courierguy wrote:BATTLE MOUNTAIN BREAKDOWN
I, against my earlier better judgement re: the WX on my return, took off Sat, morning for the fly-in. Figured better late then never. I had a throttle cable break in Battle Mountain, which didn't bring me down, on the contrary, couldn't land until killing the engine. On the Rotax, which has 2 carbs, if you lose one throttle linkage it goes to full throttle while you still have control over the other, this confuses the hell out of the engine. By the time I MacGivered it back to a somewhat airworthy status, it was late enough, and more importantly the repair was so half ass, to make it kind of pointless to continue, so I took advantage of the bastard headwind I had earlier and scooted home, not touching the throttle the entire time. It was pretty damn dark and the weather was really iffy, so I texted a neighbor who's a ski patroller and has some common sense and first aid experience ("stop by in 40 min., got throttle problems, could be an interesting landing"), to his credit he was there, and with a fire extinguisher AND a video camera . The approaching storm and the darkness AND the frigging throttle all combined, of course, and I made my first deadstick landing on my uphill strip (no other way to get it slowed down). Came real close, due to the rapidly approaching darkness, to landing in a farmers field a few valleys over and spending the night, camped out in the rain, but pushed on and squeaked it in, I should have listened to my own earlier advice on this trip.

Had that all typed out, and then heard about the mid air, Tyler and I flew together earlier this summer and we were looking forward to doing it some more, in fact he was one of the reasons I pushed it trying to make it there. Not much to add other then damn shame, good kid gone too early. Both him and TomW of course. Glad Joey is OK.

WilgaBeast wrote:Had a great time at the fly-in. Took my time getting home and Wally, Dennis, Creighton and I enjoyed a few more opportunities to land off airport on the way back to Salt Lake City.

Had a particularly good time this morning with Wally in Utah's west desert and Delle.

Tested the fuel in pump1 and it was e0 so we topped off his 182 and enjoyed cool smooth air for a bit longer.

Briefly met some very fun, very awesome people. Thanks for that.