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913 Shell Creek

No Drama.  Mike Lange and I.  He took off and landed within minutes when he noticed a broken weld on his cage.  I took of into a 7 mph wind.  It was pretty bumpy until I got up to 500 feet.  Fought increasing wind speed up to 700 feet … took a few photos and landed.  It wasn’t bad. I just didn’t feel like fighting it.  Mike and I chatted a bit about Dave and he lent me a kiting harness for Tony to try.

912 Shell Creek

Cracked of a quick flight at dawn before hooking up the trike buddy. 

The sun was rising as I launched.  Very nice 25 minute flight.

 Was able to get in two inflations and run the length of the runway before giving Tony a shot.  The wing was soaked by then so we went over to his house and checked out his new machine.

Shell Creek #910

Feeling good about this morning.  The wind was 5 out of the East.  I launched across the runway and had no trouble leaving the ground before transiting SWFlorida Skydiving.  There was some nasty air for the first 100 feet that I blew through quickly.  The take off felt good after a string of bad and dicey launches.  There was a steady 15 mph between 100 feet and 2200 feet where there was a layer of mild  turbulence.  I worked my way slowly to Track and Trails where I turned back and returned to the field with 50 mph ground speed.  The landing was the similar, there was turbulence at 100 feet, the winds had picked up to 10 gusting to 15.  The landing was almost vertical.

907 SHELL CREEK

No Drama

1:08 Flight time
1755 max altitude
36 miles covered
Notes:  The trim cams are slipping unless I pull the cam arm and “set” the trims.  After landing I noticed that the left side was half out. 
 Falcon is grounded due to a broken weld at the top of the inner cage ring.   Time to visit Mike Lange and perhaps talk to Terry about building a new airframe.  The whipping knot held it together but I noticed that the broken welds were not far away from cutting the lines.  I doubt it would have held for very long.  It’s a good looking knot but not good for this purpose.  Perhaps, if I overlayed it with a second whip …..

Once again the wing overshot and crashed in front of the trike.  Nice flight …. Wide ranging 

906 Shell Creek Airpark

No Drama.  I’m comfortable with the Eden again.   50 minutes at and around 500 ft.  Light air.

I landed by the truck and nose dived the wing into the swale.  For some crazy reason I rolled the wing inside out and bagged it.  It did keep the wing dryer but opened the possibility of a terrible line tangle.  Later back at the house  it bugged me until i repacked it.
I’ve got a crack opening at the top of the first ring so I bound it with line using a whipping knot.  It will be interesting to see how it fares when the weld lets go.

905 Getting reacquainted with the Eden III

It’s all good but…  I miss my APCO.
The Eden was inspected by Paratour.  I’m good for another 100 hours.  It doesn’t crinkle anymore and it’s developed a bad habit of gaining weight from the morning dew.  Elisabeth has shortened the brakes and sometime / somewhere, I shortened the pulleys, making it impossible to park the toggles while in flight.  I did make the mistake of missing a wrap with the brakes but it was a non event.
  

#904 Palm Bay

This was a good one.  I drove to Palm Bay where I was leaving the APCO with Joe Morris to give to Elisabeth when she gets back.  We met at Valkire Airport (including Rex who was bringing my Powerplay 250.  I cracked off a quick one with the Eden.  It was 8:30 and the air was starting to percolate.  The Eden was fine.