Low water means lots of beach at the local res., and I see the ATV's have been active on it. This place is my next solar install job, and it's about a 45 minute drive or a 15 minute flight.

The Airstreaks doing their thing.


An interested bystander. The home owner already had the wind indicator up, he's a sailor, so am I, just a little higher up.


The place in the middle is my next victim, er customer, and the large common lawn between his place and the place to the right is big enough.....and it is OK with him and the neighbor, who wants to build his own plane also. That will be easier then climbing the rip rap up the steep bank, and getting sand in the airplane. Not to mention the hayfield behind, and that owner is cool with it also, I just had to land on the beach once anyway.


I'm outa here, I can't put it off any longer and I'll miss my flight if I do. I'm flying commercial back east, and the pure hell of modern day airlane travel awaits, my first layover is nearly 5 hours, then the flight takes me to Phoenix from Salt Lake, and I'm going to Detroit! Flying more direct would have cost hundreds more, go figure. To make it worse I may fly to Phoenix next week in my plane to go to the Copperstate Fly-in! If there is anything more aggravating to those of us used to flying our own damn airplanes direct when and how we want, to have to put up with the airline crap, I don't know what it is. I'll be driving a car back I bought so I have to do it. The final insult: my arrival time in Detroit is 1:25 AM!

Where are you staying in Detroit? I'm near Ann Arbor, about 35 west of DTW. I won't pick you up at 1??am, but would meet for lunch or dinner. I'll send you a pm with my phone number if you're interested.

ASW (Anne.)

courierguy wrote: I'm outa here, I can't put it off any longer and I'll miss my flight if I do. I'm flying commercial back east, and the pure hell of modern day airlane travel awaits, my first layover is nearly 5 hours, then the flight takes me to Phoenix from Salt Lake, and I'm going to Detroit!

I think Mr Scout has it right re: airline travel.

Every ticket costs minimum $1,500. Dress code with suit and tie required. That would eliminate the Greyhound Bus Lines service and mentality. Well heeled people would NOT put up with TSA bullshit, and they have the clout to stop it. Service and class would be back.

Gump

$1500 is too much, and I don't even own a suit. I guess I'll just have to hope they don't bring back service and class. Well-heeled people ARE putting up with TSA's BS, apparently, or else flying corporate. Us average joe kinda people have to put up with it. The last time I flew commercial, I didnt think the TSA BS was that bad. Take off your shoes & file through- no biggie. Taking away the bottle of mouthwash in my carry-on for being too big was silly but no big deal. Not worth paying $1500 a ticket to avoid.
The multiple-stop roundabout trip required to get to Detroit from Idaho sounds like a pain, but that's part of the deal for living in the promised land. If you were lucky enough to live somewhere like L.A. I'm sure you could catch a cheap direct flight.
Chicago's a long ways to go to buy a car, Tom-- whatcha getting?

GumpAir wrote:I think Mr Scout has it right re: airline travel.

Every ticket costs minimum $1,500. Dress code with suit and tie required. That would eliminate the Greyhound Bus Lines service and mentality. Well heeled people would NOT put up with TSA bullshit, and they have the clout to stop it. Service and class would be back.

Gump

I've always said to double the ticket price.
The airlines would always have open seats,
they would make money (profit),
always have space in the bins,
load and unload faster....

Then when "Uncle Fester" sneezes, the whole damn family doesn't get on a plane to go say "Bless You".

And all them damn kids would have to play soccer in the town they lived in... or in driving distance.

All those damn "Professors" would teach at the institution that pays them.

The "President" would stay in the White House and work... Oh yeah, he doesn't fly the airlines.... Never mind.

So, 6.5 hours after leaving KPIH, I'm in Phoenix, further from Detroit then when I started, once finally boarded (in the middle seat, it can't get worse for a pilot) my seatmate to my right and I immediately strike up a converation and it turns out she misses the how-to on the emergency exit door. This was noticed by the flight attendant, who procedded to quiz my seatmate as to how to operate the exit. She failed the test (huh???)and in no uncertain matter was notified she was to exchange seating with someone who paid attention. Not wanting to lose my friendly seatmate I informed the flight attendant that I had noted the procedure for the emergency egress, and I could simply take the seat (the window seat!) of the non paying attention passenger, and the problem would be solved. Not good enough, the FT made the switch, drafting a person a few rows back and almost yanking the slacker out of her seat, she really had her hair up about being ignored, all well and good as far as the safety aspect of course, but I was puzzled as to why my offer to switch seats, an obvious solution requiring the minimum of disruption, was ignored, I suppose maybe she thought we just looked like trouble and it would be better to separate us. Maybe I should have told her I was a pilot??

Later, while waiting in line to use the john, I had a chance to ask her why, and I passed, she has a crappy job, lots of pressure/crowding/dealing with idiots, and she sure didn't need ANY additional hassles, I let it slide, though it offended my male pride that the person she seated next to me to operate the exit if needed was an older lady who weighed maybe 115 lbs, and I'm pretty sure I could have wrested that exit off quicker, it wasn't worth the hassle.

Good flight other then the obvious routing issue, no delays and everything right on time. BUT the Airbus had an annoying harmonic wha wha wha thrumming sound that I would not put up with in my homebuilt, maybe the engines were out of synce (it made me wish I'd brought my Telex ANR headset) or it was where I was seated but it sucked comfort wise, kind of surprising in this day and age. I like Boeing's products better.

I bought a clean one owner 2008 Toyota Yaris, go ahead and laugh, but it is the highest rated milage car short of the Prius, I'm not trying to save the planet or anything, but I really can't see driving more equipment around then needed to get the job done, and I plan to further lighten this thing up by yanking the rear seat out, spare tire etc., and other dead weight. On my local mixed driving route down the mountain into town etc I'll get over 50 MPG, I have a Scan Gauge, a unit that plugs into the car computer and gives you real time info on all the car systems, including GPH, and it makes driving more fun, for me at least, to work at getting the best milage possible. Drafting semis can give interesting results and livens up a boring drive. I have my 12 MPG AWD flatbed for the heavy hauling, and my 600 dollar AWD Tercel for winter (32 MPG), if Toyota ever makes an airplane engine I'll be first in line!

Are them Yarus' that hard to find? Seems like a long way to go to get something that should be fairly easy to find.

I'm driving a 99 Jetta Diesel and I love it. Paid $1,800 for it with a broken timing belt and three bent valves. About $1,200 later I'm getting 46 around town and 50+ on the road. Everyone needs cars like these!

hotrod150 wrote:Are them Yarus' that hard to find? Seems like a long way to go to get something that should be fairly easy to find.

Well, yes and no. A decent deal on a one owner, low mile, the color I wanted (white) with the manual tranny in an area I knew someone (two nephews that closed the deal for me) cinched it. Would I do it again? Not any time soon! But I got what I wanted and even with the trip expense it penciled out. The big plus was I had my crane in the shop, so no lost jobs anyway.

Jaerl wrote:I'm driving a 99 Jetta Diesel and I love it. Paid $1,800 for it with a broken timing belt and three bent valves. About $1,200 later I'm getting 46 around town and 50+ on the road. Everyone needs cars like these!

Nice, and I should say for a non diesel, the Yaris is at the top of the list, hard to beat diesel economy. You're more mech savvy then me to take that on! I had a '63 190D, a full size car, that got 38 MPG, and had over 300 K on it. I'm watching the diesel aircraft engine scene closely, hard to beat NO ignition system for reliability and safety!

courierguy wrote: I'm watching the diesel aircraft engine scene closely, hard to beat NO ignition system for reliability and safety!

Yes! Well, certainly anything worth buying that was a new design would probably have enough FADEC goodies that lack of a spark ignition would be low down on the list of pros and canceled out by other complexities. Don't most modern diesels have pretty advanced glow plug systems? They're not like old tractors with super high compressions and no glow plugs, right? Just no timing to worry about.

The biggest advantage to modern diesel designs in my opinion is that most are turbo charged, and run on Jet-A, which is widely available and not going away in the practical future. We just need one as light as a 912/914.

Z, The new diesels still have the high compression because that is what fires the fuel. You do "time" them too but it is just injection timing. The timing lights you use actually "feel" the pulse in the fuel injection lines. Most are turboed not only to increase power but to clean up the emissions which is carbon that you see. Diesels are actually a lot more eco friendly because the pollution you see is a natural element and falls to the ground.

It isn't going to happen any time soon but I bought some plans for a Ragwing Storch. I wanted to adapt in a VW 1.9 TDI or a 1.9 AAZ (mechanical injected) engine. My friend is a VW diesel fanatic and has built 1.6 Turbo's over 300 hp. He said we can build one with the max torque at 2700 - 2800 RPM so there would be no need for reduction gearing. The engines should be able to handle 150 hp with no problem. The weight should be OK too since the original Storch's had a Watercooled Flatbead V8.

In Europe there are a few companies doing Diesel Smart Car engines for aircraft. Here is one site and a great article comparing the Smart Engine to the Rotax 912s. 1.9 gal/hr, I could live with that!

http://www.ecofly.de/english.htm
http://www.ecofly.de/Assets/Todays_pilot_07_04.pdf