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Smoky skies

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 that it prevented VFR flying, but it was definitely something you had to keep an eye on. During yesterday's flight, I was heading toward one of the foothills and didn't see it clearly until I got within about five or six miles. Plenty of time to avoid it, but if I hadn't been paying attention, I could have ended up too close for comfort. Every flight teaches lessons and this was no exception.

Here are some photos from the two flights. The first four are from Saturday, the last two from Sunday.








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