The Atlanta Warbird Weekend has been cancelled for Sunday due to weather, it will be Saturday only this year.

Normally I'd be at home with my lower lip stuck out, but tomorrow morning I'm up with the Dawn Patrol to do...maintenance. I'm helping a friend do his annual condition inspection. I'll sneak over to my hangar and put the mirror back on the rear cabane. I really missed it being there.

See, today would have been a wonderful day for flying.

Definitely.

If it wasn't for the rain, though, think of the ground speed I could have achieved!

...or how short your takeoff and landing distance might have been.

"Talledega traffic, Nieuport Two Golf Victor - I'll be taking off from mid field so I'll stay off the threshold on take off, Talladega traffic"

Exercise in discipline today.

Went to the airport to not only check on the general state of things after the storm, but do some minor maintenance.

The forecast was no wind, but low clouds. No flying, just work, was my decision before heading out.

The epoxy on the fuel tank worked a treat - I no longer have a sheen of gasoline on the lower neck of it next to the battery. While that removes some minor sense of adventure in flying, I'll just have to live with it.

I had used the fuel pump to empty the gas tank, and so the battery had to be recharged.

One of my tires was flat, so I replaced the inner tube.

The gun's front bottom bolts looked kinda ugly sticking out there, so I made covers for them. Completely cosmetic, the bolts are firm and robust. The rear support tube joint was a bit rough, so I bent the tabs to a better angle and placed nuts on the insides of the center section to reduce vibration. Not that I saw it wiggle in flight, it's just a simple means of beefing it up.

Double checked my fuel bobber, as it seems a bit low with five gallons in it. It's bobbing fine; maybe I've needed to extend the rod the whole time, and adding another three gallons really brought it up. Going to have to think about that. It needs to bottom out at the three gallon mark (one hour flight time) or maybe two, not the five.

Meanwhile, the clouds were slowly lifting and breaking up. Two thousand feet. No, don't look, the're sucker holes and there's a lower wall over there. Two five hundred, with it looking pretty good to the west. Winds are almost nil on the ground. But something is moving the low clouds, and it ain't magic.

I have a little personal rule that if I call a no-go for flight from the start, that's it. No flight. Nobody is running up to me with a kidney in a cooler for a child's transplant, after all, and it's a hobby. I'm naturally kind of risky, so I have to really watch myself; without a system of personal rules for risk to follow I have been known to be foolhardy - it is through the grace of God that I survived long enough to see the wisdom of risk management.

Talledega race week, so my airport has already been invaded. On the upside, they cut the grass. Hell, they bailed it, it was tall enough. The front of the FBO looks like a car dealership with rental vehicles. RV's are starting to fill the areas across from the race track, so traffic will be crazy soon. Well, slow and stupid. The NASCAR guys that make up the airport board and folks sporting lanyards with ID's on them were seen today clearly checking things out, and judging by the looks I got from them, us local yokels aren't favored sons. The place where they put the boarding pass machine was being cleared in the FBO.

Things get pretty fancy for a few days twice a year.

I need to have a few weeks of good weather to complete my test flight requirements and move one airport over. St. Claire County (Pell City) is much better, with friendly folks and management that isn't a huge corporation taking care of a field only because they are under under legal obligation to do so.

Nascar was fun to watch in the 70's and 80's but then it became too corporate. Just like most every other sport these days.
Hopefully you get some air time before winter sets in Dart.


Wheels

Winter don't scare me.

I've got trigger mittens, a great long coat, wool pants, boots, a leather flying helmet, goggles and a scarf.

It does get pretty cold here in Alabama, but rarely does snow or ice stick to the runways.

I’m with Dart. The winter doesn’t scare me either (south of Tennessee). I just pull the “cabin heat” plunger and adjust as necessary. Put my sensors on the glareshiel to watch for carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. I am blessed with a very clean and contained system and don’t have a problem with either; but I watch for them. One the ground it’s just like normal.

My carb heat is "automatic," which is a very fancy way of saying it's always on.

Truth be told, I never feel hot or cold in an aircraft.

When I land I may be drenched in sweat or stiff from cold, but while flying I just don't feel it.

You're just looking for a reason to dress up in proper attire, admit it...

+1

I wish I could justify the cost of a proper flying coat!

Spent some time fussing with the engine today, pulling the prop and starting from square one on timing. I think I have it licked....the engine is sounding great, getting good RPM's,* and no run-on when the master is cut.

So prop is back on, and I'll head out in the morning to do some tests on the runway. If she runs great and leaps into the air, I'll just consider that a result and deal with it.

* The guys at Valley Engineering suspect that my tach, which was connected to the coil, might have been shorting it out (causing low RPM's) and sending a residual charge to the coil (causing or contributing to run on). So I did all the timing without a tach, and when finished, connected it back up to see if I could get a guess on RPM's. She turned about 3500 RPM's at max. I certainly re-arranged the back of my hangar at full throttle, as well as losing my hat. She stayed in the chocks, but the elevator was forced from up to neutral by the blast and the ropes securing the tail went taught.

I'm going to have to figure out a way to tap into the voltage regulator for the tach.

I did have to re-adjust the idle speed on the carb, which isn't completely unexpected, as I sort of just plonked it down on the build table with the intake manifolds still attached to it. She was idling way too fast.

For those counting, that's the Airspeed Indicator and the Tach that have been pulled from service. At this rate I may be down to a Slip Indicator, Compass, Oil Pressure and Oil Temp on the panel by Christmas.

I’m on stand-by to come see you.

A few notes -

1) Tightening up my pattern is a must, as I've been taking these terrible long low ones that aren't any good. Last time, when I didn't have a camera on board, naturally I rounded it out and landed picture perfect!

2) Putting the GoPro on top of the gun magazine sounded great in my head, but it moves around a little in flight (or so I found). Worse than the head mounted SpazCam.

3) Some minor oil leaks to chase down, but other than that all is well. Hopefully. I've got some oil leaking from the #4 valve pushrod. Hopefully I can just rotate it around and get the seal to seat. Otherwise I'll have to take off the head to see what the deal is.

Landing wasn't all that bad but the way your "Bebe" tracks after the tail wheel hits the ground is a bit disconcerting. Looks like it would almost take full rudder to keep from ground looping.


Wheels

Well spotted!

A true "splatter landing," complete with what is affectionately called the "Nieuport Stomp" within the community.

Indeed, at the end of that I over corrected slightly to the right, which means I had to stomp hard left. Such is the ways of a very short coupled tail wheel. They didn't put those wooden skids at the tips of the DR1 for nothing!

Part of it is the grooved pavement; it just grabs the plane, which makes for some interesting handling.

But it was all me - stick too far back for a good wheel landing, too far forward for a three pointer. Part of the learning curve in setting her down properly on a short field. Nothing bent and I made the first turnoff without any difficulty and no brakes.

Takeoff was good, though. Started the run at the numbers and up at the start of the white lines, tracking true.

I am an average pilot. Because of me, there is a standard set so that one can say others are either poor or superior.

Oh, btw, it can bit guys with hundreds of hours in type...

Pilots all know how twitchy things are and how easy it is for the smallest thing to make for a bad landing or runway incident.

We had a barbecue at my hangar Saturday and got to see a flier with a beautiful Cessna 195 ground loop it off the runway and end up in the grass between the runway and the taxiway. He did a full 360 and added 90 more to that. Fortunately nothing touched the ground, but there were some very bad noises coming from his gear. Darn; some of our wives are already a bit reticent about flying and we didn’t need that with a bunch of them at the barbecue. He was able power it onto the taxiway and taxi off to the hangars on the other side of the field.