A new record

If fescue was a cash crop, I would have more planes than Harrison Ford. It's not, though, so my periodic harvesting of this year's bumper crop from the estate grounds is nothing but a chore. And yes, it needed mowed again last night, but I decided instead to go flying. The winds had been gusting to over 18 knots all day, but the late-day calm had them down to the low teens. Good enough, especially since they were blowing right down the runway and those are the easiest to deal with.

I had no goal or destination in mind. I just wanted to take advantage of the last decent weather we are forecast to see for the next few days and get into the air. Rather than just fly around the local area seeing the same scenery that I've flown over countless times, I decided to climb through a hole between the scattered puffy cumulus clouds to get on top of them. This would be both the first time that I have taken the new plane over the tops of the clouds, and would more than likely set a new altitude record for it as well.

And so it did: 7,500' surpassed my old record of 5,500'.  This is by no means much of an accomplishment, mind you. The plane would easily climb past 10,000' as lightly loaded as it was.

I didn't stay up there much longer than it took to take a commemorative photo.  As I was right over Lilly Chapel, my usual reporting point for my initial call back to the tower for landing, I just spiraled back down though the same hole. The RV-12, unlike the RV-6, does not plummet.  In fact, even with the engine at idle and in a deep full-rudder slip, the best descent rate I could get was 2,000 feet per minute. While that isn't near as quickly as the 6 could do it, it was still rapid enough that it will take three days for my ears to finally pop.

Once low enough, I called the tower to tell them that I was coming back in to land. The controller quickly disabused me of the notion that the winds had tapered off - it was 15 knots, but still right down the runway. No biggie. All that meant was that I would be crabbing pretty heavily toward the runway while on right base for runway 22. I also got a somewhat different response from normal with regards to the pattern entry. The normal response would have been a request to report a midfield right downwind. Instead he just asked that I contact him when three miles out from the field. Odd, but easy enough.

I contacted him again at three miles and was immediately cleared to land. Wow, I thought, that's even stranger, What's the hurry?  Just as I was on short final and about thirty seconds from touching down, the radio lit up with the lengthy spiel they go through when the tower is closing for the night. Ah, that explained the hurry. It makes me wonder if there is any significance to the three mile reporting point that he had asked for. Either way, it was only a mild distraction and had no effect on what turned out to be a fairly good landing.

Chance Taking a Gamble...

... for a ride. But we'll get to that,

First, well.... wow! It seems like forever since I've sat down at the keyboard for anything other than earning my keep down at the idea mill. It seems even longer since I've slipped the surly bonds (note: I had never really given any thought to the 'surly' in the first line -- maybe I notice it now because it feels so appropriate) and seen the world from a far different (and often better) perspective.

I did so today. Even though it was only a half hour flight in my little playground just outside the western edge of Columbus, I was able to accomplish a number of things. First, it appears that my re-pitching of the prop was a great success. I have my missing knots back and the engine runs as smooth as wet-sanded silk. Second, I verified that the autopilot has fixed itself, having been given adequate time to reflect on its recent failure to maintain a steady altitude and decided to do better in the future. 

And third, I made the best landing that I have ever made in that airplane. The only thing that keeps it from being graded as perfect is that I had intended to land right on the numbers but overshot by a few feet.  Other than that, it was one of those touchdowns where the first indication that the surly bonds have regained their grasp on both body and soul is the sound of the mains spinning up as they lightly scuff along the runway. I was able to hold the nose up until there was just enough lift remaining in the wing and tail to let my ease it down onto the runway as softly as the tread of a cat burglar.

So, where have I been in the interim? Well, weather was certainly a factor with the spring winds and rains, but there was more than that. I lost a full week to a back injury incurred in the most mundane of ways: I pulled something in my lower back while traversing the estate grounds with my best-ever weed whacker. A few days of being nearly immobilized by muscle spasms followed by a recovery period of a few more days ate up at least a week. The rest of the time was either marred by bad weather, taken up with other activities, or in one case, simply giving up and letting the surly bonds have their way with me. In other words, I was just not in the mood.

But fear not, the time was not wholly wasted. One of the more interesting things that I did was to go see co-pilot Egg's horse, Chance.

How, you're wondering, did a city-bred girl like Egg end up with a horse? It actually came about through her friendship with a fellow student in her nursing college who happens to own a horse or two. Well, two. One is Chance and the other is named Hemi.  Chance is the elder of the two and is of the requisite age and demeanor to suffer gladly the indignities incumbent to carrying an absolute novice. What began as Egg going out riding with her friend (let's call her Fall) now and then eventually ending up with Erika leasing a share of the horse for the next four months.

She got off to a slightly rocky start, though. Chance, being the docile fellow that he is, has a few bites here and there from the other horses trying to establish their positions in the stable hierarchy.  As she was brushing him, she ran the brush across a sensitive area, causing Chance to either spook or stomp a hoof in protest. Whichever it was, the net result was a squished toe for Egg. Fortunately nothing was broken, but the incident did serve notice that she was taking quite a risk by not wearing more sensible footwear.

And that was how we ended up at Rod's Western Palace in search of some riding boots. Rod's was quite the place! It would have felt right at home in the heart of Texas. It was so Western that I actually felt pretty out of place. You know, geeky IT Director parking his fancy German roadster in a parking lot dominated by steroidal pick-ups. And I had just recently shaved off my beard, so I didn't even have that to hide behind.

We perused the massive boot selection, automatically disqualifying from contention the boots that were clearly more appropriate to line dancing and/or had price tags that seemed to have been lifted from the local jewelry shop. We were assisted by a guy whose attire and demeanor screamed "Cowboy." It was a slow process and I felt more and more like Cowboy was wondering if these two city slickers would ever make up their minds. We finally narrowed it down to two pairs of functional riding boots - the tie-breaker would be whichever they had in her size. The sizing took awhile - she just couldn't find a pair that fit just right. She eventually had had enough and said, "These will do. They'll feel better once I break them in."

Ah!  Just the opening I had been looking for. I immediately pulled a factoid from The Gamble Encyclopedia of Thin Air and shared it, "Oh, no, Honey. With cowboy boots, you don't break them in. They break you, in."

Cowboy looked up, met my gaze, gave a single nod of agreement and said, "Ayyy-yup."

Made my day.

A few days ago I made my first journey to visit Chance. He lives here:

It was quite the hostile environment. Just look at the fierce watchdog that met us:

Egg does a lot of work around the stables helping Fall move horses around and has developed friendships with a few of them. She brings them cookies.

Chance was out back enjoying the morning air. He's the one back in the corner, so it was deemed easier to just bring them all in rather than try to separate him from the group.

Norman didn't like that idea. I believe he said "Hell neigh, I wanna stay," or something along those lines.

I'll bet it did!!

The gelding. I bet it DID hurt!  (In case you just didn't get the joke.)

Chance was a dirty mess from being out in the mud, so he needed a good brushing.

 He's shedding, too, so I jumped in with the shedding brush.

She's good buddies with Chance, but he was still a little tetchy over having to come back inside, so he gave her a nip just after she started petting his nose.

\

He got the evil eye for that. You can tell that he's remorseful - just look at that long face!

She can't stay mad at him. All was soon forgiven.

\
Looks pretty smug about it, doesn't he?

Lot's and lot's of attention-starved cats were running all over the place. Or taking naps. You know how cats are - their moods can turn on a dime.  This one brushed off my attempts at befriending him:

Cobwebs. And completely oblivious about them. Ah, freedom.

Did I mention that the stable is owned by a woman?

Time to saddle up!

The cats have seen it all before.

After running around with Egg, Chance needed a cool-down walk, so Fall asked me if I would like a pony ride. She led us around while I just sat there enjoying the ride. I gad forgotten how high up in the air you are when riding a big horse!

After a few laps I figured I could keep control of him on my own. The only hard part about it was keeping him moving. He was ready to back to his stall for breakfast and I was the last thing keeping him from it. Every time we went past the gate, he stopped and patiently awaited by debarkation.

So here it is, at long last: Chance taking a Gamble for a ride:

It doesn't matter...

Regular readers of this journal must surely be starting to wonder... "Why hasn't Pete flown yet? Does his in-depth knowledge of the tomfoolery that went into the building of this particular airplane give him pause??"

Well, no, the explanation is far more banal than that. It really has been simply a lack of opportunity. Wait long enough, though, and the Shakespeare-penning infinite monkeys of time will surely get around to providing an opportunity for just about anything. Saturday was that chance, in this case. The weather was forecast to be so close to perfect that even a stereotypical mother-in-law couldn't find flaws in it. To me, this opened up the range of places to go wide enough to include traditionally windy places like Burke-Lakefront Airport up north in downtown Cleveland. 

I've been up that way quite a few times and pretty much done all the obvious touristy things (this is going to be a problem until such time as I move out of state - with the long legs of the RV-6, I've pretty much plucked all of the low-hanging fruit, as defined by near-an-airport attractions in Ohio and surrounding areas) so I was looking for something new. Food is always an attraction, so I fired up Yelp.com and started looking for a good place within reasonable walking distance of the airport.

I found Slyman's.  I absolutely love corned beef, but as I am a particularly particular sort, I love it best in a good corned beef hash.  For example, this breakfast was very nearly the highlight of my Vegas Vacation a few years ago:

Pictures available on Slyman's web page indicated that such a thing would be available, albeit with a less glitzy presentation and sans the huge bloody mary:

And lo and behold, "** Now open on SATURDAYS!"  So proud of it, they are, that it's in all caps and BOLD.  That was enough for me - I fired off a text asking Pete if this would be of interest. The reply from Easily Piqued Pete was quick: "It doesn't matter where we go."  Perfect! A plan was formed.

Early the next morning, I was finishing up my planning for the trip when, as a precaution, I took one final look at the web site. And there I saw it: the fine print! Yes, open on SATURDAYS, but carry-out only, and NO Breakfast!

Drat.

With insufficient time to find an alternate to justify the 120 nm flight, I decided to fly south instead. There is a restaurant at the Parkersburg, WV airport and it's only 85 miles away. Plus, I thought, maybe we would run into my buddy that has a work shop right there on the airport. And, as icing on the cake, it is a beautifully scenic region to fly over.

With the high ambient air pressure and the cool temperatures of the early morning, we climbed out of home base at a brisk pace.

Flying to the east takes us right over the former Rickenbacker Air Force Base, which is now primarily a hub for cargo flights.

A very slight detour took us over Lancaster, OH, where young Co-pilot Egg is currently matriculating, amongst other equally unsavory-sounding activities, I'm sure. Seriously, I'll bet she regularly masticates as well.  What's a father to do? You gotta let go some time...

Her abode is nestled somewhere in the clutch of homes just south of the fairgrounds.

After Lancaster, the topology is pretty much all trees and hills. It was during this portion of the flight that I discovered that the autopilot had taken a powder. Not in any spectacular sense, mind you. In fact, the air was so calm that it took a few minutes to notice that it was no longer maintaining a constant altitude. It wanted only to climb at a gentle 100 feet-per-minute, and absolutely refused to descend at all. Not a problem -- I just took over the flying. With the friendly weather, that was no burden at all.

Approaching the airport, we fly over the junction of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers, and a town that I had always assumed to be Parkersburg. Later in the day, I was to learn that this is in fact Marietta, Ohio.

We parked in front of the shop, but no one was home.

Off to the restaurant, then, where we had a spirited debate as to just how the establishment arrived at its nearly inexplicably arcane name.

And, as a felon will often return to the scene of the crime, I had to go back to the spot where I made my second most egregiously bad pun ever. How bad was it? You be the judge:

"Hey, do you know why this bear is waving?  Because he's gotta split!"

Bwahahaha -- get it?

Yes, yes, I know: that begs a question. Just for the sake of closure, the most egregiously bad pun occurred during one of our father/daughter trips to Oshkosh:

It was getting late and it was time to go retrieve Egg from work. I treated her to some delicious Wisconsin ice cream on the way home (these people really know their dairy products!!) and later we picked up some cheese curds. For those unfamiliar, 'curds' sound horrible. People seem to equate 'curd' with 'cod liver oil' or something equally unpalatable. Nothing could be further from the truth; curds are cheese at its freshest.

Unfortunately, they come in a sealed bag that is very difficult to open without scissors and we. of course, haven't a pair. Egg asked me how we were going to get the bag open without having scissors.
I, sage and wise old man that I am, replied, "Well, where there's a curd, there's a whey!"

After breakfast and as we were heading out of the Parkersburg airspace, I realized that I had committed a bit of a faux pas in telling the controller that we would be departing to the north. Parkersburg is actually more east of Columbus than it is south, so we would actually be flying to the west. To cover for my mistake, I told the tower that we had changed our minds and we were going to fly west along the Ohio river for awhile. Which, to be honest, is something that I like to do anyway.

I was intrigued by the location of this house out on an island in the middle of the river.

Some time spent on Google maps determined that the mansion in question has quite a history:

Blennerhassett Mansion
Constructed by a wealthy Anglo-Irish couple named Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett, the Blennerhassett Mansion became known during its brief existence as the Ohio Valley’s most beautiful private residence. Beyond its extravagantly landscaped lawns and gardens lay a dark wilderness broken only infrequently by scattered log cabins and a few small settlements. Thus the Blennerhassett Estate seemed like a jewel whose contrast with its crude frontier setting made it sparkle all the more.

Harman and Margaret sold their 7000 acre County Kerry estate in 1795 and emigrated to America, landing the next year in New York City. By the spring of 1798, they had located on the upper end of the Ohio River island two miles below the present-day Parkersburg, West Virginia, and started the construction of their new American home.

To the 18th-century European aristocracy, possessing a fine home was immensely important for it stood as the most outstanding symbol of the family’s social status, prestige and wealth. Thus, the Blennerhassetts set out to build a palace in the wilderness, a showplace, and they had both the money and good taste to see their dream through to completion.

When they moved into their house in the late summer, 1800, it contained 7,000 square feet of (daily living) interior floor space and a frontage of 186 feet ~ making it one of the United States’ largest homes. It was designed in the Palladian style with walkways and attached wing buildings curving upstream from a central structure like arms welcoming the approaching river traveler.
http://www.blennerhassettislandstatepark.com/

Probably the most interesting things I learned are that Parkersburg is much larger than, and located nowhere near where, I had thought it was.

Further along the river, I found what I was looking for: a barge and tow boat. Ever since reading Mark Twain as a youth, I have wondered what it would be like to ride the river. There are river cruises available should I ever get desperate enough to find out for myself. Desperation would be a requirement: the cruises are damned expensive!

Heading back to Columbus, we flew over Athens, OH. This is where Ohio University is located. Egg ostensibly attends OU, but only tangentially. She goes to the regional campus in Lancaster, and even then for just a few more days. Having finished her freshman year there, she will start nursing classes at the Mt. Carmel Lancaster regional campus in the fall.

Having burned through roughly ten gallons of gas (at 4 - 5 gallons per hour, the RV-12 is like a 50% off coupon for the "$100 hamburger" flights) I decided to stop in at Circleville for a refill. Circleville is one of the friendliest rural airports around, and that's really saying something as they are all pretty welcoming.

We also passed over my old kart racing track -- not much going on there. Maybe they're racing on Sundays now.

Back at the ranch, I was faced with the afternoon chores. First amongst them was a necessary repair to my weed whacker. For the second year in a row, I have found a brittle and broken fuel line leading from the tank to the carburetor. Last year I was able to fix it through the simple expedient of pulling more of the still-pliable fuel line out of the tank, although doing so did have a deleterious effect on its range - it could no longer reach all of the fuel in the tank. This year I had to apply a real fix.

The problem would, of course, finding suitable tubing. I doubted that I'd be able to find it in a Lowe's type of store. Having built R/C airplanes in my misspent youth, I knew where to go: the hobby shop would have just the stuff I needed. The trick would be in finding someone at the shop that knew which type of tubing to use - it is my experience these days that they usually don't know much about what they sell, except for R/C cars and trucks. 

Sure enough, I was met by an older guy that looked like he might be able to help, but he turned out to be a shockingly bigoted ("Japanese weed whacker? No wonder, you can't trust those G*$ D@&^$ Japs") know-nothing. The answer came from the tattooed, pierced, goth-looking young woman who I found working elbow-deep on a huge R/C truck. "Tygon is what you need; it's the only stuff that will hold up to unleaded gas."  

You simply can't judge by the package. She really knew her stuff!

An hour later, the whacker was whacking and I was patting myself on the back. Hoping to cash in on my accomplishment with a modicum of spousal praise, I was reminded that the standards have irrevocably shifted: "Really? [shrug] Well, you did build an airplane."

With the remainder of the fine afternoon simply begging for more outdoorsy activity, Egg and I took young Cabot out for a walk.  Sort of. Because from where I was standing? Well, it looked more like Cabot was walking Egg!

Not that it matters.

To The Farm!

Finally.  

As has been detailed in these pages lo these many days, I have been trying to make a trip out west to visit the home offices of Schmetterling Aviation, finding my way blocked by various impediments, the most pernicious of which has been the Spring weather. At long last, the skies cleared and the winds abated sufficiently this past Sunday to allow for the record-setting and devil-taunting 66.6 nm flight.

Not only were the skies clear, they were by far the smoothest that I have flown in yet. When you consider the light weight and copious wing area of the RV-12, to be able to set the autopilot and just relax through a smooth, jostle-free flight of forty or so minutes indicates an air mass that is "stable" on the same sense as a fish lying on a bed of ice at your local fishmonger's retail establishment. Rare indeed is a flight during which I could have shaved with a straight razor, had such an inexplicable urge beset me.

I took advantage of the clement conditions by spending some time learning more about the autopilot and the GPS mapping system. I have typically been entering a single direct-to waypoint in the system and allowing the autopilot to fly us directly to the destination, although on a couple of my trips to Portsmouth I have actually entered a mid-trip waypoint to the flight plan whilst sitting on the ground waiting for the oil to reach an appropriate temperature.  In this case, I was attempting to add a new waypoint while already flying. It's not hard to add a waypoint to the active flight plan, I found, but it can be tricky to convince the Skyview, and by extension, that this new waypoint should become the current target.

I also learned that my attempt to smooth out the engine by tightening the tolerance between the angles of the two prop blades was successful, albeit at the cost of ten knots lost from my cruise speed. I found that the easiest way to get the prop blades set to a nearly identical angle was to adjust them such that each was hard against the stops in the prop hub. That had the unfortunate consequence of pitching the blades too shallowly - while the plane now climbs like a banshee with the hounds of hell chasing it, it cruises a bit slower. I'm inclined to live with it for now - I'm seldom in enough of a hurry to lament the loss of speed. Next time I have the spinner off, though...

The landing at Darke Co. was into a wind only ten degrees directionally displaced from being right down the runway so I was unable to ascertain the degree of crosswind ground control attained through the lessening of  the nose wheel break out torque, but it seemed easier to steer in all other modes so I am calling this one a win.

The highly amenable weather continued throughout the day, so the trip back to home base was just as nice as the trip away, albeit somewhat slower due to a headwind. So yeah, I lied: I missed those ten lost knots in cruise speed.

The weather stayed nice for another day, allowing an evening flight with a former co-worker under the auspices of refilling the fuel tank.   You might remember this guy from a previous flight in the RV-6. It was this flight that prompted me to relate the following:

When we reached a sufficient altitude, I offered JT the opportunity to take the controls for a little while but he declined. That happens now and then and it's just fine with me. I never insist on doing anything in the airplane that might make a passenger nervous or uncomfortable (with the notable exceptions of things Ihave to do like turn, or land) and I have had plenty of people turn down the chance to fly, but it always saddens me a little. I figure that letting someone fly an airplane, even if only for a few brief moments, is one of the most incredible things I can share with a person. To me, it is a gift of unimaginable magnitude to allow someone to do something that only a vanishingly small percentage of people throughout history have ever been able to do. To give people the opportunity to be able to say for the rest of their lives that they flew an airplane once, well, that's the single most sublime and meaningful gift I can give.

This time was different. I did the takeoff, of course, but once we got out away from the airport I let him take over. I coached him through the thirty-some miles down south to Circleville and didn't take over until we got down to pattern altitude. It was another great evening to fly.