I'm Here, finally near the end of our journey, we got a CAVU day (ceiling and visibility unlimited). But better yet, it was one of those windless, cool-aired late spring days where the flying is smooth as a magic carpet ride well into the late morning. But I'm getting ahead.
The 'coupe was tied down out on the pavement at the Greater Downtown Parma International Airport, and during the night a muddy-footed cat inspected the aircraft from tail to top of wing. Well, nothing we can do about that. I'll wash it off later. On with the trip.
The brown grass hills northwest of the Boise Valley.
On the descent into Baker OR I took this shot of the airplane halo, the bright spot in the middle of the image. It's due to the pilot not being able to see the shadow of things on the ground directly on the other side of the sun from the plane. But we pilots take it as a sign from God that blessed are the flying. After all, He gave us a halo.
A random, sparsely populated beauty spot in the hills of Eastern Oregon
And here is a short video to give you an idea of how fast the scenery passes by under the wing (WARNING: turn your volume down first, it has loud engine noise):
The broad sweep of the Columbia near Patterson.
That was the last photo I took before we landed at Curtis, my dad's home airport. It was only 3 hours and 20 minutes flight from Parma, but I was kind of punchy and tired after 5 days and more than 2000 miles of flying, so before heading back over White Pass to my own home in north idaho, I hit the couch and fell hard asleep for an hour. After that I could have easily taken off for Idaho safely by 3pm, so I didn't hurry. I eventually just wandered around the plane to see what damage this 25 hour US tour had done. It turns out, a bunch, some of it serious.
On the last few legs of the flight I noticed that the forward end of the left cowl door hinge was sticking up a half inch, and I was pretty sure that it had started the trip sticking up and about a quarter inch. So I took off the top cowl (only 6 DZUZ fasteners and four large machine screws held it on) and found this:
Eight inches of the left cowl door was separating from the cowl top. And four inches of the right cowl door was doing the same, though it was not showing. We gotta fix this before tomorrow's flight. I would hate to have the cowl depart during flight.
Here's the cowl laid out upside down on a table. The skinny center section is fixed and the two ends are the hinged cowl doors.
Here I am fabricating a suitable aluminum reinforcement with a ball peen hammer. It needed a right angle fold lengthwise down the middle.
We drilled out the necessary rivets and then attached the reinforcement piece to the hinge with aircraft grade pop rivets.
Then we attached the reinforement piece to the cowl center. This is legal owner maintenance work on non-structural parts. And I expect to replace the entire center section very soon. Now I just have to figure out why the plane sits right wing very low. I'll have a look under the belly cowling tomorrow before I go, just to make sure it's not dangerous. (BTW the bungees are giant rubber bands wrapped around the upper end of the landing gear legs to absorb shocks)
Anyhow, I may get out of here and back home tomorrow. I'll let you know.
Tailwinds,
BZ
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