Oct 16 2011

Day 17… Pat’s Solo

We met up at Fullerton about 11 am for Pat’s solo flight.  A quick 6 minute flight to Chino and after about 6 or 7 practice landing from the back seat felt Pat was ready for his first fight.

Needless to say I was probably more nervous than he was.  Whenever you flight a new bird the first time, it can be a bit scary.  This one is quite a handful as the avionics are so advanced it can be a bit overwhelming.  It took wiring the plane, studying the manuals for hours to just touch the surface of what this bird can do.

As Pat was getting comfortable with the plane on the ground my first thought was the plane was going to overheat.  He must have spent at least 10 to 15 minutes on the ground with an already heat soaked engine.  Normally canards are notorious bad for overheating due to the fact they have no cooling air over the cylinders like tractor planes.  I became very alarmed with length of time he just sat there…and sat there.  Yikes.

 

Finally after what seemed like an eternity on the ground, Pat took off and made about 3 or 4 tough and goes.  He was flying!

The bird looked really fast from the ground and it was great fun for me to see her flying with the characteristic sound that a canard makes.

Finally Pat taxi’s up with the grin of success on his face.  Peace of cake he claims.

Strangely, when I asked him about the cylinder head temps, he said NONE of them were over 400 f while sitting idling on the ground.  I was in shock!  I had hoped the educators would work well, but I didn’t realize just how well they helped ground operations.   My bird only seems to get up to about 375F but I had never tried to sit on the ground idling with a heat soaked engine like he did.  I guess I’ll have try my bird out to see what happens.   I do know this, I am going to rebuild my cowls to look like Pats as I think not only to they look good but function much better than Tweedy’s.

 

 

Oct 15 2011

Day 16… Back in the air

I returned to Chino at 8 am to start work on the plane.  It turned out to be an easy swap out as the rims were not damage and I had all the necessary tools on hand.

After about an hour the new tires were installed, I found the breaks need to be replaced (no big deal)

and Pat and I jumped into the plane for a quick flight around the pattern to check everything out.

After returning back to Fullerton, we went to a very lovely street where apparently a number of films had been made,

Pat’s hangar mates were fascinated by the exhaust educators.  I told Torg that the educators seemed to really work.  I had not used in in Colorado Springs (leaving Burrall’s place) and the cylinders temps went up to over 450 f in just the time it took to taxi from his hangar to the runway (about 10 minutes).  As soon as I took off, I needed to quickly cool down the engine.

He also liked the wing blends.  I feel they do reduce drag, but am not as sure about the upper part of the winglet.  Hey they do look cool though.

Pat and I decided not to fly together today.  He was really tired, and so was I.    Tomorrow he will attempt to solo.

Oct 14 2011

Day 15… The Big Blowout

Today, Pat and I met at the airport for our first flight together.  We decided to fly 30 minutes down to  Chula Vista (outskirts of San Diego) and then up to Chino for practice .

The flight along the coast was just beautiful as always.  This is Laguna Beach where I had just been the last night to see Tony (best friend from CHS) and his grand children.  Strangely he was in LA at the same time I am.  Hopefully he can help me disassemble the plane on Monday.

We needed to stop by Trio to exchange the loaner auto pilot with Pats A/P which needed a software upgrade.

Today was another lucky day for me as Jerry had purchased a GM Volt (serial hybrid electric car).  When he asked me if I wanted top drive I enthusiastically said …” Hell ya”  How’s that for a bubba yell.  He only drives locally and told me he hasn’t put gas in the car in 10 months (since Jan)


Gillespie Field (KSEE) has a great little cafe on the field for us to grab a bite to eat, talk planes and watch take offs and landing.  What a great place!

Sid showed me a really cool little camera/display he installed in the headrest of  his beautiful EZ.  The camera is mounted over his shoulder so the back seat passenger can see the instrument panel  What  great idea.  One could fly from the back and practice IFR work seeing all the important instruments.

In front of the trio hanger, the canard came off, and the upgraded auto pilot was installed and programed.  It is now working very well and exhibiting none of the strange tendencies it had before do to the incorrect installed software.  I had been using it and it was programed with very old beta software.  Once the production software was in, all is well.

After Trio Pat and I flew up to Chino to practice touch and goes with Pat flying from the back seat.  On one of the last landings there (of coarse) we blew out the starboard main tire.  Shit…..  apparently it was extremely worn which might be due to heavy use of the breaks.   Normally I get one to 1.5 years out of a set of tires.  This set lasted for 5 months.  The tire ripped the wheel faring off, which wasn’t a big deal because it was going to be replaced anyway.  Crap, what now.

 

Pat made some phone calls to secure new tires and we waited for what seem like an eternity for help to show up (the FBO ground crew) to help tow the plane to the hangar area.  Fortunately, the airport was not busy  so sitting on a taxi way didn’t cause any problems.

As the sun was setting, the crew finally showed up and the had a wheel dolly…. Ya!

Lets get started hauling this thing out of here

 

Whats wrong with this picture.  Pat is setting in the truck, and I am walking/running with the plane for half a mile or so trying to guide it to keep the plane directly behind the tow truck.    I guess I need the exercise anyway.

 

 

As we wait for Pat’s buddy to show up to drive us 45 minutes back to Fullerton airport it started getting really dark and  cold.  There is something to be said about dressing appropreately in case something should happen.

Once again another lesson on this  learned on this trip..

Oct 13 2011

Day 14… The Dentist

Today was a LONG day with Pat at his dental practice. 5.5 hrs sitting in the chair. Pat is an excellent dentist and he put on the crowns which were made the last time I saw him. I was wasted after that and just went back to the hotel and crashed….

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I am staying at a Best Western here. At first glance, I thought it would be a piece of crap. Actually it was quite nice and comfortable and very clean. Wifi and breakfast…ya! All the essentials for a nice stay.

Oct 12 2011

Day 13… The last leg

After a wonderful night at Tim and Karen’s house, it was time to say good bye to my new friends.

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I really like the way their house is decorated. Rich colors, lots of unique art, simple and uncluttered.

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Tim took me for a quick drive around Tehachipi where I spotted another mural on the side of a building. What a cool little town. Every one seems to be into aviation around here due to all the aerospace companies which help support the town.

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My next stop was to see Klaus in Santa Paula to exchange his loaner electronic ignition for the repaired one. Tim mentioned the local bakery was excellent so I thought I would pick up a peace offering to give to the great Klaus to keep him from beating me up too bad when I saw him for burning up his boxes. They had some german specialties which I though would be good.

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Tehachapi is an excellent location for wind generation and there were thousands of them on the hill sides. What an great way to generate electricity. These pictures show only a small fraction of what covered the hill sides.

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One of the things I really love with the GTR EFIS is the traffic/weather display (from the ADS-B receiver) and the synthetic vision (shows computer generated terrain). This unit has so many cool features I HAVE to install one in my plane…I am addicted to the situation awareness I get from it. Flying around the west coast is vastly different from the east coast. There are mountains, hills, valleys everywhere. A bit unnerving at times. I really found the synthetic vision helpful when flying up a valley to get to the Tehachapi airport. I am so used to flat country having the extra information from the GRT in the cockpit is very helpful.

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After a short 20 minute flight, I arrived in Santa Paula. It is a small airport in a tight valley with a very short strip, sort of unusual as there are no real taxi ways. Just a big wide strip of asphalt with painted lines which separates the runway area from the taxi /parking area. This airport is tight and small.

Klaus met me at his hangar/workshop. I really like this picture as it looks like he just had a beer in the mug and is quite happy (maybe it was the apple strudel I brought). Actually the mug is the one he kindly served me water in. We had a great time chatting about Germany and flying. What a cool guy and we had a lot in common with our love of vinyl records, home built speakers and planes. After showing me his work shop and demonstrating his ignitions to me on the test stand, I am definitely buying them for my I0-540 which will go into my Cozy 4 Ultimate.

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After quickly replacing his loaner ignition Klaus offered to fly with me in the new LongEZ he is refining. The plane weighs in at 900 lbs with a 0-360 in it with his custom electronic fuel injection. Talk about fast!!!! When we took off (he was first) and I couldn’t believe how quick it was. As fast as this bird is, he just disappeared like he engaged a warp drive. A little while later, he appeared next to me for some photo shots.

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Klaus pulled it in so close to my wing, I though we would touch. He is certainly an excellent formation flier. After a few minutes of flying off the coast, Kluas bid goodbye, throttled up, and just pulled away from me in a climb. I was doing 160 kts and left me like I would flying next to a 150 Cessna. Wow…. I am impressed!

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Another quick flight to Whiteman airport to meet up with Steven Crouch to chat awhile. It was funny, the Santa Anna winds were blowing and it was over 100 degrees (with no humidity). I had no idea it was so hot, as I had no sweat on me (evaporating) and it just felt dry. These locals don’t know real South Carolina heat with all the humidity thrown in.

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After leaving Whiteman, it was a another quick flight to Fullerton (KFUL) for to bring the plane home. Pat showed up after work to take his first quick look at it and off we went to get the rental car as it was getting dark.

I am finally here….

Oct 11 2011

Day 12… Trip to Tehachapi

After a short but great visit with Charles, we had breakfast and headed out to the airport. My next stop is Tehachapi which is about 1.1 hrs (direct), but I elected to fly along the coast if possible which added about 40 minutes to the flight.

The weather didn’t burn off until almost 11 am and after a short flight to the coast to Monterey and I found it to be still shrouded in sea fog. Only a few towers on the coast could be seen.

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After flying inland for 30 minutes I tried once again to headfor the coast near San Lousi Obispo and was able to take some nice shots of the shore line at 2500 ft.

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After just a few miles it was necessary to head due east to for the 30 min flight inland to Tehachapi. As I was flying inland, it occurred to me I was finally starting to feel comfortable in the plane. I think it takes about a hundred hours of so with a new plane to finally start to trust it and understand its’ particular quirks and personality. Every time I rebuild mine or build a new project, I am alway nervous for a quite a while. This bird is nice…

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Tim Lumpp met me at the airport and when he opened the hangar it looked like a museum with planes hanging in the ceiling. I had read about plane lifts but never saw one. It was amazing to park the bird under two other planes.

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Tim gave me a quick tour of the area and I was just blown away at how beautiful it was. I had only been to the Mohave Desert where Scaled Composites is based which is where Tim and Marc work. I thought they were crazy for working in such a desolate place. Tehachapi is about 2000 ft above the desert floor and has its own micro climate. It is just beautiful here.

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This is the locally famous train loop. The grade is too steep for the trains so it enters the loop via a tunnel and loops around on itself to gain elevation before it heads over the pass. Very cool

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Tim’s wife, Karen, cooked a fantastic dinner for Marc, Deanie and I and we chatted for a few hours. It always amazes me how warm and giving the pilots in our canard community are. I feel really lucky to be involved in such a great sport which had given me a chance to travel, see wonderful sights and make new friends.

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Nick, Tim and Marc
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Oct 10 2011

Day 11… San Francisco

This morning started with a mad dash to the airport. I used my Foreflight application on the ipad to check the weather and there was a huge front rolling in from the north east. I thought, shit if this hits Truckee, there will be snow again (they had a foot just last week) and I would be stuck here for a few days. I had to get out of here quick.

After taking off, the best option was to go south (after hitting some light drizzle) for a about 20 miles, climb to 17,000 ft to get above the clouds then headed west over the top of the mountains. The flight was only about 1 hour long, and after clearing the mountains and reaching the lower foot hills, a rapid decent was made (picking up a little ice at 12,000 ft) to warmer air and all was good. No more extremely high mountains to get over…Yah!! The rest of the trip will be a piece of cake now (or so I thought).

I flew into the Reid-Riverview airport, San Jose (just south of San Fran) and met Charles who is building a cozy 4. Charles is retired, so he had the whole day to just play.

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After a quick lunch we took the train into San Fran, and sure enough the front I had just missed in Truckee hit the area and it started to drizzle. You know the Seattle light misty type that is wet and moist yet does not really get you wet.

I think the cable cars of San Fran are really cool. They are part of our history yet if someone tried to propose and build them today, the would be deemed unsafe and too dangerous for the general public.

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We walked everywhere downtown… this is a picture of the restored ferry terminal building. My last job was historic preservationist and I love seeing the reuse of these old buildings.

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It is still used as a passenger terminal and there are lots of neat shops inside.

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In the fishermans wharf tourist area, San Fran made the decision to search all over the country to find and restore this style of old electric trollies. It seems each one is painted a different color. I really like the art/deco look like something out of the 1930’s.

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I remember seeing Coit Tower featured in some old movies and asked Charles if he wanted to climb the hill to check out the view…. yikes what a mistake… You can just barely see it at in the center of the picture.. The tower is 210 ft tall and was built in 1933.

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Well there were steps…

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and more steps…

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and more steps… I am hurting….

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Finally, we came upon this sign… only 174 steps to go. Ouch, my gluts are burning by now and feel like I have just been to the gym. Charles is in amazing shape and is keeping up though we are both huffing now. We proceeded just like one would eat an elephant…. a little at a time.

Finally reaching the top we found the tower to be taller than I remembered.

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I really wish the low clouds had lifted before we made it to the top, but still the view was awesome.

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Inside the base of the building are 27 awesome wall murals of the every day life of working people of the time period. This is only one of the the many that completely adorned every wall.

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No visit to San Fran is complete without a picture of the boats at the wharf.

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This is a great fountain in Ghiradelli square. Naked mermaids. Just what one should have in a shopping plaza.

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In this shop you can get some free samples of Ghiradelli chocolate where the company used to manufacture it. Now Ghiradelli just has an outlet store and some old equipment showing how it was made at the time. The chocolate here was just as good as my hometown Hershey, PA.

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Whoopee! I finally made it to the Pacific ocean. Of coarse one needs to dip his hand in the water. As I was posing for the picture looking at the camera, a big wave caught me, and I spent the rest of the day walking around in soggy shoes. Ah the price of fame…

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After a fantastic dinner at one of Charles’s favorite italian restaurants which was excellent! Kevin stopped by to chat and took us back to the train station in his electric car (Nissan Leaf). Wow, I really liked it. He gets about 80 miles of real world driving on a charge, and uses electric panels to charge it up…. How cool is that.

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Off to home… Next stop is Tahachipi tomorrow.

Oct 09 2011

Day 10… Lake Tahoe

I woke up this morning, looked outside and it was sever clear!! Woohoo, I can deal with sunscreen instead of ice on the next leg of my trip to Truckee CA (Lake Tahoe). After a wonderful visit in Salt Lake City with Ric Lee and Shari. It’s is off to the next adventure.

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After passing the great Salt Lake, I climbed to 12,000 ft for the 2.6 hr trip to Truckee. The air was really smooth, and I trued out at about 190 kts at 6.8 gph. This bird is sweet!

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The higher mountains had a nice cap of snow and were quite stunning!

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It was interesting to see this lake from the air. A few years back I went skiing at Mammoth Ski Area, outside of Reno an was on a 3 hr bus ride to the ski area when we passed this lake. How cool it was to see it from the air.

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In only a few minutes, I passed over Reno, the on to my destination.

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Truckee airport is located in a valley at 5,900 ft. After passing over Reno on an IFR flight plan at 11,000 ft, and clearing the mountains I had to do a somewhat quick decent in to the airport. The gal in my GPS kept screaming, “PULL UP….PULL UP” , “TERRAIN, PULL UP” in the headsets. I was a bit too busy to shut her up… boy she can get annoying! After landing I could really take in the beauty of the airport. Nice in the summer time, but last year they received 800″ of snow. Yikes!

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Tim Loloche met me at the airport and since he needed to check on his season ski pass at the one of the 8 local ski area, we had a pizza for lunch. This is a very cool roller skating ring in the summer which is coverted to an ice skating rink in the winter.

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The quick tour around Lake Tahoe was incredibly beautiful. Crystal blue water, snow capped mountains. What a stunning place to live!

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After checking out the lake Tim drove me over to Squaw Valley ski area where they had the winter olympics ?? years ago. What a beautiful venue!

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Off to Pianeta italian restaurant for a terrific dinner with a new friend.

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Tomorrow it will be wheels up around 10 am (after the fog dissipates) for a 1 hr trip to San Francisco. I only have about 3 hours left flying the bird before I reach my final destination in LA. I’ll miss her.

Oct 08 2011

Day 9… Stuck in Salt Lake City

This morning, after a couple of cups of cappuccino, I check the weather and it was still raining with heavy overcast. After my experience yesterday, there was no way in hell I am heading to Truckee California (about 2.5 hrs) over the mountains again at 13,000 ft. Ric said… STAY. Didnt take a lot of arm twisting to convince me.

After breakfast, Ric said, “I am taking the dog for a walk wanna come?” At first I said no, then thought about it and decided to go…. I need some exercise. I thought he was just going around the block.

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but Ric had a great nature trail near his house and off we went.

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A good hike was just what I needed. I really enjoyed walking in the wood, and seeing the mountains in the background.

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Whats wrong with this picture? Talk about higher education! I bet this doe-doe gets a lot of takers……

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We headed off the the airport and after checking the the bird out in the corporate hanger, we found all is well,

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Its off to the Ric’s hangar to check out his Berkut. What a nice airplane and the workmanship was impeccable. I cant wait to see this oversized LongEZ with 260 six cylinder horse power take off…. It is going to be a rocket ship!

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This airport is a hot bed of experimental aircraft… this one is a winner at the Reno Air Races. It only has 100 hp and can race at 175 mph and can turn at 12 G’s. The neat thing is it has wood wings and was designed in the 1950’s. How cool is that?

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Ric asked if I wished to go up for a quick flight in his Kapana C1 airplane and I enthusiastically said yes. What a beautiful bird…. slow and sweet.

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We flew around the mountains to the valley on the others side and over the great Salt Lake.

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Another beautiful western sunset and it off for some sushi and to get ready for the next leg of my adventure….

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Oct 07 2011

Day 8… Icing in the Rockys

Today was the beginning of the rest of my trip. After staying with Lee and Terry, it was time me to test the electronic ignition to see if replacing the terminal with a wire would really and permanently fix the ignition problem.

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After saying good by to my fantastic hosts, it was time to take the bird up for a test flight.

Lee and I took off and headed south, Lee was heading to his job in Denver so I thought I would take a quick picture of him silhouetted against the Rocky Mountains.

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I flew for about 30 minutes, landed and checked the bird out and headed northwest toward Salt Lake City.

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Tho country was breath taking from the air and quite desolate too.

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Somewhere about 1.5 hrs (of a 3.4 hr trip), I started encountering high clouds (not shown on any weather predictions) and since the outside air temp was about 24F I knew I had might start to develop icing. I was given a block altitude of 12,000-17,000 ft, and started climbing. Eventually everything went IFR which wasnt good.

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Shit, I started picking up icing on the air frame, which in any airplane is not good and especially bad for a canard. Here you might be able to the ice on the front canopy which means ice on the wings too.

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Whenever I had a chance to see the country side (less and less frequent) through the sucker holes, it was beautiful.

After what seemed an eternity of being in the clouds feeling the plane get heavier with ice, I finally cleared the mountains to the west of SLC, made an immediate decent into warmer air of the valley to divert to the closest available airport (Ogden, UT) to check the plane out. As soon as the air warmed up, the ice started coming off in sheets from the canard and windshield and finally the plane started picking up speed and returning to normal.

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In this picture I was trying to show what remained of the buildup of ice on the wings… about 1/2″ remained on the leading edge of the main wing. Most of the ice on the canard had already sheeted of and went through the prop.

I have had a few incidents of ice on the plane, so this was not the first time this has happened to me. Since then, I make it a point of completely avoiding icing conditions. Period. I never fly into conditions where icing is possible. Sometime there is no way to know what is in front of you from the available weather information, nothing below you where you can land, cant go back so you must go forward. Thinking back, I should have been able to completely clear the clouds at about 18 or 19,000 ft, and should have just kept climbing… oh, well hind site, another lesson learned….

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After checking the bird over and a quick call to Rick, I flew about a 25 min VFR fight from just above SLC down to his airport just south of the city. Parked the bird in a big hanger and it off to lunch….

This is another adventure, I don’t care to repeat……