February 21st

Today was President's Day, where Americans remember George Washington's birthday by going shopping.

I met Shane and Liza at the airport, where Shane flew Katarina, a cow-orker, and I flew Liza before we went and got lunch.

At home, I got to spend a couple of hours playing with cable modems to discover (with Comcast's "help") that the new modem doesn't work.

February 20th

I went to the airport and did the 25 hour service on the plane.

I also worked on my left brake - I'd intended swapping the wheels side to side, but I wasn't comfortable jacking it high enough to put on my jack stands.  I blobbed more RTV in and put it all back together, then waited for Chris to arrive.  We took his RV-6A to Auburn for lunch :o)  I flew part of the way - it's very light on the controls.

February 19th

We started the day at the airport getting breakfast at the EAA hangar, then flew to Cameron Park, which was funny because Chris, PJ and Damon had flow to Lincoln from Cameron Park, and they were then going on to Woodland.

Judi had pressganged me in to flying a couple of kids - the little boy's 8th birthday was today.

After flying the kids, we flew back to Lincoln via Camp Far West Lake reservoir.  It looks a little lower than it did last time we were over that way.

My left brake is still bloody squeaking :o(

February 16th

I went to the EAA membership meeting.  Hopefully this is the last time we'll do this by Zoom for a while :o)

February 15th

It looks like I've been roped into flying some Young Eagles on Saturday, so I went and added some more RTV to the wheels on the plane to hopefully stop them squeaking once and for all.  We'll see what they're like when they've dried.

February 13th

I met Chris at the airport and installed his new brake pads on the left wheel (we did the right wheel months ago).  He was playing with his instrument panel for a while, and then we installed the cyclic tie down strap that I got him months ago, and flew to Oroville with Randy, PJ, Shane and Liza.

After lunch, we flew up to Feather Falls (video when I get around to it) on the way back to Lincoln.

My brakes are still squeaking on the left wheel, so I guess I'll look at that one again.  The right wheel seems better.

February 12th

I met Shane at the airport and we flew up to Auburn to meet Bill and William for brunch.

Shane's looking at replacing his proprietary Microavionics intercom with something more normal, so I wore my (David Clark based) helmet, and he wore Randy's (Lightspeed based), and we swapped on the way back.

I ran into Kirk, somebody I used to race with - he was flying a Piper Tomahawk, but was very interested in gyros - apparently we fly over his house from time to time.

Shane's the heaviest passenger I've taken for a while, so I wasn't really ready for the 500'/minute climb rates :o)

Back at Lincoln, I took my brakes apart again - I was thinking about it, and I reckon I misunderstood what Greg was suggesting with the RTV on the back of the brake cones - I thought he wanted to glue the cones to the hub, when I now think he wanted to change the frequency of the cones enough that they wouldn't resonate.  So I blobbed more RTV in there, and we'll see if that fixes the brakes' squeak when they're being used, too.

February 9th

I went to an EAA mothership meeting about air traffic control.  The presenters talked as fast as air traffic controllers, because they're air traffic controllers, so I don't think I got much out of it.

February 8th

I went to an EAA (mothership) presentation about their XP-51.

February 6th

I started the day tinkering with a video from me pointing at Shane, where he's posted the video of him pointing at me.

Then I met Randy at the airport and he, Marty, Dave and John joined us in meeting Chris for breakfast at Auburn.

I was pretty tired from flying so long yesterday, so Randy and I flew down the American River canyon and up and over the observatory, rather than the length of the lake on the way home.

February 5th

I picked Randy up on the way to the airport where we met Shane and Liza to fly to Willows for lunch.  On the way, we flew around the South side of the Sutter Buttes, and around the North on the way back.  It was pretty windy, so I ended up hover taxying almost to the end of runway 31 before landing in a few feet :o)  And then I had to wait a while for the rotor to spin down.

We were too low and in the middle of nowhere, so the ADS-B didn't catch most of the flight :o(

Shane and Liza were playing with my Insta360, as they wanted some footage of Thunderhill raceway, but they also got a few shots of me.

February 4th

We watched "Ghostbusters: Afterlife."

February 3rd

I met Shane for dinner so we could talk about a bunch of flying type stuff.

February 1st

A new month, so here are the stats...

Power billed

Power generated

After work I scuttled over to the airport and took the wheels off the plane.  Greg at Magni USA suggested putting some RTV on the brake cones, as they're probably resonating like a bell and causing my squeak.  I had thought I was going to have to take the wheels apart, so took a compressor along to air them up afterwards, but the cones unbolt from the back, too :o)