NetHeads, I've been flying the crap out of my plane on the few days that have permitted it since I've been home. Most days have been raining, windy, or downright tornadic. I went out to fly Wednesday and the windsock was gone completely. Nobody knew where it went, but it's probably in Tennessee somewhere...maybe Kentucky. I was just happy my hangar was still there. Speaking of TN, I flew up to Murphreesboro yesterday to see the tornado path. It's pretty easy to spot...just look for the blue FEMA tarps on all the roofs! I "needed" to fly somewhere, and that's about all I could come up with. It was good for five more crosscountry landings in the logbook though.
Today was supposed to be windy, but it turned out to be a perfect flying day, with only 5 mph winds late in the day. I spent a lot of time at FYM practicing engine out landings and recalibrating my airspeed indicator with the GPS with the nice long runway, so I'd know the exact error at the low end of the scale (7 mph) is still the same. I flew a couple of hours Wednesday, and when I landed I realized I'd never gone over 1000' AGL. What a hoot of time I had, I have to tell ya! Right now I have at least one bug splatter per square inch on the wing leading edges. They'll probably be there until the day before I fly to the Gathering in September. Tomorrow I plan to meet Joe Horton at Jack Cooper's new place up near the junction of Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina (04TN) for lunch. For Joe it'll probably be at least a $200 hamburger. I'm looking forward to meeting up with them, and am already offering gifts to the weather gods for the opportunity It'll be great to visit with them both. I finally took the time to install the 406 Mhz ELT tonight, and it only took about 30 minutes. The aft deck was off in under a minute, although it did take me three or four minutes to put it back on. The rest of the time was spent on testing the installation. I used the direct replacement Ameri-King 451. Maybe they'll find me a little quicker now. What a great smooth day for flying. You guys don't know what you're missing. I wish I could make SNF and Pete's and Ron's Wings and Wheels thing, but I'll be back in the UK. Please support the Wings and Wheel thing. It's always good fun, and you get to see perfect Corvairs, stuff like 140 HP trikes, and meet other Corvair powered airplane guys, not to mention the grass field experience... Mark Langford N56ML "at" hiwaay.net website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
