Quotes received. The IRAN inspection is not much cheaper than a full overhaul. This is understandable, since we are talking about full engine teardown to make sure the detonation did not affect the crankshaft, camshaft or other essential components.
Asked my mechanic to remove the engine and deliver it to Victor Aviation in Palo Alto. They are a local shop, with seemingly good reputation (confirmed later).
Toured Victor Aviation facility in Palo Alto. Jeff Decker, Shop Operations Manager, showed me around the facility and explained many of their processes, illustrating them with examples of engines being remanufactured.
Over the weekend, I did a ton of research on Victor, and it seems they are a shop with really good reputation, but they are quite expensive. I don’t mind them being more expensive, I just want solid performance and reliability, and they are apparently very good at both. Their turnaround time (3 weeks, probably 4-5 weeks with full overhaul) seems much more acceptable than other reputable shops I checked, like Ly-Con and Barrett. Decided to go with Victor, hoping that my engine will look like the one below.
When I purchased Llama four years ago, my experimental RV-10, the engine was the most problematic part of the airplane purchase then. It had an unknown number of hours on it. It first flew on a Piper Aztec. That aircraft was parted out, then the engine was mounted in R44 helicopter. After an unknown number of hours, the engine was removed and then stored.
The builder purchased that engine back in 2007, and did a top overhaul at a shop in Georgia. They installed new, nickel plated cylinders, high, 10:1 compression pistons, and pickled the engine. It sat for 5 years in pickled state until the builder was ready to put it on the airplane. When I acquired Llama, it had 106 hours on the airframe, and, presumably the same amount on the engine since top overhaul. It was consuming one quart of oil per 3.5 flight hours. This is on a high side, but as my mechanic explained, this is normal for an old engine.
I casually monitored the cylinder compressions during annual condition inspections, and kept track of oil consumption. In 4 years until this June, the oil consumption increased to 3 quarts per hour. This was still within Lycoming’s specifications.
At some time in September, I noticed abrupt change in oil consumption patterns. It seems the engine now demands one quart per two hours of flight. Talked to my mechanic, and he wants to see the aircraft for compression check. He advised me to “be careful” since I had multiple flights scheduled over the following few weeks.
On October 10 I flew the airplane to Palo Alto for the mechanic to have a look at the cylinders. He did a compression check, and it appears that compressions on three cylinders, #2, #4 and #6 are 38, 38 and 41. This is much lower than just three months earlier, at the annual condition inspection. I decided to pull the affected cylinders to see what may be wrong. The mechanic warns that we may be opening a Pandora box (and he is right).
An engine shop did the inspection of cylinders. The diagnosis eventually comes in, and it is not favorable. Upon inspection of the three cylinders, the engine shop found the following deficiencies:
All cylinders are nickel bore and the cylinder walls are wavy with a ring ridge.
One of the cylinders has a crack in the cylinder head next to the exhaust valve seat.
All three exhaust valves rejected due to excessive wear on the stem.
One intake valve rejected due to pitting on the face.
All exhaust valve guides are worn beyond limits.
One piston is damaged from detonation.
Those are some serious allegations against the engine. The shop’s advice is to perform so called IRAN (Inspect and Repair As Necessary) since they found evidence of detonation.
My own plane is in an annual condition inspection, where my mechanic is doing some additional work. I wanted to remove the dead-weight air conditioning and fix a hole in the cowling that was made to support the A/C compressor.
Cooley Landing
I got news about a plane down in marshes near Palo Alto airport through my company’s pilots discussion list. Someone even posted an aerial view of the plane in the marshes. From the pictures it was easy to identify that the area the plane landed on was in Ravenswood Open Space Preserve. My wife, daughter and I set up to visit that area, as it has a walk/bike path leading to an observation deck that seemed to be quite close to the landing site. We parked at Cooley Landing which is one of the most identifiable landmarks when you take off or approach Palo Alto. Often, in haze, or in setting sun’s glare, the first thing I can identify is Cooley Landing. You can see below how it looks from the ground.
Ravenswood Open Space Preserve
It is basically a marsh, haven for birds. There were many birds around. I am not a bird watcher, so I cannot really identify any of them, maybe except for a crane. There were many other birds, taking off from nearby Palo Alto airport. These were of migratory, propeller type. I am sure the real bird watchers are not too fond of those birds.
Marsh Landing
Around 2PM on Friday one of the airplanes taking off of Palo Alto lost its engine. The airplane, a Citabria, was operated as an instructional flight, with my instructor, Martin Michaud in the back seat. I haven’t talked to Martin beyond “glad you’re ok” email but he promised a story to tell next time we go out flying. From the location of the airplane it is obvious they have not tried to turn back to the airport. Martin was always patiently telling me, that there is plenty of flat, empty spaces and there is no reason to risk the “impossible” turn back to the airport. Obviously, what he is teaching, worked for him this time. Thank you, Martin.
As you can see from the pictures below, no harm was done to the occupants of the airplane and no harm was done to the airplane (which Martin owns by the way). We found the airplane tied down at the end of the path through Ravenswood Open Space Preserve. The tail tie down is one of a kind. I still have no idea how they’re going to haul it back to Palo Alto for engine work. I suspect they will take the wings off and put everything in a big UHaul truck. Time will tell. Enjoy the rest of the pictures.
From the local forecasts it seemed that the southern route, along the border with Mexico, offered the most reasonable chance of avoiding thunderstorms, precipitation and turbulence. We looked at published TAFs (terminal area forecasts) and we saw generally clear weather, with some thunderstorm interference along the way but nothing major. We decided to take off and amend our route if necessary. The first stop would be Shreveport, Louisiana.
We packed the rental car with supplies (we carried a few six-packs of local Georgia beer to California) and headed to the airport. We arrived right at sunrise and took a nice picture of the plane at Lawrenceville.
Leg 9: Lawrenceville, Georgia to Shreveport, Louisiana
Paying for fuel, packing, pulling the airplane out of a hangar, preflight, returning the rental car took us about an hour. We called for taxi instructions but Gwinnett Tower told us they open at 7 AM. We taxied to runway 25 for departure to the west, completed a runup sequence, and took the runway for departure. As we were lifting off the runway the tower has opened. We continued to the west, climbing to 4,500, passing over Dobbins Air Reserve Base, above their class D but under Atlanta class B shelf. Continuing west, we climbed to 8,500. The weather was quiet, air was smooth and the engine was making purring noises. After an hour or so we reached a region of a low stratus, where airports below were reporting IFR due to low ceilings. A slight deviation to the south kept us in the clear.
ATC has informed us that Meridian 1 West MOA (Military Operations Area) is hot (active). We elected to transition through with traffic advisories. At one point we saw a fast moving jet about five miles from our position but no further contact with the military happened and MOA soon went cold. As we were getting closer to Louisiana, more and more patchy clouds started appearing. Arriving at Shreveport, the tower cleared us for landing in front of arriving Citation. I was still too high, and ill aligned with the runway so I elected to go around. On a go around, we observed a crop duster operating low in the airport space. I guess they were spraying anti-mosquito substances. After landing we took fuel (40.7 gallons) and ate some cookies provided by the FBO. We also learned that full service fueling at Shreveport was more than 20% more expensive than self fueling. Oh well.
Planning The Next Leg
The way onwards looked clear to some extent. We initially thought about going towards Albuquerque or even Santa Fe but there was a line of intense precipitation and thunderstorms right over north western Texas, blocking the way to northern New Mexico. We looked at the airports in south eastern New Mexico, considered Roswell, NM for a bit but ultimately decided to go to Cavern City Air Terminal near Carlsbad, New Mexico. We thought we should be able to reach the airport in time before the Carlbad Caverns National Park closed for the night.
Leg 10: Shreveport, Louisiana to Carlsbad, New Mexico
Winds were favoring runway 23 at Shreveport and it was open for departures so we asked for taxi to 23 and got the approval from the ground control. After an uneventful departure (a bit flat departure since it was hot and humid and I wanted to maintain CHTs in climb) we were switched to Shreveport Approach for flight following to Cavern City. After meandering a bit around the clouds we found an opening big enough to fit through and climbed to 6,500 feet. At this altitude we were still around the cumulus cloud tops so we climbed to 8,500. We deviated a little bit to the south to avoid Dallas – Fort Worth class B area but were squeezed a bit by a thunderstorm that popped right south of Dallas. ATC apparently noticed our struggle and asked us if we wanted direct to destination. We gladly took the new route and were cleared into Dallas class B at 8,500. At one point we were looking for a descending 737 but we never actually saw it.
Leaving Dallas we also left the area of unsettled weather. We climbed to 10,500 to avoid cumulus buildups below us and remained there until almost the end. Passing over west Texas we noticed a lot of square shaped spots with a dirt roads leading to them. Since we just passed a field of wind turbines we thought those were new wind turbines being constructed or replaced. Only after we landed we realized our mistake. Those were not wind turbine spots, those were small oil wells. There were literally thousands of those all around west Texas and eastern New Mexico. Descending for landing in Carlsbad we got under those cumulus clouds and the ride became quite bumpy. I really like I can go above at least some weather in my RV-10!
We landed around 2 PM mountain time. After landing, we taxied to a fuel pump and took 36.9 gallons of fuel. We didn’t want a repeat of Shreveport full service vs. self service pricing so we self fueled. While I parked the airplane, Greg went into the FBO and got us a nice rental car so that we could get to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. When we asked for directions to the park, the person at FBO said, “oh, just take the first right turn off this highway here and you’ll be there”, and they were right. The park is very close to the airport (not close enough for walking though so plan on renting a car). We had enough time to walk down to the caverns, take the 2 km long walk through the main cave section, eat lunch and take the lift back to the surface.
Leg 11: Carlsbad, New Mexico to Blythe, California
We spent a night at a hotel that Hotwire picked for us. The hotel was quite decent but it was located at the opposite end of the town, about 20 minutes by car. Carlsbad seems to be very long and thin for some reason, so getting to the hotel took us longer than expected. Again, we decided to get up early, to beat the convection in the mountains as much as possible. Got up at 4 AM mountain time, we were at the airport at 5:30 AM and in the air at 6:20 AM. The air was smooth. We picked up a destination of Blythe, California as a good, mid-way stopping point during the journey. The weather radar was showing a cell of precipitation drifting towards Blythe, so we were ready to divert to some other airport in vicinity of Phoenix should that cell not dissipate before we got there. The cell indeed intensified and became a thunderstorm right over the airport about two hours before we were scheduled to land there. Fortunately, by the time we got there, the cell dissipated and we were greeted by a clear sky. Shortly before landing Albuquerque Center handed us to LA Center which terminated our flight following within a minute of the transfer. Landed uneventfully, took fuel (37.3 gallons) and purchased some pre-made frozen sandwiches at the FBO. They looked bad but actually tasted good.
Leg 12: Blythe, California to San Jose, California
The last leg of this coast to coast journey took us over vast expanses of State of California. We took off to the north west and dealt with low visibility on climbout. Most likely, the front which passed a few hours earlier was kicking up the dust as we climbed. We obtained VFR flight following to San Jose from LA center. Our direct path (to the north west) would take us through some restricted areas, so we chose a bit more westerly heading initially. By the time we got to vicinity of Apple Valley, California, ATC cleared us through restricted area R-2515 which covers Edwards Air Force Base at 10,500 feet. We saw the long runway used by the Space Shuttle and noticed the runway extended into the dry lake bed. So if the Space Shuttle overran the runway, it still had several miles of the dry lake to stop.
By the time Joshua Approach handed us back to Bakersfield Approach the visibility started to deteriorate a bit. It was quite clear over the Central Valley but by the time we got into vicinity of Panoche VORTAC it was definitely 10 miles or less. Once we got over the Diablo Range, the visibility became so bad that I elected to control the airplane via the instruments because I couldn’t see the horizon clearly. Norcal told us to go to Pruneyard (a visual reporting point over San Jose) so I followed Santa Clara Valley north and then turned north-west towards Pruneyard. Only over San Jose the horizon became visible again. We were handed off to San Jose tower which cleared us to land on 30L without actually going to Pruneyard. On the ground we found out that the poor visibility was due to ongoing Soberanes fire which started the day we departed for Oshkosh and was only 15% contained by the time we got there.
Some Interesting Statistics
Total Flight Hours: 36.7 hours
Fuel Burned: 360.4 gallons, 1364 liters
Total Flight Distance: 5615.52 nautical miles, 10,400 kilometers
Original plan called for staying at Oshkosh until Thursday morning. Weather is known to throw monkey wrenches into even the most carefully crafted plans. Come Wednesday morning, a weather system was moving in, that was supposed to bring in heavy precipitation and low ceilings. The low ceilings were slated to persist at Oshkosh until Thursday afternoon. And Oshkosh has airshows during the afternoons, so that the airport is closed for departures and arrivals during the airshow. The airshow ends around 6 PM which leaves a window of only about 2 hours until the airport closes for the night.
Another factor in the decision to depart early was my 30+ year old tent. Ada has warned me it leaks from the floor up and I did not have high levels of confidence about protection from the top either. The system was supposed to arrive around 2 PM so by 10 AM I decided to cut short my Oshkosh time and depart. I packed the tent (a mistake), said good bye to Lisa who was going to return back to California with another co-worker of ours and started a pre-flight inspection. During the pre-flight a couple of volunteers showed up and asked me if I am departing and if I needed help. I sure needed help to get the airplane out of its place on the grass so I gladly accepted their help. The NOTAM said I need to pull the airplane out to the row and only start the engine with a permission. Got the permission from the volunteers and taxied to taxiway P1. Followed the taxiway down and got directed to runway 36L for departure. Since nobody was following me I did the runup sequence while taxiing, and after a short wait I was off the ground, with my transponder off until clear of Oshkosh class D and going south.
Original plan called for going direct to Atlanta. Since I now had one more day that I could use to fly, I decided to try to reach the Atlantic Ocean in a bid to make this trip a true cross country flight – from Pacific to Atlantic and back. Yes, we took off from San Jose over San Francisco Bay so the airplane definitely flew over Pacific. Now it just needs to fly over Atlantic to complete the feat.
I decided to go around Chicago class B airspace to the west. Initially I thought to stop at Rockford, Illinois to get fuel but decided against it due to incoming weather from the west. I wasn’t yet clear of it and a delay of an hour could get me trapped on the ground and behind the fast moving front. I had plenty of fuel so continued down to the south east through Illinois. Cumulus clouds started popping up but the ADS-B weather reported clear down in Indiana. Decided to land to stretch the legs and refuel in Columbus, Ohio. Yes, I saw “Columbus” and immediately thought, “oh, Columbus, Ohio, sweet”. It wasn’t until I landed, got fuel (34.0 gallons), used a restroom and sat down to plan the following route, that I realized I was actually in Columbus, Indiana. Columbus, Ohio wasn’t that far away but I was in Indiana, not Ohio.
Leg 7: Columbus, Indiana to Hilton Head, South Carolina
Departure from Columbus, Indiana and climb to 6,500 feet was uneventful but soon I would need to deal with a low pressure system that was triggering some precipitation over Kentucky and Tennessee. Indeed, the clouds became a bit more developed and thunderstorms and other areas of intense precipitation started appearing on the weather radar. ADS-B is a blessing when going on long cross country flights. See for yourself, how angry some of those clouds looked.
Kentucky greeted me with the clouds you can see above. I climbed to 8,500 feet then to 10,500 feet. Indy Center stopped me from climbing and kept me at 10,000 feet for about 10 minutes, not allowing further climb so I had to scramble to stay clear of clouds. Finally, I was allowed to climb higher and go over some smaller buildups. While some of the tall clouds looked nice, I was sure I wouldn’t want to be near them. The ride was surprisingly smooth at 10,500, no turbulence at all, even with all those buildups around me. That probably meant I kept healthy distance from the bigger ones.
I initially asked for flight following to Greenville, North Carolina, as I wasn’t sure I would be able to go through the front with all the activity popping up around me. Near Greenville it became clear that I will be able to reach Hilton Head without any issues (neither fuel nor weather) so I asked to change flight following to Hilton Head. Arrived at Hilton Head late in the afternoon (around 6 PM) and flew my airplane over Atlantic Ocean to get there (Hilton Head is an island). The views were great, see for yourself below. The FBO arranged a hotel for me and dropped me off there. When I asked about southern eatery, the FBO line attendant recommended “Street Meet” cafe in a nearby shopping center. It was great, I had a barbecue wrap, sweet tea and some local beer. Good stuff, although don’t tell that to my dietitian!
Leg 8: Hilton Head, South Carolina to Lawrenceville, Georgia
The previous day was quite tiring, I went to sleep around 9 PM and woke up 6 AM. I was not in a great hurry to depart but since I woke up at 6, I packed up and walked to the airport (about 2 kilometers from the hotel). The temperature was still manageable at that hour at 27 degrees C. The FBO at Hilton Head filled up the airplane (took 34.6 gallons) and I was ready to go.
This flight was supposed to be a homecoming for me. I planned to go and land at Washington, Wilkes County, Georgia and Winder, Barrow County, Georgia before I arrived at Lawrenceville, Gwinnett County, Georgia. Why? Oh, Washington was my first solo cross country destination when I was doing my private pilot license. Winder was the airport my instructor and I (ab)used for landing practice. And, of course, Lawrenceville was the closest airport to home so that’s where the flight school was.
Navigation nowadays, with GPS is so easy. 16 years ago, when I was completing my first solo cross country, I completely missed the Washington airport. From dead reckoning I was able to tell I overshot it so came back using pilotage and found it. Paper charts, no GPS and being unfamiliar with VOR navigation made it so much harder. Kids these days have it easy.
Landed at each airport uneventfully, Winder had a good deal of training traffic already (someone shooting an approach to 31, someone practicing landings on 23). I landed, taxied back and waited for a 172 to complete a touch and go. He seemed so slow compared to my RV-10! Finally, arrived at Lawrenceville, landed and parked for the night at Gwinnett Aero. They filled my fuel tanks (took 25.8 gallons) and my oxygen tank since we planned to go through Colorado, Utah and Nevada on our way back. Of course, weather would change our plans, but for the better!
Oshkosh, Wisconsin becomes the largest airport in the world by aircraft operations during yearly EAA Airventure event. In 2016, they had close to 15,000 operations during the Airventure week. It is a lot of planes, a lot of approaches, landings, takeoffs and departures. It takes planning and preparation and then execution to get there safely. Yearly, pilots are reminded to read the notam. NOTAM, or “notice to airmen”, describes to arrival and departure procedures for both VFR (visual) and IFR (instrument) pilots. It is critical for everyone’s safety to read, understand and conform to what’s there.
The gist of a VFR arrival is that by the time you arrive at the town of Ripon, Wisconsin, you’ve listened to the arrival ATIS, you maintain 1,800 feet MSL and 90 knots. You find railroad tracks, find a plane to follow and follow them 1/2 mile in trail directly over railroad tracks. By the time you get to the town of Fisk, you get asked to rock your wings and you get assigned a runway. You are not supposed to talk on the frequency.
Actual Arrival or Leg 5: Baraboo to Oshkosh
Of course, the weather threw a wrench into our carefully crafted plans. The Sunday morning was misty, light rain was falling and the Baraboo – Wisconsin Dells airport was IFR. Instead of departing at 6:30 AM we woke up at 7:30 AM, ate breakfast, packed up and headed to the airport. By the time we arrived, the airport was marginal VFR with low ceiling of 1,100 feet AGL. We had the plane refueled (took 20.8 gallons of fuel) and waited a bit. There were quite a bit of other pilots waiting, trying to discern the situation at Oshkosh. I remembered that I have LiveATC application installed on my phone, fired it up and heard Fisk Approach asking people to rock their wings. That meant the field was open and accepting arrivals!
We boarded the plane and took off. The ceilings were really marginal, at 1,800 feet MSL we were maybe 600 feet below the clouds. The signs of Oshkosh craziness showed early. We dialed in Arrival ATIS frequency and heard people chatting on it (wat??). Someone was complaining that people are turning off their transponders (NOTAM clearly says to turn off your transponder 30 miles from Ripon, unless you are ADS-B out equipped). ATIS said Oshkosh is landing runways 27 and 18R.
Arrival at Ripon was unique. For the first time in my life I saw at least 5 planes converging at one point, while another 20 or so were approaching, according to my ADS-B display. Of course, the display only showed planes with transponders on, so there must have been even more planes coming in and converging. We found the railroad tracks and got behind at least 4 planes trying to form a conga line. I believe all 5 planes (including us) were converged on a one mile length and slowing down because someone felt it is appropriate to fly 70 knots instead of prescribed 90. After about a minute of this craziness I made the decision to bail out and return to Ripon for another try at sequencing.
Another try was a bit more successful. We got behind a V-tail Bonanza and started following the railroad tracks. Well, that didn’t last — Bonanza slowed down significantly and dropped at least 500 feet below, and was one mile off course. Additionally, runway 27 closed because someone landed their Mooney gear up there. Fisk Approach was asking for 1 mile spacing, then they switched to 2 mile spacing to give the tower breathing room. Finally, the exasperated controller said that he sees people in parallel, deviating away from the railroad tracks and at different speeds. He started sending people back, especially those who were not following the railroad tracks. At this time, Bonanza was about a mile to the north west of the tracks, doing 70 knots and veering off course even more. We stopped trying to follow it, maintained 90 knots, 1,800 feet and over the railroad tracks. Arriving at Fisk, we were greeted with “white and red RV, rock your wings”, “good rock! follow Fisk Avenue for runway 18R”.
There was no one ahead of us in sight (2 mile separation), so we approached and turned downwind then base. On base we were instructed to touch down on the blue dot, which I did. Ground controllers directed us to HBC (Homebuilt Camping). All in all, only 1.1 hours but soooo intense.
The Show
I will not go into details of the show, there are so many other good posts about it. It was simply awesome and I wished Ada could be with me then. Please enjoy some pictures from it.
The Departure
I have planned to be at the show until Thursday morning. That day I planned to depart for Atlanta, where I would pick up my friend Greg and come back with him to California. As usual, the weather dictated a change in plans…
When you go by the FARs, logging cross-country time requires a point of landing that is more than 50 nm straight-line distance from the original point of departure [as a reminder it is in 14 CFR 61.1(b)(3)(ii)]. But the traditional meaning of “cross country” would be to cross the country from coast to coast. So, on a beautiful July Friday, I set off for my first true cross country flight.
An additional goal (OK, primary goal, fine!) was to attend EAA Airventure 2016 at Oshkosh. Ada and I were there in 2013 but we have flown commercial then and camped in Camp Scholler. This time I was prepared to camp with my airplane! Too bad an RV-10 is a low wing, so you cannot really camp under the wing.
Preparations
As with all my longer flights, I started checking the weather two weeks in advance. The weather was forecast clear and hot. The desert might have some afternoon thunderstorms, so I planned to take off as early as possible from San Jose so that I am out of the mountains or on the ground by mid-afternoon. I also requested a 50 hour inspection and an oil change from my friendly mechanic (as I wouldn’t have time to do it myself). Oil change was performed, oil analysis done, no anomalies were detected. The airplane was filled up and ready to go.
The plan was to get to Oshkosh over three days. On Friday we would take off from San Jose and get to Rawlins, Wyoming (KRWL), which is about half way through from San Jose to Oshkosh. The next day, Saturday, we would get from Rawlins to Baraboo – Wisconsin Dells airport (KDLL). I had two goals with this airport. First, it would be the last night in a real bed with a real bath before camping for four nights at Oshkosh. Second, KDLL is only 60 nautical miles away from Oshkosh. Spending the night there would enable us to be at RIPON a few minutes past 7 AM (the time at which Oshkosh opens for landing traffic). The internets agree that this is the best time to go land at Oshkosh since there is little traffic at that time. Read on to see what actually happened!
At almost the last minute, a coworker of mine, Lisa, who is a pilot and a CFI, volunteered to go with me. I welcomed another pair of eyes and an ability to hand off the airplane for some period of time, even if George The Autopilot was flying most of the time.
Camping stuff got packed, oxygen bottle got hydro tested and filled, route loaded into the tablet, phones charged, GPS trackers charged, food and drink prepared, including 4 gallon water tank taken just in case we had to land somewhere in the desert, far from civilization. We were ready to go.
Leg 1: San Jose, California to Wendover, Utah
We could probably make it to Rawlins with no intermediate landing but we deferred the decision until we get a better sense of the fuel burn. On departure, San Jose tower directed us to course 020, which was more or less on course considering that we planned to follow Interstate 80 most of the time. Climbed to 13,500, turned the oxygen on and enjoyed 25 knot tailwind with true airspeed around 150 knots. Passed Blue Canyon, Truckee and Reno uneventfully. Between Reno and Elko, ATC advised us that there is a Cirrus trying to pass us. It took him a lot of time to catch up and we were on a converging course so I throttled back, slowed down and got out of the way of the “faster” airplane. I just wasn’t comfortable with that converging course and the fact that we couldn’t pick him up visually.
Coming over eastern Nevada, our ADS-B loaded a string of thunderstorms over Wasatch Range, east of Salf Lake CIty. The passage north of Salt Lake City looked clear but we decided to land in Wendover and take fuel since we were not sure what kind of maneuvering we will need to do to get around the popping thunderstorms. At Wendover, we picked 33.1 gallons of fuel, confirming cruise fuel burn of around 10.5-11 gallons per hour.
Leg 2: Wendover, Utah to … Logan, Utah (with a slight Wyoming diversion)
Well, not everything goes as planned, and this leg is a solid proof.
On the ground, we hid in the air conditioned hut. It was hot, weather reported 37 degrees C. The density altitude was 7,300 (field elevation is 4,237). By the time I taxied to runway and performed a run-up, my oil temperature was already 198 F. Then I made a mistake of … leaning the airplane for max power. Yes. You read that right. It was a mistake. Let me tell you a story because clearly, you are curious. All the books tell you that you need to lean for maximum power at high density altitude situations. This is generally true but max power can be achieved in a quite wide range of rich-to-lean mixtures at any given elevation and density altitude. My mistake was to lean too much, I still got the max power but cooling to the cylinder heads was diminished. That, combined with hot engine, hot outside air and limited airflow during takeoff and initial climb caused overheat warnings to appear for cylinder heads and oil temps at about 300 AGL. Those temperatures skyrocketed due to mixture being too lean. I enriched the mixture managing not to kill the engine and the temperatures started coming down. Meanwhile we came back to the airport but by the time I aligned with a runway to land the CHTs were already in the green and oil temperature, while still in the red, was coming down quickly. We circled the airport, came back over I-80 and commenced the slow climb with rich mixture. Oil temperature came back to normal and we flew on.
Coming over Great Salt Lake, a thunderstorm cell developed right over the Salt Lake City. We diverted to the north, around class B and around the cell. We flew on to the north east, over the lake and then over the Cache Valley. We finally entered Wyoming but the radar was showing a developing north-south line of thunderstorms ahead of us, basically between Kemmerer and Fort Bridger, WY. We could deviate to the north, around 200 miles north was clear. South was blocked by a solid line of precipitation over the Wasatch range. After much deliberation we diverted back to Logan, Utah and decided to call it a day. At Logan we picked up 23 gallons of fuel. We got two rooms at Days Inn and Suites in Logan, rented a car to get there and after a short rest walked to Angie’s Diner for dinner. The food was plentiful and good, after the excitement of the first day of the trip.
Leg 3: Logan, Utah to Mitchell, South Dakota
We ate the dinner at Angie’s and we got sleepy. I was asleep by 9 PM, with an alarm clock set to 4:30 AM. We got to the airport at the first light, pre-flighted and loaded our new route. The car rental keys were dropped into the maintenance hangar since the FBO at LGU wasn’t yet open when we departed. Decided to climb to 13,500, plug in the oxygen and go as far east as possible. There was a weather system blocking the direct way to Wisconsin, with an opening to the north so we decided to head to the north east to get to that opening between the fronts.
First light at Logan-Cache Valley Airport, Utah.
Getting up very early to avoid most of the weather will be the prevailing theme at this trip. At 13,500 over western Wyoming we tried to pick up flight following but neither Salt Lake Center nor Casper Radio was able to hear us. We were too low over the unpopulated terrain to be picked up by them. Continued to east-north-east, in direction of Rapid City, South Dakota (airport identifier KRAP, no comments). The weather opening was around Fargo, North Dakota so we continued in that general direction. Further weather reports showed that most of the weather over Wisconsin is moving to the north east but the weather over North Dakota was moving almost directly east. That had two major implications: first, the gap we were seeing would rapidly close up, and second, even if we manage to get through the gap, we would be heading down towards the other system, which was undesirable.
Thus, we decided to divert around the Wisconsin system to the south. Changed the heading to east-south-east and went towards Pierre, South Dakota. When there, we had enough fuel to continue a little bit further towards the escaping weather so we decided to go further out, to Mitchell, South Dakota. We landed at Mitchell, and took 41.2 gallons of fuel. We also ate lunch which Lisa prepared before leaving San Jose. At the Mitchell airport, there was a Young Eagles event, where pilots took kids for airplane rides. By the time we came over 50 kids were flown, with more waiting in the line.
Leg 4: Mitchell, South Dakota to Baraboo – Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin
On any cross country flight, the weather is important. It becomes very important on a long cross country flights, where you might be diverting a long way around the weather. Better be prepared for it. Sitting at the air conditioned FBO in Mitchell we looked at the huge system pummeling mid-western states and wondering how we could get around it. See for yourself below.
Routing around this huge weather system was a challenge.
Instead of going direct (d’oh), we went south, towards Ames, Iowa and swinging to the north towards Dubuque, Iowa. At the time of our projected passage, Dubuque was forecasting clear skies and calm winds. Wisconsin Dells was forecasting good visibility, ceiling of 9,000 and light rain for our arrival.
We still had to contend with the line of precipitation before arriving at KAMW (Ames, Iowa). Going there, we did not feel comfortable negotiating around some of the cells that were growing bigger, so we diverted even more to the south, towards Des Moines, Iowa. This is how Des Moines looked like from our plane.
Des Moines, Iowa.
We got some light precipitation on the windshield but nothing alarming. Continuing south east for a bit we evaluated the weather reports from the Dubuque and Wisconsin Dells area. For awhile we contemplated skipping Wisconsin Dells and going straight to Oshkosh, as it seemed the way near Lake Michigan, over Milwaukee, was open. This quickly proved infeasible due to intense thunderstorms that popped up in Milwaukee area. We decided to continue up to the original destination of Baraboo – Wisconsin Dells.
The small precipitation areas we saw at Mitchell bloomed into a huge and intense thunderstorm.
The way to Oshkosh is blocked but it seems we would be able to get to the Wisconsin Dells before the line of thunderstorms arrives.
The initial weather report at KDLL was 3 miles visibility, light rain, so marginal VFR conditions. As we got closer, it was improving. When we decided to land, the rain was falling, but the wind was quiet, and the landing was uneventful. We taxied to the FBO, got the plane tied down and covered and headed to the hotel for the night. No later than an hour after we landed the line of thunderstorms we were chasing and then escaping from, arrived. We were glad to be at the hotel.
The company I work for was sending me to Boulder, Colorado for a summit. This is close enough to be a pleasant, one day flight to and a similar, one day flight back.
I started planning a month before the actual flight. Planned a few routes, as evidenced in the following images.
Route 1
From San Jose to Boulder, low altitude route. Basically following I-80 into Colorado.
Route 2
From San Jose to Boulder, medium altitude (some oxygen requred). Bypassing the highest peaks of Front Range to the south.
First route was theoretically the safer one. The highest terrain en route was only 8,700 feet (2,650 m). The route joins interstate I-80 and basically follows it throughout California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming into Colorado. It was going to take about 6 hours to get there, Obviously, a fuel stop would be necessary somewhere.The second route would take me through deserts of Nevada and Utah into Colorado, bypassing the Front Range to the south. It would be slightly shorter and definitely more beautiful.
Monitoring the Weather
I needed to be in Boulder on Tuesday, May 17, in the afternoon. I started looking at the weather about two weeks out. The forecast initially called for some rain showers on Tuesday, but the preceding weekend was meant to be all-clear. This was not to be. As the days, passed, the forecast became worse and worse. Soon, Tuesday was all socked in and rainy, while Monday was to be cloudy. As the departure date drew closer, the weather forecast deteriorated even more. Finally, it seemed that Saturday was the only day to fly before Tuesday afternoon.
When you’ve got time to spare, go by air they say, and they are right, no?
San Jose, CA to Grand Junction, CO
Direct route, with oxygen, and a fuel stop in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Finally, decided on a direct route, with supplemental oxygen. I have a portable Aerox system with oxymiser cannulas so getting oxygen up high wasn’t a problem. Departed San Jose around 11 AM on Saturday, once the marine layer overcast cleared enough to poke a stick through it. Direct route wasn’t too direct initially, as we still had to deal with the dissipating marine layer, so we followed Sunol pass, Livermore Valley and Altamont pass quite low below the clouds. The overcast cleared as we entered Central Valley and we started our climb to 13,500 ft (4,100 m).
Crossed the Sierra Nevada range in vicinity of Yosemite, over Mono Lake into Nevada. Flight following dropped us over the Sierras as we were too low for their radar coverage to work. We reacquired flight following with Oakland Radio about 20 minutes later on the other side of the mountain range. The air became turbulent, so I throttled back to 125 knots indicated, that still amounted to 145 knots true and 165 knots ground speed. We were getting amazing 8.5 gallons per hour when throttled way back and lean of peak. Gotta love that. In the middle of Nevada we spotted a huge dust devil, a tornado almost, about a 1 km tall. Funnel dust cloud was quite well defined. You can see on the track above that we have given it quite a wide berth. Going into eastern Utah, we got some lightning and thunder from nearby clouds so we meandered around to avoid obvious buildups. That worked well, and we finally landed in Grand Junction around 5 PM Mountain time. We took fuel, only 39.6 gallons after 4.7 hours of hobbs time. Can’t stop admiring the efficiency of the airplane.
Grand Junction, CO to Boulder, CO
We took fuel and by the time we paid, the storms have closed all around us. Since small airplanes and thunderstorms do not mix well, we decided to spend a night in Grand Junction. Next day, in the morning, we woke up to another thunderstorm right at the airport. The storm has cleared but there was an intense band of precipitation north of the field so we were reluctant to go through it. The forecast was getting even worse from there, so it was time to implement Plan B. We rented a car and drove to Boulder from Grand Junction. The weather on the way was quite pleasant, so maybe we overestimated the severity of the weather. But, it is better to be down here wishing you were up there rather than being up there wishing you were down here. Isn’t it?
Exciting Return Trip (or not)
My summit was over by Thursday evening. I checked the weather (which was supposed to be sunny and warm Friday) and to my horror, realized that yes, it will be sunny but the winds will be terrible. The forecast called for 30 knots gusting to 45 in the afternoon. In the morning was more manageable 12G20 and right down the runway. I skipped the summit dinner and drove to Grand Junction on Thursday evening. Came up to the airport 5:30 AM Friday to observed winds of 28 knots gusting to 35 but blowing right down the runway. While maybe I could manage taxi and takeoff in such winds, there was no airport in Utah or Nevada with winds forecast to be less than 30 knots. A big low was moving northwards through Nevada and Utah. I checked every airport, even Las Vegas and Salt Lake City and even looked further south, to Yuma, Arizona. Everywhere the wind situation looked bad. I decided to spend a nice day in Grand Junction. Found a cafe (not Starbucks) and worked from there for the day.
Actual Return Trip (a day later)
I came to the airport at 5:30 AM again. This time the wind was much more manageable 12 knots gusting to 18, right down the runway. The northern Nevada and northern Utah airports were reporting low ceilings and precipitation so I abandoned the idea of overflying Great Salt Lake and following I-80 back home. I flew pretty much the same way I came into Grand Junction, which took me through central Utah and central Nevada to my fuel stop in Tonopah.
The visibility wasn’t great (see the gallery) but manageable. It was getting worse though and that worried me, so I was ready to divert or turn back if necessary. Somewhere in central Utah, I saw what I thought was a horizon underneath the cloud about a 300 m (1,000 ft) above me. Turned out I was wrong as I entered solid IMC. I executed a standard rate, 180 degrees turn back and immediately exited the IMC. I am thinking that the horizon I saw must have been a shadow of another cloud, just shaped as a horizon line. I diverted quite far to the south to find a manageable passage through the front.
KGJT to KTPH (fuel stop). You can see the 180 degree standard rate turn where I entered a solid IMC.
When I entered Nevada, I was greeted with an immediate improvement in visibility and sky became clear. Look into the gallery for a picture of a razor sharp cloud front and poor visibility behind it. I was glad I was exiting these conditions. Found the airport and landed in Tonopah uneventfully. While taking fuel, the lady running the pump mentioned they had a dust storm previous day with winds blowing upwards of 50 miles per hour (80 km/h). I am very glad I spent that Friday in Grand Junction.
Over the Sierras I went, climbed to 16,500 to avoid cumulus turbulence. It was very smooth at that altitude, and oxygen system/cannulas worked well to keep me alive. Coming down to Central Valley I saw scattered cumulus but closer to the coast the ceiling was broken. I ducked under the clouds (the ceilings were about 3,500 so not too bad) and landed uneventfully at San Jose at around 12:15 PM Pacific. The total hobbs time for this return trip amounted to 6.0 hours. Awesome.
Over the Sierras near Mono Lake at 16,500. At least now I know how high the plane will go without too much trouble.
It is an experimental, long range, solar powered aircraft that is currently on its round-the-world tour. It has four electric motors and four propellers, and carries enough batteries to be able to fly through the night. It is designed to remain airborne for long periods of time. The project’s motto is “The Future Is Clean”, as it promotes the use of clean, solar energy.
Solar Impulse in its tent on Moffett Field in Mountain View. The tent allows charging from Sun rays but stops the wind and dust from attacking the airplane.
Solar Impulse has a wing span of 63.4 m. This is wider than a Boeing 747, and only slightly smaller than Airbus A380.
Wing Catchers
Solar Impulse is almost 22 meters long.
Cabin has a recliner seat that also doubles up as a bed and a toilet. The pilot cannot sleep more than 20 minutes at a time to avoid entering deep sleep. Just in case he needs to react quickly to something unexpected.
Undercarriage folds in, of course. What is interesting is that the plane only has two wheels. Under the wings it has "wing catchers" designed for the people to catch and help stop the motion. I guess stall speed is pretty minimal then.
Instrument panel doesn't look much different from other experimental aircraft. Garmin dominates the stack.
RV-10: The story of new door struts or how to prevent your airplane doors from hitting you or your passengers on the head.
The Old Struts
The old struts never worked reliably for me. Even when I bought the airplane, they would barely hold the door up and the left door strut would give in at any hint of wind. The passenger side door strut was a bit stronger but, with time, it gave in too. The end result was that both doors needed to be held up manually if you didn’t want to be hit on the head at the slightest gust of wind. That, obviously, was not a good thing so I started doing a bit of research into what is considered a reliable strut for an RV-10 door.
New struts ordered…
After doing my needful on the research, it turned out that people who buy Bansbach Lift custom struts are happy with their purchase and can recommend their purchase to others. I went in and ordered two struts and four mount points. For interested parties providing links and specifications below. I picked up the custom force of 530N (120 lbs). That allows the pilot door to be held in place in pretty much any position. The passenger door opens up the whole way with the same force strut.
The specs:
B0N0F50-100-247/XXXN Gas Spring 4″(100mm) Stroke 10″(247mm) Extended Length Customer Selected Force (530N or 120 lbs) — one for each door — link
A1 M8 Hinge Eye Endfitting — two for each door — link
Putting them on
The strut mount points seemed the standard Van’s mount points. No modifications, maybe some of less than careful paint work. You can see the paint remains on the struts as well, I am wondering if that helped the strut to wear out faster. It turned out that even at fully extended position or at fully closed position, the mount point was still loaded by a considerable force. This became apparent when I removed the nut and the outside washer and tried to pull out the bolt. That did not work, and the bolt became stuck. I finally managed to get it unstuck using a small hex key from Ikea holding the old strut on the mount point while the bolt was removed. Removing the hex key was then much easier than removing the loaded bolt.
I did not make the same mistake twice and the replacement of the strut on the second door went much quicker.
And finally…
… I can be sure that the door won’t hit me or a passenger in a gust of wind.
I was able to test it pretty much the next day. I flew down to San Luis Obispo for lunch, and the winds on the ground were 17 gusting to 22. The doors didn’t budge, the new struts held them up in the strong wind just fine. I am glad I replaced them before that trip!
