Today our presence was required at my Grandfather's 90th birthday party/lunch in Lufkin Texas. This was a suit and tie event at the country club for the family from all corners, and about 75 of his closest friends. He was an Instrument flight instructor at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station during WWII.
The few hour drive through the piny woods from Austin is ok, but pretty boring. Good weather and an RV make for an easy day. We saddled up 22C at about 9am for the one hour flight over the top of the thick, hot, oppressive, murky, crud that was the first 9k' that passes for "clear" skies this time of year. At 10.5k', it was almost as if we were skimming along a vast ocean of visible hot below. This was Tanya's leg of the trip to be PIC. Once we got above the hot and it looked like she had things stabilized, I turned on the XM radio for some tunes (classic rock). We both sat there just about as happy as two people could be tapping our feet and swaying back and forth in unison to the music for the next thirty minutes. This is about the time that I still just can't resist breaking the squelch with "This is awesome".
Before long, it was time to head back down through the hot. Seat backs and tray tables were placed in the upright and locked position, and extraneous distractions extinguished. The decent was timed perfectly by the pilot to be stuck in the thick hot for minimum time. The Lufkin airport, with its long wide runways, was sighted through the sticky, yucky, murky, mucky, hot at about ten miles. Of course, it was right where the GPS said it would be. The pilot made the landing look easy, landing long for minimum taxi time to the appropriate turnoff to the ramp. As we taxied across the ramp, we noticed two RVs parked right up next to the little terminal and restaurant building. Ah, maybe we'll find some friends inside.
We shut down on the ramp and had the plane tied down shortly after 10am. We were on a very specific time schedule for this event. That is how my grandfather likes it. Punctual and specific. The next objective was to figure out where we were going to change into the monkey suit and tie. As we walked past the restaurant window in the terminal, a table of people that we've never met before waved us in to come join them. Apparently this is a small East Texas bunch of RVers holding court on a late Saturday morning. Introductions were made and we were recognized from VAF. It is nice to find friends that you didn't even know you had. That really made my day. However, we were on a mission and we were promptly shown around the facilities we would need. After the monkey suit was donned, we went back to join the group at the table. We spent the next thirty minutes hanging out talking RVs with the locals. Great fun. I would have been content to just stay there and swap stories.
Our ride arrived and we had to make a quick exit. Sorry we didn't get to say a proper good bye, but we'll be back very soon on a second Saturday of the month for the monthly Fajita fly-in. The lunch party was a success and ended just as punctually as it had started. We were back at the airport by 2:30pm to jump back out of the monkey suit. I bet you can guess what the weather was like now. Let me help; HOT, sticky, humid, thick, murky, wring-the-sweat-out-on-the-ramp, oppressive. But guess what, we get to fly again! How much more fun could I ask for. This was my leg for PIC. By now, the "clear" muck had plenty of time to congeal into a forest of cumulus clouds from about 8k' to 13.5k'. Oh, yeah it was hot as we taxied out for the runup. That was ok, because we new we weren't staying low, no matter what the winds. It would only be a few minutes before we would be in cool air again. During the runup, I got the now familiar surprise of pulling the carb heat cable all the way out of the panel. Yep, it is broken again. I know exactly how NOT to install a carb heat cable and have the correct resolution parts all ready to go for the next time the cowl was off. I pushed the cable back in and finished my runup. I stopped to confer with the co-pilot quickly about the failure that we were just waiting to happen again. We talked about possible adverse effects on this flight and agreed it was perfectly safe to continue. Mind you, we knew exactly where it had failed.
So we launched with only cooler air above on the mind. We are still very excited that we finally figured out how to keep the engine cool in hot climbs. For the longest time I was certain that I had done a full round of tests specifically focused on climb cooling. But clearly I had not fully explored the most obvious combination. Full throttle so the enrichment circuit is in effect, and reducing power output a little by spooling the prop back to 2500. This is like magic. We don't have to worry about CHTs even on a long slow climb with OAT 100+ degrees. We kept climbing and climbing. The co-pilot setup the oxygen and got it flowing. You may have heard that I'm addicted to O2. I refuse to apologize. The cloud tops seemed to be reaching up for the clean cool air above just the same as we were. I leveled off at 14.5k' that would get us over most of it. We made a few slight deviations around those that were reaching higher. If we were going much further, I would not have thought twice to go on up to 16.5k', because by now, you know what we were avoiding below. I still had at least a 400 fpm climb rate. Density altitude up there was a little over 17k'. This was another easy VFR flight back home with a 1300 fpm let down on the other side.
We got the airplane tucked away and unpacked. Now, the days mission was successfully complete, the engine was still nice and hot, so what to do next? ... Of course, pull the cowl and drain the oil. It was due for a scheduled change a whole two hours ago (gasp). Hmmm, while we are at it, we're also due for a compression check. Tanya said she was up for it if we could knock it out and retreat to someplace cooler. I turned on the big fan in the hangar which was just blowing around a lot of really hot air. It is really cool that Tanya knows the drill. She immediately went to fire up the air compressor and string out the hose, grab the tool cart and the compression tester, and while I was removing the leads off of the lower plugs, she was retrieving the spark plug socket and ratchets. We had all the lower plugs out almost before the oil finished draining. It took us only another 8 minutes to check the compression on the cylinders (all good). We closed up the hangar door and headed for home. A tremendously successful RV day. Tomorrow is a maintenance day. We'll be in the hangar sweating to the tower frequency on the scanner. I bet it is going to be HOT!
The few hour drive through the piny woods from Austin is ok, but pretty boring. Good weather and an RV make for an easy day. We saddled up 22C at about 9am for the one hour flight over the top of the thick, hot, oppressive, murky, crud that was the first 9k' that passes for "clear" skies this time of year. At 10.5k', it was almost as if we were skimming along a vast ocean of visible hot below. This was Tanya's leg of the trip to be PIC. Once we got above the hot and it looked like she had things stabilized, I turned on the XM radio for some tunes (classic rock). We both sat there just about as happy as two people could be tapping our feet and swaying back and forth in unison to the music for the next thirty minutes. This is about the time that I still just can't resist breaking the squelch with "This is awesome".
Before long, it was time to head back down through the hot. Seat backs and tray tables were placed in the upright and locked position, and extraneous distractions extinguished. The decent was timed perfectly by the pilot to be stuck in the thick hot for minimum time. The Lufkin airport, with its long wide runways, was sighted through the sticky, yucky, murky, mucky, hot at about ten miles. Of course, it was right where the GPS said it would be. The pilot made the landing look easy, landing long for minimum taxi time to the appropriate turnoff to the ramp. As we taxied across the ramp, we noticed two RVs parked right up next to the little terminal and restaurant building. Ah, maybe we'll find some friends inside.
We shut down on the ramp and had the plane tied down shortly after 10am. We were on a very specific time schedule for this event. That is how my grandfather likes it. Punctual and specific. The next objective was to figure out where we were going to change into the monkey suit and tie. As we walked past the restaurant window in the terminal, a table of people that we've never met before waved us in to come join them. Apparently this is a small East Texas bunch of RVers holding court on a late Saturday morning. Introductions were made and we were recognized from VAF. It is nice to find friends that you didn't even know you had. That really made my day. However, we were on a mission and we were promptly shown around the facilities we would need. After the monkey suit was donned, we went back to join the group at the table. We spent the next thirty minutes hanging out talking RVs with the locals. Great fun. I would have been content to just stay there and swap stories.
Our ride arrived and we had to make a quick exit. Sorry we didn't get to say a proper good bye, but we'll be back very soon on a second Saturday of the month for the monthly Fajita fly-in. The lunch party was a success and ended just as punctually as it had started. We were back at the airport by 2:30pm to jump back out of the monkey suit. I bet you can guess what the weather was like now. Let me help; HOT, sticky, humid, thick, murky, wring-the-sweat-out-on-the-ramp, oppressive. But guess what, we get to fly again! How much more fun could I ask for. This was my leg for PIC. By now, the "clear" muck had plenty of time to congeal into a forest of cumulus clouds from about 8k' to 13.5k'. Oh, yeah it was hot as we taxied out for the runup. That was ok, because we new we weren't staying low, no matter what the winds. It would only be a few minutes before we would be in cool air again. During the runup, I got the now familiar surprise of pulling the carb heat cable all the way out of the panel. Yep, it is broken again. I know exactly how NOT to install a carb heat cable and have the correct resolution parts all ready to go for the next time the cowl was off. I pushed the cable back in and finished my runup. I stopped to confer with the co-pilot quickly about the failure that we were just waiting to happen again. We talked about possible adverse effects on this flight and agreed it was perfectly safe to continue. Mind you, we knew exactly where it had failed.
So we launched with only cooler air above on the mind. We are still very excited that we finally figured out how to keep the engine cool in hot climbs. For the longest time I was certain that I had done a full round of tests specifically focused on climb cooling. But clearly I had not fully explored the most obvious combination. Full throttle so the enrichment circuit is in effect, and reducing power output a little by spooling the prop back to 2500. This is like magic. We don't have to worry about CHTs even on a long slow climb with OAT 100+ degrees. We kept climbing and climbing. The co-pilot setup the oxygen and got it flowing. You may have heard that I'm addicted to O2. I refuse to apologize. The cloud tops seemed to be reaching up for the clean cool air above just the same as we were. I leveled off at 14.5k' that would get us over most of it. We made a few slight deviations around those that were reaching higher. If we were going much further, I would not have thought twice to go on up to 16.5k', because by now, you know what we were avoiding below. I still had at least a 400 fpm climb rate. Density altitude up there was a little over 17k'. This was another easy VFR flight back home with a 1300 fpm let down on the other side.
We got the airplane tucked away and unpacked. Now, the days mission was successfully complete, the engine was still nice and hot, so what to do next? ... Of course, pull the cowl and drain the oil. It was due for a scheduled change a whole two hours ago (gasp). Hmmm, while we are at it, we're also due for a compression check. Tanya said she was up for it if we could knock it out and retreat to someplace cooler. I turned on the big fan in the hangar which was just blowing around a lot of really hot air. It is really cool that Tanya knows the drill. She immediately went to fire up the air compressor and string out the hose, grab the tool cart and the compression tester, and while I was removing the leads off of the lower plugs, she was retrieving the spark plug socket and ratchets. We had all the lower plugs out almost before the oil finished draining. It took us only another 8 minutes to check the compression on the cylinders (all good). We closed up the hangar door and headed for home. A tremendously successful RV day. Tomorrow is a maintenance day. We'll be in the hangar sweating to the tower frequency on the scanner. I bet it is going to be HOT!
