Category: log entry

It’s been a month but it feels much longer.

The dew point was concerning. Several launches in September and October were wet hot messes. With me dragging a soaking wet wing into the sky. The videos are not pretty.

This morning the field was mostly dry. The wing got into the prop wash before I was ready but it seemed stable, when I applied thrust, it came up clean. I rolled a few feet turned down the runway and committed. It was just what I needed.

Note…. Frank Moss came out while I was setting up. He prefers that I launch on his property at the south end to keep the runway clear. That’s fine.

Perserverance … That’s the takeaway word from today’s flight.

I awoke about 5am and futzed around the house until almost 6:15 when I pulled out of the garage and turned North towards Placida. I was about to turn off Edgewater Ave when I realized that I’d forgotten to put the ramps back into the bed when I was doing the preflight yesterday. …Immediate U turn back to the house. Losing 30 minutes, I diverted to Shell Creek after retrieving the ramps.

There was a smattering of ground fog over the freshly mowed runway. I did my best to lay out the wing without dragging the top surface over the wet grass but when I started the launch it was obviously wet. I rolled about 50 feet with it swinging left and right without fully inflating. Second attempt, I roughly dragged the soaking wet wing into formation and wrestled it into the sky. After 3 swings I could see that it was going to fully inflate so I added a little power and brought her overhead, the climb out was shallow but acceptable.

Following Shell Creek to the East, there was very little visible damage. Either they were built higher than I thought or the residents had already mucked out. There several small open fires that could have been storm debris. I noticed that there was very little breeze at the surface and that it was running counter to the air 100 feet higher.

Climbing in very calm air to 3000 ft. I enjoyed the crystal clear air. The wing dried out relatively quickly.

The landing was smooth but ….

while hauling the rig into the truck I fell backwards onto my tailbone. I’m going to have to find a good way to get some traction on the bed liner or I’m going to get hurt.

All in all it was a pretty standard flight, not the EPIC Gasparilla Post Milton flight ,that I had planned but satisfying. Two sloppy attempts and a time consuming glitch, didn’t cause a …NO FLY DAY.

Four flights in mid Sept.

I cracked off 4 this week. The first was pretty standard. The only thing of note was that I noticed one of the batons in the nose of the wing had gone missing. I also noticed that the right wheel strut was damaged.

After much head scratching trying to find a replacement I remembered the Hobby Shop across the bridge. They had the exact 1/16 nylon dowel.

While I was at it I replaced the strut and re-installed with the original wheels (better bearings) and new tubes and tires.

The second flight was on the 17th. The sky was a bit sketchy but I decided to send it anyway. Bad decision. By the time I got to the end of the runway at 200 feet the visibility was down to 50 ft. with no holes in sight.

I climbed to 400 feet feeling like I was inside of a ping pong ball . Still no holes clean enough to trust. I turned back to the airstrip and landed.

The third flight was total stupidity. The surface was clear but above 250 ft. was zero visibility . I tooled around for 10 minutes trying to get glimpses of the surface and landed glad to be Down.

The fourth flight was great in all respects.

The sky was 100% overcast and the wind was light and variable from the East. I launched East across the runway and turned North for launch.

At 200 ft. I entered a dense haze with no top in sight. At 250 ft. I lost sight of the ground and began to descend. Turned back to final and landed without incident. Time aloft 4 minutes.

Notes:

Inspect / replace right strut which appears to be sagging.

Replace right (blue) WST line due to burn on cover from muffler.

Move small mirror to left side of IPad .

No Drama but last flight for awhile.

Another good one after a no fly day yesterday. The wing got totally soaked during layout and initial propwash. The combination of wet heavy wing and moisture laden air made it sluggish to come up and susceptible to wild swings and collapse. Two attempts and two aborted.

Today I tried to dry the field as much as possible by blowing it with the paramotor. The wing still came up slow but it was stable throughout the launch. The climb rate was poor below 400 ft. But it improved as I climbed into higher air.

I revisited the area where I encountered the migration earlier in the week but only saw a few small flocks.

This was fun. Explored to the NorthEast, found a solar farm and ran into a migration of Igrets.

First flight since Skip’s funeral Mass and Tropical Storm Debby. Short window before the boomers started to build.

No drama