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..