What A Great Day To Fly.

Geico266

Geico266

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Jun 15, 2008
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Husker Nation, NE
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Geico
I got a call from a buddy that needed a ride from Lee's Summit, MO (KLXT) to Columbus, NE after delivering a plane. My daughter, son in law and new grandson live real close to Lee's Summit in Grain Valley, MO (K3GV) so I plannned a trip for lunch with the kids, bounced the grand kid around for a while, shot over to KLXT (9 miles away) picked up my buddy and boggied and hour & 1/2 back to Columbus.

Not a cloud in the sky, cold air, RV-10 running great, good tunes on the XM radio.

Life is GOOD! :cheerswine:

It was a great day to fly.
 
Good deal! I spent the first couple hours with a student who nailed soft and short field procedures. After that, I did a photo flight to videotape the San Antonio River from SAT down to the Gulf followed by a stretch of another river after that. In all, seven hours of flight time. The first few hours were great while winds weren't too bad. The last stretch had tighter vegetation so I went down to 800 AGL to provide a better view. But, the winds were getting a bit more wild so it was short-lived. It was a good, fun day and I learned something about hydrology and how rivers change.
 
Geico, it sounded like a good day. Mine was spent in bed, sick as a dog. And Dreaming about FLYING.
Dave G.
 
Gorgeous day here, too. I went up for some ground reference maneuver practice. Took off, left the airport local area, headed a few miles west out over the farms, throttled back, trimmed for maneuvering speed...and got an alarm on the Dynon engine management system. For those of you who don't have Dynons, the alarm sounds a loud tone in the intercom and flashes a bright red warning across the bottom of the screen.

This one was one I hadn't heard of before: HIGH FUEL PRESSURE. The Zodiac has an electric pump and an engine-driven pump; the procedure is to have the electric pump on below 1000 AGL, and I was just reaching for the switch when the alarm went off. I acknowledged the alarm and scratched my head for a moment while initiating a climb (I wanted some altitude if things quit), and the fuel pressure went down from the 11 PSI that triggered the alarm to 8 - still in the yellow. Toggling the electric pump on and off didn't change matters much.

I decided to return to the airport and figure things out on the ground. The pressure kept dropping, but didn't get down below 6 PSI the entire return trip. (It normally runs 3.5 to 4.5.) The landing was uneventful. I taxied in and parked in front of the terminal building, and spent the next hour or so talking to the folks there (including a couple of A&Ps) and eating a piece of the apple pie my roommate had brought by. The consensus was that there was some sort of constriction in the fuel line downstream of the pump, or else a pressure transducer problem.

I went back out, sumped the tanks, then taxied back to the end of the runway. A runup was completely normal, and the fuel pressure didn't do anything but act completely normal for a low approach and 3 landings. (No ouches this time.) I checked out an apparent intermittent in one of my Lightspeed Zulus, then put the airplane away. For now, I'm going to keep a close eye on the fuel pressure, but if it doesn't act squirrelly any more, I'm going to chalk it up to ice crystals in the fuel and go on.
 
It was pretty nice here in Wichita too. I got about an hour and a half in in a 250 hp Comanche. Nice ride. We hit a couple local airports. I made 2 passable landings. not too bad for an afternoon
 
tonycondon said:
It was pretty nice here in Wichita too. I got about an hour and a half in in a 250 hp Comanche. Nice ride. We hit a couple local airports. I made 2 passable landings. not too bad for an afternoon
Click to expand...

Time to change your profile info.
 
tonycondon said:
It was pretty nice here in Wichita too. I got about an hour and a half in in a 250 hp Comanche. Nice ride. We hit a couple local airports. I made 2 passable landings. not too bad for an afternoon
Click to expand...

Dave's Comanche?
 
Geico266 said:
I got a call from a buddy that needed a ride from Lee's Summit, MO (KLXT) to Columbus, NE after delivering a plane. My daughter, son in law and new grandson live real close to Lee's Summit in Grain Valley, MO (K3GV) so I plannned a trip for lunch with the kids, bounced the grand kid around for a while, shot over to KLXT (9 miles away) picked up my buddy and boggied and hour & 1/2 back to Columbus.

Not a cloud in the sky, cold air, RV-10 running great, good tunes on the XM radio.

Life is GOOD! :cheerswine:

It was a great day to fly.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a great trip!

KLXT is a nice airport, and nice people. But 3GV is really fun. Rwy 5/23, 2200 ft x 20 ft wide, is a nice way to brush up on the ol' landing skills.


Trapper John
 
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