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What did you do with your RV this weekend (9/21-22/2019)

Weekend RV doing is currently in progress.

My wife and I took off yesterday from CRQ, Carlsbad California, and headed to 3O8, Harris Ranch. After a nice lunch (chicken salad sandwich for her, Caesar salad with tri tip for me), we headed up to her parents house, a few minutes from CCR, Concord, California.

2.6 hours total flying, total fuel burn of 20 gallons. Taking my car would have resulted in 8 hours of driving and fuel used of 17.5 gallons. :D

Home via Harris Ranch tomorrow.
 
Snuck out early from work Friday and flew Naples to Hilton Head Island 2.5 hrs vs. 8 in the car.

Not bad weather, but had to fly at ?RV FL115?:D

Needless to say I had the sky to myself up there.
 
Tried a little crosswind practice for the first time at 52F. Discovered 52F's winds are a little crazier than I originally anticipated. :-|
 
Satuday was work (improvements) on the RV. Today (Sun) we flew to Camerillo for breakfast.

Met an "imposter" who coincidentally shared the same call sign
(4 Romeo Victor) in his RV-10. It was kinda weird to have SoCal approach give "us" a heading to clear airspace we weren't near while on an IFR flight plan, then have someone else answer to the "4 Romeo Victor" instructions...

We eventually got it worked out and met John and Mary (N664RV) out of KREI.
Good breakfast and nice people driving an RV!

-Marc
 
Charity Flight

There is a STAR program that arranges for US and European detectives to spend some time in each others' operations. While their weekdays are spent gaining knowledge that can be utilized to improve outcomes in their respective countries, the weekends are for some entertainment.

One of the detectives involved with the program in Austin is a pilot, and a few years ago he got a couple friends together and they flew a few of the participants to Fredericksburg (T82) for breakfast. Over the past few years, that has grown to take all of the participants along with their local hosts. I was invited to participate this year, and was able meet Stefan, and we had a great day.

I needed to get from my home airport, 40XS, to Georgetown (KGTU) just 10 miles away to meet the group. That part of the flight profile took me 20 minutes! When I left home for the hangar, KGTU was 1100 broken. As I picked up ATIS, it had fallen to 900 broken. Fortunately, visibility was great as I could see the airport but just couldn't get there. So, I called up Austin approach and asked for a special VFR clearance. It took them a while because there was other traffic on the IFR approach. I just maneuvered in my happy VFR neighborhood and waited patiently, OK, well, as patiently as I can wait.

Loading up in Georgetown.
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Stefan at the controls for the first time in his life. The only instructions I gave him were to go generally 'that' way, don't fly into the clouds and don't fly into the ground. He complied perfectly.
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Always need the in-air selfie. Stefan sported the CQ1 with style.
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Stefan and a local detective, Tank, at the diner. I asked Tank where he got his name. He pulled out his work ID, and while is started with 'Tank' I'm pretty sure that every letter of the alphabet was in his last name somewhere! Yep - no more explanation needed.
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Stefan bought my breakfast and thanked me for flying him out. He asked why I chose to do so. Simple. First, I love to share aviation with those that are interested. Second, and most importantly, it is a small way I can show my appreciation to those that serve their communities in ways as challenging as policing.
 
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Saturday was cleaning and flying the pattern. Landings have improved immensely. And are now mostly, haha, consistent. (I’m a new taildragger guy. RV9, 100+hours TD)
Today MJ, my wife, and I flew to KCHA for brunch. Great smooth flight. Wilson Air, crew car, awesome restaurant and another fun flight back to home base. A bit of turbulence. Especially over the Blue Ridge Mtns. Good quality time with wife and RV.
1/2 day spent having a blast.
 
French Lick Fish Fry

Nice 6 hour round trip with a great meal, nice planes and new friends in the middle !
 
Seven ship airshow arrival

Sunday we attended an airshow in Parks which is western NSW, Australia.

Our formation team 'The Stooges' and 'The Airshow Company' where part of the display, so we thought that a combined seven ship formation arrival for an initial and pitch with stream landing would help to kick off the event.

There are soooo many ways you can have fun in a RV;

https://www.facebook.com/TheAirshowCompany/videos/500500257179442/

Cheers
 
Was supposed to rain most of the weekend so decided to get my RV ADS-B compliant. Completed 50% of install of GDL 82
 
Saturday was cleaning and flying the pattern. Landings have improved immensely. And are now mostly, haha, consistent. (I?m a new taildragger guy. RV9, 100+hours TD)
Today MJ, my wife, and I flew to KCHA for brunch. Great smooth flight. Wilson Air, crew car, awesome restaurant and another fun flight back to home base. A bit of turbulence. Especially over the Blue Ridge Mtns. Good quality time with wife and RV.
1/2 day spent having a blast.

What fees did Wilson Air at KCHA charge you?
 
Trip to Ashland, Oregon and more testing of FlightView

Amy and I took N101PR from San Jose (KRHV) up to Ashland, Oregon (S03) for a brief weekend get-away. The trip gave me a chance to test out some updates and fixes to FlightView.

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(Mt. Shasta as seen from the west side en route to Ashland.)

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(Hiking at Mt. Ashland Park. Great view from "The Looking Glass" overlook.")

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(FlightView PFD / MFD on the return trip.)
 
Breakfast

Drove 30 minutes to the airport. Flew 40 minutes opposite direction for breakfast. What I do to satisfy my flying habit sometimes is embarrassing.
 
I did the same thing Eddie did, in slot while he was in #3.

It's Parkes, though. Not Parks. YPKS. :)

We were supposed to arrive on Saturday, but dust storms, TSRA, and a TAF with VRB05G45KT convinced us that hunkering down in a hangar until Sunday morning was a better idea.

That 7-ship arrival was a heap of fun. The 174 kt ground speed at 7500' on the way home afterwards was pretty good too.

- mark

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Anguish

Watched others take advantage of our first cool, fall-like weekend while I started my periodic inspection, during which I mistaken attempted to tighten the INTAKE attachment bolts using the torque value of the EXHAUST attach nuts...resulting in a broken bolt.
Today will be spent extracting what?s left of the bolt.
Any advice? :eek:
 
After spending the evenings last week fixing a weak strobe light (don't learn how to wire your plane from me), Saturday I went on my shortest cross country flight ever, 8NM to Innisfail for breakfast. Beautiful day for flying but all I did was 0.7 hours on the Hobbs.

Sunday was a COPA for Kids flight at my airport. I didn't get my Vulnerable Sector Check back in time so my RV stayed indoors. I handled ground operations for the flight and managed to go up for a short re-positioning flight in a Bell 47 helicopter at the end of the day. First time for me, I even got 3 minutes of stick time in the 8 minute flight. I thought the visibility out my tip up canopy was incredible, the big bubble on the 47 opened up twice as much view. Enjoyed every minute of it.

Not sure what next weekend is going to bring for flying, but if the forecast holds it's bringing that 4 letter "S" word and highs that are not high.
 
Practicing

Did a right-seat sortie practicing for a future CFI checkride. Things I learned:
1. When solo, full-power clean stalls are fun. The RV-6 just hangs on the prop at 50 knots with a super high deck angle. It's kind of hard to make it stall with the power up.
2. There is a private grass runway in North Carolina that is no longer a runway (the one I practiced an engine-out glide profile into). Trees all grown up into it. I don't like that it's on the charts - what if someone tried to use it in an emergency?
3. I over-flared my fuel tubing. My plane just started a small weeping fuel leak, so I took the tube out after the flight and started working the fix. Looking at it with my more experienced eyes, it's obvious I over-flared that aluminum tube. I need to do another post for posterity on this subject, so future builders can learn from it and do better. The short version is that you should NOT use the auto-clutch feature on the Ridgid 37-deg flaring tool - it will over-flare 3003 aluminum tubes.

Cheers,
 
Saturday, installed the left wingtip light and lens. Yesterday, started riveting the bottom skin to the right wing
 

A great day for flying Young Eagles in Duchesne, Utah (U69) yesterday! Thank you all for making it an awesome event. We had 10 planes and pilots and flew 39 kids total.
 
Today, my wife and I finished up our "weekend" flight from the SF Bay Area, back home to San Diego.

We took off from Concord, CA (CCR) and headed south to Harris Ranch (3O8). After a nice lunch, we took off for Carlsbad, CA (CRQ). We climbed to 11,500' and enjoyed a nice 20-30 knot tailwind, giving us a groundspeed of 180-190 knots. Around LAX, we were passed by a Blue Angel support C130, with one of the Blue Angel Hornets flying formation with it 500' below us.

My wife commented about how FUN flying in the RV is, and how comfortable it is, and asked when we can go again?! All to say, it was a great weekend.

Full size Images:
https://ibb.co/5BYrWCN
https://ibb.co/Lr6tTNs

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Another great RV weekend

Visited family in Allentown PA. Three hours of easy flying vs. 12 (or more....) hours on the highway. Glorious.
 
4 cloverleaf airspeed calibration runs at 4000 feet

1 Loop

3 landings: all short field practice with #2 also being a short final.
 
Seven RVs flew this weekend at the annual Easton Airport Day in Maryland, featuring a mass formation flight of 10 T-34s, 6 T-6, 1 CJ, 7 RVs and 4 Epsilons, followed by the famous Rubber Chicken Dropping Contest. The weather was perfect, the flying was great, and the catered food for the pilots was the best you'll ever have at an airport event and most restaurants! (I'm not kidding)

Here are the seven happy RV drivers: Top left to right: Mugsy, Zack, Pablo, Jolly, Big Al. Bottom left to right: Claw, Magellan.





On Friday, we went to a secret undisclosed grass field to practice our rubber chicken drops.



A close-up of Mugsy taken by my passenger during a practice flight. Notice the rubber chicken launching device under his left wing. Mugsy is a repeat champion of the prestigious rubber chicken dropping contest. Zack won it this year with an amazing 5ft drop, demonstrating once again that RVs can do it all. I had a respectful drop: 50 ft long.



My passenger waves to his wive (who took the picture) as we taxi by as part of the Mass Formation takeoff. My chicken launcher is clearly visible. I have a little control box in the cockpit with an Arm switch and Drop button.



The mass formation flight over Easton Airport on Saturday. The locals love Easton Airport Day. It's rare to see lots of planes in the sky simultaneously. There were roughly 7,000 people in attendance: most ever! The T-34s were up front, followed by the T-6s, then the RVs (arrow pointing to mine) and the four Epsilons.



A close-up of our seven RVs.



The view from the cockpit, taken by my pax.



Approaching Easton Airport. Smoke on!

gif hosting
 
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first engine run

This weekend was spent practicing my RV Grin while doing the first run of the engine in the 10 :D

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Engine started on the first handful of blades and ran like a watch. Ground crew photographer caught the first puffs of smoke... thanks Carole!

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Satuday was work (improvements) on the RV. Today (Sun) we flew to Camerillo for breakfast.

Met an "imposter" who coincidentally shared the same call sign
(4 Romeo Victor) in his RV-10. It was kinda weird to have SoCal approach give "us" a heading to clear airspace we weren't near while on an IFR flight plan, then have someone else answer to the "4 Romeo Victor" instructions...

We eventually got it worked out and met John and Mary (N664RV) out of KREI.
Good breakfast and nice people driving an RV!

-Marc

I'm 4 Romeo Victor also! :D N724RV
 
Tampa Bay Area to Hickory NC and back. Drove to Boone area and visited Grandfather Vineyard. Great trip.
 
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