Say Hello to Ariel

And here she is, parked in her hangar.

I've decided to name her "Ariel". No, she's not named after Disney's version of The Little Mermaid. Rather, she is named after the title character of the book "Ariel" by author Steven Boyett.

The book tells the story of a world where magic has returned, and advanced technology no longer works. As another consequence of The Change, as it's called, mythical and magical creatures have also returned, including unicorns. Ariel is a unicorn who befriends the main character, and they have various adventures together.

My airplane has a decal of a unicorn on either side of the tail, which was put there by the person who owned the plane before the person I bought it from. I'm certainly going to leave the decals there because this plane is, metaphorically, somewhat of a unicorn, considering its unique qualities. And that is what gave the inspiration for her name. It also hasn't escaped my notice that "Ariel" sounds like "aerial" and that just makes it even more fitting a name.

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Fresh tarmac

The runway at Harvey Field is in the process of being resurfaced. So far they've removed all of the old asphalt, graded the dirt surface, and hopefully laid down the first layer of the new asphalt. I received an email the other day stating that they were scheduled to lay the first layer yesterday, and lay the second layer today. However, that would depend on the weather and it's been raining today. Once the second layer is in place, they have to wait at least three days to paint the runway markings. There are also a couple other things that need to be done. In all, the completion date is likely to be no earlier than October 10. I went flying the weekend before last. The grass runway was open, and folks were taking off to the north, so I joined them. I was a bit too aggressive on the takeoff when it came to my soft-field technique, as the stall horn sounded as I lifted off. I think next time I take off from the grass, I'll leave the flaps all the way up, instead of down one

Thwarted

The plane is done being fixed again. Well, for the most part, but I'll get to that. The vacuum pump had indeed failed, so they replaced it. They also replaced the starboard fuel sump drain valve. Interestingly, I received an email yesterday from the shop with an invoice attached. It was for a credit to my account, which they gave me because they drained the fuel from the right tank. The invoice notes that 16 gallons were removed. The tank's capacity is almost 30 gallons, and I had filled it almost full on Sunday before my flight. So either they didn't credit me for all of the fuel in the tank, or it had continued to leak and had lost about 12 or so gallons over the course of a few days. I don't know which, but I'm not going to worry too much about it. I went out today to put some Camguard in the oil, run the engine, and possibly even go for a flight if the weather was nice enough. The grass runway and temporary taxiway are open so limited flight operations can proce

My engine is so pretty

I went out to the shop today to take a few pictures of my engine and plane before the engine is remounted. The baffling and some other stuff has already been attached to the engine. The engine mount is not back yet. Since the nose gear is attached to the engine mount, the plane is currently sitting on the main gear, and a couple of supports just behind the firewall, and under the tail. Here are a few of the photos I took. The engine looks lovely, to me at any rate, especially since I know those are new cylinders.

A Man and His Airplane

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