July 18, 2021
Our tour moved up a few months due to my friend Steve’s son starting a job soon and as luck would have it the weather turned out better than expected. There was a seven day window there with lower than normal temperatures and let me tell you that was greatly appreciated. With my delay in getting to Steamboat I met…
July 8, 2021
Whew, so this made for good learning… I needed to fly back to Steamboat to head off on my annual adventure motorcycle ride. The weather pattern between Minneapolis and Steamboat had been locked in place for days with low clouds and some areas of thunderstorms along the route. As I watched the weather I found a window that looked doable…
July 3, 2021
One of my best friends, Jen asked if I would be interested in joining her on a sailing adventure. The answer was immediately YES! Later I learn that it would be on the 150 year old Tall Ship the Stephen Taber. Incredibly this ship was built in 1871 to move goods from port to port before transitioning to a charter…
April 23, 2021
I built my plane for travel and it was exciting to take her on my first “big” trip after a week at home. Yeah, yeah I know – no grass grows under my feet. I left Steamboat fairly early in the morning but after my wife left in our car (maybe I shouldn’t have sent her a picture from the…
April 2, 2021
Well I have been neglecting my blogging duties lately. But with the arrival of N241VP in Steamboat it was no longer reasonable to continue my laziness. But before getting to that, a recap on the last month… The phase 1 flight testing went overall quite smooth. I had some concerns about proper engine break-in which led to flying to SE…
February 27, 2021
Holy Hannah what a day! I had not expected to make my first flight today because I wanted wind from the south since that would keep me flying on take off over empty fields until I reached a safe altitude. Winds were forecast from the north so I settled in to cleaning up a few small projects until Loyd arrived…
February 23, 2021
With four hours until the inspector arrived it was hustle time to knock off the last few items. First up was installing the lighting and Plexiglas in the right wing tip. After making a few passes on englarging the opening the landing and taxi lights slid right in and from there is was easy going. The wing root fairings were…
February 22, 2021
My work day started at 4:00am and I put in 16 hours getting my plane ready for tomorrows inspection. And yes, I am exhausted. But I should be ready to go after a few hours checking the final items off the list. Today I finally got around to the louvers on the bottom cowling. This was a time consuming process…
February 21, 2021
The day started off with making good time on the right wing tip access door. Everything fell into place and soon I had everything cleco’d together and flox between the fiberglass door and the metal stiffener curing. Then is was on to electrical stuff. I knocked out the prep wiring for the right wing tip light. So once the tip…
February 20, 2021
No not the Airworthiness, but rather certification of the transponder and static systems. This was a much more involved process than I expected. All told it took three and a half hours. A good chunk of that was fixing leaks. At every threaded fitting there was a leak. I had used teflon tape but the system still leaked. Could have…
February 19, 2021
Whew, the cowling is making me work for it. Started and finished the day with sanding. You know my feelings on sanding. In between I fabricated the oil door mounting for the two latches and the hinge. At the end of the day I riveted the cowling/hinge/stiffener together with flox to support curved areas below stiffener. A break in the…
February 18, 2021
So I thought I could bang this out in short order. HA! Started the day with more sanding… A bump out/blister was needed for proper clearance from the Vetterman exhaust, this was completed a number of weeks ago and was waiting for final sanding and for the foam mold to be cut out. That wasn’t too big of a job…