Oct 06 2011

Day 7… Fixed? Don’t know yet

Headed out to the airport to keep busy as I was waiting for the second new ignition system to be delivered. I wanted to balance the prop as there seems to be a little more vibration than I really wanted to see in the plane.

Don had a set of saw horses, some builder squares and a steel pipe. Ah, I could put the pieces together to make a prop balancer. Just call me McGuiver.

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After finishing off the prop, I headed home for some lunch and found a nice surprise, the ignition system. Great! A bite to eat and back to the airport in my rental car to install the new system.
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Earlier this morning Lee had to go down to Denver for some work and elected to drive his car instead of flying. I thought whats the big deal. As long as the winds are coming straight down the runway, it would be ok.. Boy was I wrong. After lunch the wind was 28 gusts to 38 and Lee was seeing winds of 49 kts in Denver.

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I have been on the outskirts of many hurricanes in Charleston and the winds didn’t seem this bad. The dust was horrible. I ended up plugging the inlet of engine to prevent sand and grit from getting into it as I was working away at the plane. I thought this kind of driving sand must be what it is like in Afghanistan or Iraq. Grit in your teeth. Look how the wind sock is flight straight out!

When I finished with the bird, I had to vacuum it out to get all the dirt and grass out of it. Nothing was flying. As much as I wanted to take the bird up, it was a no go.

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I ended up just starting the engine when the winds died down, all seems well and the ignition system was not overheating when I checked it. I think the problems are solved with the plane and I’ll test fly her tomorrow morning.

Now I am faced with a new issue. My buddy Ric Lee said there is a blizzard occurring in Salt Lake City and was asking if there was any snow here. I checked the weather and it may snow here tomorrow. Crap. Lee wants me to stay as long as I need to to be safe. It looks like saturday may be a good day to leave, and I can always fly south if I need to. I don’t need to be in LA until next Wednesday so all is good….