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.