April 29th

Vic and I went to the airport early to fly to Willows for the EAA fly-out - everybody else was travelling a lot faster than us so we left earlier :o)

We flew around Sutter airport, then around the Sutter Buttes. 

After brunch we flew back.

We had talked about dropping in on the Watts-Woodland Wings and Wheels event, but they're on the same traffic frequency as Willows and they seemed to be fairly busy, so we just went home.

April 25th

After work I went to the airport and took the plane out for a few test circuits, then changed the oil.

April 23rd

I started the day at the airport early, getting the remaining vacuum lines replaced on the plane, and only had a few safety wires to do when everybody else arrived for the flight to Oroville for the FBO opening.  I flew with Chris in the RV, Shane took his wife's ex-boss' husband and we finally managed to get Randy Sharp to fly with Don in the front seat of the gyro :o)

We had several adventured getting on the ground because it was busy :o)

After several hours in the sun, we headed back to Lincoln, getting there with enough time to finish my safety wiring before everybody else got there.

When everybody else had landed, and most were looking at the Cessna 421 that Randy's been working on for ages, I took the plane up for a quick circuit.

Everything seems better now, so I'll try and get out in the week to put a few more circuits in and test everything.

April 22nd

I got up early and headed to the airport to fly Young Eagles - a couple didn't show up, but we had lots of planes so I ended up flying 2.

After we'd run out of kids to fly, a pilot from Sutter asked to go up in the gyro.  We were climbing out when the engine sputtered so we turned back - it didn't stop, but I didn't want to wait for that to happen.  I called to say I was turning back to land downwind, and later John told me he thought it was funny when I told the guy on finals that he was going to be going around - he didn't seem to have figured that out for himself.

Anyway, after lunch I decided that it could be the throttle position sensor, as that controls the wastegate via the turbo control unit.  That wasn't it - I aborted a takeoff when it happened again.  I ended up just going home to think about it.  Talking to Don, he's had the same problem with his Sportstar Max (same engine) and it was a vacuum problem, so I went back to the airport and looked at the vacuum hoses - you really want to take them off to blow through them, and that's likely to tear them anyway so I just started replacing them all.  That was when I broke a plastic T fitting, so I gave up and went home via Autozone to buy a new one.

In the evening we went to Randy's and watched "The Adam Project" on his projector in the back garden - it looks like summer's finally got here :o)

April 21st

I met Henry and Randy at the airport in the morning, then we flew to Lampson (by Clearlake) for lunch.  Obviously once we started playing in the hills we disappeared :o)

The flight back was the same - nothing, nothing, nothing, there they are :o)

While I was out, my SPDT relays arrived, so in the evening we went and swapped them for the ones in the van.  It didn't fix the central locking problem :o(  A lot of investigation found a broken (not blown) fuse, and everything's fine again :o)

April 19th

Henry, Randy and I flew to Cameron Park to meet PJ for lunch.  It's still pretty turbulent out, with the up and downdrafts :o(

Afterwards we flew back partway along the South Fork of the American River.

Back at Lincoln, we fiddled about with balancing Randy's rotor - he's been wanting to do this for ages.  It's the first time we've used the balancer, and it's a steep learning curve.  We got to the point where we think we need a spanwise adjustment (side to side) but the aluminium tool we have for that wasn't strong enough to undo the locknut.  So I left Randy doing circuits trying to get his rotor balanced to his liking.

April 18th

I met Randy and Henry at the airport, where we flew to Oroville to meet Chris for lunch :o)

In the evening, we did some mobility tests on Tilly for the Dog Aging Project.

April 17th

I've taken the week off as Henry is in town, so obviously the weather's not been great today - Lincoln was overcast in the morning so he, Randy and I met for lunch in Roseville.

Playing around, Henry spotted this :o)

(For when Google updates the satellite image...

that's, from the top, me, Chris and Bill :o))

In the evening, we took a bunch of measurements of Tilly for the Dog Aging Project.

April 16th

I started the day screwing around on the computer and put together a couple of videos.

and:

I then headed to the airport to meet Shane, Liza and Henry so we could fly up to Auburn to meet Vic and later Randy for breakfast.

Afterwards we flew back.  Shane and Liza went home and I stayed and rotated one of my tyres.

(We've found some much harder tyres that I'm going to switch to when these are worn out, so I'm not having to do this as often.)

In the evening, Randy and I went over to Judi's at Cameron Park to watch "Lancaster" in their hangar :o)

April 15th

I went to the airport and flew down to Calaveras for their fly-in.

On the way, I watched a Firehawk climb out of Folsom Lake, and a T-38 turn to get a better look at me :o)  When I saw the T-38 turning, I did wonder if it was an F-16 (it was a few miles away) and there'd been a TFR pop up that I wasn't aware of, but thankfully it was just taking a look :o)

I saw Chris, who'd flown down with Tim in his Baron, Perry and Damon.  After lunch, I flew home again...

On the way home I had to move around to avoid another damn Firehawk - they're everywhere :o)

April 14th

Henry is in town, and he and Randy had headed down to Columbia so they could fly Yosemite tomorrow.

Chris, Jackie, Shane, Liza, Vic and I went to dinner instead.

April 9th

I met Shane at the airport and we went for a flight.

The extended downwind was because there was a dipstick who called a 7 mile RNAV approach without saying "and I'm travelling at 77kt so I'll be there in about 5 minutes," meaning we extended and extended and oh, there he is :o(

Chris came over from Cameron Park and we all went to lunch at Karen's :o)

April 8th

I got up early and went to the airport for the EAA breakfast.  I hung around afterwards for the beginning of the board meeting so I could heckle Chris' presentation about a gyro safety program.  Afterwards, I sat around chatting with Shane long enough that I didn't feel like flying any more, and went home to clear out some work stuff.

April 7th

It rained, so I pretty much didn't do anything other than meet Chris for a smoothie.

April 6th

I wasted the day doing little things around the house, partly due to a nearby shooting causing everything to be closed down.  The damn news helicopter seemed to go away to refuel twice, and was circling the area until gone 5 :o(

April 5th

I didn't sleep well, so I decided against flying and just played with the video from Vic and Chris flying over Tahoe.  The biggest problem was there's so much of it, so I ended up just cutting it down to the bit over the lake itself.

April 4th

I went out to the airport and met Randy to collect my log books, all stamped up and ready to go, then went and flew over Camp Far West Lake Reservoir on my way to meet Chris and PJ for lunch at Auburn.

In my last Lake Oroville video (now my most popular):

somebody in the comments asked me to do one over Folsom, so after lunch I flew part way down the North Fork, then over the dam.

When I got home, I edited a video of Folsom together:

April 3rd

I've taken the week off to get my plane through its annual inspection, and Randy and I got that done today.  I had to replace a spark plug, the carb floats and a couple of zip ties, but other than that everything was fine and it's all set for another year :o)

April 2nd

My plane's waiting for its annual inspection, so no flying for me.  I pottered around the house getting very little done.

April 1st

A new month, so here are the solar stats:

The inverter's still doing the thing where it restarts itself constantly, so I'll have to chase that next week.

We met Chris at Lincoln, and while I tinkered with a few little things on the plane and moved planes around (swapping a 182 with a 150 in our hangar required getting Shane and Jaren's planes out,) he flew Vic up to Tahoe in the RV-6A to see the snow.  We figured that while it wasn't as cool as the gyro, it's also not as cold, and if she hated it she could be home in 20 minutes rather than over an hour.  The flight up was fine, but there was a lot of turbulence under the clouds over the lake so she got air sick - not enough to need a bag, but close to it :o(

When they got back, we went and met PJ for lunch at Karen's before going back to the airport, where I introduced PJ to Tony, then went and chatted to Randy about the Cessna 421 he's been working on and to check that we're still on for the annual inspection on my plane on Monday.  After all that, we went home.