CamTom12 wrote:Buzzed around to nowhere in particular today for a 2.9. Would have enjoyed smoother air but overall it was a great day. I'll throw some pics up tomorrow.

Here's some pics!

The Saturn V on I-65:


I've always liked how Roger set the fuel valve up to retain maximum visibility through the windows:


Did a stop and go at Lawrenceburg. I had planned to do a few more but there were some really sweet gusting crosswinds so I stopped after one. Then I buzzed up to Baker Field and turned East to see the sights.

Baker field:


Flew over Mt. Pleasant, Lewisburg, and Shelbyville, just enjoying the day. This segment got pretty bumpy so I climbed to see how high it went. At 7,500 feet it was still bumpy so I came back down.

Ellington from way up high:


A neat quarry I passed somewhere along the way:


The bumps were getting to my bladder so I decided to head southeast and land at Winchester to submit a yellow-1 report and check the current fuel prices. They were good so I went ahead and topped off. 2.5 hrs on 15.9 gallons makes 6.4 GPH. Mostly all that was low power putting around, but I can handle that for an average!

After that I decided to head over to Lynchburg and see if they had finished the barrel warehouses they were building last time I flew over. They had.

Tims Ford Lake on the way to Lynchburg:


Nearing Lynchburg:


The barrel factory is between my struts, with the visitor's center on the right:


Some of the warehouse complex:



From the south side of my range complex at work:


A shadow view of my cowling duct mod, haha!

Brace yourself for picture overload...

Flew down south this weekend to visit my in-laws. My wife drove down the day before me but I had to work on Friday so I flew down after work. I found out that Alexander City had $3.52 AvGas, so I stopped in there and topped off. Ended up taking 44 gallons, so an average of 8.3 gph for the last few flights. Not bad, considering I held pretty high power settings for that tank.

From there I continued down to EDN uneventfully.

Flying south over Northern AL

More of the same

The Coosa River near Pell City

Refueling in Alexander City

On the ramp at EDN

My tie-down neighbor was for sale.

No pictures of the flight, but my Father in Law flew up to Luverne to watch my nieces play in an all-star softball tournament. This was on the ramp in Luverne.

They won both games, here's the score for the first. And I thought the field name was awesome.

The next day there was some weather rolling around, but nothing that was blocking the way. Here's my departure from EDN.

Buzzed right over Ft. Rucker

Dodged some more storms while heading northeast

A little closer to the one from the last picture

Stopped in Thomaston, GA to pick up some wheel halves from KG. Thanks again! My plan is to use these to rebuild the set of wheels that I accidentally let corrode in my hangar.

There's a little ridge near Piedmont that I've flown through a couple of times and I always enjoy the scenery over there.

Dodging another short line of storms near Guntersville. These are all of the same storm, I thought the pictures came out pretty neat looking.







Looks like these tires are done - no more flights until I put the GY26s on.

How many hours would you guess this oil has on it?

The sky looked pretty cool when I was heading home.

Looks awesome Cam


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I love a fresh set of bearings. Keep 're flying man!

What size were your old tires? GY 26's look great!

Old ones were 6.00x6. Good tires, but worn out.

I love these tires!

Looks great with those big tires on!

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

Thanks!

Looking great Cam. Look forward to camping next to you at blackwater when the weather cools down this fall. Though we haven't talked about it, I assume we can make that happen.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

UH-60andC-180 wrote:Looking great Cam. Look forward to camping next to you at blackwater when the weather cools down this fall. Though we haven't talked about it, I assume we can make that happen.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

8FD3? Absolutely!

I'll bring the bug shirts, haha

It appears that photobucket has changed their policies and ruined my thread. I've got a few updates that I haven't posted yet, so I'm going to hang on to those until I figure out a new method.

lame.

Beautiful strip Cam!

How do i update my account to enable 3rd party hosting to see cams pictures???

CFOT wrote:Beautiful strip Cam!

Man, it sure was! It was down on Smith Lake. Real nice flight down, hot and bumpy on the way home!

dougs wrote:How do i update my account to enable 3rd party hosting to see cams pictures???

Doug, it's not you - it's me!

Photobucket decided to pull their free 3rd party hosting. That "update your account" picture is somehow supposed to make me feel obligated to pay them a ton of money to re-initiate their services. I've been using them for a decade or so, and I've all but given up on rehosting and reposting all those past pictures. Sorry, it'd take ages. Anything in particular you're looking for? I'm playing with a couple of new hosting options until I figure out a permanent solution - might just start my own domain for the purpose of picture hosting.

You have a neat looking airplane,be fun to see some pictures.

"The needs of the Army come first."

Trying a new image hosting thing here...

Went flying yesterday ... twice. First time was super bumpy with 16G20 at the airport. And it was warm. So I just buzzed around for about 30 minutes and decided it wasn't fun and went home to mow the lawn.

I've been trying to link up with a local couple with a couple of cubs lately and Saturday we finally made it happen! They have a nice 1300' strip on the river with great approaches on both sides. They said the roads and fields around there are ok to land in as well, so I'm going to try playing there the next time I'm out and light with some good winds.

Anyways, here's some pictures:

You can't see them, but they're in this picture


This is at their place. It was super nice! And a REALLY nice experimental SC!


The next three are of Northeast Alabama in that special kind of light that makes everything beautiful.






Major winds. Supercub-like ground speeds.


Enjoying a nice quiet, cool night in solitude.


Here's the rocket. I get to pass this every day on my way to and from work. I like it.


Tucked in for the night!

Well, six months between updates seems terrible but it's not too bad considering the personal flying year I've had. Much of this year has been super busy with work flying and work travel, so the Racer has taken a spot on the back-burner for now.

A friend of mine wants to build an RV-14, but he's got a really tall torso and doesn't fit well into most planes. He wanted to sit in one before he dropped money on a kit. So yesterday we arranged to meet up with Vic so my friend could sit in the Van's demonstrator and grab a quick demo flight. I was promised lunch, so it seemed like a fair trade to me.

A quick 1.3 hour flight down to Henry Country (KHMP) got us crawling all over the RV-14 demonstrator and Vic's personal RV-10, which is a BEAUTIFUL airplane. Nicely built.

Then he and Jon hopped on a quick flight and I sat in my plane and tried to get caught up on forum messages from over the holidays. I had been pretty busy with family stuff and really fell off the net there for a while!

Once they got back, Vic suggested we hop down to Alexander Memorial (GA2) for lunch at the Barnstormer's grill, which was delicious! I had a good bacon cheeseburger and sweet potato fries and my sweet tea was never less than halfway full. There was an RV-6, a Citabria, some Cessna nosedraggers, and a beautiful J-3 on site, but we only spoke to the folks from the RV. Seemed like really good people.

After that we blasted back with a sweet headwind. After a quick stop to refuel at West Georgia Regional (KCTJ), we landed at home and parted ways for the rest of the weekend.

Unfortunately I got caught up in the fun of the day and didn't take a lot of pictures. The first two are of the hills in the morning sun under our 3500 foot overcast layer.




Here's Vic opening up the RV-14. He was very knowledgable about all things Vans. I'm not even in the market for a kit right now but was tempted after talking to Vic!


Vic and Jon cranking to go flying.

https://youtu.be/0cBlDjeNgns

This was the view from the West Georgia Regional pilot's lounge. I wanted to go walk through the hangar and oogle the planes there longer but I needed to get home to help Amy with some things around the house.


Met this guy at the fuel pumps, the plane had a pretty neat story. He said it started life as a cargo 206 with the clamshell doors, then went back to the factory to get modded as the testbed for the P206 line and ended up being s/n 001. He said it had a nose wheel well from where they thought about making them retracts.


I wish I'd have taken some more pics, but it was a fun day of flying and getting out of the house. I also got to talk to Vic about my oil temperature issues and he gave me some pointers. I think this spring when I bring the plane down to install the Pmags I'm going to move the oil cooler to the firewall - he's seen a lot better efficiency there with a dedicated duct and not trying to split air between a cylinder head and the oil cooler. But yesterday in the winter temps I finally got to see oil temps below 200 in cruise! We actually had to run the engine up around 2500 rpm to keep CHTs above 300 deg F and oil temps stabilized around 175-180.