I'm thinking of selling the Tripacer.

Yes, I'll be glad to give everyone time to pick their jaws off the floor.

I'm sick of doing airplane maintenance. Actually, I'm really just sick of having to do airplane maintenance. She turned 51 in November, and I honestly don't have the time or inclination to keep everything fixed. Part of that is that I'm not flying enough these days, and that always makes maintenance expenses go up, and part of the reason I'm not flying enough is that I dread finding out what's going to break next.

There are no working radios in the plane, and if I'm going to keep it more then 6 months or so more, I'm going to have to put in new ones, and that's a $5K hit right there. My hanger rent has nearly doubled since I moved, and I'm now half an hour further out from the airport, so I can't just pop out to do a bit of maintenance (or flying) in the evenings. I was ashamed to tell my insurance agent this morning that I'd only flown 50 hours last year, and only 20 of them in the Tripacer.

Everyone tells homebuilders that you have to make a decision - do you want to build an airplane, or do you want to fly? I seem to have stumbled into a variation on this - do I want to maintain an airplane, or do I want to fly it?

I don't want to stop flying. So the logical conclusion is to sell the Tripacer and buy something newer that I really enjoy. I can't afford to upgrade a whole lot, so that means a partnership, but Mike could go in half with me, and we could get something a bit better. There's a Cheetah on the field that was rebuilt from the ground up 3 years ago, although it's sat in a hanger since. It's got a nice panel, with modern radios, and I really like the Cheetah/Tiger line. Faster then a Tripacer by 25%, on the same fuel-burn-per-hour. No fabric, mid-time engine, and I could buy half of it for what I have in the Tripacer. And there are other things out there in that price range, most of them 20-25 years old.

Then, this weekend, I saw a new airplane. It's called an Allegro 2000. Tripacer speeds (on 3 gallons of fuel an hour!), 2 seats plus minimal baggage, and it's available brand-new for about $75,000, well-equipped. That's a lot of money, but it would be brand-new. Even comes with a 2-year, 100 hour warranty. It's a Light Sport Aircraft, which means you don't need a medical certificate to fly it. The engine is a Rotax 912, which has been around a while, but is a lot more modern then any certified aviation engine. It's a steel frame with a fiberglass skin, with aluminum wings. Certainly not state-of-the-art design, but a lot more modern then even all-aluminum airframes.

The best part? You can fly it without the doors in the summer.

The downsides to LSA are no night and no IFR flying. I honestly haven't been single-engine night current in at least 5 years, and I don't think I've been single-engine IFR current since I got a multi rating 2 years ago. But that's still a downside. And there's no serious cargo capacity, so I won't be packing it to the roof and heading off on an adventure for 2 weeks, and that is a use case I'll miss. There are other downsides - will there be parts support in 15 years? Will LSA still be viable in the US in 15 years?

It's possible to finance it, and it's possible to get insurance on it.

I'm intrigued. I'm going to be heartbroken to sell the Tripacer, but she's not the right plane for me anymore, and I'm not the right owner for her. No matter what I end up buying, I'm going to have to sell the Tripacer first.

I suppose there will have to be a rename token in my future.

Tags: airplane maintenance, flying
Current Mood: curious

It was a productive weekend - I went couch shopping (found one I loved, but I'm still deciding if it's too big for my living room), did some approaches with Jim, flew the Tripacer and changed the oil, and ordered my blinds.

And I finally went grocery shopping. In preparation for moving, I spent a month eating all the stuff in my kitchen. I sent all the canned goods home with Michael, and everything left in the fridge got tossed when I moved, so I haven't had much of anything to eat in the house. Last night I fixed that. $150 later, my fridge and freezer and pantry are full.

Progress is being made.

Tags: airplane maintenance
Current Mood: hopeful

Finally, after way more hassle then I thought was possible, I finished the left brake rotor on the twin today. I replaced the brake pads while I was there, because, well, I just put on new rotors. I truly grok the adjustment settings now.

This afternoon, I'm at work, doing a different kind of debugging, even if it is supposed to be my day off.

This evening, I'm going to stop by the grocery store, then make Toffee Butter Crunch.

Tags: airplane maintenance, cooking, recipes, twin comanche
Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Conky Tonkin' - Jimmy Buffett

...the time when I get time off from work without having to schedule every minute of it.

Went over to have dinner with driftingfocus last night. Wonderful dinner, great company. Although this idea that families actually talk about things instead of just pretending they never happened is just...wierd. :)

Anyway, it was a pleasant evening. Today, I slept until 10, and now I'm doing the last few batches of peanut brittle (I found a better recipe that isn't so finicky - it's here.), then I have some presents to wrap. Then I'm going to lug all the presents to my mother's so I don't have to worry about driving up there with the car for the rest of the holidays.

Tomorrow, some airplane maintenance in the morning, then in the afternoon I'm going to go help Steve check out in the Pawnees. I was joking when I said I'd prepare a lesson plan, but I probably will at least outline it today.

The scary part is that I really do think of this as "not very scheduled at all" time.

Tags: airplane maintenance, christmas, cooking
Current Mood: awake

I'm running out of vacation enthusiasm.

We got two dive trips in, but the shop we're diving with doesn't have a camera for rent, so no pictures. We finally got to the beach, but it was too cold to enjoy the water.

Yesterday, I flew to Pensacola to see my mother and brother. Thanksgiving dinner in the school cafeteria (yay for turkey roll) followed by the college production of The Mikado (yay for Gilbert and Sulliven).

The twin was acting up on taxi - kicking around like I was taxiing over really rough ground even on perfectly smooth concrete. It seemed to smooth out at higher speeds, so I flew it anyway. When I got to Pensacola, I went over the gear, but it all looked fine. I called Michael, who thought the FBO we'd parked at might have exceeded the steering limits on the nosewheel and bent something.

So I flew it back this morning. He met me at Destin, and discovered what I'd missed - the shimmy dampener on the nosewheel was wiggling freely, despite still being bolted and cotter-pinned down. One of the main tires needs changing anyway, so we'll jack it up when we get home and fix both at the same time.

Tomorrow, we pack up in the morning, check out of the hotel by 10, load the plane, then head off for windsurfing lessons at 11, then head back to Houston.

Last year, we took up scuba. This year, I got my motorcycle license. I'm thinking windsurfing or kitesurfing is for next year.

It'll be good to be home.

Tags: airplane maintenance, flying, scuba, travel, twin comanche

It's time for the leather jacket, I see. This weekend wasn't that cold, but this morning was. I put the rain fly in my riding jacket, but it wasn't nearly enough. I'm going to have to find something else to do for pants as well.

It was nice this weekend, though, and I put another 150ish miles on the bike. I'm up to over 600 now.

We took the twin to Brehnam for lunch, where I had a terrible landing. Every once in a while, I still pull the power too early and plop it onto the runway.

The Tripacer annual is finally coming along a bit faster. I fixed the nosebowl this weekend, fixed the leaky gascolator, and ordered the rest of the parts I need to finish up the engine. Maybe next weekend. I need to get it done, because I've really wanted to fly it lately.

Saturday night was the usual hanger party. I actually wasn't quite as miserable as usual, and I stayed until 11 or so.

Since it's cooled off, I'm going to season my cast iron pans tonight. I bought them ages ago, but it's been too hot to have the oven on for hours. That means this week (probably Wednesday) there'll be Alton Brown chili and cornbread.

Tags: airplane maintenance, motorcycle
Current Mood: cold

It was a busy weekend, although I didn't seem to accomplish much. I towed on Saturday (I'm so far behind in logging it's not even funny), did some maintenance on Sunday, and put another 250 miles on the bike. I was going to change the oil, but CycleGear didn't have my oil filter (PH4967), and the Harley dealership wasn't open, so it'll have to wait until next week. I did wash the bike and wax the yellow bits.

My boss has an iPod nano. It's so amazingly cute - anyone want to buy a used blue iPod Mini?

Work is heading back to 'hectic' from 'boring'. I suppose it's just the way software development works - I've had these cycles for years. I always thought if I just managed time better they wouldn't happen, but I suspect that isn't true.

What I'm reading: Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett. Well, actually, I'm listening to it, because I finally have an Audible.com subscription. In paper form, I'm finishing up Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. I've been working on this for a long time, and it's a bit slow-going, but it's a good story, so I keep coming back to it (although I did take a break to read Lolita, which I'd never read). I just finished Sunday's Silence again. And the book in the bathroom is the original Vagina Monologues.

BTW - I'd love someone to swap books with. I'll send you a stack of stuff I've read in return for a stack of stuff you're done with.

What I'm listening to: Still working on the stack of music I scarfed from Dylan. The iPod says I only have 341 more songs that I've never listened to. Girls & Boys (Blur) is my current favorite - I'll probably get their "Best Of" album from iTunes. It really, really annoys me that I have to have iTunes installed to search the music store.

Tags: airplane maintenance, books, motorcycle, music, randomness
Current Mood: busy

The odometer says I put 97 miles on it this week. Not bad, considering I was out of town most of the weekend.

I got the plates today. $213 for sales tax, title transfer, and plates.

I'm amazed how much it reminds me of flying. For example:

• Letting your speed bleed off in the middle of a turn is bad.
• Like a busy airport, everyone is trying to kill you.
• There's a lot of dividing of attention between "controlling the vehicle precisely" and "staying out of the way of the people trying to kill you".

Other things I've learnt this week:

• It took a trip around 610 tonight at 70 to understand the importance of choosing a line in a curve and sticking to it.
• Like a low-altitude stall, the fix for not holding a line in the turn is totally counter-intuitive - lean and add power, when what you really want to do is slow down to fix it.
• I never imagined before how many places in the world there are for people to pull out of in front of you.
• I need more horsepower. With me on it, no matter what gear I'm in, the Blast will not accellerate from 60 to 70 going uphill. I discovered this while trying to pass someone.
• Riding on the freeway is actually easier then puttering down Westheimer. On the freeway, you find a position and stay in it. On local streets, the enviroment changes too much.

I'm sure there's more. But that's all I can think of tonight.

Tomorrow, I'm taking it to work, then up 290 to the airport. Saturday morning, I'm going out to the soaring club. The gravel road on the club property worries me, a lot, but I guess if I have to walk down it I can. I'm going to check the tire pressure when I get to the airport - I think the front tire is a hair low. I tow on Saturday, then Sunday I have to finish the oil change on the twin and work on the Tripacer annual a bit.

One of these days I'll learn to relax on the weekend - but not this one.

Tags: airplane maintenance, motorcycle
Current Mood: good

Good trip, but it's good to be home.

I flew up to PJY (in the southern tip of Illinois) on Saturday. I was less then 100 miles from home when I checked the generators and discovered only one was working. We'd just replaced it the weekend before, but it was most definitely not generating anything.

Failed generators in the twin make me nervous because the gear is electric, so if you run the battery down, you have to lower it manually. Then you have to put it on jacks to get it back up. Also, without power, you can't lower the flaps, and you can't really get into Weiser without flaps.

But the other generator kept going, so besides an autopilot failure, I made it into PJY without any other problems. I was early (2:30 in the afternoon), so I pulled the bad generator off the twin, then hung out with the mechanic for the rest of the afternoon until Morris and Lonny showed up with the Arrow around 7.

The annual (I went up there to help annual the Arrow) went quickly and easily. Besides a new pitot mast, nothing big was broken. By Wednesday, we were mostly done. We took a look at my generator and didn't see anything obviously wrong, so I hung it back on the twin and flew it back home on one generator again. We'll probably pull it off this weekend (sometime after my motorcycle course) and look at it more deeply. When I asked Michael about it, he said he might have pulled the circuit breaker and forgotten to reset it. I'm going to feel like an idiot if that's all it was. On the other hand, "Check breakers in" is on the checklist, and while I open the panel and glance down there, I guess I've not been looking as close as I should, and this was a cheap way to point it out.

I had planned to stay all week, but work needed me and we were mostly done, so I came home yesterday.

It was incredibly relaxing. It's so much less stressful to spend a few days working on an airplane.

Tags: airplane maintenance, flying, travel, twin comanche
Current Mood: working

One of the airport crowd offered me some motorcycle dual instruction today - so I took him up on it.

After an hour, my clutch hand was sore, but I was riding and stopping successfully, as long as I only went in a straight line. I suppose turns will wait for the class. I signed up online for the 17th/18th, since I should be back from Illinois by then.

Afterwards, Michael and I went shopping. I now have my own helmet and jacket and gloves, as a belated birthday present. You know, I think I need some pictures....

Didn't get much done on the Tripacer - I finished the right main gear (brakes and wheel bearings), pumped up the flat nosewheel strut, and started on the tail. It was just too hot.

Tags: airplane maintenance, motorcycle
Current Mood: tired

Friday night I went out to the airport to give the twin a quick sponge bath and get her ready for my Angel Flight Saturday morning. When I opened the hangar doors, I went a bit too far out, and knocked one of them off it's track. Michael was not amused, and since we didn't know how to fix it, we left it open for the night.

Saturday morning was Angel Flight #7. We took her home to Texarkana, which is a quick 1.75 hour trip in the twin. It was mostly uneventful, although I finally filed IFR when the visibility got down to a few miles in haze. We dropped her off, and on the climbout, the door popped open. In the twin, that's a real pain - it adds a lot of drag, and really kills the climb rate. You can't get it closed in flight, either. So we turned around, landed at Texarkana again, closed the door, and took off. I even got to keep my IFR clearance. The controller was more worried then I was - he kept asking me if I wanted the fire trucks out when I landed. I kept telling him there was nothing wrong, I just wanted to close the door...

Anyway, we got home more or less on time - 4.1 total.

Saturday afternoon, Michael came over to watch "Open Water", which I'd found on the clearance table at Blockbuster. I approved of the ending. The rest of the movie was awful.

Today, I tried really hard to work on the airplane, but it was just too hot. Got the left wheel bearing and brake done, and sunk an anchor in the concrete near the tail to use as a tiedown, but didn't actually get an eyebolt for it, so it'll have to wait. Jim came out this afternoon and helped me fix Michael's hanger door, so I could finally close it.

And now I'm home and showered and enjoying the AC. It's going to be a fine afternoon for some gaming, I think.

Tags: airplane maintenance, angelflight, flying, movies, twin comanche
Current Mood: tired

I love those mornings when you have so many ideas for whatever you're working on that you can't wait to get to work. As much as the politics around here can be a bit difficult at times, I really do love my job.

However, it was scary that I used the term "leverage existing technology" earlier today.

In other randomness, my Angel Flight for Sunday got canceled - the patient got worse and had to be hospitalized where he was. I picked up another one for Saturday, going to Texarkana. So far, I've flown 6 and had 6 canceled. Only one was for weather, and it was freezing rain on the first leg (I had the second leg).

The Tripacer annual is going slowly but not badly. The compression was good, I have two tiny exhaust leaks that can likely be fixed with new gaskets (which I forgot to order this week). This weekend, I want to do the airframe - all the lubrication, replace all the missing fairing screws, do the wheel bearings, and empty/refill the brakes, since they have a weird mix of fluids since I replaced the diaphragm in LA. I'll order the parts and do the rest of the engine the following weekend.

August is the wrong time of the year for this.

Tags: airplane maintenance, angelflight, geeky
Current Mood: accomplished

I haven't had much to say lately.

Dylan went home. My futon looks empty without him.
I got my last 3 crowns put on yesterday. That's the end of 10 years of deferred maintenance. I'm going to try to find some soup for lunch.
Scheduled an Angel Flight for the 28th. I'm waiting to hear back from my co-pilot to see if we're going to take the whole trip (Kingman, KS) to Houston, or just the second half (from Ardmore, OK).
I'm finally caught up on sleep - I slept 23 of the last 48 hours.
It's time for my annual inspection on the Tripacer. I washed her last weekend in preparation and did the compression check. My low cylinder was a 73/80, which is really great and means I don't need a new cylinder this year. 40 hours of flying in the last 3 weeks helped a lot.
I'm planning to spend the whole weekend working on the airplane.

I need a life. :)

Tags: airplane maintenance, randomness, tripacer
Current Mood: sore
Current Music: Without You - Jimmy Vaughan

It's not a VFR cross-country flight without at least one stop at the auto parts store.

Tags: airplane maintenance, flying, travel

Okay, it isn't Monday yet, but it feels like it.

This was a maintenance weekend. I've been putting off cleaning/gapping the plugs in the twin for a month now, but they had to be done. And the attitude gyro hasn't been working right for almost a month, and I was sick of flying it partial-panel. And I wanted a music-in plug for the iPod, so I could listen to my music in the plane.

We went out Friday night and I pulled the plugs and started cleaning them while Michael pulled the attitude gyro. He discovered that besides a small leak, the gyro was fine - it was the vacuum system that wasn't okay. It's mostly very flexible tubing, and in several places the tubing had kinked and was restricting airflow, enough to make the attitude gyro wonky but not enough to flag the gyro or the low vacuum light.

So Saturday morning I finished the plugs, while Michael and Mike replaced the vacuum system tubing with something a bit more sturdy. I'm not fond of plug cleaning, but it beat crawling around in the airplane in the heat working behind the panel.

After that was all back together, we went and got a jack for the iPod input and mounted that. Mike and I replaced the missing gear mirror on the right side while we had the cowling off - it doesn't really do anything, since I had one on the left cowling, but I was sick of people pointing at the round empty spot and saying "Did you know your mirror is missing?".

Anyway, we got it all buttoned back up before we left Saturday night.

This morning, I pulled the Tripacer out for the epic 3-mile trip to Dry Creek. I've got to fly that plane more often - my approach was disgracefully bad. I've gotten so used to the 3-degree glideslope in the twin, and I just couldn't get the angle right in the Tripacer. I ended up having to add power to clear the trees. Hung out with Michael and Jim and his Mooney for a while, then left the Tripacer there for Jim and Michael to fly and took Michael's truck back to Weiser, then came to work.

I need a weekend to recover now.

(see, now I have just the right userpict for these posts!)

Tags: airplane maintenance
Current Mood: tired

We went to the rec.aviation.* flyin in southern IL (at PJY) last weekend....

( Me in my native habitat )
( Flying the twin )
( Spending quality time with my friends... )

Tags: airplane maintenance, photos

Saturday was my tow day. Pawnee 1 is still down (another month until the new engine is done), so I got to fly the big one. Pawnee 1 is a 180 hp, Pawnee 2 is 235 hp, both are about 1500-pound airframes. In comparison, my Tripacer is 500 lbs heavier and only has 150 hp. If I don't have a glider in tow in Pawnee 2, in the two seconds it takes to get the throttle all the way in, the airplane is already off the ground. Then it will climb at more then 2500fpm. It's very much fun.

But I only used it for towing on Saturday. It was a slow, quiet day, only about 15 tows. I was an idiot and forgot the sunscreen, so I'm badly burnt on the tops of my arms, tops of my legs, and my face. I do this once a year - then I don't forget the sunscreen again until the next spring.

I went back to Weiser and pulled the Tripacer out. Greg wanted a ride, so we got in, got the plane started, and the intercom wouldn't work. No matter what I did. So I shrugged, and we headed out anyway. I let him fly, and just leaned over and screamed in his ear when I wanted something.

( What was wrong, and how I fixed it... )

Also on Sunday, I took an instructor and the Duchess and spent an hour on NDB approaches. I hadn't done one in years, but the instructor was quite helpful, and I got 2 very good ones. That completed the 10 hours I needed to fly it solo. If anyone local wants a ride, I'd be thrilled to take you up in it - it's a nice, easy twin. However, at $168 an hour ($158, plus the $5 per-engine-per-hour fuel surcharge), I'm probably going to ask for a bit of help with the rental fee.

When I got home last night, my back and shoulders were so sore I could barely move. And I bruised something on my right side by laying on top of that seat-support tube all day, even with a pillow on top of it. But it was worth it...or at least I tell myself that.

Tags: airplane maintenance, flying

I had the most fantastic weekend.

It's spring here. It was in the 70's all weekend, sunny on Saturday, less-sunny on Sunday.

Saturday, I spent most of the day helping Mike with some stuff in his hanger - it's badly in need of some defragmenting. I got started on the annual on Michael's glider, too. I'm trying to decide what I'm going to fix and what I'm going to let go. I know I want to have someone rebuild the back canopy - the plexiglass is bad, and the frame is badly rusted. I think the wings just need a good bath and some lube. The fuselage needs a good bit of corrosion removed, and the interior paint touched up. The external paint job is in terrible shape, but I think I'll wait until winter, then strip and paint it if I'm going to keep it. If I'm not, I'll just give it back to Michael and let him do whatever with it. The other big thing is the trailer, which I don't think is salvageable. I need to clean it up, decide if it's worth keeping, lug it to the junkyard if it's not and buy him a generic trailer, or fix it if it is worth keeping.

Sunday, Mike brought over all the blankets and such that we had in the hanger from when we had hanger parties. At least half a dozen comforters...and they didn't fit in his washing machine, so we washed them in my apartment complex machines. Played too much WoW, had dinner.

Oh, yes, dinner. I found the ultimate dessert (at Cafe Lux, for the locals). It's the dessert which, if I knew I was going to die the next day, I'd want to have for, well, dessert. Chocolate Creme Brulee. It was thick, rich, but not sweet! It had the bitterness of very, very good chocolate, with the creaminess of creme brulee. It was utterly heavenly. My spare-time quest for today is to try to find a recipe.

It was a great weekend.

Tags: airplane maintenance, food
Current Mood: chipper

My Angel Flight Saturday was supposed to be an easy 3-hour jaunt to Louisiana. It turned into 4.5 hours, including 3 hours of IMC. I need a bigger plane - one that can climb above 4000 ft with 2 people, a full baggage compartment and full fuel.

Or I need to lose 100lbs.

Sunday, we took my KNS-80 and HSI out to Hobby to test it. After 3 hours of fiddling, Michael thinks he knows what needs to be done - it works okay on east and west, but the linearity is all off, so it won't ever center on North or South - the closest it will come to South is about 210.

Works great on the localizer, though.

I gamed a lot this weekend. I'm dragging this morning, but I don't know why - I was in bed by 10 and asleep by midnight, and I didn't get up until almost 10 this morning.

Currently reading: Arrow's Flight, Mercedes Lackey
Just finished: Undead and Unemployed, MaryJanice Davidson

Tags: airplane maintenance, angelflight, books, flying
Current Mood: working