December 29th

Vic started cooking a brisket.  It took like 6 hours.

I'd left Vic's battery on charge overnight, but I thought it was dead.  A quick test confirmed that - it had a resting voltage of 11.5v, just the running lights took that to 10.5v, and trying to start it took that to 5v.  New battery needed, we just need to decide if it's worth paying 5x as much to get a LiFePo4 - it's not like she's bothered about the weight.

We zipped over to the airport in the van, and I'm saying the anti-roll bar means the thing corners flatter.  I don't know if that's true, or I want it to be true, but whatever.

We went over so I could try the throttle that Dave printed out for me - it fits just fine, I think I have a few tweaks to make before it'd work for me.  While I was there I buffed out the paint I'd added to one of the rotors, and made concerned noises about David's cylinder with low compression.

In the evening, we watched "Serenity", seeing as we'd finished the "Firefly" series.

December 28th

We went and met Chris for lunch in Auburn.  We drove, he flew the RV.  We had intended to ride the motorcycles, but Vic's battery has died, so that wasn't to be.

December 25th

We had a quiet day watching episodes of "Firefly".  Jen came over and entertained Tilly for a while.  She brought me cookies.

December 24th

I had the day off, but most of the country didn't, so I got to check stuff at work from time to time to make sure nothing was going horrifically wrong.

In between checking things, I went out into the garage and finally got around to installing the new anti-roll bar and heavy duty end links on the van.  I bought these as part of my Black Friday van shopping extravaganza.  Now I just need to go and test drive it :o)

December 22nd

It was raining, and Chris suggested lunch, so we drove over and met him in Roseville.

December 21st

I went to the airport to tinker with Randy's wiring again.

There was a barbecue going on in Ken's hangar, and Mark (who I flew up to Auburn a while back) showed up in his mint MGB.

Mark took me for a little ride in the thing - it sounds great, especially as I'd driven there in the almost silent Bolt :o)

After lunch, we peered at Randy's wiring - we removed the inline filter we'd installed at the weekend, as it's not helping.  Ken reckons it's the audio plug causing it, and suggested using a mono plug instead.  Testing it shows this works, but I still don't get why it being powered up causes the noises.  Whatever, Randy's ordered a new plug.

My DHL package arrived, and luckily Vic was there to receive it.

December 20th

Again, I was hoping that the DHL package was going to be delivered, as it arrived in San Francisco in the morning.

It wasn't.

December 19th

I was staying in to receive a package (that DHL said was in Los Angeles, but then said it was in Heathrow, then said it was in East Midlands, then said it was in Heathrow) that didn't arrive, so once I had figured out it wasn't arriving, I went out and hacked parts off shrubs to fill the green waste bin.

I've had a problem with the noise coming out of the home theatre PC, so I decided to look at that.  The TOSLINK cable was lighting up red, which made me think the problem could be the (16 year old) receiver, but after pulling everything apart (and getting the old LCD TV from Vic's office so I could get into the receiver setup), it turned out that the PC had decided to use different (not installed) speakers.  I fixed that in Windows, and everything's fine now.  Yay.

December 18th

I met Randy at the airfield and we installed some magnets on the power and audio lines for his GPS.  It's helped, but hasn't fixed the background noise problem.  He found that if he wiggles the audio lead, it changes the behaviour, so we're looking at replacing that next.

December 17th

I went to the airfield and Ken and I replaced the rod end bearings on the plane, then put the rotor head back on, and reinstalled the rotor.  We also replaced the engine mounts, then I ran the rotor up to 150rrpm a couple of times to see if it'd fly off.  It didn't.

December 16th

I've taken the week off work to do some stuff on the plane.

Today Ken and I pulled the rotor off, and replaced all the bearings in the rotor head.  It went a lot faster than I thought - I was expecting this to take all week.

December 15th

I went to the airport and heckled Ken and Chris installing a transponder and multifunction display in Chris' RV-6A.

In the evening we went to dinner with Jen.

December 14th

I went to the airfield and helped Randy tinker with the audio line for his new GPS - it's picking up interference.  Still, after a lot of work, we've at least discovered that if you unplug the audio line, everything goes quiet.  Before we'd thought it needed the power unplugged from the GPS, which has a small emergency battery.

In between playing with that, I helped set up for the EAA meeting, and Mark cooked steak, then presented on building his RV-10 and Carbon Cub.

December 11th

We went to the EAA Xmas party and managed to win a big basket o' stuff in the raffle.

December 8th

We went and met Chris and Randy for lunch, then I went to the airport with Randy to tidy up his ADSB install with a bracket I'd made and some Velcro (tm).

In the evening, we watched "Hobbs and Shaw".

I've been uploading data from a Raspberry Pi to Flightaware to a month now, and it's nice to see I'm ~11,000th in the list of people uploading.

December 7th

I started the day at the airport cooking breakfast for an astounding number of people considering the weather.

After that, I made a start on installing the turbo inlet tube on the plane, then went home so we could take Tilly to see Santa.

In the evening, I installed a new LiFePo4 battery in the van.  I used to have 4 UB12220 wheelchair batteries that are rated at 22Ah each, so 88Ah, of which about half is usable before you start damaging the plates.  They weigh about 15lbs each.  The new battery is 50Ah, of which pretty much all of it is usable, and it weighs about 19lbs.  Progress :o)

December 3rd

Randy received his iFly 740 GPS, so we met at the airport and installed it in his plane.  It took a couple of goes to get everything to his liking and squared up, but it works, and connects to the EchoUAT that we installed a few months ago for ADS-B in just fine.  Now we just need the weather to brighten up so he can go out and test fly it :o)

December 1st

A new month, so here's the stats:

Power billed

Power generated

Randy's decided to get an iFly 740 to replace his Garmin Aera 660 and GDL-39 (what's that?  I told him to do this months ago?  You're right!), so we went out to the airport in the pissing rain to strip the old Garmin stuff from his plane.  We got everything stripped out, then went and met Chris for lunch, as he's buying the old bits for his RV-6A.

In the evening, Vic and I watched "Yesterday".

November 30th

It was a cold, wet and windy day, so we just stayed in and played with Tilly.

November 29th

The annual on the plane runs out at the end of the month, so I wanted to fly.  We met Chris at Auburn for breakfast, and he was doing pattern work at Lincoln (in his RV-6A) when we got there, so being a little late wasn't an issue.  It was pretty damned cold, but we survived.

After breakfast, Chris headed home to Cameron Park, and we went back to Lincoln, where I flew one of my hangar mates' (David) brother Jeff, who's in town for Thanksgiving.  He was really enthusiastic about the whole thing, as he's used to David's RV-9A, which is like 150mph at 7,500', so it was nice to be doing 60mph at 800'.

In the evening we nipped over to Costco to get Vic a new tablet in the Black Friday sale - her old tablet is starting to glitch.

November 28th

Today was Thanksgiving, so we had spaghetti, obviously.

We also watched "Spider-Man: Far from Home", "The Kitchen" and "Daughter of the Wolf" (which was terrible).

November 24th

We did some work in the garden, then I went to the airport and changed one of the fuel pumps on the plane.  It was a lot more of a struggle than I'd hoped, but I finished up with enough time to do a few circuits, then head out for a quick local flight when the pattern got busy (and Randy took off).  We landed just before it got back, then I headed home.

I've managed to hurt my back, probably with the contortions I needed to get the pump replaced, so I think I'm going to be taking things a little easy for a while.

November 23rd

I got up and took Tillamook for her annual inspection, the we went to the airport, then flew to Auburn to meet Chris and Randy for lunch.

We came back via the canyon, then packed everything up and went home.

November 17th

We got up and went to the airport.  The agreement was that we were going to meet at Auburn for brunch, but we were a little early.  Still, Randy wasn't at the airport when we left.  Vic and I started out towards Folsom Lake, but it was a little misty, so we couldn't actually see it.  When I heard Chris approaching Auburn, we turned and headed that way, following the train track where a really, really long train was just starting up the hill.  Eventually we turned straight towards Auburn and landed about 10 minutes after Chris.

Randy showed up pretty late, and shortly after that, Paul showed up in his American Ranger - it's the first time I've seen it, as he only got it this summer.

After brunch, we all stood around chatting and answering questions from people who'd come over to see what we were doing, then headed out.  Chris went back to Cameron Park, the rest of us went to Lincoln, where I put ours away while Randy and Paul headed out - Randy was going to fly part way to Byron with Paul.

We headed home and did some more work in the garden, then in the evening, the three of us (Tilly included) watched "A Dog's Journey".

November 16th

I was on call, and it seemed like a bit of a busy day, so I ended up staying home to deal with that.  I did get out and help clear out the leaves in the garden though, so that was something.

November 10th

I got to the airport early and pre-flighted, then replaced the vacuum hose for the manifold pressure sensor.  Mark showed up while I was in the middle of this, and got to hold zip ties and tools.  Randy and his daughter arrived, as did Jamie and Nancy, and we all flew to Auburn, where we met Chris.  We parked the 4 gyros together (in one plane space) and headed over for breakfast.

After breakfast, Chris and I ran down the canyon before heading home.  Interestingly we were low enough that we didn't show up on the flight tracking facilities :o)

After getting back to Lincoln, we got everything packed up, and headed home.  On the way, I stopped at Lowe's and got a couple of pressure treated 2x4s.  At home, I took the bottom step of the steps for the hot tub apart and replaced the rotting wooden braces.  I got to use my jigsaw for the first time :o)

In the evening, we watched "Avengers: Endgame" (again).

November 9th

I got up and went to the airport to cook lunch for the EAA presentation - it was crazy busy, and I must have done something like 40 hamburgers.

After the presentation, I showed Chris' friend Rob the space at the back of our hangar - he's looking for space to do the final build and test flying of his RV-14, and would be looking for space at the end of the year for about four months.  I've forwarded his details to Todd, who runs our hangar.  There was a guy, Mark, hanging around to talk to me, and he came and looked at the gyroplane.  I was too tired to do anything (I didn't sleep well), so we agreed to meet up in the morning, and he could join us for the breakfast flight up to Auburn.

November 5th

We used the hot tub for the first time this autumn :o)

November 4th

It's been unseasonably warm, so I went out and got the hot tub filled, all chemically treated and started heating - it'll probably be ready to use tonight, but I'm sure we'll be in bed by then.

November 3rd

I'd agreed to meet Chris for breakfast, and I'd agreed to fly Scott up with us, so I was doing to the pre-flight when he arrived.  We had an uneventful flight up, it was warmer than I'd expected because of course it was an hour later than I'd been thinking, and Vic drove up and met us for breakfast.  On the way back to Lincoln, Scott and I flew over by his daughter's soccer game so he could take a picture from ~2000' above them, then we flew back to Lincoln.  After putting everything away, I went home and cleaned out the hot tub with a view to getting that started up before it gets too cold to stand around outside throwing cold water about.

November 2nd

I went out to the airport and cooked what seemed like an inordinate number of breakfasts for a cold November morning.  When that was all said and done, I sat in on the EAA board meeting, then went and looked at the plane.  It had been running rough the last time I flew, and I'd decided it was a vacuum leak - sure enough, we'd dislodged a hose while balancing the carbs the previous weekend, so it had worked its way loose on the flight to Auburn.  That was quickly fixed, and a short flight proved that had fixed the problem.  I met Chris for lunch (as I hadn't got to eat breakfast, just cook it), then headed home to update all the clocks.

November 1st

A new month, so here are the solar stats.

Power billed

Power generated

I went out and tinkered with the AC condenser, and got that working.  The fan blades seem a little out of balance, but I've got months to get around to fixing that :o)

October 30th

The relay I'd ordered for the AC fan came in, so I went and installed that.  While it's triggered manually, the fan runs, but it doesn't run otherwise, suggesting the problem is with the fan getting told to run.  Progress, methinks.

October 27th

It was howling a gale, so flying was out.  We cut another branch off the big shrub along the fence line, and I trimmed that into small pieces and filled the green waste bin again.

I've got a shelf in the garage that's warped by the weight of junk I store on it, so we went and got some 2x4s to brace it up - those are installed and everything's back together again.

October 26th

I went out to the airport to test fly the gyro after all the work I did a week ago left the fuel flow showing odd results, and it all ran fine.  Chris was talking about coming out to Lincoln in his new RV-6, then us flying up to Auburn, so I contacted him and we met at Auburn directly.  Vic was out and about, and drove up to meet us.  Leaving Auburn, the plane seemed to be running poorly, but it was fine when I got back to Lincoln, so I'll check that out again at some point, but it's probably something from the fuel line replacements getting in to a carb or somesuch.

October 25th

I started work on the AC fan, but it doesn't seem to want to work now.  I've ordered a replacement capacitor, and hopefully that'll fix it.

October 23rd

The last bit for the furnace fan motor rebuild showed up, so I got that all together and we put it up in the roof.  Having reinstalled it and plugged it all in, it even worked.  It might be my imagination, but it seems quieter.  Now I just need to do the AC fan motor outside.

October 20th

I went out to the airport and helped Ken balance the carbs on the plane, then took it for a test flight.  The fuel flow probes started reading a stupid high number, making me think there was maybe a leak, so I went back to the airport and landed.  Everything looked fine, making me think the problem is due to the probes getting too much vibration, so I "fixed" that, then went home.

October 19th

I went to the airport and cooked breakfast (for the last time this year) at the LRAA display day.  Randy flew over and picked up Chris, and they had the last breakfasts of the day.

A guy flew in in a Calidus, he was on his way home to Petaluma from the High Sierra fly-in, so we went and chatted to him and Randy took him to get gas.  We then went to look at Chris' gyro (that he was picking up from its annual inspection) and I immediately spotted a couple of things that needed doing.  After lunch, we sorted those out and he did a really thorough preflight before heading home.  I swapped out the vacuum hoses, and I'm assuming all the stuff I wanted to do is done.

In the evening, we watched "Men In Black: International".

October 18th

I went to the airfield and helped Randy install the ADS-B stuff on his gyroplane.  When we were done, he took it out for a little flight, and we requested the FAA test report.  That came back blank, but on the way home, I thought that maybe we needed to wait for the FAA to get all the reports back.  I re-requested the report, and it had worked just fine.

October 17th

I went back to the airfield and rebuilt the carbs on the plane with new inlet and outlets, and the diaphragms.  This was a lot less fun than it sounds.

October 16th

I went to the airport and changed out the fuel hoses on the plane.  It took a ways longer than I'd anticipated, as there are a lot of places where it's hard to get to.  Still, that's done.

I then watched a Cal Fire Chinook doing circuits for a while before cooking the burgers for the EAA meeting.

October 15th

I spent part of the day getting up in the roof and taking the furnace apart, as the motor needs to be replaced (after over 20 years).  I've got the blower unit out of the roof, now I just need to get the motor shaft off the fan blades, but at least I could get the part number to order the replacement motor.  As we don't need the air conditioning any more, and it's not cold enough for the central heating, I have a few weeks to get this all done and back together.

October 14th

Today was Columbus Day, where some Americans get to remember Christopher Columbus stumbling over the country he thought was China by going shopping.

I didn't get the day off, but I've taken the week off to get some stuff done.  Vic did get the day off, so we spent it in the garden lifting some sunk sprinklers and cutting lumps off shrubbery.

October 13th

I met Randy at the airport and flew to Auburn, where we met Vic and Chris for lunch, then flew home again.  It was air miss day, from what I could tell - there was a guy doing an against the traffic approach for Lincoln as we took off, and where he was supposed to go missed, climb and turn towards Marysville, he didn't - he flew along the runway at 300'.  Then as I approached Auburn, a red Citabria flew under me from my left - I'd assumed it was one of the instructors at Auburn, but when I got there and landed, their Citabria was parked.  Hmmm.

October 12th

We went to the airport and finished setting up, then flew kids for the Young Eagles event.  Of 69 kids who flew, I flew 7 of them.  I was one of 10 pilots, and several of the others had more than one passenger, so I'm pretty happy with that.  I flew with my newfangled ADS-B out setup running, and when I got the report from the FAA, it looks to be working just fine, especially as it was short flights at pretty low altitudes.

October 11th

After work, we went to the airfield and uninstalled the whole ADS-B out system from the plane, then made some changes and reinstalled it in a way it should work.  It looks like it's working, now I just need to fly and test it out.

October 9th

In the morning, before work, I took the replacement GPS to the airport and tested it on the plane.  It seemed to work, so I went ahead and installed it properly, when it didn't work.  I think I'll need to locate it somewhere else, so it'll need to come out again.  Joy.

October 7th

We started the day taking the rental car back, then I caught up on stuff around the house before working late.

October 6th

I started the day feeling distinctly unwell, but managed to drive home so I could cover work for a couple of hours.

October 5th

Mum and Deeps went shopping, and we tinkered around with Russ' receiver and barbecue.

In the evening, we went out to celebrate Russ' 50th birthday.

October 4th

Vic dropped me at Hertz to pick up a rental Toyota Corolla.

We drove the rental car down to Lakewood to see Russ and Deepah.  I'm not sure that I like adaptive cruise control.

October 3rd

We went and wandered around the Galleria, including the Tesla dealer :o)

October 2nd

We went to the airport and tested the GPS that's plugged in to the ADS-B box.  It's not working, so we took the whole damn thing out.  When we got home, I sent a list of the tests and results to the dealer I bought the thing from.

October 1st

A new month, so here are the stats:

Power billed

Power generated

We took the plane out again, and found it still didn't show up on the ADS-B report.  Bummer.

September 30th

We took the car to Vacaville so we could get Jelly Belly Flops for Dad.  While we were there, we looked at the outlet stores, too.

September 29th

The weather was a lot better (it was still cold though), so Mum and I flew up to Auburn, and Vic and Dad drove up.  We met Randy there for brunch, then Dad and I flew home while Mum and Vic went shopping at the Galleria.  When we got back to Lincoln, we finished the ADS-B out installation, then took the plane out for a quick trip.  It didn't look like it was getting the GPS signal, and when we got home, I check the FAA report, and they saw nothing from us.  Oh well.

I got to work in the afternoon, so that was the end of our playing around for the day.

September 28th

We'd intended to fly up to Auburn for breakfast, but Lincoln was crappy, and the cloud at Auburn was at 600', so we ended up driving up there instead.

September 27th

I took the car and picked Mum and Dad up at the airport.  They were looking for the van :o)

September 24th

We went to the airport and started the ADS-B out installation on the plane.  We've got the sender and GPS unit installed, now it's just a matter of wiring it to the switch I want to use and installing the antenna (which needs a ground plane - I have a 2'x2' sheet of aluminium to cut one out of).

September 22nd

I played about with some aluminium mounts in the morning, then John showed up for lunch.  After he'd headed home, I went to the airport and took the plane out for a while.  I looked at the mounts I'd made, and figured I still need to do some work before I can use them - looking at the plane, there's some wiring that needs doing too.

September 21st

I started the day at the airport cooking breakfast at the Display Day, then went home to tinker with stuff before heading back for Tony's 50th birthday party.

September 18th

We went to the airport and I cooked hot dogs for the EAA membership meeting - I managed to get one this time.  The talk was about the A10 - one of my favourite aircraft, as it'll f*ck stuff up.

September 15th

We went to the airport and changed some "O" rings in one of the brakes on the plane, then went home.  I spent some time hacking up some shrubbery.

In the evening, we took Jen for pizza to celebrate her birthday.

September 14th

We started the day at the airport getting set up for the Fun Day.  I pulled the plane out and added it to the display line, then cooked 124 hot dogs, and didn't get to eat one.  Afterwards, we packed everything up, and started looking at the dragging right hand brake on the plane, and stood around and chatted for a while.

In the evening, we watched "John Wick 3".

September 13th

I went over to the airport and helped getting the EAA hangar ready for the Fun Day tomorrow.

September 8th

I went and met Randy at Lincoln, and we flew up to Auburn to meet Kim and Victoria from Columbia (airport, not the country) for breakfast.

Lincoln was quiet when I got back, so I managed to get a lot more work done on the plane.  I'm approaching the "replace the fuel lines" stage, but I should probably drain the tank first... I've been trying to run it down, you see.

September 7th

I started the day cooking breakfast at the EAA hangar, while Vic drove the Bolt down to the Bay area to go to a guinea pig event and see her mother.

Once breakfast was all over and done with, I went and did a bunch of maintenance on the gyro, and got it flyable again.  I think I need to look at the right hand brake setup, as it's still dragging slightly.

September 2nd

Today was Labo(u)r Day, where Americans celebrate the successes of the unions by going shopping.

I went to the airport and took the plane out.  When I got back, it was at 1000.1 hours, so I've started the maintenance extravaganza by changing the oil.

September 1st

A new month, so here are the power stats:

Power billed

Power generated

Chris had asked me to come over to Cameron Park so we could fly a couple of friends of his - "they're British and you'll like them.  He did something with motorcycles".

I flew over the house on the way out, as I was early.  I got to Cameron Park still a little early, and ended up doing a go-around.  The runway has a displaced threshold, and no taxiway, so if you miss the turn off just past the threshold, you're back-taxying.  I came in a little high, and there was somebody waiting to take off, and rather than make him wait for me, I just did a circuit.

Anyway, we flew Norman and Anne, then went o lunch, where I found out he was Norman Hossack.  Yes, that Norman Hossack :o)

Randy called from Lincoln to say there was a T-28 off the end of the runway - we'd seen it up at Auburn yesterday, and today the new owner did a gear up landing, it seems.  I landed short on 15, put the plane away and headed home to do some work.

In the evening, we watched "Godzilla: King of the Monsters".

August 31st

We went over to the airport and took the plane up to Auburn to meet Chris for lunch.  Other than that, I was on call, so I worked :o(

August 28th

I took the car and went to the office in San Francisco.  Because I got to use the car pool lane, especially over the toll road to the Bay Bridge, I got there before the garage opened.  I hung around and waited for it to open, then decided against charging the car immediately as those were marked as "reserved" spaced, and they tow you for parking in a reserved space.  I did check back later (several times) but there were a couple of plug-in hybrids charging.  Um... whatever.  At a 6Kw charger, they'd be fully charged from totally empty in a few hours, but sure, let's leave them plugged in all day.

I left the office thinking that I should be OK on the way home, but I could stop at any of the high speed chargers (usually 40+Kw) for a short while if I needed it.  I didn't - the traffic was remarkably light, and it wasn't that hot, so I only ran the AC for a few minutes.  I got home with ~60 miles of range left :o)

August 25th

We got up in the hotel, had breakfast then packed all our junk into the (fully charged) Bolt.  We had talked about going home via I5 rather than 101, but the Plugshare app suggested 101, so we went that way.  We stopped again in Gilroy for lunch, and put about 100 miles back into the battery in 45 minutes, then headed back towards Roseville.  Looking at all the stats in the car when we left, it looked like we might need to stop again, but we got home with about 40 miles of range.

Tillamook remembered us.

August 24th

We got up in the hotel and had breakfast, then headed out for a walk to see San Luis Obispo's downtown area.  After we got back, we prettied ourselves up, then drove the (almost fully charged) Bolt to John and Jana's wedding.  We saw a couple of people we haven't seen for years, met a bunch more, and John's mum presented me with an Ankh-Morpork passport :o)

After the wedding, we drove back to the hotel and managed to snag the last parking space by a 110v socket, so we left the car on charge overnight again.

August 23rd

We loaded our stuff into th Bolt and headed towards San Luis Obispo - this is the longest trip we've taken in the car, and the first time I've charged it away from home.  We left he house with 100% charge (we usually charge to 90% so regenerative braking works immediately), and stopped in Gilroy with about 90 miles left for lunch and to charge the car for 45 minutes on a level 3 fast charger.  That got us about 100 miles, and we set out for San Luis Obispo.

We pulled in to San Luis Obispo with about 35 miles' range left, and went and found a level 3 charger while we had a drink at Starbucks.  Having added another 100 miles or so, we rocked up to the hotel.  They had 110v sockets in part of the car park, so we plugged the car in using the level 1 home charger, set it to 12A (rather than the default 8A) and left it charging overnight.

August 22nd

I started the day over at the airfield, helping load James' new RV-6 into a U-Haul for the trip back to Palm Springs.  Chris had met us at Lincoln, and we went to lunch before James headed back, and Chris headed towards Oregon in his gyroplane.

August 21st

I spent some time at the airport, taking the plane out for a while, then ran the barbecue for the EAA membership meeting.

August 20th

I started the day by collecting tools and losing them in to the gyro, then flying to Cameron Park.  Chris and I fiddled with his brakes for a while, and eventually ended up lifting the front of the plane on 2x4s so we could get them properly bled.  Now they were working, we flew to Oroville to meet Randy and his friend David for lunch.  On the way home, we flew over Paradise and saw all the rebuilding going on after the fire there.

August 19th

I've taken the week off to do things and stuff, and ended up at the airfield helping Chris change the oil and grease the pre-rotator cable on his gyroplane.

He then wanted to look at the brakes, and we managed to take them from pathetic to non-existent.  Yay.  Still, he managed to get home.

August 18th

We took the plane up to Auburn for breakfast, then (hopefully) fixed the zip on the little storage bag when we got back to Lincoln.

August 17th

I got up early and headed to the airport to cook breakfasts at the display day.

After we'd packed up, I met James and Jeff to get James' new RV-6 all packed up and ready to put in a truck and drive to Palm Springs.

August 16th

I spent several hours updating all the Windows machines in the house to 1903.  Thanks, Microsoft :o)

August 12th

Today was Tillamook's 12th birthday.  She got a new ball, pumpkin baby food on her dinner and a whole slice of cheese where she usually gets a corner from my sandwich :o)

August 11th

We got up early and took the plane to Auburn for breakfast.  It was a little busy getting there, as everybody seemed to have the same idea, but everything worked out OK.  I did a pretty short landing, so we could get off at the first taxiway, and it wasn't until we were standing at the restaurant watching everybody else that Vic realised how bumpy it was out there.  Our landing back at Lincoln was a thing of beauty :o)

In the afternoon I built a proof of concept for a table that Vic wants for a plant by her desk at work, but she declared it good enough by itself, and put it in the car to go to work with her tomorrow.

August 10th

I started the day at the airport taking the landing light out of the plane, thinking it had failed. It hadn't it was a bad connection.  It's a pain to get out as the rudder pedals are in the way, and it's a pain to get back in again, too.

I then spent some time cooking burgers for a pile of people at the EAA hangar.  I didn't feel like pulling the hangar open in the heat, so I went home after that.

August 4th

I headed over to the airport early, as Randy and I flew the gyros to Cameron Park to meet Chris.  Chris took his father, I took his mother, and Randy took the steps, and we went to Auburn for brunch.

We flew back along part of the American River on the way back to Cameron Park, and dropped them off.  Chris had managed to lose the key to his hangar, so we left them waiting for his wife to bring him the spare and flew back to Lincoln.

August 3rd

I started the day cooking breakfast at the airport.  It was really busy, for some reason, so I think we did about 35 breakfasts.

I took the gyro out for a while, did a couple of landings, then headed over to the house before remembering Vic had gone to Folsom, so I flew back to Lincoln and put everything away before heading home.

August 2nd

After work we went to the airport to meet a friend of Chris' who was in town to look at an RV-6.  After running about around the airport looking at things, we took him out for dinner, and then discovered that the runway lights at Cameron Park are being turned off, so Chris came and picked him up (he was staying with Chris).

August 1st

A new month, so here are the stats:

Power billed

Power generated

July 30th

We watched "Lady in the Water".  It's odd.

July 29th

Jen came over so I could install an SSD in her laptop.  It took the 10 minutes I said it'd take, so we all went out for pizza to celebrate me not breaking anything else.

July 27th

I went to the airport early, thinking I could do some touch and goes before going to meet Chris and Randy for breakfast in Auburn.  I got in one, then a couple of guys joined the pattern.  I slowed down to let a twin get in front of me, and he then proceeded to do a bomber pattern, meaning I was getting further and further from the airport waiting for him to turn base.  I figured I'd leave the pattern and rejoin, and was on a 45 degree join for downwind when somebody announced they were changing the runway from 15 to 33.  Fine, I'll do an overhead join for 33 then.  Somebody else started bitterly complaining that we should be using 15, so I figured I'd just go and tootle around and head to Auburn via Folsom Lake rather than get caught up in all this nonsense.

After breakfast, we all headed back to Lincoln so we could help Chris sort out his replacement ADSB-in device, then we cleaned and re-oiled his air filter, as it was dry.  He headed out, and I headed home.

In the evening we watched "Hellboy".  It was OK, but it was no "Hellboy".

July 24th

I flew from Lincoln to Cameron Park to have a lesson with Don - in the way there a twin was crossing in front of me, but suddenly turned towards me, causing me to divert so as to not hit him.

Anyway, I flew with Don in the Sportstar from Cameron Park to Mather and did some circuits there to get my controlled airspace endorsement sorted out, then flew back to Lincoln.  Yay!

July 21st

The day started with us getting into the roof to look at the air conditioning motor - apparently it's leaking oil, and I wanted to get a part number from it so I can order a replacement.  Sadly the part number is under a metal strap, and it doesn't matter what we did, we couldn't get it.  We put everything back together and figure we'll wait until it cools down so I can get it out completely and take a look at it.

I then got up on the roof and washed the solar panels for the first time in ages.

July 20th

I started the day at the airport cooking breakfast for 20 or so people at the LRAA display day.

After that was all packed away, I took the plane out for a flight around, then headed home and watched "Shazam!".

July 17th

After work I took the car over to the airport and cooked for the EAA membership meeting.

July 15th

We dug up a sprinkler that was leaking - when I fixed one last time, it's caused the joint to blow on this one.  It'll be interesting to see what fails next.

July 14th

We were all going to meet up at Auburn for breakfast, and Chris was bringing his daughter.  As Vic had decided to ride up on her motorcycle, I offered to collect Chris' wife from Cameron Park if she wanted to join us, and she took me up on the offer.  I landed downwind, because the guy before me landed downwind, but everything was OK, it just wasn't a great landing.  We all loaded up and flew to Auburn, where we landed downwind because people were landing downwind.  Again, not a great landing.

After breakfast, I flew Jackie back to Cameron Park, and landed upwind.  Thankfully it was a much better landing :o)

July 13th

We got up early and headed to the airport to meet Ken and Jamie, wait for Chris then head out to the Colusa fly-in.  It was a fairly uneventful flight over, but there was a lot of activity with people arriving once we were near - a group of Piper Cubs all landed at once, and I head "finals, number 7" at one point.  Luckily everybody was down by the time we got there, and I pulled off a great landing in front of the crowd :o)


We had breakfast (pilots don't have to pay :o)), then Chris won a case of oil he can't use and some rice in the raffle.  Luckily we ran in to Bruce and Scott, and Bruce offered to take it back to Lincoln for us.

After looking at the planes for a while, it was obvious that people were starting to head out.  We flew back to Lincoln, and Chris to Cameron Park.  After I put the plane away, we chatted to Dan who'd flown over in his RV-10, but turned back when he saw how busy it was :o)

July 7th

I went to the airport nice and early to fly up to Auburn to meet Chris and Rob for breakfast.  Randy was supposed to join us, but found that his front tyre was showing the cords, and the spare he'd bought was the wrong size.  Doy.

After breakfast, we flew back to Lincoln and stood about chatting with Dan about John's RV-6A that he's helping build.

July 6th

I got up early and went to the airport to cook breakfast at the EAA hangar - we ran out of eggs, there were that many people there, so that was nice.

Afterwards I sat in on the board meeting as I was already there, then went home and updated a few things on the web site.

July 5th

I got up early and headed to the airport, where I flew to Georgetown to meet Chris.  It's the first time I've been there, and there wasn't anybody about, so I landed on 17, as the wind sock seemed to favour that.  The runway drops off into a ravine, and I found it a little disconcerting to come in and land there, as everything just looks odd.  Chris arrived while I was spinning down the rotors, and I told him there was pretty much no wind, so he landed on 35.  We took off on 35, while a guy not on the radio looked like he was downwind for 17, but he turned away.  I was shooting video, so I thought about running low off the end of the runway, but figured I'd have to worry about hitting Chris, so I just did a normal takeoff.  We circled round over the airport, then headed towards Tahoe, dropping down in to a couple of canyons.

Despite a whole discussion about being warm enough, Chris decided he should have worn a jacket by the time we were at about 5,000', so he landed on a fire trail to stop and get his jacket on.  I just flew around him in circles until he took off again, and we headed back towards Tahoe, flying over a couple of lakes and ridges before getting there.  By the time we got there, I was a little concerned about gas, as I was between 1/2 and 3/4 of a tank, and we were expecting a 15mph headwind on the way back, so we flew for a short way along the coast of the lake before heading back.  At least I've now had the gyroplane over 10,000' (previous record for me was ~4,500').  Of course, we didn't have a bad headwind on the way home, and going downhill meant I got to Auburn with just under 1/2 a tank.

We had brunch while waiting for Randy to show up from Lincoln, then waited for a paint match guy to show up and scan Randy's white and Chris' 2 different red paints, then we split off and went home - I went straight back to Lincoln, Chris went back to Cameron Park and Randy took his daughter on a short sight seeing trip on the way home.  Just under 3 hours, on about 13 gallons of gas isn't too bad - I usually fly a lot slower than Chris, so I usually burn less gas than that.

July 4th

Today was Independence Day, when the Americans celebrate treason by going shopping,  barbecuing getting drunk and setting off fireworks.

As the neighbours (and Sun City, we think) started their fireworks stuff last night, and Tilly hates fireworks, we were pretty beat all day.  Luckily I was covering work, so I checked in a couple of times while pottering about the house.

We spent the evening throwing the ball for Tilly to distract her from the noises outside, which went on past the 22:00 cut off that I guess I'd imagined.

July 1st

A new month, so here are the solar stats:

Power billed

Power generated

June 30th

I didn't sleep well as there were fireworks being let off last night, getting Tilly all upset.  I pretty much dragged through the day, then we went over to the airport.  It had been our intention to fly for a little while, then take Chris to dinner, but he got out of his ground school class early, so we skipped the flying and just went to dinner.

June 29th

I got up early and flew the gyro to Auburn to meet our friends from Columbia airport for breakfast.  Chris was doing his ground school, and Randy was in San Diego, so I flew back and did a little maintenance - I'm at 975 hours now, with the rotor bearing inspection coming up.

In the evening, we watched "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald".

June 28th

Today was the last day of the Kids' Camp, so we took them all flying.  I flew 3 in the gyro, and the rest flew with Bruce (Cardinal)  and Dan (RV-10).  Richard with the Starduster was out, so we were expecting to have to keep an eye out for him, but he ground looped it (we think) on one landing.  Luckily it was off the side of the runway, so it didn't close the airport.

June 27th

I went to the airport for Kids' Camp, where we talked about lighter than air aircraft, then had them trying to get the weighting just right on helium balloons.

June 26th

I went over to the airport, dragged the Piper Aztec out of the EAA hangar, and taxied the gyro round and put it in the hangar for the Kids' Camp talk.  It seemed to go OK, and then Dan had them flying drones - I took the gyro out of the hangar for that.

June 25th

I started the day fixing the broken sprinkler, then went to the airport to help with the Kids' Camp.  Kids are a lot of work, aren't they?

After that, I took the gyro out for a few circuits, then went home.

June 24th

I went over to the airport and set up for the Kids' Camp, then joined everybody else in corralling the 7 kids (7-12) as we took them on a tour of the airport.  It was interesting to see some people actually working, and Byron (bless him) suggested I start teaching for Skyways.  I'm not a CFI :o)

When I got home, I took the guts out of a new sprinkler valve and put it in the old sprinkler valve, so I didn't have to cut it off the pipes.  While it's fixed that leak, it looks like I still have to dig up one of the sprinklers and fix its leak.

In the evening, we watched "Captain Marvel".

June 23rd

I was pretty tired after a long day in the sun yesterday, so I decided against flying.  I looked at a problem with the sprinklers in the garden, and found that one of the valves was leaking, and worked on a presentation for the Aviation Kids' Camp next week at the airport.

June 22nd

It's the AOPA Fly-in at Livermore, but that's a) insanely busy and b) controlled airspace.  Chris had flown down to meet up with some gyroplane guys on Thursday, but neither Randy nor I have a controlled airspace endorsement (yet), so we'd been talking about driving down.  The thing is, it's at last 2 hours each way in the car, so we'd pretty much decided not to go. 

Randy came up with a great idea - we'd fly to Byron, Paul would pick us up there and drive us to Livermore.  I got to the airport early so I could clean my air filter (it was out of oil, so it was due), got the plane out and was all ready to go when Randy arrived.  We were going to have a decent tail wind all the way down, and I took off first - I was at about 750' by half way down the runway, so I did an early crosswind and headed South.  I called McLellan to let them know I was passing to the East at about 2,000', then carefully threaded my way between Sacramento Executive and Mather's class D airspace, then pointed straight at Byron and started listening for Randy.  I was constantly telling him where I was, but he never really told me how far behind he was.  When I passed the 2,000' towers, I slowed down to ~65mph (airspeed) and told him not to run in to me.  As I was approaching Byron, he said he was 21 miles from Byron - I was about 10 miles from Byron at that point.  Oh well, at least he got to practice navigating by himself rather than just following me :o)  I was looking on the map, and at the hills in front of me, and thinking Byron must be on the other side - the tallest peak nearby was listed at 2,200, and I wanted to be comfortably over that because of the wind, so I was climbing towards 4,000' when I saw Byron.  This side of the hills.  Doy.  I descended (a lot), joined the pattern and landed.  I was getting off at the first taxiway and there was a glider towing up - I stopped to allow them past, but they wanted to get on the runway on the taxiway I was on, so I ended up taxying around a bit to get to the parking area.  I parked, then waved Randy in to park next to me (2 gyros takes up way less space than 1 fixed wing).  The Patriots jet display team are based at Byron (I didn't know this), and 2 of the jets were going out - I went out and waved at them, and they popped smoke back at me :o)  Paul showed up while I was chatting to a fire marshall, we loaded everything up and headed to the show.  The show was interesting - we watched the STOL demonstration (the highlight being Draco and Yee-Haw) and met up with a bunch of gyro guys who were in town for the show.  I got to sit in Peter's bright yellow AR-1 that he'd flown up from Los Angeles.

As everything started to shut down, Paul drove us back to Byron, and Chris flew from Livermore and met us, before heading out.  We headed towards Cameron Park, and once we'd got almost past Mather, Chris headed home, and Randy and I headed towards Lincoln.  After a while, I noticed Randy was drifting off to the West, so I followed him - he thought he was heading back towards Lincoln, but after we'd landed, we figured that he'd told his GPS to go to Lincoln, but we'd carried on to avoid Mather's airspace, and he was then headed back to get on that original track rather than using the heading bug at the top of his screen :o)

June 21st

We watched "Skyscraper".  Despite some good scenes, I'd say it was meh.

June 19th

After work, I rode the DRZ over to the airport and cooked for the EAA meeting.  It made it all the way there and back without a problem, which is nice.

June 16th

I started my day around 01:00, getting called out for work.  It was a French customer, who'd left a callback number that went to a message in French.  I had no idea what that said, so I mailed a bunch of people there and pointed out that we needed a direct number.  An hour later, I gave up and went back to bed.  He replied with the same phone number around 06:30, so I got up and reiterated my need for a direct number, which I finally got, only to see that it was a problem with them not managing their servers, and not something that we should be doing for them.  Triffic.  I'd given him my direct number, so I hung around the house expecting the promised call back.  They didn't call back.

June 15th

I was on call, so I got up and cleared out the overnight stuff, then headed to the airport to cook breakfast for the LRAA display day.  When everything was put away, I went over to the hangar and got the plane out, then flew down to Columbia to meet Chris and Steve (passenger) for lunch - there was a fly-in there that we'd been invited to by Kim and Victoria, a couple we met up at Auburn a few months ago.  They had a temporary tower there (interestingly there was no NOTAM that I could find), and they told me to call overhead at 2000'.  The runway's at 2100', so I assumed they meant 4100', so called that when I was above.  The controller told me to fly North and to expect a right downwind join for 17.  When I was about 2.5 miles North, he said I could head for downwind, but that seemed odd as I was upwind of the airport, so I suggested I just do a straight in approach, rather than tie up the runway for that long (they'd been racing cars up and down the runway when I flew overhead).  I got him to agree, so I just turned in and flew to the threshold - he wanted me to take the first turn off to the right, on the grass, and I could see that a fair way down the runway, so I flew low until near the turn off, with the controller getting more upset that I hadn't landed - I landed and stopped right by the turn off, then followed the marshall to park just 2 spots up from Chris.  I got out and sorted everything out, and Chris and Steve arrived having watched me land.  We wandered about a bit looking at the stalls, then ordered a pizza and went to see Kim and Victoria at their hangar while we ate.  Chris had to get home for his wife's birthday, so we headed out just after 14:00.  We had to wait for the car races to finish, then crossed the runway to the taxiway, then had to wait for the car races again before we took off, pretty close together.  The controller asked us to do a low pass, so we came back around and did that before heading North West towards home - they dropped off towards Cameron Park, and I headed back to Lincoln - it seemed to have been a long day, but it was less than 3 hours flying.

June 14th

Having worked Sunday, I had today off.  Obviously I had a conference call first thing, as I found out too late to cancel it, but after that I pottered around the house doing things and stuff, then headed to the airport to take the plane out for a while.

June 11th

Vic drove the van to work, and I got the windows tinted in the Bolt.  Oooh... first mod :o)

June 9th

I was working covering Australia in the afternoon, so by the time I'd got myself all sorted out, it was too late to go and fly.  Oh well.

June 8th

I pottered over to the airport to cook lunch before Dan's ADS-B presentation, then talked about GPS displays with people and "helped" Tim and Darren with their throttle cable replacement.  Chris had been talking about flying up to Redding, about 100 miles away, to look at a plane, but there was a 25-35mph headwind, so I figured we wouldn't go because of that - it didn't occur to me that it was because the guy couldn't fly in that much wind :o)

We ended up meeting at Auburn for their "Soaring Saturday" thing, and as the only people to fly in, we ended up in the display with the old biplanes and Jim's Quickie Q200.  The wind wasn't an issue taking the gyroplane out, but it was a pain taxying crosswind with it trying to blow the rotor over - this was with the rotor stopped.  I crabbed the whole damn way to Auburn, where the wind was a lot lower.  Coming home, I was crabbed the whole damn way back to Lincoln, and when I turned downwind I saw my ground speed as 108mph, where my airspeed was 70mph.  After landing, I sat on the edge of the runway and let the rotor spin down before taxying crosswind - it's not like there was anybody about that I was getting in the way for.

June 6th

I took the car in to get the dashboard worked on.  I'd arranged to have a loaner car so I could get home and do some work, and they gave me a (white) 2018 Volt.  It's not as nice to drive as the Bolt, as it seems a lot more claustrophobic, and the regenerative braking... doesn't, really.  It's also worrying to see it say "38 miles range" when you get into it.  I got it home, put it on charge, then took it back at the end of the day without using any gas :o)  It was nice bringing the Bolt home again, but I'm not convinced that the problem's fixed, but whatever, it's over.

June 5th

After work, I went out to the airport and took the gyro out for a couple of circuits, then just went and pottered around for a bit.

June 2nd

We headed out to the airport, met Randy and flew up to Auburn to meet Chris for brunch.  He strapped my camera to the side of his gyro with one of his GoPro mounts on the way home, and we'll see how that worked out compared to my mast mount.

In the evening, I was bothered that the air conditioning wasn't cooling anything.  I took a look outside and the fan in the cooling tower wasn't turning.  At first I thought it could be the starting capacitor (again), but it was actually that the breaker panel was labelled incorrectly, so when I'd turned off the "Dryer" to see how many wires there were going in (3, so no easy 250v car charger upgrade for me), I'd actually turned off the AC.  I didn't bother turning it back on again, as we don't have a 250v dryer.

Just as well we didn't have a 4 wire connection there that I'd then have tried upgrading to a NEMA 14-30 socket, eh?

June 1st

A new month, so here are the solar stats:

Power billed

Power generated

I started the day at the EAA hangar doing some wiring for the ceiling fans.  I wasn't about to get up on one of the scaffolds to work on the roof, so I ran out of stuff to do around the time that Randy showed up, so we got the planes out and waited for Chris to arrive.  We'd been talking about going to Sutter for their display day, but figured it was probably too late, so we ended up flying up to Auburn for lunch.  We flew back down the canyon, then tinkered around at Lincoln for a bit before all heading out.

May 27th

Today was Memorial Day, when American remember their war dead by going shopping.

I put the DRZ back together, put oil in it and started it up.  Well, it still runs.

Other than that, I was on call, so I pretty much just checked work from time to time.  We did wash and wax the car in an attempt to get some greasy crap off it.  I think we were less successful than we'd hoped here.  I'd planned to go flying, but a bad night's (no) sleep meant I didn't really feel up to it.  There's always next weekend.

May 26th

I went to the airport and bummed a ride with John to Livermore, where we flew the weather plane for a Memorial Day flypast of a military cemetary.  Once we saw it was possible to get there, we joined at the back of the 15 ship formation, and flew past Travis Air Force Base and the cemetery before coming home.

May 25th

I drained the oil out of the DRZ, as it's got a load of gas in it, and changed the filter.  When I get around to it, I'll put it all back together.

We took the car over to the dealer to replace a little plastic part on the dashboard.  After a while trying to fix it, they discovered a service bulletin saying that the whole dashboard needs to come out to fix this.  And that'll take 4 hours.  During the week some time when the parts come in.  Yay.

I went over to the airport and got in John's way working on his RV-6, then waxed the rotors on the Magni and took it out for a quick flight.

May 24th

We watched "Ant Man and The Wasp" to try and get up to date with the MCU.

May 23rd

We got  an energy efficiency roundup from Chevrolet about the Bolt.

Electric Economy:	28 kW-hr/100 miles
MPG Electric:	119 MPGe
Miles this Report:	888 miles
Estimated Gallons of Fuel Saved:	39 gal
Estimated CO2 Avoided:	749 lbs
Odometer:	1,570 miles

May 21st

Jen came over and we finally all got around to watching "Avengers: Endgame".

May 20th

Kerry and Dan got to play with Tilly after putting their dog, Tembi, in the car.  As they were only staying the night, we didn't really have time to catch up or introduce the dogs properly, so we just kept them apart.

May 19th

After work, Jen came over and we watched the last episode of Game of Thrones.

Kerry and Dan were driving from San Diego to Corvallis, and stopped to say "hi" and crash the night with us on their way past.

May 18th

We were supposed to be cooking breakfast at the airport for the display day, but the weather wasn't cooperating, so that was called off.

I ended up going to the airport to meet Chris to look at a Europa and go for lunch.

After that, I worked on the DRZ - I figured out that I could test the flat valve for leaking by blowing in the fuel hose, and that seems to be working OK.  I took the tank off and fixed the throttle cable, then put everything back together.  I still need to change the oil again, as I'm pretty sure it's contaminated with gas, but for now I think we're getting there.

May 17th

I took the day off to take the car to the dealer and get the license plate mount installed, a little dent worked on and a paint chip fixed.  While I was there, I pointed out a little interior panel that's not sitting properly, and it's apparently broken, so they've ordered a new one.  Yay.

May 12th

I took the car over to the airport to meet John around lunchtime.  I did a couple of circuits, then tinkered around with stuff for a while.  When John arrived, we flew up to Auburn, to find that the Google was wrong, they weren't open until 14:00.  So we flew back to Lincoln and took the car to lunch instead.

In the evening, Jen came over and we watched the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones.

May 11th

I started the day at the airport, where I flew in the morning, then cooked lunch before the presentation - we talked about the Young Eagles event, what worked and what we thought we could do better.

May 7th

I was working late, so I had the morning to potter around.  I installed a second garage door opener thingy, so now I can open either door from my phone.  Yay.

May 5th

I started the day going to the airport and flying with Randy and taking his daughter up to Auburn for breakfast with Chris and Jackie.

I spent the afternoon working on the EAA website and doing stuff to kill time before Jen came over to watch Game of Thrones.

May 4th

Happy Star Wars day!

We went to the airport and helped out for the Young Eagles event.  Chris had come over from Cameron Park, and we started off slowly - we were the last to be hooked up with passengers, as we wanted people with jackets while it was colder, and sunglasses to protect the eyes.  Still, after that we were really busy, I believe I flew 8 times, including one of the parents (he's been bringing his daughters to events for a few years, and we were in the calm between storms), and one of the volunteers I was going to fly last year when the oil leak occurred.

When we got home, we were both too tired to do anything, so we watched "Deadpool 2" and had an early night.

May 3rd

I'd taken the day off (well, I still had a meeting to attend), so I went to the airport and swapped the tyres on the plane as one was showing some cracking.  Once I had the tyres off, I could see a couple of bulges, so they were definitely due to be changed.

Chris came over from Cameron Park, and we changed his oil, played with the GPS and looked at his bald tyre - we couldn't figure out how to get the (Beringer) wheel off, and apart, so we decided to leave that.  We also installed a silencer that Don gave him, to hopefully make it a bit quieter for climbing out of the airpark.

May 1st

A new month, so here are the stats:

Power billed

Power generated

So it looks like the car used an extra 200KWh (roughly $20), where the Jeep would have been about $200 in gas.

April 28th

Chris and I had agreed to meet up at Auburn to fly up to Truckee, so I got to the airport early and got the plane out.  I headed out early, thinking I could take my time making a 25 minute flight in 45 minutes - I was over towards Folsom Lake and about 10 miles from Auburn heading North when I heard Chris call in at 5 miles from Auburn, so I hustled over there and landed a few minutes after him.  It usually takes us a bit of time to get to the restaurant, as people are stopping us and talking about the gyros, but the Trimotor was up there, meaning more people, meaning a longer walk to the restaurant.  We saw Brad on the ramp, and he told use they were at ~300 passengers so far (remember, we set the record 4 years ago at >800), but that's still pretty good.  Chris ended up taking a short flight with his instructor in one of his students' (another Chris) Zenith 750.  We were talking to a couple from Columbia, Kim and Victoria, and decided that while we were waiting for breakfast, I'd take Victoria for a quick flight in the gyro, landing and walking up to the restaurant just in time to sit down for breakfast.  After breakfast, we'd given up on getting to Truckee, and Chris took his instructor up in his gyro, and I took t'other Chris' daughter up in mine.  We borrowed a headset from the flight school, but it screwed up my intercom, so I couldn't hear anything (I could hear people were talking, just not what they were saying).  After a quick flight down the canyon, we headed back and dropped everybody off, at which point we unplugged the borrowed headset and everything was fine.  Chris and I flew back to Lincoln to do a little work on his plane, but he realised that he was running out of time, so he headed home so as to not get a whipping for being late.

In the evening, Jen came over and we watched Game of Thrones.

April 27th

I went to the airport in the morning for the hangar work day, and ended up working on the ceiling fans - they needed the poles extended, so Tim and I cut those and extended them.  I then worked with Jim,  Scott and Amy to get them all put together and wired up, but we'd managed to cut 2 of them too long (well, it beats the alternative).  I took everything apart on those 2, and got the poles cut to the right length, but we weren't on the back side of the hangar anyway, so they haven't been hung yet.

After that, I went and cleared up some oil on the floor (from changing it, when it spurted out and got to places where I didn't get to, to clean it off), and took the plane out for a couple of circuits to test everything out - no problems, so we'll call that good.

In the evening, we watched "Cooties", which was suitably stupid.

April 26th

I had the day off, having worked Sunday, so obviously I had a load of work meetings to attend in the morning.  After that was all over, I went to the airport and did a bunch of maintenance on the plane, and helped Randy rotate the tyres on his plane.  I had a little trouble with the quick drain oil plug I've installed, as it's being blocked by the baffles in the oil tank, so I just ended up removing it and putting the stock drain plug back in - I had spare crush washers.  Investigation shows that newer tanks (no specification, just "newer") require an extended, so I've ordered one of those.

April 23rd

The lever for one of the toilets has broken (hey, it's >20 year old plastic, I'm not bothered), so I figured I'd replace them both, and the fill valve for the one that occasionally changes itself.  I took the car over to Lowe's and picked up everything I needed (I had thought about changing the tap on the water hose, but that'd need me to turn off water to the house, and to have measured the input pipe, rather than just assume it's 1/2").  I changed everything out, then noticed that the tank would occasionally fill for a couple of seconds - the old lever had the arm bent, where the new one doesn't, meaning it's putting a little sideways pressure on the system and allowing water through, albeit very slowly.  I was going to bend the arm (with a little heat), but then I figured I'd just put a zip tie on it and see if that works.  It has, so I'll leave that until it causes a problem :o)

Oh, the fun, it never stops...

April 22nd

Jen came over to watch Game of Thrones - she and I were working last night, so we rescheduled :o)

April 21st

I met Chris at the airport and got the plane out - his plane's off to Fresno with the other owner, so he drove his Miata over.  We flew up to Auburn to see if the grill was open, and despite the "Open" sign in the window, it wasn't.  I had a guy run up behind us when we were on finals, and he got a bit huffy at having to go around because we were still on the runway when he wanted to land.  He shouldn't have turned base leg so soon after us, really... we'd extended slightly to allow a Mooney to land in front of us.

We flew back above the canyon (not right down into it) so Chris could (hopefully) take some pictures, then headed back.  Due to the Northerly wind, we lined up to land on 33, then got off the runway to allow a guy to take off on 15, despite the other plane waiting to take off on 33.  It was one of those days.

We went to Subway for lunch, and Ken joined us, then I went home to cover the Australian timezone.

April 20th

I  started the day cooking breakfast at the LRAA display day at Lincoln.  It was bloody windy, so there weren't a lot of people out, so I got nagged into getting the gyro out - I pulled it out and put the car in the hangar and put it on charge as I was going to be a couple of hours.  I had originally planned to go flying afterwards, but it was gusting around 30mph, and while the gyro would have been fine with that, I decided to just go home.  I was on call anyway, so I could clear out some stuff in the queue.

We went to pick up some things and stuff, and plugged the car in at a free charging point near Chipotle - it's the first time we've left it charging outside the garage, so it was nice to see that the car thought it would be fully charged (at 6 or 7 Kw/h) pretty quickly.  I even debated changing the charge limit to 100% to suck up even more free power (we charge to 90% as we don't need maximum range, and that allows the regenerative braking to work as soon as Vic leaves the house - I think she's forgotten what the other pedal's for).

In the evening, we watched "Glass".

April 14th

I went out to the airport and took the plane out - there's a wildflower bloom up by Oroville, so I flew up to see it.  It's an interesting flight, and there were a lot of people in cars looking at the flowers, so I didn't get too close.  I flew back along the other side of Beale Air Force Base, so I've now flow all the way around it in one day.  I took the GoPro, and the battery ran out just after I'd got back, and was in the hangar, so that's almost 2 hours - not too bad at all.

I went home and tinkered with the DRZ - the throttle cable's come out of it's holder, so it's been holding the cable a little bit too taut, and that's why it's been ticking over at 5,000rpm.  I'll have to take the tank off (again) to fix this, so I'll do it when I'm feeling stronger.

In the evening Jen came over and we watched the final series premiere of Game of Thrones.

April 13th

I went to the airport, where we got everything set up for the "Airport Fun Day".  I pulled the gyroplane out and parked it in the line-up, then cooked hot dogs.  So many hot dogs.  Occasionally I got to go and tell people it's not acceptable for their children to climb on the aircraft, and talk about the gyroplane.

After everything was packed away, I took the plane out for an hour or so, then headed home, where we watched "Welcome To Marwen".

April 10th

I tinkered about with the DRZ again, basically just installing the quiet insert into the exhaust, as California's supposedly going to be cracking down on loud exhausts.  I don't know if it'll make a difference, but the DRZ was quieter than a Harley with the noisy insert.