What did you do with your RV this weekend? (2/18/2023 - 2/19/2023)

[DeltaRomeo]

Saturday I had the honor of being able to give two young ladies their first ride in a small plane.

Our son Tate (2nd from left) brought out friends and two cars (to change the oil and rotate the tires). I love it when young adults want to work on their own cars!!!!



Lior and Xena had the controls for about ten minutes each, and flew wonderfully!





Easily the highlight of my weekend!

v/r,dr

[Auburntsts]

Flew what amounted to a Young Eagles flight on Saturday. Took a co-worker and his son up. That’s him next to me in the pic. He was kinda ambivalent about the flight at first until we got up and he got some stick time. Now he’s thinking asking about taking flight lessons when he gets a little older.

[bruceh]

On Saturday, I delivered RV-10 tanks that I recently completed for another owner (these were replacements, details about the build in the blog link). We finally had some decent weather here to go fly after doing an oil change 2 weeks ago. Pattern was pretty busy, so I just did 3 laps. Sunday, nice weather again. I thought about flying out to Buckeye, AZ for the fly in, but thought it would take all day to get out there and back and it was the last day, and they close down the airport for the afternoon air show. I decided to just stay more local, so I flew down to the desert and landed at Agua Caliente (L54).



I did a short hike around to look at the blooming flowers after all of the rain we have had. Saw my friend's RV-4 parked on the ramp, but didn't run into them. Took off and flew up to Ocotillo Wells and did a low pass, then over the off road area where we used to camp and ride our ATV's. Lots of people there for the holiday weekend. Aimed towards Borrego Springs and did a practice go around, then back to Ramona.

Pre-weekend (on Thursday) my wife's Aerospace Engineering class she teaches at the local High School got to tour the Ramona Airport control tower. The Cal Fire tankers were out practicing water drops on the runway.

[newt]

I passed my instrument checkride in my RV-6.

Departed Bankstown on the SID on runway 11C, received vectors for the ILS at Richmond Air Force Base, penetrated the overcast layer on the missed approach and broke out into sunshine and fluffy undercast on the way to Bathurst, flew a couple of laps around the hold at BTHSG before shooting the RNP into a circling approach (dodging gliders and tugs), climb back to MSA and track SC2WC for the RNP-W into Camden through 1000' of proper IMC on the way down the ramp, published missed approach, cancelled IFR and went home.

https://www.airservicesaustralia.com..._01DEC2022.pdf
https://www.airservicesaustralia.com..._01DEC2022.pdf
https://www.airservicesaustralia.com..._01DEC2022.pdf
https://www.airservicesaustralia.com..._01DEC2022.pdf

We were only in the air for 1.8 but it wiped me out for the rest of the day. Took a few teachable moments away from it. "License to learn" has never meant more than it does now.

Very comfortable flying behind the G3X Touch. It genuinely feels like cheating. Flying down the 3.4º ramp at Camden and monitoring the profile heights at each waypoint, always knowing I was pretty close because the velocity vector was superimposed on the runway threshold on synthetic vision, was great for peace of mind. Hand flying an ILS with the flight director enabled takes all the hard work out of following the needles too. It's extraordinary how much better things have advanced over the last ten years in particular.

Having met the regulator's minimum standard, I'm now Australia's least-qualified IFR pilot. License to learn, right?


- mark

[RV6_flyer]

Had lunch with one of my 24 or 25 year flying buddies at the Pik N Pig. They are open again after the rebuild.



Saturday was a nice 1.5 hobbs flying day with a 8.6 gallon fuel burn.


Dwain arrived a few minutes before me and got our name in for a table. They were reporting a 2-hour wait. We were seated and had our order in at around 45-minutes.




At the end of an excellent lunch, I reminded Dwain that retired guys like us should plan our get togethers during the week when the weekend crowd is at work.

[RV8Squaz]

Glad to hear the Pik n Pig is back! I may have to wander over there soon. Thanks!

[Jvon811]

Although familiar with, and have donated several times in the past, the RAF (Recreational Aviation Foundation) wasn't really something I had been too involved with in the past. But this weekend, the RV's usefulness struck again when I was able to fly about 1.3 hours from home, beating a 5.5 hour drive, and help out with one of the neatest RAF locations I've ever landed or camped at. Creighton Island is a gem in the Southeast corner of Georgia, and has a North/South runway, 2300' long, with a fair sand/dirt surface. Easy work for an RV...

This weekend, several volunteers (about 20-25) got together and helped trim and clear trees to help widen the runway and gather logs to mill up for a Pilot Shelter.

My Mighty RV-4 with its eye watering 160hp fixed pitch cruise prop, staggering useful load, along with its legendary and cavernous baggage area came through again. I removed the rear stick and rear seatback, shoved all my lightweight camping gear as far back as possible, put the heavy stuff as far forward as possible, and set off for adventure.

Arriving around 9am, we set up camp, changed clothes, and then got to work cutting and burning the discarded brush. A fantastic Low-Country Boil was for lunch and then back to it. 6pm was BBQ for dinner with all the fixins. Good times were definitely had by all afterwards with flying stories, tall tales with some shooting down their own watches, and drinks around the fire.

3 RV's in total showed up to help, my -4, my neighbor's (Brand NEW) -8, and an RV-10. The -10 was flown down from Pennsylvania just to participate. It was nice to meet you Andy!

Creighton Island itself is a jewel of the Golden Isles of Georgia, on the intercoastal waterway, and privately owned for three generations by a very kind individual who loves to promote its use for aviation and other activities. This is defintely the sort of place that, as my neighbor describes it, "Heals the soul..." Access to the island is provided directly from the owner through the RAF for its members. I absolutely highly recommend joining and checking out this great spot in the SE for some nice airplane camping. More info can be found here.

[aturner]

Good to meet you too Justin. Nice flight back home, though Caleb wasn’t much help - he mostly slept :-) Josh flew right seat and did a good job. We had a good time and look forward to more Creighton Island visits.

[KatanaPilot]

Not me, but my son flew his RV-7A to MSN for dinner with some of his friends. When he came back from dinner, there was a Delta 737-800 on a charter flight parked next to him on the FBO ramp. Cool thing (at least to me) is that both of us have flown both of these exact airplanes.

[swisseagle]

Not the best forecast... closed cloud layers, but why not try to find a bit of sun and more.

Shortly after TO realized, the planned flight was not possible. There was some light in the west, so a return path was open. We headed south and lead buddy had the right sense, so we could find a hole big enough to go above.

Then the picture was made by my pax Gaby when we were passing the city of Lucerne.

Great flight, great lead, thank you, Daniel!