.



We switched passengers here so this is me taking off with Gerry.

On the way home, we flew over Little Mt Susitna unsucessfully searching for bears. Then I told my Uncle I was going to fly Gerry over the F-101 Voodoo wreckage near figure 8 lake and he said "Let's go land by the P-51 tail" which I had never seen so we landed on the mudflats near it. It had turned colder and windy by then.




Then back to drop off Gerry and pick up Hanna at the strip and home to Palmer.... A good day in June.

... please no jeans!

Fly-ins aren't ALL the same...

I got an invitation to brunch at the airport John Travolta's based at. BUT WAIT... don't be impressed - it IS an "invitation"... but sort of like those "you've been nominated to be listed in the 'Who's Who'" invitations ... after you send the check... or nominated for the honor of buying Farmers Insurance, lol. I got it because I was flying out of Saratosa, FL (nearby) and still get the FBO newsletter. Cirrus Aviation (no relation to the plane) and good guys.

Anyway... I was struck by the difference between this and the "fly-ins" I'm used to.

Here's an excerpt from the invitation:

It's Brunch time!!
Bring your family and friends for a fun day with us at Jumbolair Aviation Estates! Enjoy a delicious brunch and take in beautiful views along the way... Experience a great fly-in featuring some spectacular aircraft at an unbelievable location.
......
Cost: $40 per adult; $20 for children. Please also plan a $10 gratuity per person. Dress is casual, but please no jeans!
Must RSVP!

You will have a great time!
___________________________

Here's JT's 'strip'

Hmmm. Not hotdogs and apples by the fire on the beach...

Alaska "fly-in" - much better!!! Lol


Having said that... I WOULD go if I was nearby. It probably would be fun.... parking my big tired taildragger next to the Citations would be fun anyway. :-). But I'd have to buy some pants. Long ones. Not denim. :-) And then replace them after I'd rubbed on the plane, lol

Commercial Maneuvers

I started getting some dual on commercial maneuvers to prep for my commercial/multi school in a couple months. I need about 7 more hours of complex time and figure I might as well try to get a leg up before I go to the school since it's accelerated and likely intense. I'm doing the training in a C172RG for the complex time.

So we're flying chandelles and lazy eights which are much harder than I expected. I've only got an hour, but don't feel very close to getting them.... My instructor said he could teach them to me in 3 hours max, so 'we' better get with the program, lol. He emailed me that he was looking forward to "seeing you try those manuevers again" which didn't give me a warm feeling, lol

If you're interested, the Commercial "Performance Maneuvers" are described in the really pretty good FAA publication "Airplane Flying Handbook" Chapter 9, starting on page 41.

So far though, we've been weathered out of 3 of the first 4 scheduled days.

My new instructor is a nice guy and a cop by day I think. We get along fine (one common thread with instructors is that they almost always comment that I'm fun to fly with:-)) so it should work out fine. He's a good resource too. Always providing handouts and information; He can put his hands on documentation really quickly and seems to have a lot of it.

Of course, I think I'm the perfect student - experienced enough so they don't get sick but don't catch on very quickly either :-)

Spring Training

I hadn't flown my own plane for 3 days short of 6 months. Some of that I was waiting for more cash to get an annual, but most of the time I was busy flying rented planes or out of town. I was home so little this winter (and it was WINTER!), that I was in no big rush to get it airworthy.


Today though, I took it up for a spin and remembered how much I love to fly it. Afterwards I called my mechanic and told him I couldn't believe how smooth it was compared to the flight school planes I've been flying. He said, "that's great, I'm busy, bye." lol

It was a beautiful Spring day..



I headed towards Big Lake, but some guy on the ground there told me there was 4 inches of slush so I just turned around and went home.


It's just a bit slower since I got the manifold pressure gauge replaced - was reading an inch low :-) But it's still pretty fast considering those tires.


I'm landing really, really well. I think because I've been flying so much, although not this plane. Some gusty pavement stuff was no problem. It only took about 7 years but I'm starting to feel pretty good in this thing, :-)

Jake the Digger

We had a lot of dirt left over from the wall repair excavation (ongoing). We're going to backfill with rock to help keep pressure off the wall, so Jake is using the left over dirt to smooth and slope the ground around the playground...