Author: JoeO

Powered Paraglider pilot since 2005

El Mirage The Flying J Ranch

#238

After visiting with Saundra Painter in Santa Barbara I drove out to El Mirage and waited for the wind to die. I’m camping at a small private airstrip that caters to ultra light Delta Trikes. They have a Quonset hut hanger with 6 trikes and several shipping containers where guys like Chad are storing their equipment. To the south east there is another facility where they are assembling and test flying the Predator unmanned vehicles for the military. All afternoon while I set up my camp there was a predator circling over the field. Its a very strange looking plane with the bulbous nose and lots of junk hanging down. The landing gear are on long sticks and the twin rudders are mounted below the fuselage. At the right angle when you cannot see the wings it looks like an insect…more like a grasshopper that a plane flying at 800 feet.

About 40 minutes before sundown the wind dropped and I went up for a test flight. Beautiful smooth air ! While I had the chance I practiced spot landings and several times I was able to touch down within a few feet of my wing bag.

I climbed to 100o feet and chased the sun. The dry lake is partly full but even so there was only a couple of inches of water. It’s less than a mile from the airstrip and a wonderful place to practice the low and slow, there are miles in all directions without a post or obstruction of any kind. 8/10 of a mile to the south west is a small uprising (probably 1000 elevation climb)called Grey Mountain. I climbed until I was even with the top and watched the sun set. When the shadows disappeared I cut power and descended to the LZ.

It got cold quickly and rather than try to heat up a can of soup I drove to the edge of the closest town and had a burger. Back at the tent I listened to the IPod and spent a very cold night in the desert.

I

Salton Sea 2009

#236 & #237

My brother in law picked me up at the Tucson airport and I was off to the coast! The wind was forecast to blow in Maracopa and Glamis so I drove straight through to the Salton Sea. Depending on if I got a call back from Michael Purdy I was planning to fly either San Diego or the Sea. The only place to stay near Salton City was a very rundown fishing camp full of illegals…I backed the truck up to the door and hoped for the best. The next morning I was at the new site as the sun was coming up ready to fly. There were already 5 or 6 vehicles in the dry camping area, looks like I’m not the only one want to get there early. I met Jim who is Michael Purdy’s brother in law.

I got in a couple of flights to test the air. Radical changes in air temp with some minor bumps. The field isn’t very well groomed with lots of twigs and medium to large rocks. It’s a little early to start criticising but I have the feeling that this site is not going to be the paradise that the “Dome Site” was. The coast to the right of the LZ is clear for about half a mile and to the left there are some abandoned buildings and wires to watch for.

Thumper

Today I spoke with Terry L about the CT Trike. I’ve have been follow the progress of the 4 stroke trike buggy for several months and last week Ben Miller test flew it in Albuquerque. Now that it looks like it is going to fly at altitude I’m looking forward to seeing it at the Salton Sea. Who knows…I might own a 4 stroke soon!

#233 #234 #235 Marana AZ

Three Flights …Two blown..Forgot to disengage the choke.
Strike one… I was feeling pretty good about things. The motor was starting on the first pull and I was so busy patting myself on the back that I missed the fact that I was having a hard time getting up to 6000 RPM and I also missed the way it was stuttering when I backed off the throttle. It speaks well for the bing that I could have the choke on and fly so well.
Two of the five attempted launches were aborted the first because the wing overshot and even though I was using brake and rolling forward …it would not load up. Maybe if I shortened the brake lines a bit I would have a little better control during the launch.
** NEXT FLIGHT **SEE HOW MUCH SLACK THERE IS IN THE BRAKES AT FULL TRIM AND TRIMMERS OUT. See how much pull will bring the brake lines to the point of moving the trailing edge.
The next abort was because the wing came up crooked after I had aborted stopped and brought the down it tried to pull me over in a slow roll. **NEXT TIME***TAKE A WRAP ON ONE BRAKE LINE AND HAUL IT IN.
The good launches were a mixed bag, during the highest wind I was pleased that I was able to take my time and kite the wing and taxi for awhile before I committed to the launch. The other two were not noteworthy.
All of the landings were the same, I killed the motor and flared late to bleed off speed. Nice soft touchdowns every time. It’s nice to know that I’m finally getting a little of that muscle memory that Brian Smith used to talk about. 🙂
The wheeley casters work great, but I’m going to have to practice with the trimmers at different positions because at full out the wing comes up too fast to give the buggy time to start tipping.

#232 Mo’s training field Maricopa AZ

Dec. 30th 2008

It was a two hour drive to Maricopa where Mo Sheldon lives. I arrived at 11:30 and waited at the storage units until 12:30 when I gave him a call. He apologized and said that he was in the middle of something at that it would be about 20 minutes. It was after 2:00 when he finally arrived. My mistake was not calling as soon as I got into town he probably wouldn’t have started whatever the project on his laptop that delayed him. Anyway two hours were lost and instead of doing a rebuild we safety checked the motor and did a hang test. The buggy is fine… it hung straight and about the only thing we found that needed attention was a loose exhaust mount at the midpoint. The reason the motor was hard to start turned out to be the end of the plug was loose. I didn’t know that the tip threaded into the body of the plug. That little bit of information was worth the price of admission.

I did load up the little tool bag with some more weight and remounted it behind the reserve. The buggy was probably was riding high on the right because the wing was off to the side but the torque of the motor was also probably a factor. Later when we went for a flight I was pleased to notice that the risers were close to the same height so it must have helped.

We discussed the possibility of going to Mo Town but the time was getting tight and opted for the training field.
At 4:30 Mo and I drove out to the field which is about 5 miles east of his shop. It’s near a small regional airpark and about as flat and smooth as you could ask for. He took the buggy up and declared it a good machine after a quick lap around the field. Then we rigged his dog into his trike and the three of us went for a nice little flight. There was a small hill rising 200 feet from the desert floor a couple of miles away…just another bump in the desert…that I flew to and explored a bit. After landing Mo and I chatted while we put our gear away. I’m going to send him my schedule and with a little luck I’ll be able to hook up with him and go to Mo Town on the way out to NAMM. He is still bugged by Martins death but recognizes that it was nothing that he contributed to. His theory is that Martin had “Get There-itus and ignored the conditions to “get there and be photographed” buy his family. I doubt that I’ll be seeing Mo at the next Gathering but glad that he isn’t carrying around a bunch of guilt over Martin.
The drive back to Tucson went better than expected and fortunately the Hacienda Del Sol is on the near side of town so I was able to meet Paula and the others in time for dinner. The Hacienda has been developed since I was their horse wrangler but the food is just as gourmet as when Otto was cooking for me 32 years ago!

Tucson #230 #231 Wheeley Casters

The left side is lifting sooner than the right

Marana LZ
Higher winds gave me the excuse to try out the wheeley casters. I put the trimmers out and the wing came up quickly without pulling me back. It probably also helped that the surface was hard and smooth. One thing I noticed from viewing the video was that the left wheel lifted before the front.. I never felt like I was in danger of rolling but it is something to be aware of and possibly corrected before launching with the trimmers out. At the least I should hang the tool bag back on the left side. So while I wasn’t able to see how the casters worked on launch I did get the impression that they were touching during the run out. On landing I felt them again but no problem.

First flight was about 30 minutes, I stayed in the general vicinity of the LZ and tried to get the feel of the area. Mostly farm flying but to the west there is a river that goes north. Scott Nicoles took that route and I wish I had gone with him. I was not able to be there when he returned because Mike Levine and I had to get back for dinner with the whole family.

The second flight was a quickie, I had to abort the first launch because the left brake line was twisted and I could feel the pulley wasn’t rolling free….landing was sweet with the motor off…I flared at the last second and bled off the energy at just a couple of inches AGL.

2009 Road Trip Prep

Winter Fly In Prep

Coordinate with Ray NAMM DONE
Coordinate with Mo Service day process
Coordinate with Chad Santa Barbara Flying process
Coordinate with Saundra Santa Barbara process
Coordinate with Michelle Wing Inspection DONE
Coordinate with Mike Levin Truck storage DONE

Order Parts from Southern Skies DONE

Coordinate with Michael Purdy process

Airline tix DONE



Service / maintenance / Parts
Problems
1. Alternator does not seem to be charging the battery.
2. Electric Starter (Bendix) chews up the Starter Sprocket
3. No master kill switch
4. Seems hard to start with the pull cord
5. Tiny Tach does not read accuratly at low RPMs

Service Jobs…
1. New Rings
2. Install Temp Gauges

Parts…
New Starter Sprocket
rings and any other parts need to rebuild the Simonini
kill switch parts
cht & egt gauge

all bearings that are recomended for replacement by 400
get additional jets for high low and mid ranges
inspect wings
new belt
new plug
broken spade connection

Airline tickets
PPG sites around Tucson

Fly-in registrations

#229 Rowdy Air Shortens Flight Simms

Salton Sea campsight 2007
Two days ago it snowed leaving 4 inches on the grass….but…

this afternoon looked beautiful. Even if the field was going little wet I thought it worth going out there to see if I had a shot at flying. I arrived at 3 (1 1/2 hours before sunset). Set-up and launched quickly.

The 3 inches of wet snow slowed the taxi and from the nice way the wing came up and settled overhead …It got me thinking that I’m a little heavy on the throttle and should practice short bursts of power to keep the speed down before committing to take-off.

Within seconds of leaving the ground I flew into some very powerful lift. and it was also clear that there was a strong breeze just above the surface. I decided to get down immediately, the only problem was that if I was going to land upwind and still be by the truck I would have to do some tricky flying. What I would have to do is fly clockwise around the trees and turn for final with enough room to avoid the wires. With all the bumps and mixing air I opted to come in fast and land downwind. There was almost no wind at the surface and even though I was technically downwind I was able to keep the wing up and taxi for over 150 feet back to the truck. Good thing too because the mud was sticky thick and I was wearing 2 inches of mud on the bottom of my boots by the time I loaded the rig back into the truck.

I think if I’d waited 30 minutes longer to launch it would have been allot better. I thought about it but decided not to because of the mud. I also wish I had launched a pilot balloon… even after landing it would have been instructive. I hope to remember this the next time the opportunity presents itself.

Before leaving the house I did change the jet to 155 and the motor started better and was more responsive. It even sounded better…deeper…more throaty.

#228 Simms

I’m thinking that the motor is running lean.

Still hard to start…

Didn’t burn much gas…

Throttle is not as responsive …

it’s not lagging just seems a little slow…

I’ve been flying a 150 jet all through the summer and fall at this altitude and higher…

The air is a little cooler but not as cool a it was this spring (during the AM flights). I’ll change to the 155 if I fly again before leaving to Tucson.

Nice flight ,Nill wind on the surface but mixing at 600 feet. Tracy the RC pilot who is considering getting into PPG was at the field. He took some shots and I hope he has something good enough that he will send me a copy. I pretty much stayed over the field and practiced a few touch and go s. I really like flying the 24 m it comes up easier and because it is loaded heaver its firm and seems more stable I going to consider selling the 26 m and trading for a 24. Marek wanted to have me try the velvet 23 but I declined. Chicken I guess. But I really should see how the smaller wing feels.