January 26th

I went out to the airport and took the plane out for a little toddle around.

January 25th

I'd been hoping to go out and fly, but the cloudbase was at 300' or lower.

We did meet Randy for lunch, then headed out to run errands - the weather forecast didn't show it cheering up, but it did.

January 20th

Today was Martin Luther King Jr Day, when Americans remember the civil rights pioneer by going shopping.

It was cold, damp and foggy, so I wasted the day working and dicking around while waiting for a delivery.

January 19th

We headed to the airport to try to fly up to Auburn for breakfast, but it was foggy at home, despite the Lincoln AWOS saying everything was fine.  As we got closer, it obviously updated, because the visibility suddenly dropped to 1/4 mile and the cloudbase to 100'.  We drove towards Auburn, but pretty much as soon as we left Lincoln, it cleared up.  I thought about turning around for most of the journey, but looking at the AWOS, it stayed foggy at Lincoln pretty much all day.  We met Chris and Chris, and had breakfast, then drove home and worked on cutting lumps off the shrubbery in the garden for a while.

January 18th

I went to the airport and spent some time getting the cabling in from the back of the plane to the radio.  And huzzah!  It works!

I took the plane out for almost an hour, and pottered around for a while.  With all the new bearings and ball joints, the steering is pretty heavy, but I'm expecting that to loosen up as things wear in.

I was supposed to be meeting Chris for lunch, so when I heard him on the radio, I started heading back.  I landed and put the plane back in the hangar, then texted him.  He was in Rio Linda, which has the same frequency as Lincoln, which is why I hadn't heard him in the pattern.  Still, he showed up a while later and went through his logbook endorsements to do his private pilot's practical test (like me, he's a sport pilot right now), by which time he had to leave to get back to Cameron Park before it got dark.

In the evening, we watched "Joker".

January 17th

We went out to the airport and started installing the new antenna on the plane.  The first attempt had the base getting trapped inside the keel, so we changed where we tied the string to the base, and tried again.  We managed to get it through to the end, but it was upside down, and the keel is too small to turn it over, so we pulled it out again.  The third attempt made it, and we managed to pull it out of the hole.  We got the base all mounted up properly, and called it a night there, as it was damned cold.  Now I just need to run the cable to the front and put back everything I took off to get the old cable out.

January 15th

We went to the EAA membership meeting, where Dan talked about vertigo.

January 12th

We'd intended to go to San Francisco for bURNING vAN, but Vic's been sick all week, so we passed on that.

We went and met Chris at Lincoln for lunch, then went and checked on David's RV-9A.  He wasn't there, just John told me he'd tested the engine and it was OK, then he'd flown it and everything seemed fine.  Now he needs to put ~10 hours on it before testing the compression on the new cylinder.

January 11th

I went to the airport and started getting the antenna cable removed.  I've cut a lot of zip ties, and removed some stuff, and pulled it out of the keel with string attached, so hopefully I can pull the new cable back in "easily".

I went and helped cook lunch for the EAA meeting - we had over 30 people show up and eat, which is great for a cold day.

After the meeting, I went and got in David's way while he worked on his RV-9A.  He's replaced a cylinder, and I suggested he run it up before flying it - first of all it was throwing fuel out because there were a couple of loose fittings, then the EGT on the new cylinder wasn't going up like the other cylinders.  I was dropping a headset off with Chris when David called to say he hadn't mounted the probe correctly.  Doy.

January 10th

I went over to the airport and bolted the remaining parts of the antenna back in place so I could show Greg, the Magni dealer, exactly what's broken.

January 9th

I took the van in for an oil change.  They pointed out that one of the tie rod end boots is torn, but it's not a problem yet.  I don't think the boot can be replaced, but the whole tie rod end should be around $15.

I took the van over to Vic's work, and swapped it for the Bolt, then took that in for its first service.  All they needed to do was swap the wheels around.

January 8th

I spent the day at the airport working on the annual with Randy.  Everything's done, we just need to go for a test flight.  We're talking about using a handheld radio, as my radio isn't going to be working due to the broken antenna.

January 7th

I went to the airport and spent the day bothing Bill while he rebuilt the gearboxes on my, Randy and Jamie's planes.  Mine needed one spring replacing, and the slipper clutch tightening.

Unfortunately, somebody broke the antenna off my plane, so I need to replace that before I start flying anywhere :o(

January 6th

I've taken the week off to get some work done on the plane, but I didn't have anything that needed doing today, so I just took it easy.

January 5th

We had planned to meet up at Auburn for breakfast, but the fog here meant nobody was going to be flying from Lincoln at the very least.  Kim and Victoria were going to come up from Columbia, but their plans went awry too, so we ended up meeting Randy at a local diner instead.

When we got home, I pulled some more lumps off the shrubbery along the side of the house until the green waste bin was pretty much full.

January 4th

I got up early and went to the airport to cook a crap load of breakfasts - the weather started out looking grim, so I guess people were looking for something to do.

After that, I went and helped Randy replace the stereo audio plug into his GPS with a mon plug - this involved some cutting, wire stripping and soldering.  A quick test makes me think we've solved the noise on the line problem, but he needs to get out and fly it to be sure.

Chris also came over from Cameron Park to safety wire his prop bolts having replaced the pre-rotator pulleys.  We got that done, too.

I pulled the prop off the plane in preparation for the gearbox rebuild on Tuesday, and headed home.

January 3rd

I'd noticed the ADS-B statistics were dropping off, so I went to look at the Raspberry Pi that's gathering them.  The device was fine, but the antenna had fallen over so it was touching the metal window frame.  I've fixed this, and extended it a little to get to half the 1090 wavelength.  I've also taped it to the window so it won't (hopefully) fall over again.  The stats are coming back up, so I'm calling that an easy fix :o)

January 1st

A new month, year and decade, so here are the solar stats:

Power billed

Power generated

Chris came over from Cameron Park to pick me up, and we flew with Randy down to Columbia, where we spent the afternoon with Kim and Victoria.  As it was getting on, I flew back with Randy so Chris could go straight home.

December 31st

We went and met Jen for dinner, then went and saw "The Rise of Skywalker".