Work was started on the 1/2 wall after the column, bases were brought up to the slab level.

The half wall was started

Finally the column were brought up slightly above the wall. Next I need to bring up the two 3/4 column on each corner of the slab. test

Finishing off the side columns.

Finally, DONE… next it will be time to start pouring concrete caps and steps.

Todays job was to dig footers for the brick columns and pour concrete in them.

the trailer is ready to go with about 1/2 cube (220 ea) of bricks.

I had to cut a LOT of bricks to go around the slab so it would look like the slab was poured AFTER the columns were set in place.  A diamond blade from $30 Harbor Freight cut them as easily as a piece of wood.

Work has finally begun on the porch on the front of my house.  I have never like the original design, so it is time for an upgrade.   I have always liked the tapered columns and half walls of my home town, so the design decision was easy to make.

This is how it looked at the start of the project.

March 7th.   Iron work is gone!  The front looks MUCH better now.

I left Charleston as planned for the flight to PA. What a nice trip.

After the piston upgrade, the plane was flown 3 times for successively longer periods to make sure I had no oil leaks or issues.

I also balanced the engine with the new ACES dynamic balance I purchased at OSH this year. What a nice unit. It only took me one run to get the engine from 1.7 ips to .06 ips. It computes the angle and how much weight to put on the engine unlike the Dynavibe system which requires multiple runs and you must figure out how much weight to add. The cost is about the same for both units!

The trees are starting to turn up here.

Of coarse I was a bit nervous at the beginning of the flight with every engine hiccup (there were a few of them) but it might have just been my hyper sensitivity to the new installation. Tweedy ran smooth as can be (thanks ACES) and climb out is fantastic with the added HP. The old prop still gives me the same speed, but that will change when I replace it with the new Hertzler.

The new Bose A20 headsets are fantastic! I have flown with the Bose series 1, 2 and the 10 and the A20 gives a noticeable improvement in the noise reduction over the series 10. The sound quality is very good too, and the music sounds as good as the series 2 (my favorite for music) with nice deep bass and clear highs. It has blue tooth which makes calling ATC on the ground very convenient. Overall, you cant go wrong with the A20. Klaus suggested them to me (he wanted me to buy his old series 10) and he said that they allowed him to comfortably fly his extremely loud and outrageously fast 240 hp, 900 lb LongEZ he is now flying.

The trip to mom’s was fast and very pleasant with a nice tail wind. She was blown away when I showed up as it was a complete surprise to her. Everyone knew I was flying up except her… what fun.

Mom wanted to go to a all you could eat buffet in Lancaster. After an hour drive we arrived at the biggest buffet I have ever seen. It was like eating in a super walmart! It must have sat 1000 people. Nice idea, but the food was ….ok….

Mom and my sister Paulette enjoying a nice afternoon after desert.

The engine work was fairly easy to do but again took a bit longer than the 1.5 days I expected (took 2.5 days). I ran into a few issues such as properly honing the cylinders and the cylinder wrench which would not work with the wings installed on the bird. I had originally built up the engine in the shop with the wings removed and plenty of room to work.

The wrench came home, I cut about 4 ” out of the length and rewelded it. I was a bit concerned because of the 50 ft lbs of torque used to tighten the cylinder nuts. It worked just fine welded up.

Day one was spent getting a hone, welding the tool and replacing #2, #4 pistons. Day two was spent putting the baffles on the stbd bank, removed port baffles, and replacing the remaining pistons.

This picture shows the removal of #3 cylinder and baffles. I was amazed at to how obstructive the oil cooler is in the engine compartment. It really gets in the way of engine work. I cant wait to move it out the the wing as I did with Pat’s bird.

The cylinders were honed on the table with a cheap ass AutoZone honer. I had a really good one from Tony, but I didnt want to possibly affect the size of the cylinders. His hone was not the right type for a closed type cylinder.

I checked out the stores for a dingle berry type, but they were $179 and not in stock. Found a 3 bladed type hone at AutoZone for $31. For lubricant I used diesel fuel which was recommended with the hone Tony owned. The diesel lubricant worked surprisingly well and really helped cut the glaze better than using it dry.

I also talked to Klaus (Lightspeed Engineering) about timing changes needed when going from 7:1 to 9.1:1 pistons. He recommended retarding the time about 3 deg (to reduce engine CHT temps) and Pmag recommended retarding the time 5 deg. The Pmag only required a jumper to be installed, and Lightspeed required the removal of the flywheel to make a slight mod on it. Hopefully the engine wont overheat due to the increased power output.

About 4 hrs more on the 3rd day to balance the prop/engine and work is done.

I only ran into one serious issue. Since I was upgrading the engine (piston compression) which will raise my hp from 150 hp to 165-170+? hp the 150 hp prop no longer fits the plane. My brand new Hertzler prop had delaminations on the upper blade when I pulled it out of the storage box.

Gary Hertzler was very surprised and apologetic for the problem and had me send it back for refinishing. Gary’s support is really first class…. He is also going to upgrade the prop to the latest urethane leading edges he now installs on his props.

My 150hp Hertzler prop had his original LE protection which was easily eaten up by rain. While at Oshkosh one year, I found a manufacturer selling urethane which was designed for props. I ended up cutting Gary’s LE material off and installing a urethane LE using pressure injections (what a mess). Since then, I have flown through lots of rain with absolutely no effect to the prop (other and eating off the paint). When I first suggested the improvement to Gary, he jumped right on the suggestion, researched better materials and now has it on all the props be sells. You cant go wrong with a Hertzler prop.

The seperation was almost 18″ long. Seperation is highly unusual and it is only a very few props were affected when Gary went to a new manufactring process (which has been improved).

Strangely, I found a few delams on my prop too due to heating by the exhause. A quick repair, a little micro and paint and it was read for balancing and test flight. Cant wait to get my new prop back to really see how the engine upgrade affects speed and fuel efficiency.

After I returned from Calif it took a few days to get my life back in order (as it always does when you are away for a while). Since I was planning to fly Tweedy up to PA for a birthday surprise on Nov 3 a goal was set of installing the noselift and higher compression pistons before I left Charleston. I wanted to have some steady run time to break in and seat the rings on the trip.

The noselift was a real challenge due to existing wiring and an electric panel which required relocating. The work took a few days longer than I would have hoped for, but in the end result it was worth the effort. Jack Wilhelmson gave me some excellent support for a few wiring questions and it worked great from the first power up.

Here is just the beginning of the disassembly. Most of the electrics in the nose had to be removed and relocated. It ended up the 32 ahr battery had to be replaced with a smaller 18 aHr Odyssey battery due to space issues. I found the best price on the battery from Amazon which was almost $40 cheaper than ACS with free shipping! The battery change was actually helpful since the noselift weight about 8 lbs more than stock and the smaller battery compensates for the weight increase in the nose. The weight of the plane actually went down a few lbs and my CG didn’t change a bit.

I had to remove the old Dr. Curtis ratchet handle he used to sell. It worked great for 12 years.

After the old system was removed, a nice paint job covered everything up. Surprisingly I didnt have to do anything to the panel other than remove the handle, sand it flush, paint and bond on the new electric panel. Glad something what easy on this install.

The wiring was easy to do and looks much better than my old 12 yrs inexperienced wiring job.

More wiring

Finished. Looking forward to testing the automatic extension system. It is also nice to be able to park the plane in the half way down position to move it around the hangar.

Next step pistons for the engine.

My wish has come true …  I have always wanted a phone with a freaking good camera.  Is that too much to ask?

I love to take pictures of my day, as I can’t remember shit BUT if I see a picture of something I did on the day in question, I can recall everything.  You see, part of the index file which puts time stamps on the nightly daily events upload to my brain is crapped up…. hence the need for image stimulation to facilitate full recall.

I usually carry my trusty camera (when it is not being run over by a car) everywhere and snap at least a few pix per day.  For years, I have REALLY wanted a cell phone with a good camera so I could ditch my Casio EX-H5, 12.1 mp camera.  I tried the HTC EVO.  Supposed to have an 8 mp camera…. shit the 5 mp camera on the Apple iPhone took a slightly better picture.   In either case the photos were not up to my minimal standards.  Too much grain, color slightly off and lack of good focus.   Emergency phono only please.

The EVO I picked up lasted for less than a year, and Sprint gave me an EVO Slide when I was at Oshkosh this year.  I was desperate for any phone as I had to have something for the airshow.  I had to walk back and forth from the to town to get it. The first Slide lasted one day, and I had to get a replacement.   The HTC Slide is a 4G phone was supposed to be top of the line.   After 4 months of use it to started crapping out.   Crap, 4G…4 months.  It was jumpy and would sometimes lock up..  I need another new phone and Sprint.   I knew was now offering the iPhone.   The timing could be right.

When I was in Salt Lake City I watched a video on the Apple website with Ric Lee showing just how wonderful the iPhone 4S camera was.   It also had a bunch of other cool features such as iCloud and Siri which appealed to me.  I am trying to go Apple with all my equipment so an iPhone was the next step

The contract with Sprint was up for renew so the iPhone 4S was ordered.  It is supposed to have as much computing power as the iPad 2 (dual core processor) but running at a slightly lower clock rate to conserve the battery,  It also had the upgraded 8 mp camera in it.

While flying Tweedy, I took these pictures….  I was blown away.  Great color saturation, minimal grain, and the camera was QUICK.  You could shoot off a number of pictures almost as fast as you can compose and shoot.  Sweet.

The are untouched pictures.   I only used the software in the phone to crop and work with the pictures.  I haven’t figured out how to find the file size yet (dam Apple computer) but they are fairly big as WordPress takes a while to upload and crunch them.

Cooper River Bridges

I had WordPress insert  a higher resolution picture of Mount Pleasant and the USS Yorktown.  Cropping was done in the camera.  Click on the pictures for close up detail.

This picture of the end of Sullivan’s Island was cropped and I added the phone “Magic Enhancement” effect.  It added a little sharpness (and grain) and richened the colors some.  Darker greens and blues sort of thing.

FINALLY, after years of waiting, I have what I REALLY wanted.  Just ONE piece of electronics to carry around.  It is a phone, internet, gps, game station, educational device and a truly ACCEPTABLE camera to document my existence.  I’ll still use the Casio from time to time for special occasions where I really want a high rez pictures, but the Apple iPhone 4S takes really good pictures to use on a day to day basis..

Oh, went to Sprint to transfer my old numbers off the EVO Slide…. the Slide  wouldn’t talk to their equipment.  Bad Android…

The rep also said there may have been a bad software push that messed up the operating system since others have complained of erratic operating system behavior the last few weeks.   Bad Android….

He said they would or may have sent out new code.  He wasn’t really sure.    Bad Android…

Hum think about it my EVO didn’t seem to be acting so freaky on me since I made it back to Charleston.  I just thought it might be happy to be home too.  Maybe it was pushed and updated with some good stuff.     Maybe the EVO fully functional again?  Did I really need to buy the iPhone 4S at this time?

Well, after playing with it for the last few days, running memory intensive applications such as ForeFlight with no slowdown and now seeing the quality of the picture output, I can say the iPhone 4S rocks.   Apples makes VERY nice products with software that just works.  Now I can finally ditch my camera.  Good Apple ISO 5….

The bird back is the hangar in her favorite spot right next to the door in front of the spam cans, grazing on concrete….

Bon appetit  Tweedy.

The last few days have been remarkable for me.  I thoroughly enjoy being back.  The weather is good, my cat Cosm0 (for Cosmo Kramer) remembers and seems genuinely pleased to have me back again…..

AND I get to sleep in my own bed again.   I am happy.

After a busy week, with doctor visits, grocery shopping, washing, cleaning and visiting friends (who very pleased to see me again), I  made plans on Saturday to visit an old friend I have been ignoring as of late.

After an easy morning with breakfast, news paper and a visit from Jack Wilhelmson (eznoselift.com) ,  I finally headed out to the airport to see Tweedy.

She was sitting in the back of the hanger buried behind a number of Spam Cans looking totally out of place..  A thick coating of dust was on her. We hadn’t been together since September 21 st….  YIKES could how could I have ignored her this long?

Will I be able to warm her up?  Or, will she be pissed at me and require massive  maintenance on her for hours due to my lack of attention?  Something always seems to cranky and cause me issues IF I don’t work the old bird  out regularly.   Finicky she can be…

After installing the Trio Pilot Pro which has been upgrade by Chuck to the latest and greatest software upgrade, we headed out.

You know, I have flown N123LE for total 55.6 hrs and Tweedy for 2570 hours, and while the new gal who came life 2.5 years ago, I couldnt stop thinking of Tweedy.  N123LE is fun, racy, FAST, brilliantly intelligent and sweet bird as one could ever hope to fly……..bit yet, there is just a wonderful feeling when you’re reunited with a bird you spent 14 years with and just love to fly.  We have been though everything Mother Nature could throw at us.  She is as dependable an easy going as one could hope for.

Tweedy just started without a fuss, purred like a kitten, and off we went to fly down the Ashely river at 600 ft listening to wonderful music to  overfly the city.  Rusty said he would be somewhere on the Ashely River, I am going to be over the river looking down at….well everyone, and no one cares.

A south end of  Sullivan’s Island

and the Cooper River Bridges

The new code on the Trio Pro is fantastic.   I have been a beta tester for their equipment since the pre-deveopment of the EZ-1 altitude hold.  Beta testers have the fun of finding issues with pre-release software and making recommendations to the developers.   I’ll tell you what the Trio products are really good and you can ask for a better company to deal with.    Chuck developed the product and wrote the software code and was extremely supportive of my crazy suggestions and recommendations.  The new code he has in the A/P really works well and produces a much more stable ride than any I have used so far.

Thanks Trio for your fantastic support when I needed to get the A/P sent out to me overnight in Greeley, CO.

Back in the hangar, put the good old gal back to bed.  Off spend a nice quite night at home writing….

This morning was a FREAKEN early morning wake call.  3:15 am Yikes!

My flight was set for an early 6:05 am loading, so I wanted to be sure to  get to the airport at least 1.5 hrs earlier to allow for returning the rental car, a bus ride, TSA screening, eat a nice breakfast before wheels up.

After leaving the hotel at 3:45 I found NO restaurants were open!   What???   The hotel is 2 miles from the airport with all the hotels crammed together.   The only place with 24 hr open was a Hardees and when I asked for breakfast they said…  No we don’t serve breakfast at this time.  We don’t serve breakfast unit 4 am.   So I had to get a $6 burger.

Off the the Enterprise rental returns… very fast as there was NO one there.   The bus was waiting for me and since I was the only on on the bus, we headed quickly for the airport.

After drop off,  at 4:10 found TSA security didn’t open until 4:30 am so I was 2nd in line and chatted to a nice couple who were going to Nicaragua to rent a sail boat for a week.  This was one empty airport!

Security screening was a snap as there were 5 lines open, with 4 people in line.  Coffee NOW please…..  shit, the small shops didn’t open for another 30 minutes (5 am) so they just tantalized us with the sell of brewing coffee…. what torcher.

Finally off to Houston, where  I saw these cool art work hanging from the ceiling.  It was so simple yet extremely cool   Randomly cut plastic sheets (1/4 to 3/8 inch thick) with different shades of color were heated, bent, and hung under a long yet narrow skylight.  This sunlight interacted with the plastic to light the edges, to highlight  the shape and detailing the edges.

What a neat idea!

Finally made it home about 6:15 pm.  It was raining, my cat missed me and I was so excited I almost had an orgasum .

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Woowaaa here.  I just did a spell check of this document and it before I published and the checker didn’t recognize the work orgasum.  How weird as it seems to know anything I throw at it.   I then checked the web for the proper spelling and found a whole untapped world of stuff about orgasums.  What some fun…. google orgasum.  There are youtube’s about orgamsums.  How weird it doesn’t spell check.

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Urban Dictionary: orgasum

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Folks I don’t make this shit  up…….

Today , Pat and I are  planning to disassemble the plane, move it to two shops.  I also needed to fit in dental visits, and move to  my new hotel closer to LAX.

8:15 Left hotel

9 AM    Arrive Dentist….  14 miles

10:30  Left Dentist to Fullerton airport… 9 miles

Pat and I met up at Fullerton, we made some ramps for the plane and the wings, canard, cowls were taken off.

and the Pat helped me load the bird was loaded on to the trailer and off we went.

12:30 Left Fullerton to  Chino.. about 30 miles

We took the bird to Pat friend , Aaron who will be doing some engine work.   Aaron will build a new exhaust system to better fit the cowl and a new intake system to allow installation of a B&C starter.   The old starter was a car type conversion which really didn’t have the right stuff to quickly spin the engine.

Aaron runs a neat and tidy show for metal work (like what you would see on a TV show) does great metal work restoring vintage cars.  The sump welding was done by Arron and I would consider the work outstanding.

I needed to take off the oil pan so Arron can make  the mods to the intake system.  In about an about 1 hour it was free it is time to go.

4 PM  Leave Chino for Fullerton … about 30 miles

After leaving Chino, it was a quick dash to the airport to load the wings.  Pat drove them down to his work shop I headed to the dentist.

5:30  Leave Fullerton to Dentist… 9 miles

6:30 Left Dentist to Huntington Beach… about 25 miles

The wings were moved into Pat’s shop, I took all the control surfaces off, to help prep the wings for painting.  Packed up my tools and clothing to ship FEDEX to the house.

Left Huntington Beach

10:30  Arrive LAX  hotel… 25 miles

Finally cheeked in.  I am totally exhausted from the day and not eating much.  Bed time as I have a 3:15 am appt.