June 26th

We went to the airport and met Shane - we flew over Camp Far West Lake on the way up to Auburn, where we met John and PJ for breakfast.

We did try to video the overhead join to landing, like I've done at Georgetown, Placerville and Amador, but there was a Cessna flying a bomber pattern that caused us to extend downwind a lot further than I'd like, and then I did a really crappy landing in his wake.  John was complaining about the crosswind picking up the wing of the Citabria, so I'm saying it wasn't all me sucking.

Shane's rotor RPM gauge wasn't working, so we tried adjusting it a little, and it sorted itself out on the way back to Lincoln, so when we got back, we tightened it up where it was.

June 24th

Vic got Tilly a new paddly pool, and today put water in it.  Tilly's not interested, thanks, she'd rather go back in the air conditioned house than lie in the water.  Which is a shame, as she used to love lying in her paddly pool.

In the evening, we watched "Morbius."

June 20th

Today was Juneteenth, when Americans celebrate the end of slavery by... well, they haven't decided yet, as this is the first time it's happened, but I suspect it'll be shopping soon enough.

I'd thrown together a couple of videos from yesterday:

And:

Then met Shane and Liza at the airport and went for a little flight.

It was still a little bumpy, as the wind's coming from the North.

I managed to talk to Jarron's brother - he'd left me a message to call him, and it seems Jarron passed away on the 8th.  I don't know much else, but I'm going to help them get his flying stuff squared away.  At the moment I'm hoping we can get his parents to agree to donate one of his gyros to the McClellan aircraft museum, as it needs a load of work, but was built in Marysville.

In the evening, I threw together a video of trains we saw today, as Dad likes trains :o)

June 19th

We met Randy at the airport, then flew to Amador - not been there before, but we've flow over it several times.

The "squiggles" (Vic tells me this is a technical term) is me climbing ~1,000' to get to the airport, while trying not to overrun Randy.

It's interesting, we landed downwind and uphill, because that was the direction all the locals were using.

Randy then went home to have lunch with his kids before they go to camp, while we flew on to Columbia for their fly-in.  As there was nobody in the pattern, we took off the proper way.  I later met a local who said landing that way is a nightmare in the turbulent wind, but I'd rather take off downhill, personally.

They had a temporary tower, and the controller didn't understand gyros at all - first he had me go out to the lake to join the pattern, meaning I was a lot further out than I normally would aim for, then he told me I could land on the apron - I pointed out that I needed forward speed, so I'd rather slot in behind the Cessna that'd just flown overhead :o)

We spent a lot of time talking about the gyro, because we had the only one there.  When it was time to leave, there was a plane waiting to cross the runway, so I told the controller they could go, as I'd need a little while to pre-rotate.  I then sat there, at 200 rotor rpm while half the planet crossed the runway, before getting to go for it.  It was pretty windy on the way back, so we headed out to the valley to get out of the worst of the turbulence.  Still, a 10-20kt headwind pretty much the whole way home meant it took us a while to get back, and as it was too windy for a lot of the fixed wing guys, I just did a straight in approach.  Because I'm lazy, and was pretty tired.

June 18th

I got up fairly early and picked Randy up so we could go to the airport and meet t'other Randy to get Randy's annual inspection done.  I know what A&P Randy is looking for now, having helped with... several... of these, so we were pretty much done by lunchtime.  After lunch we played around with the prop balancer we've all chipped in to buy - Randy's new 4 blade prop seems to be balanced fairly well... the little box shows lots of data, to the point we could see when there were crosswind gusts while we were testing it.

June 13th

I tidied things up at work, then took the rental Sonic back.  That was a painless process other than the bill, and I then walked to the Chevrolet dealer and picked up the Bolt to drive home again.

The battery certainly seems bigger... this is after the short drive home:

It also has a nifty sticker on the window by the charge port:

Yes, I know it's filthy - it's been sitting outside waiting for the battery for 6 weeks :o(

June 12th

It was bloody windy today, so I gave up on flying.  I did go and work on the plane for a little while, while getting a bunch of gas to the hangar for the weekend.

June 11th

We picked Randy up early and went to the airport to fly to Placerville.

There's a little observatory that overlooks the lake that nobody seems to know about, so I shot a video of it as we passed.  Maybe one day I'll go over it lower :o)

And after people seeming to like the "arriving at Georgetown" video, I shot one of arriving at Placerville.

We flew Young Eagles, because it was international Young Eagles day.

I flew 3 kids, and 1 helper :o)

Afterwards, we flew to Auburn to meet Chris and Chris for lunch.

After lunch, we headed back to Lincoln.

When we got home and caught up with everything, it seems the car's fixed and ready to pick up.  Probably have to get that organised for Monday though :o)

June 8th

Vic's found one of her sprinklers is leaking underground, so she's dug a great big hole around it.  As it's on a 90 degree bend, and we didn't want to pull everything apart to replace it, we installed a flexible hose.  It didn't pass any water.  We played around with it for a while, to make sure it wasn't blocked or anything, then gave up and dug up the rest of the hose.  That wasn't blocked either.  Eventually we figured out that the flexible hose, inside the protective sheath, was twisted by screwing it in - I haven't see that before, and we have a bunch of these installed.  Anyway, we untwisted it, and the water, it flows.

June 7th

I met Shane at the airport and tinkered.  First off, I checked that I could get the rotor RPM gauge to work by running a drill by it - found out it needs to be the motor end of the drill by the sensor - on Randy's plane (because it's next to Shane's) it worked a treat.

Next, I checked that with the rotor brake on, the RRPM gauge worked on Shane's plane.  It did.  Taking the brake off stopped it working.

We swapped the switch, and now it worked when the rotor brake was off.

Because Shane's as pessimistic as I am, we pulled his gyro out of the hangar and actually span the rotor up to make sure the gauge worked, then put it away again.

June 6th

I swapped emails with Greg from Magni USA and it sounds like the rotor switch on Shane's gyro should be a NC, rather than the NO I put in.  He also shared that you can put an electric drill motor next to the sensor to test without having to spin the rotor :o)

Looking through all my accumulated crap, I had an NC switch, so I soldered a couple of bits of wire to it and we'll see about installing it tomorrow.

June 5th

It was throwing it down with rain, so Randy and I drove over to Cameron Park for their breakfast - there were a fairly large number of attendees, despite the rain.

We went on to the airport, where I replaced the push-to-talk switch on my plane, and we looked at the switch for Shane's rotor RPM gauge - replacing it doesn't seem to have fixed it, so I'll have to think about it.

In the evening, we went to Shane's birthday party, and ate cake :o)

June 4th

We met Shane and Liza at the airport, intending to fly to Sutter for lunch.  After an aborted takeoff by Shane, and rain appearing on my windscreen, we figured out the problem with Shane's rotor RPM gauge (bad microswitch) and just went to lunch at Karen's.

June 2nd

I met Shane at the airport and we tinkered with his EIS until it stopped alarming.  So now, hopefully, it's of some use, as before it had most of the alarms set to 0.

June 1st

A new month, so here are the stats:

Power billed

Power generated

May 31st

The video I posted to YouTube yesterday has gone viral, with literally tens of view :o)

I got to pick up my new glasses, and they didn't give me vertigo, so I think that's done with.

In the evening we went and saw "Top Gun: Maverick."  We had been planning to go with a bunch of pilots, but that turned out to be like herding cats so we just gave up and went by ourselves.