Pietenpol-List: nice Saturday flight
Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 8:31 pm
Original Posted By: "T White"
I moved my airplane down to the Laredo, TX airport today to leave it with my A&P for its annual. I logged 2.5 hrs. on the flight, less than 150 statute miles. Beautiful day for flying except for the stiff headwind right on the nose (15 mph). Learned a few things.1. This length of flight is about right for me and my airplane, and it's what I will plan on for legs to fly going to Brodhead.2. You guys who have experienced fatigue and cracking of the mounting tabs on your Continental engine cooling eyebrows were right. One of mine fatigued and failed on this flight. I'm wondering about mounting them using tabs made out of pieces of radiator hose or something flexible.3. I can't hear diddly with my cheapie handheld and the headset that I have.4. I now know that the last 2 gallons of fuel in my 16 gallon tank are unusable in flight, but the last 3 are unusable in the 3-point attitude. I know my airplane won't be on the front page of the Laredo Times tomorrow morning, but the airport bums and tower guys will probably be talking about "that experimental that taxied off 17R yesterday without power". Made a great landing and rollout, was decelerating but when the tail came down and we started to clear the active, the engine died as fuel ran out. I debriefed this situation thoroughly with my instructor by cellphone later and told him that if I ever expect to fly this airplane anywhere away from my home field with confidence, I want to know the airplane's limitations and mine. Never was the safety or outcome of the flight in question or danger, but now I know that the red markings on the top inch of my float rod are a "no fly zone". Fuel truck pumped 13 gallons into my tank, but it wasn't plumb full when I left my home field this morning.At least it started up instantly after the fuel truck rolled out and topped me off, and it taxied strong and loud as we passed in full review of the tower, the FBOs, the fire station, and everybody else.Happy 2008; here's to more low and slow flying and 80 more years of Piets!Oscar ZunigaAir Camper NX41CCSan Antonio, TXmailto: taildrags(at)hotmail.comwebsite at http://www.flysquirrel.net________________________________________________________________________________
I moved my airplane down to the Laredo, TX airport today to leave it with my A&P for its annual. I logged 2.5 hrs. on the flight, less than 150 statute miles. Beautiful day for flying except for the stiff headwind right on the nose (15 mph). Learned a few things.1. This length of flight is about right for me and my airplane, and it's what I will plan on for legs to fly going to Brodhead.2. You guys who have experienced fatigue and cracking of the mounting tabs on your Continental engine cooling eyebrows were right. One of mine fatigued and failed on this flight. I'm wondering about mounting them using tabs made out of pieces of radiator hose or something flexible.3. I can't hear diddly with my cheapie handheld and the headset that I have.4. I now know that the last 2 gallons of fuel in my 16 gallon tank are unusable in flight, but the last 3 are unusable in the 3-point attitude. I know my airplane won't be on the front page of the Laredo Times tomorrow morning, but the airport bums and tower guys will probably be talking about "that experimental that taxied off 17R yesterday without power". Made a great landing and rollout, was decelerating but when the tail came down and we started to clear the active, the engine died as fuel ran out. I debriefed this situation thoroughly with my instructor by cellphone later and told him that if I ever expect to fly this airplane anywhere away from my home field with confidence, I want to know the airplane's limitations and mine. Never was the safety or outcome of the flight in question or danger, but now I know that the red markings on the top inch of my float rod are a "no fly zone". Fuel truck pumped 13 gallons into my tank, but it wasn't plumb full when I left my home field this morning.At least it started up instantly after the fuel truck rolled out and topped me off, and it taxied strong and loud as we passed in full review of the tower, the FBOs, the fire station, and everybody else.Happy 2008; here's to more low and slow flying and 80 more years of Piets!Oscar ZunigaAir Camper NX41CCSan Antonio, TXmailto: taildrags(at)hotmail.comwebsite at http://www.flysquirrel.net________________________________________________________________________________