October 30th

I was pretty tired after the last week and a couple of miles of walking at over 6,000', so I played around on the computer most of the day.  I did, however, put together some video from the creek we walked along:

October 29th

I drove over to Cameron Park to meet Chris.  We ended up retorquing his prop bolts, then flying the Lee Vining, by Mono Lake.

We hit 11,500' on the way there, and Chris used oxygen while we were up there (it's only required after 20 minutes) but only has 1 bottle (I've only been that high once in the gyroplane, so I've never even looked at it.)

We wandered through the (tiny) town, had lunch, then walked the trail along the creek there.

We briefly touched 13,000' on the way back, and I saw my blood oxygen level hit 44%.  Oops, I'm going to have a headache tonight.

October 27th

We'd been invited up to Nevada County airport for a show and tell with one of the local schools' first grade class, so Shane and I flew up to answer questions about the gyroplanes.

Kids are weird.  Adults want to know how they fly, how fast they go and how far you can go in them.  Kids want to know why there are so many buttons.

We met (and Shane chatted with) Juan Browne of Blancolirio YouTube fame.

At home I sorted out a video of me landing there.

October 26th

We started what looks like a miserable process dealing with the insurance company over the car.

Vic went and organised getting it towed down the hill and dropped off at the Chevy dealer in Roseville.

I dealt with the assessor.  He's said the Chevrolet dealer isn't one of their approved repairers, so they'll have to approve any repairs before they happen.  I'm probably going to end up telling them they can send it wherever they want, but if it's not a certified GM EV repair centre, I'll be wanting a letter from them saying they'll accept liability in the case that it catches fire somewhere because a panel repairer was chosen to repair the cooling system.  These aren't like your average internal combustion engine car, and they need to be aware of that. 

October 25th

Vic had been up in Auburn, and on the way back on the freeway she hit something - she thinks it was a ladder.  The front of the car looked OK, but the bottom's torn up and it's leaking fluid, most likely coolant for the battery.  She called me, and I went and picked her up, leaving the car in a gas station parking lot (well away from the pumps.)

October 24th

We'd had a company holiday on Friday, and obviously everybody in support couldn't be off at the same time, so I had Monday off.  I intended to work on some things on the van.  When I went to look at replacing the O2 sensor in the catalytic converter (because the fuel economy's gone down a bit,) I was thinking it looked like a lot of aggravation to get the old connector out.  Just generally checking the engine, I found a couple of slightly loose spark plugs, which could well be the issue, so I figured I'd just tighten them and call it fixed.

October 23rd

I flew to Auburn to meet Chris, Tim, Shane and Liza for brunch.  I left early, so I flew towards Cameron Park hoping to hear Chris leave, but the first I heard of him was 5 miles out from Auburn, so I was a bit later than them getting there.  Exactly on time for Shane and Liza (who drove) though.

It was chuffing windy, as you can see in my speed graph - ~70kts on the way out to Folsom, and ~45kts on the way back to Auburn...

After breakfast, I flew straight home, as the turbulence was less fun than I'd hoped.