Original Posted By: "Steve Eldredge"
Sorry, Mike in Cuyahoga Falls (or wherever you are), Paul in New Hampshire, and all the rest of you Pieters who are still iced out and snowed in. It was 82 degrees when I left work this afternoon. I drove 18 minutes to get to the hangar, opened the doors, the paint was nice and dry on my rudder repair and paint touch-up so I applied the new vinyl tail numbers and 41CC was ready to fly.Started after first pulling five blades with fuel on, throttle cracked, and mags off. Oil pressure came up, I got settled in, taxied to the active in a leisurely fashion, oil temp was moving off the peg, runup was clean, and we were off. We have just had 6 inches of rain in the last couple of days and the wildflowers are starting to pop up through the green grass, which made for a very pretty sight in the afternoon sun and clear sky.I flew a circuit and saw that my friend and his wife who had just been flying their Pelican had stopped what they were doing to come out to the edge of the runway and watch the Piet make the circuit. I forgot that nobody around here has ever seen it fly! Power back a little, stick forward, and start my turn down to the runway. 90MPH on the nose, lined up on the centerline but maybe 8-10 ft. off the deck, throttle at redline, and I flew the length of the runway just so everybody would get a good look. Actually, my real intent was to see what the x-wind was going to do to me so I wouldn't botch my first public landing at San Geronimo!Power back in, nose up to climb at 55 for another circuit and one or two more people were out on the porches of their houses watching me climb to pattern altitude. Lew Mason, Dave Baker, other guys who live on the airfield and who have seen me working on the plane innumerable Saturdays but have never seen it fly. Not even seen it with the wings on!One more 90MPH pass, I have the winds gauged pretty good, pull it up for my last downwind, set up for landing, and pretty much ace it by holding about 1700 RPM and watching the drift from the x-wind. I kept it straight and got it stopped right at the turnoff to our hangar, taxied in, parked it after logging 0.3 hrs., and got home in time to have some good Italian food. This is what it is all about! This is how to end your workday, Pieters! I have to steal Walt's famous line... "Ain't life grand?!" And from a guy over on the KRNet, another famous line: "There is a time for building and a time for flying, and the time for building is OVER!"Oscar ZunigaSan Antonio, TXmailto: taildrags(at)hotmail.comwebsite at http://www.flysquirrel.net_________________________________________________________________Watch free concerts with Pink, Rod Stewart, Oasis and more. Visit MSN Presents today.
http://music.msn.com/presents?icid=ncms ... ___Subject: RE: Pietenpol-List: Regarding radiators.....& lettersDate: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 21:03:18 -0600