June 29th

Apparently my regulator was on its way back to Sacramento:

June 29, 2020, 7:03 am Arrived at USPS Regional Destination Facility SACRAMENTO

It left there soon after, for parts unknown:

June 29, 2020, 8:45 am Departed USPS Regional Facility SACRAMENTO

Your item departed our USPS facility in SACRAMENTO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER on June 29, 2020 at 8:45 am. The item is currently in transit to the destination.

It finally arrived in Roseville:

June 29, 2020, 3:44 pm Arrived at Post Office ROSEVILLE

Looks like it should be here tomorrow :o)

June 28th

Randy came and picked me up and we went to the airport to look at a stripped thread on one of his carb tops.  He was thinking he'd need to replace it.  Peering at it, I realised we could just swap the tops (there's a nut and bolt on the other side), so we ended up doing that.  Fixed!  Even better, a slight fuel weep he'd had before was now fixed (we were checking that we hadn't made it worse) by us taking stuff apart and putting it back together, so pending a test flight, he can probably cancel the order for that hard fuel line :o)

At home, I tinkered around with the DRZ, and I reckon the problem is the filter's come off one of the fuel input tubes in the tank, and there's crap in the lines / fuel tap or whatever.  Now I just need to figure out exactly what I want to do with that :o(

My regulator is on its way somewhere:

June 28, 2020 In Transit to Next Facility

No idea where it's going now.

We watched "Ma".

June 27th

I got a text at 03:05 to say my regulator had arrived at the post office at Corona.  So, just for completeness, here's where it's travelled.

June 23, 2020, 12:35 am Accepted at USPS Origin Facility CORONA

June 23, 2020, 1:50 am Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility ANAHEIM

June 24, 2020, 3:35 am Departed USPS Regional Facility ANAHEIM

June 24, 2020, 12:31 pm Arrived at USPS Regional Facility SACRAMENTO

June 24, 2020, 10:11 pm Departed USPS Regional Destination Facility SACRAMENTO

June 26, 2020 In Transit to Next Facility

June 27, 2020, 3:03 am Arrived at Post Office CORONA

June 27, 2020, 11:55 am Arrived at USPS Facility CORONA

Priority 2 day shipping my arse.

Paul was on his way back from Truckee (I'd thought it was a day trip, but he's been there all week), so we met him at Auburn for lunch - he and Chris flew in in their gyros, we rode the motorcycles.

My bike started running badly on the way home, and I think it's the gas that's been sitting in the tank for months.  I'm planning to drain that out and use it in the lawn mower, and put nice fresh gas back in, as it felt like it was running out of gas, but the DRZ usually does that for a mile or so, then runs out of gas.

In the evening I went out to the airport and watched what actually happened with my regulator so I can be sure that the new one will fix the problem. 

At around 2,100 rpm tickover, I was showing under 13v, and after a few minutes, the charge light would come on.  Revving the engine (I was on the ground) to maybe 3,500 rpm, I couldn't get the charge light to go out.  I swapped in Randy's regulator, and at tickover I was seeing 13.4v, going up to 13.8v at 3,500 rpm.  I didn't want to run Randy's plane without him there, so I put my regulator back on mine, and had the same lower voltage, but the light didn't come on.  I figured I'd take it out and see what happened, but the light came on before I'd even got to the main taxiway.  It's a shame, as it was quite windy, and I wanted to see how short a takeoff roll I could do :o)

June 26th

Having waited all damn week for the new regulator for the plane to show up, it didn't.  I've been watching the tracking, and it seems to stop for a day every chance it gets, but it was always supposed to arrive today.  When they said it was going to arrive by 20:00, I gave up on installing it this evening, and figured I could do it in the morning - it's just 2 bolts and a connector, after all.

June 24th

We watched "Ford v Ferrari."

June 22nd

I met Randy at the airport and we replaced one of his float bowls - the safety wire hole had broken, and he doesn't like safety wiring to something else :o)

June 21st

Chris invited me to fly with him in the RV-6A to Willows for lunch, so I met him at Lincoln and we flew over there.

After lunch, we flew back, and got to say "hi" on the radio to Paul Hollingsworth on his way to Truckee.

Jamie was pushing her new gyroplane back up the taxiway, so we went and pushed it back to the hangar, then tried to start it and diagnosed a flat battery.  I also explained that if you interrupt the shutdown of her EFIS, it'll stay on, and that's why she was freaking out about the EFIS not shutting down.  We plugged her battery into a tender, but with the AGM battery at 10.5v, I'm not promising it'll come back.

John was out putting miles on his new Harley, so he stopped at Lincoln for water and an ice cream, then followed me home to say "hi" to Vic before heading home again.

In the evening we watched "Bloodshot."

June 20th

I pottered around the house all day, then went to the airport to go and fly.  On takeoff, the battery charge light came on, so I just did a circuit and landed (electric fuel pumps mean when the battery's dead, you get to land regardless.)

I fiddled about with the battery, hoping to have an excuse to upgrade to a Lithium battery, but I think it's the regulator.  I texted Ken, and he also thinks it's the regulator.

June 17th

Tonight, I attended the EAA membership meeting over Webex.

June 16th

Tilly's face is back to normal :o)

After work I went and met Randy at the airport so we could fly two of his kids - we flew up a river he's been interested in exploring, then went back to Lincoln.  It was a really nice night, but there weren't any parachutes to look at on the way home.

June 15th

Tilly's been stung or bitten in the face by something, as she's looking a little puffy there.  We gave her an antihistamine, and she slept most of the afternoon and woke up looking and feeling a bit better.

June 14th

Randy came over and we did some work on his Honda Pilot - we replaced the thermostat, a tickover sensor and a sensor in the rear differential.  I managed to drop a gasket under the airbox, and taking that out we found the filter was filthy, so we replaced that too.  We went to get some lunch, and figured out that the cooling system has air bubbles in it (strangely never had that problem changing the radiator in the Jeep, so he'll work on that - it seems as simple as running it with the heater on for a while.

In the evening we went for a flight around Beale Air Force base's airspace, and it was glorious - warm enough, but no thermals or bouncy wind.  We even saw what looked like a Flightstar or Hurricane single seater and a couple of powered parachutes over by Camp Far West lake.

June 13th

I'm on call this weekend, so after I'd cleared out the work stuff, I went to meet Chris in Auburn for lunch.  I was a bit early, so I puttered around getting there.

We chatted with a bunch of guys who were collecting a Bonanza, and had stopped for lunch, then went and got our lunch before they closed.  I pottered around a little on the way home, as Chris was going to do some circuits in his RV, then landed and showed him Jamie's new M-22 in the hangar.

Marty and his wife were at the airport, so we chatted to them for a bit, then Chris headed back to Cameron Park and I headed home to clear out some more work stuff.

June 11th

I met Randy at the airport, and we looked at Jamie's new M-22 which was delivered yesterday.  Eh...

We went for a flight over to Chris' house, circled it and came back.  He wasn't in, it appeared, but Jackie was and saw us :o)

June 10th

After work, I went and picked Randy up to go and look at his pre-rotator - he'd had the bendix out and thought he'd stripped the thread on it.  Looking at it, no, he'd stripped the thread on the screw, so we replaced that.  He had a prior engagement with taking his kids to play mini-golf, so we decided against flying.

June 9th

After work, I went and met Randy at the airport, where we took the gyroplanes out for a little putter around the area.

June 7th

We flew to Auburn, in the wind and thermals from the puffy cumulus clouds, and met Chris for brunch.

The wind was coming from the North, so we took off on 33 and flew along above one of the streams out of the foothills to get to Auburn.  Once there, we did the usual "answer questions on the gyroplane" thing, and I let a couple of kids sit in the plane.  I also roped in Chris to let one of the kids sit in his RV-6A (he said he wanted to practice flying it, I say he was late and wanted the faster aircraft) so he could be a cool kid too :o)

After getting back to Lincoln, we headed to Costco to pick up some stuff.  Notably they didn't have any Dr Pepper, only Diet, so I couldn't get any to load up the fridge in the hangar :o(

June 6th

Sutter were having a display day, so Chris stopped at Lincoln and we took the gyroplanes over for lunch.  Bruce flew his Cardinal over too, so he could get a display day sign off, and complained and complained about how bumpy it was flying under 1600' to be below the Beale shelf :o)  I flew South of the airport to do a 45 degree join to their (right hand) pattern, and Chris did an overhead join, so he got there before me.

Chris and I spent quite a while talking about gyros, and were the last people to get lunch.  One of the Sutter organisers, Carin, asked if we'd take a look at a gyroplane she'd had in her hangar for years from her uncle.  It looks like a Bandit, and we chatted about it for a while - they want to sell it, and I also suggested seeing if the McClellan museum might take it as a donation.

We flew back along the Feather River to Bear Creek, then headed back to Lincoln.

Chris had a problem with a fuse holder in his dashboard a while back, and I jumped past it (so the line is unfused) as a test.  Well, everything's working fine now, so he bought some circuit breakers.  He brought those, along with crimping tools and so on with him, so we replaced the 3 fuses in his panel with circuit breakers.  I checked when he'd got home, and everything was still working fine, so I believe myself to be up to date with everybody else's aircraft projects :o)

June 5th

Tilly's still not thrown up, even though she's back on kibble, so I'm thinking she's healed :o)  My arm and ribs are still sore - I'm hoping I haven't cracked a rib.  Again.

I took the afternoon off so I could take our new fridge to the hangar and get that unpacked and plugged in - we'll now have soda and ice cream bars :o)  After that, I taxied the plane to the gazebo where we talked about the plan for the fly-over for Amy's graduation.  We had 8 planes, including me and Randy in the gyros, and I thought we had a reasonable plan - Randy and I, being the slowest, would leave first, then tag along behind John in his Citabria.  Well, we flew further South than I'd thought, waiting for them to catch up with us, and then Jim in his 175 and Jay in his Waiex were behind John - I saw Jim, but Jay flew under me - I'm not convinced he saw me at all :o)  Anyway, we flew over Amy's, she said "thanks" on the radio, and we went back to Lincoln.

Back at Lincoln, there was a guy waiting to get out in a Cessna somethingorother.  I said he could get out in front of me, as I'd extended my downwind to let John land, and the Cessna said he was happy to wait.  I told him we were on a 1.5 mile final with a groundspeed of ~38mph (>20mph wind at this point), so he gave up waiting and took off first.  I flew to midfield before landing, so I could pull off and let the rotor spin down, and Randy could land and get off at the first exit and let his rotor spin down too.

Randy mentioned that he was now at the point where he could do his oil change, so we did his oil change - struggling because he'd overtightened his oil filter when installing it.  It's until the gasket touches, then 3/4 of a turn, not "as tight as you can get it".  Anyway, it's all done now.

June 3rd

Tilly's managed to go a whole day without throwing up, and we're out of boiled chicken, so, much to her disgust, for supper we've gone back to kibble to see how she does.

In the evening, I joined the online EAA IMC club, as they were talking about a scenario where a VFR rated pilot flew into IMC conditions and was killed.  It sounds like he did pretty much everything wrong, so I'm not sure I've learnt anything from that :o)

I think you deserve to see teddy bears on a rollercoaster.

June 2nd

Tilly got me up early this morning to go and throw up, and it was a small ball of rice.  She's still been eating grass, so we've decided to put a stop to that.  She's very much in favour of the rice and chicken though, and enjoyed the pumpkin baby food this morning.

I'm still a bit sore around my ribs, so I'll stay off the bike for a while.  It's supposed to hit 105F tomorrow anyway...

June 1st

A new month, so here are the stats:

Power billed

Power generated

I've had to do the calculations from my TED5000, as I can no longer read the little plastic screen on the inverter.  Still, they should be within an acceptable margin of error.

I think I should make my ringtone the dog horking up (again). It certainly gets you out of bed in the morning.

Tilly got me up a couple of times overnight to go and throw up, so I'm thinking she should be pretty much empty by now.  She threw up after a breakfast of just rice, too, poor ickle thing.  She's perfectly happy though, so we've just she'll be on a bland diet of rice and chicken, and sometimes pumpkin baby food (for the fibre) for a couple of days.  I also bought some oatmeal, for variety.

On my lunchtime bicycle ride, I crashed.  I didn't go back and see what I'd hit, as I was banged and scratched up a bit.  Still, I managed to ride home, albeit a bit slowly.  I'll probably be sore for a couple of days, and then maybe I'll try staying off some of the trails - they're always full of bloody people right now anyway.

May 31st

I went over to the airport and cleaned the plane while waiting for Randy.  We changed his rod end ball joints, and now, as far as I'm concerned, he's ready for his annual inspection - he can change his own damned oil.

We had lunch at the Spitfire, then Randy headed off home to put up his new TV.  I went back to the hangar and took the plane out for a quick flight... it was pretty windy, but there were a load of people in the pattern, making it interesting joining again to land.

Tilly's been throwing up today, and this evening she horked up a large, pinkish thing.  We're hoping that was the cause of all this, as she was instantly feeling better.  No idea what it was though.

May 30th

I started the day hacking the grass in the garden, and after pottering around, we went and met Chris for lunch, as he was in Roseville getting his guitar tuned.

After that, I went to the airport and took the plane out for a quick flight to beat the rapidly worsening weather.

There was a 172 doing circuits on runway 15 when I left, and the wind was blowing around 12mph from 250 - ie the wrong runway.  Still, I sucked it up and took off, but when I was on my way back, it was now 12mph at 260, so I called and suggested we use the correct runway, 33.  He agreed, and I said to sort himself out and I'd come in behind him.  The instructor then piped up and said it was more or less across the runway, so to use 15.  Fine, I'll do an overhead join and bitch about you later.  Oh no, as I was heading North to do the overhead join, I saw them stopped on the runway.  Then they called to say they were heading back to the hangar.  Sigh.  I did an extended base leg and landed on 33, then taxied back and put the plane away.  It threw it down on the way home, but when I got to Foothills Blvd, it was totally dry.