Landed In Light Rain

 Yesterday was another warm beautiful, but very windy, day.  Today was calm with an overcast at 4800 feet, nice day to fly.  After checking the weather I also checked the radar weather for any rain hiding in the overcast.  There was light rain moving toward the airport so I decided to see how it looked on the ground and, if nice enough, stay in the traffic pattern, for a quick escape if needed.

The sky looked OK and the wind sock showed a touch of wind from the north so off I went from runway 05.

I took these pictures after turning downwind next to Merry Mountain.  You cans see the top of it below the spreader bar.  The arrows are pointing at rain about 3-4 miles away.  I decided to go around the pattern.  When I got back to this point the rain had moved at least half way to the airport.  I pulled on Carb. Heat and Throttled Back for a nice landing back on 05.

The rain caught up with me on short final.  By the time I landed the windshield was covered in light rain.  Nice to be on the ground.

I did get to fly in December for about 10-12 minutes, and had fun.  Maybe I'll get to fly again before the year is out.  We'll see.

Merry Christmas!

Warm Sunny and Windy Day

 I'd been looking forward to today since it was forecast to be in the mid 60s and sunny.  It was actually in the   low 70's.  When I checked the weather I found the wind was right down the runway, just at 14 knots gusting to 24.  That's too much for me or the Fly Baby.  I was curious what was diving the winds so I went on line.  The wind at 3000 feet was 50 knots, way beyond me or the Fly Baby.  

Calmer days will return eventually and we'll get to fly then.

Left Brake Not Working

 When I went flying on Thanksgiving the left brake wasn't working.  I only use them for taxiing and running up the motor, for pre-flight checks, so I went flying anyway.  They are heel operated and I'm getting better at using them.  I just think if you need them on landing you really need to get back in the air.  I'm sure the day will come when I have to use them after landing.

They are CUB brakes and in the CUB the cylinders are mounted, as shown, on the floor board between the rudder pedals, one pointing left and one to the right.  They are very easy to service in the CUB, you just lean in the door opening.

The way they work is, the Brake, Line, and Reservoir are filled with fluid, held in by the Diaphragm and Filler Plug.  When you push the pedal the plunger pushes on the diaphragm forcing fluid to expand the tube in the brakes.  This pushes the Brake Pads against the Brake Drum, very simple.  If the Filler plug comes loose the fluid just squirts out and that brake is dead.  That was why my brake was dead.  The gasket had gotten very hard and the plug came loose, so I made a new gasket, problem solved.

In the Fly Baby the cylinders are under the floor board.  There is a hole in the floorboard to access the filler pug but you need to lay on the floor under the fuel tank to get to it and add fluid, a real pain.

Instead I have a removable access panel under the cylinders.  With a 5/8" crows foot wrench and a little work you can loosen or tighten the filler plug from under the plane.  It takes  bit of dexterity to screw it in or out with your finger tips, but not much more trouble than while laying on the floor.

I have a gooseneck oil can for filling the reservoir.  It's much easier to fill it from below, then above, by using a piece of safety wire to hold the nozzle pointing down.  You just hook it in the opening and slowly squirt until it starts to overflow.  It's easy to see that it's full with a light and an inspection mirror.

I think I finally have all the air out of the brakes.  They feel better than they have since I put it back together.  

Now I just need a less windy day to go back to flying.

Happy Thanksgiving Flying - Another Cylinder Head Temperature Improvement

 I found another small problem area in the cooling baffles

There was about a 1/4" gap between the rear, vertical, baffle and the fins on the barrel of the cylinders.  The head fins are touching the fins like they should.  I adjusted the baffle to get a tight fit.  I keep saying I must have changed something that I just haven't realized.  It didn't fix the problem but the pressure drop across the cylinders increased from about 70 to 75 MPH.  The temperature didn't get to 425°F until 2,000 feet Altitude where it had been getting there at 1,500 feet.  At cruise the CHT dropped to 355°F, a new low.

Thanksgiving day was warm with a nice breeze straight don runway 23.  A good day for flying.  The radio was dead silent for the 35 minutes I was flying, no one out there.  The lake is Lake Louisa in our subdivision.

The arrows highlight rows of trees not cut by loggers.  They can't cut the trees in the bottom of swales.

The arrow shows the top of the Blue Ridge Mtns.  The visibility was very good, as usual in the fall.

The only leaves left on the trees are on the Oaks.  The last of our fall colors.

I landed about 15 minutes before sunset.  The sun was really annoying landing but pretty once I was parked.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Found My Way To My Brother In-Law's Farm - Another Nice Evening

 When I was doing my preflight I noticed a gap between the rear cooling baffle and the fins on the cylinder.  I didn't have the right wrenches to adjust it so hopefully I'll get it done before I fly again.  Maybe I've found my cooling leak, we'll see.

This time I watched where I was going and didn't get lost wandering down to brother in-law Mike's Farm.  I even flew over a school I recognized.  It's Moss-Nuckols Elementary School about 8 miles south of Louisa, Va.

Mike's farm is just north of Kent's Store.  It's the open fields to the right of the tree line running diagonally from the lower left.  The gravel driveway to the right of the trees is along the right edge of his farm.  His house is on the lower edge of the brown, harvested corn, field, under the flying wires.  His property continues into the wood past the corn field.  He has about 120 acres with lots of deer to hunt.

Leaving his farm I'm headed west.  Left of the fuel gauge wire, about 20 miles out, is Monticello Mnt., then Carter Mnt.  To the right is Southwest Mnt. and Gordonsville farther north.  Charlottesville is straight ahead west of them.  The Blue Ridge is another 20 miles west.

About half way to Charlottesville, along I-64, is Zion Crossroads.  It can be impossible to see roads in the trees, but I-64 runs left to right just below the big white buildings in the middle.  There's a saw mill and some other businesses in the industrial park at the bottom, and a nice specialty lumber yard.

In the next picture you can see I-64 at the wing tip  The west bound lanes and entrance ramp are just in front of the leading edge.  The big white boxes, starting at the wing, are Walmart, Lowes, and the 2 big buildings for the Walmart Distribution Center

The ever growing, high priced subdivision, with golf course, is Spring Creek.  Fluvanna county, going south from this, doesn't like business so they have high taxes to pay for all their schools, etc.  Louisa county has a Nuclear powerplant and is pro-business so we have some of the lowest taxes.

As the sun sets it's really lighting up the fall colors.

The big open field in the picture below is Sissy Spacek's farm in Albemarle county near Cobham.

Time to get on the ground before the sun is set.  Nice shadows.

I landed about 10 minutes before sunset.  I should have gone around the pattern once to let the sun set a little further.  I waited until the airport was in the shadow of the mountains beside the airport, but the sun was in my eyes even once I was on the runway.  Five more minutes would have been perfect like yesterday.

Nice Evening Sunset Landing

 

This evening was warn, 72°, calm and sunny.  Headed east from Gordonsville.

Our fall colors aren't as bright as up north, but I like the Fall.

The sun is setting over Southwest Mountain.  The Blue Ridge Mountains are in the background.  I landed about 2 minutes before sunset.

What a nice evening.

Oil Changed

 

Last night we had a huge storm go through so I changed the oil while it poured outside.  It was so noisy in the hangar you could hardly hear yourself think.

After flying the other day I left the plane with the oil draining into a jug.  A one gallon jug setting on a stool allowed the quick drain tube to stick into the jug a couple inches.

The oil screen was free of any metal so we're good for another 20-30 hours flying.  No flying today. Gusts are forecast at 35-40 MPH.

Got Lost Flying

 Yesterday evening was clear with a light southeast breeze so I head south toward my brother-in-law's farm near Kents Store, about 30 miles.

Fall colors are starting to change.  On the ground it looks like we're into fall colors, not so much from the air.

Below, Under the tip of the spreader bar is one of 2 quarries in the US which mine Vermiculite.

I hadn't seen this huge Solar Farm before, in front of the wire on the right wing.  It's about 5 miles west of the town of Louisa, which is under the spreader bar on the left wing.

After flying about 1/2 hour I realized I was over a school and I didn't have a clue where exactly I was, but I was east of where I should have been.  I could see the water tower at Louisa so I just headed back northwest and on to Gordonsville.

Here's the aerial image from Google Earth.  The school turned out to be Jouette Elementary school, lower right, way east of Mike's farm on Four Winds Lane, lower left.  Louisa is in the middle at the top.

Gordonsville basically northwest from Jouette school.  I'll do this properly another day.

A Nice Evening Flying Around Southwest Mountain and Charlottesville

 

Friday evening it was 67 degrees, overcast with the ceiling at about 8,000 feet, and dead calm air.  A perfect evening to go flying.

I'm looking down Southwest Mountain, which runs from southwest of  Gordonsville to the east side of Charlottesville, about 20 miles long.

Route 33 runs west from Gordonsville around the end of Southwest Mt.  The first town west is Barboursville, where route 20 crosses 33.

In the distance are the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Everything around here runs from southwest to northeast.  It takes a while to remember the mountains are not north south.

The thin horizontal line above the spreader bar is Charlottesville Airport.

Today Charlottesville starts along Route 29 for several miles before you reach the city proper.

The city of Charlottesville is the biggest town for about 50-60 miles around.

I'm going around the southern end of Southwest Mt.

There is some flat open ground that the city is growing into and then the mountain returns as Monticello Mountain and behind it for several miles is Carters Mountain, nice orchard on top.

Interstate 64 and the Rivanna River run east west through this flat area, past a quarry which seems to be getting much deeper every time I fly over it.

The arrow points to Mr. Jefferson's home Monticello (Little Mountain).

The stripe through the trees is for power lines.  Interstate highways, power lines and pipe lines have gaps in the trees which make navigating around here much easier, if you use charts instead of GPS.

Heading back northeast, to Gordonsville, on the other side of Southwest Mt.

Still waiting for fall colors.

Spruce To Rebuild The Monoplane Wings For Fly Baby

 In January 2020, pre-Covid, I found one of my rear spar blanks for my 1926 WACO NINE project was defective.  I also drilled a hole in the wrong place on another rear spar,  I ordered 2 new spars from Aircraft Spruce, not realizing 1 1/2 years later they wouldn't even be able to give me an expected date for them to have spar quality spruce.  While I was at the Antique Fly-in, Blakesburg 2021, a fellow Fly Baby builder, Kurt Gubert told me about an old lumber yard in Detroit who had some spruce that might work for my WACO spars and a new set of monoplane wings for our Fly Baby

Our Fly Baby is currently a Biplane, but it's licensed to switch to Monoplane wings, or back, with a log book entry.  Unfortunately the wings were ruined in a hangar fire years ago.  One of my projects is to rebuild the wings, but I need more spruce.  I want the monoplane wings because it's easier to trailer to events.  The monoplane wings fold or unfold in about 5 minutes.  That was the reason Fly Baby won the EAA design contest back in 1960.  The biplane wings take at least an hour each way.

Before you get crazy, Sitka Spruce is a small part of the several woods they stock and it has not been Certified as spar quality wood, that's up to you to resolve.  A good reference is ANC-19, Wood Aircraft Inspection and Fabrication.

That lumber yard is Public Lumber.  They've been there since 1927.

They're at 7 mile and I-75.  I took the picture of their store form the other side of 7 Mile Rd.  Look to the left 90 degrees and there is the entrance ramp to I-75 northbound.  It is in Detroit, in a residential neighborhood.  I met Craig and Tom, both super to work with.

It's a real lumberyard and full-service millwork facility, the smell of fresh wood, and the sounds of cutting and milling.  They even make their own custom cutters for their millwork.  People after my own heart

The spruce is in the lower bay of the rack at the left of this picture.  The boards are rough saw, 2" thick, 6" - 12" wide and mostly 16' - 20' long.  

They left me to sort out what I wanted.  The aisle is about 12' wide so it takes some thought to pull boards all the way out.  I had a great time examining and restacking boards.  I believe I found enough wood to make my WACO Spars and rebuild the Monoplane wings for our Fly Baby.  It was very fairly priced and I was dancing happy when I left.

It was cool when I got there.  As I worked and warmed up I took off my sweater, Christmas present from my wife.  I left it setting in the bay above the spruce with a tape measure I found laying under the rack.

I went on from there to visit my parents up by Flint.  The next morning I realized I'd forgotten the sweater.  Tom boxed it up and shipped it to me.  Thanks Tom for saving me from some serious dog house time.

I borrowed my son's Transit van to pull the Fly Baby trailer.  It's much nicer than my 24 year old Chevy van with 355,000 miles.

The weather was sunny and dry so I didn't worry about protecting the wood from the weather.  It all stayed strapped down and towed very well.

The round trip was almost 1,700 miles, well worth it.

The wood is safely home in my attic workshop.  

The next step is to pick out boards for the WACO spars.  Then the scary part, cutting them up.  Once I have the WACO wings done I'll start on the Fly Baby wings.