July 30th

After work, Dad and I replaced a bunch of sprinkler heads, just to see if we can cover more of the dead earth that's the back garden.  The sky is still gray from the Carr fire.

July 29th

We started the day at the airport, where I took Mum up in the Magni.  The visibility is getting worse, so we didn't do much more than just fly around in a big circle.

Dad and I went back later to help Chris put the rotors on his gyroplane.  He then taxied it around, including some faster runs down the runway with the rotors spinning.  It looked like he lifted the front wheel a couple of times :o)

July 28th

Dad and I started the day going to the airport and taking the Magni for a flight.  Thanks to the Carr fire, visibility is pretty awful.  We had talked about flying with Mum after an early(ish) dinner, but decided against it.

July 27th

After work (well, I left a few minutes early because the plane was early) I went and collected Mum and Dad from Sacramento airport.

July 25th

I went over to the airport to help Chris put his Sportcopter into the hangar - he wants to use our 6000' runway (with lots of runoff in all directions) for practice for a couple of weeks, rather than the ~3600' runway at Cameron Park (with lots of houses in all directions).

July 23rd

Rich, the guy who bought the Flightstar, asked me to meet him at Marysville, so rather than drive, I flew the Magni over there.  It was pretty windy - the the point where I had to stop the plane at the end of the runway and wait for the rotor to spin down.  Anyway, we went through a few things (it was too windy to do anything useful in the Flightstar), then I flew back to Lincoln.

July 22nd

It was a really hot day, so other than replacing the sprinkler valve again, I stayed in.

July 21st

I started the day at the airport, where we were cooking breakfast at the LRAA's historic aircraft day.  We use that to try and get people in to the airport, and to raise money for the scholarship programme.  Anyway, a bunch of people were heading out to Oshkosh, so I got the gyroplane out, Ken got his gyroplane out and John got his Citabria out.

We ended up cooking over 40 breakfasts before putting everything away.  I then went and changed the spark plugs and cleaned the air filter, before taking it out for an hour or so of pottering around.  There was a guy in a Piper Cub and we flew around each other for a while.

On the way home, I picked up the parts to replace the bad valve, and when I got home I swapped that in.  It takes a couple of hours for the glue to dry, but when I turned the water back on, the new valve body leaks at the top, so I get to cut that back out and do it all again.

July 20th

We've had a wet, swampy area in the garden for a while, and I've made no progress in figuring out where the water's coming from - digging down a little ways usually ends up in dry clay.  Anyways, Vic started digging around the sprinkler, and it's not obviously leaking - the stupid thing is it shouldn't matter anyway, as the valve shuts it off.  I took the sprinkler apart, and watched the water level inside rising.  I turned off the water, and the level stopped rising.  I then figured out the valve's not shutting properly any more, so I cut that out, and left the water off for the night.

July 15th

After futzing around the house for most of the morning (including checking the refrigerant pressure in the AC in the van and cutting the oil filter for the plane apart to check that it's pretty clean), we went over to the airfield and took the Magni out.  I've stuck one of the camera mounts to the mast, and while there is some jelly effect, it's not terrible.  The tablet, stuck to the glovebox in the back didn't work out though - Vic couldn't read it.  Oh well, you can't win 'em all.  At least both headsets worked OK.

July 14th

I started the day kind of early doing some work on the EAA website, then headed to the airport.  I flew a little, then cooked lunch before the 3D printing presentation.  After the presentation, I went and cleaned and waxed the plane - the rotors still have some rough spots, so could do with waxing again, I reckon.

July 13th

After a pretty busy week at work (a cow-orker's been out the whole week), I went to Harbor Freight and got a compression tester (and a free LED work light - there's always something) and headed to the airport.  I changed the oil filter (now I had the strap wrench I needed) and checked the magnetic pickup in the engine, but couldn't get the spark plug socket on, as it's pretty tight in there.  Oh well... hopefully I'll see Ken over the weekend and see what he has.  After that, I took the plane out for a few circuits to make sure there were no leaks.  Doesn't look like there were.

July 12th

I'd managed to catch the drinking tube on my Camelbak in the garage, and when I filled it up to go for my bicycle ride, the bladder was folded under.  I didn't realise until I was ~2 miles from home that I didn't have as much water as I usually have.  I ended up rationing myself, but still ran out ~1 mile from home.  Doh.

July 10th

We watched "A Quiet Place".  Not so quiet after all, what with Tilly clicking around, drinking and whining at the monsters.

July 8th

I had intended to go to the airport and fiddle with things, but in the end it was too hot by the time I'd finished running around, so I didn't.

July 7th

I started the day at the airport, cooking lunch for 25 or so of my closest friends.  After that, I had been aiming to go over to Marysville to fly to Sutter for their open hangar day / lunch with Rick in the Flightstar.  I was trying to decide whether to drive or fly (the gyro isn't something you can tie down like a fixed wing) when Rick texted to say he was going to drive instead.  After talking to Brad about his Little Wing, I was preflighting the Magni to fly over to Sutter and see what was going on when Bruce wandered over to say he'd flown to Sutter and there was nothing going on there.  OK, I finished my preflight and just pottered around for an hour, then went back and drained the oil.  I forgot my oil wrench, so I couldn't change the oil filter, but I did change the fuel filter.  I'll go back tomorrow and continue servicing things so I have a starting point to work from.

I did start watching "It" with Vic, but I really wasn't enjoying jump scare after jump scare, so I left her to it :o)

July 4th

Today's Independence Day, when Americans celebrate leaving the Empire by going shopping.

We spent it working on projects around the house until it got too hot to do anything :o)

In the evening, Tilly alternated between shouting at the fireworks and cowering under the bed from them.

July 1st

A new month, so here are the solar stats:

Power billed

Power generated

Ken was getting his wife to drop him at Lodi on her way past, so he could pick up Jamie's new gyroplane.  We'd talked about me meeting him down there, so I got to the airport early, pre-flighted the Magni and put gas in it, then found that he'd got there a lot earlier than we'd anticipated.  Fine - I flew over to Cameron Park and met him and Don there, where we took pictures of the 3 Magnis together, then eventually headed home - Don came along for a ride, so we did a lap of Folsom Lake so he could (hopefully) shoot some video from his gyro, then when he headed back, we headed off back to Lincoln.  Ken was flying a fair bit faster than me, so he showed up first, but the pattern was pretty busy, so that was probably for the best.

In the evening, we watched the end of the Hobbit movie(s).

June 30th

We started the day going over to the airport so Vic could fly with Steve in the N3N biplane.  Other than high g manoeuvres, she seems to have enjoyed it :o)  We then took the Magni out - this is the first time I've flown it with a passenger (Ken just shooting video doesn't count, as he's a pilot).  That went well enough, too - she noticed the lack of turbulence, even though it was the middle of a ~100F day and we were flying over brown fields.

In the evening, we started watching the Tolkien edition of the Hobbit movies (it cuts out most of the stuff that's just not in the book).