A Man and His Airplane

The weather was fantastic today, so naturally I had to take the plane up. I had no particular destination in mind for this flight. My main goal is still to run the engine and put time on it before we check the oil again. However, I decided that today I would head south, as my flying so far has been mostly north of Harvey Field. Flying south is a bit more complicated because you're flying under the Sea-Tac Class B airspace, and there are also some airports with Class D airspace such as Renton, Olympia, and Tacoma Narrows. I flew pretty much straight south, making sure to stay out of the Class B. Once I was south of the Class B I started looking on the chart for an airport to land at. I wanted to be able to log this flight as cross-country time. I found Chehalis-Centralia airport on the chart and decided to head there for a landing. The flight was without incident. I tuned in the CTAF frequency, but several airports in the region use the same frequency, particular Auburn Municipal wh...

I'm titling this Part 1 as it likely won't be the last time I muse about upgrades I'd like to perform, provided I'm able and willing to spend the funds. For the most part, the plane is about as good as it can be, but one obvious area in which it can definitely be improved is the avionics. Although the plane is IFR-certified, it only has two nav radios, both with localizer support, and one with glideslope. Each is connected to a matching CDI in the panel. Although the plane has a GPS antenna, it is connected only to the Garmin GDL-82 that provides ADS-B out capability. I do not have a GPS unit of any kind in the panel. The plane also has the typical "steam gauge" instruments typical of an aircraft manufactured in the 70s. In particular, it has the standard vacuum-driven attitude indicator and heading indicator, and the standard electrically-driven turn and bank coordinator. At a minimum, I'd like to replace one of my Bendix/King KX-155 radios with some sort...

I took all of last week off from work. I've been with my current employer over ten years, and with that seniority comes more vacation time per year. I went flying three times during the week and on the weekend. I mainly did it to get some more time in the plane, and put some more time on the engine as part of the continuing investigation into the metal in the oil. Monday, August 9, I went up for a couple of hours. I just flew around the local area as I often do, with no particular destination in mind. I did land at Mears Field in the town of Concrete but, as it is less than 50 nautical miles from Harvey Field in the straight line, I didn't log it as a cross-country flight. On Tuesday I went flying again for a couple of hours but, this time, I had a passenger. Tom had contacted me via Facebook as he was looking at purchasing a Sundowner in which to finish getting his private pilot license, and then to obtain his instrument rating. As Ariel is effectively a Sundowner, I offered t...

I spoke with the shop manager today. They were finished with checking the oil and filter, as well as painting the new trim tab section, and were about to take the plane off to wash it. Snohomish Flying Service includes a wash with the annual inspection, but they waited until the trim tab was painted and dry. Unfortunately, there was a bit more metal. However, he doesn't know if it was produced in the five or so hours I flew it last weekend, or it was left over in the engine from before and hadn't yet made its way to the filter. He asked me to fly it five to ten more hours and then they'll check it again. In the meantime, they collected an oil sample which I will need to send in for analysis. I had assumed that they would do that, but apparently it's up to me to do it, and also to pay for it directly. The sample and associated paperwork will be in the plane. They filled out much of the form; I'll just need to fill out the rest and send it off. I will also need to arr...

I flew again yesterday, and succeeded in putting over five hours on the engine between the two flights over the weekend. The next step is to check the oil and filter again for metal, and send an oil sample off for analysis. Assuming it's good enough to keep flying, and unless there's a reason not to, I will likely have analysis performed at each oil change. When an engine in the last quarter of it's TBO life, this is probably prudent. If it's not good enough to keep flying, well I guess I'll have to make that decision I've been thinking a lot about. Fingers crossed that isn't the case. But that's not really what I wanted to talk about. I didn't mention it yesterday but smoke from this year's wildfires has made its way west of the Cascades and there was a considerable amount of smoke in the air over the weekend. There is still some today but it appears to have improved somewhat. The smoke was particularly visible from the air. It wasn't so bad...