Four

For the fourth time this season, I’m down with the crud. I remember when a second cold/whatever in a given year was rare. Four? Unthinkable! Yet it has happened. 

Helpful Idiots

Most ATC folks are good people, but sometimes they don’t think like pilots. Well, not like me anyway. This morning, I flew home from Warrenton. I filed HWY – FAK – OXFRD – TTA. The system always wants to assign me HWY – MOL – SBV – TTA. I don’t like that routing, for the same reason I’m getting ready to bad-mouth the Washington Center controller.

I prefer the shortest distance possible, hate en route re-routes, and prefer to avoid climbing above 5,000 if I don’t have to. Direct HWY – TTA runs me right through the Farmville MOA. The ceiling for the MOA is 5,000, but I like to fly at 4,000 when westbound. That means a re-route or a climb if I’m cleared through it, and it is/goes hot before I’ll be out of the airspace. The FAK – OXFRD routing is only only four miles longer than Direct, and takes me down the narrow alley between the Farmville and Barfoot MOAs, eliminating the need to climb to 6,000 – the next highest IFR westbound altitude. 

When I called up from HWY to get my clearance, I requested that they give me my filed routing instead of the system-generated route via MOL and SBV – which is twenty-five miles longer than Direct and requires 6,000 to clear terrain, if able. Potomac cleared me as requested, and off I went.

Not long after Potomac handed me to Washington Center, the controller hit me with, “045, cleared destination.” He was obviously trying to help me by clearing me Direct, which normally I would appreciate. Not today. Direct from my location at the time he cleared me Direct put the MOA directly in my flight path in less than thirty miles. Something told me to either ask if the MOA was hot or request to stay on my current route. I didn’t do either, and I paid for it.

It might’ve been fifteen minutes later when I got, “045, Farmville MOA is active, climb/maintain 6,000.” I crammed throttle to the firewall, slid the mixture forward about an inch and a half, and pitched up ten degrees for Vy.

Yes, the plane is running much better with a properly tuned carburetor. Yes, I can climb to 10,000 if I need to. Eventually. From 4,000 to 6,000 today, I averaged 400 feet per minute. The higher the altitude, the lower the rate of climb, even leaning for best power. By 8,000 feet, I might manage just over 300 feet per minute.

One is required to advise ATC when operating under IFR and is assigned an altitude change if unable to climb/descend at least 500 feet per minute. I hate making that admission, especially on Center frequency with all the heavies listening in. So, despite altitude being a pilot’s best friend, I tend to fly in the weeds and tall grass. Next time, I’ll ask to stay on my planned route and hope they will let me.

Urf Day

Today, for Earth Day, I made sure to drive my diesel-powered truck. I also burned some aviation fuel, which contains lead. Later, in a direct response to the Meatless Monday for Earth Day display at my workplace, I ordered a big chunk of a dead animal. For delivery. To work.

Legal

I found myself in a bit of an awkward situation a few weeks ago. I’ve maintained a Florida Concealed Handgun Permit since before the turn of the century, first as a resident, then transitioning to non-resident status when I moved to Virginia around 2000. Virginia requires its residents to get their permit, so I obtained a Virginia permit as well.  Some years later, I found myself in North Carolina, and went through the process to get their permit.

North Carolina is stupid in one particular aspect. If a permit holder moves to a new county, they must go in person to the sheriff of their old county and request transfer to the new county. The law doesn’t spell out the in-person requirement, but all one hundred sheriffs require it, or did at the time I moved counties. Around that same time, I learned that they honor any permit from any state, resident or not, and this applies to North Carolina residents as well. Since the sheriff was being stupid, and since I held a valid permit from Florida, legally recognized by North Carolina, I told the sheriff to go pound sand. Not literally. I simply let the permit stay on file at its original location and expire.

I maintained the Florida permit, renewing it every seven years, as required. They always sent me the renewal package about ninety days prior to expiration, so I hadn’t given it any thought recently. Somehow, I had in my mind that it expired in 2025. More on that shortly.

Several months ago, my pastor invited me to join the church’s security team. We don’t advertise such, but some of us are armed. Virginia honors Florida non-resident permits, so in all my travels to the Commonwealth, I didn’t give it much thought. After joining the security team, though, I got to thinking that it would probably look better if I had a Virginia permit, regardless of reciprocity.

Shortly after starting the application process, I had an occasion to look at my current Florida permit. It expired in 2022. I’d been carrying illegally in both North Carolina and Virginia for coming up on two years. Oops.

Thirteen days from dropping the application at the post office, I had a fresh permit from the Commonwealth of Virginia in my hands, courtesy of a very efficient state police department.  I’m legal again.

Amazing

I flew the bird home today after the repair at HWY last weekend. It’s never run smoother, been more responsive, or made more power since I’ve owned it. Hopefully, it stops with the breaking of things for a while now. Like a couple of years. I need a tire and probably should replace the engine mounts. I’ll probably schedule those to be done at the annual. I don’t need any repairs to go with the replacement of those wear items.

I had to clear out a bird’s nest and a half from the engine compartment before launching today. The cowl plugs were in place, but there was a full nest built between the #1 and #3 cylinders and a partial nest at the bottom just above and in front of the nose gear. I cleared what I could, but I’ll need to run the compressor with a blow gun to get it all out from around the cylinders. Stupid birds.

I’m working 1100-2300 on Saturday and will be flying up immediately following my shift. And rain is in the forecast. Night IMC after a long day. Not looking forward to it.

0.4 AMU

The HWY mechanic finally got back with me yesterday. Four pictures of Benjamin Franklin will cover the repairs. I’ll find out on Monday if there is still a problem or if his repairs and adjustments cured my issue.

Phooey

On Friday evening, I talked to the mechanic at HWY. He was only just then pulling my airplane in to work on.  He told me of a few extra things he wanted to check in addition to repairing the coupling. We agreed that I should plan to leave it for an extra week to ensure that he had time to heal anything that he found.

Based on that, I drove the econobox to Manassas on Saturday morning. I didn’t bring my flight bag or anything else aviation related.  Late this (Saturday) afternoon, just a few hours after I got to Manassas, Dude called me. 

I’m done with your plane. Got the coupling taken care of. Ran a camera up the exhaust, and everything looked good, no loose baffles. The timing on one of the mags was off three degrees, so I adjusted that. I pulled, cleaned, and regapped the plugs (just done less than five hours ago at the last oil change, so that was unnecessary, but he covered all the bases). Adjusted the carburetor, mixture was way rich. Ran it up, everything good, maximum static RPM was 2290.

I want it back home. The weather on Monday morning is forecast to be ideal for flying, with just the usual ten to fifteen knot winds common this time of year.  But no flight bag. So, no ipad. And I don’t own a set of paper charts. No Sentry for in-flight weather, traffic, and GPS location on the ipad that is also three hundred miles away.  No backup radio. Nothing but what is in the panel.

What is in the panel is more than sufficient for VFR day flight. Program the GPS for HWY-FAK-OXFRD-TTA and immediately upon crossing OXFRD, activate the RNAV 21 approach from OZOPE. That routing avoids the Farmville and Barfoot MOAs and RDU’s Class Charlie. Follow the CDI cross-referenced with the magenta line on the GPS map screen, and there’s no getting lost and no need to speak to a soul except on CTAF.

Legally, though, I need charts. And it’s a post-maintenance flight. The wise move would be to have all my gear. So, phooey.

It’s Been A Week

It started with Easter Sunday. Thank God that He arose and completed the plan of salvation for all mankind. We had beautiful services. Wife joined me Sunday night, since we needed to be in the area the next morning.

On Monday, we buried Mama.

On Tuesday, the mechanic at HWY called. He found a cracked coupling on the intake manifold on the #3 cylinder. He said that it’s been blowing by for a while and could be the cause of my inconsistent power. He’s supposed to heal it by the weekend, and the total cost should be less than one-half an AMU.  It could still need a carburetor rebuild, but either way, the coupling must be fixed.

On Wednesday, Wife’s sister flew in from Detroit. While Wife was on the road to RDU to pick her up, I wrote up a security report for the church with my recommendations after having served on the team for a few months and submitted it to my pastor.

On Thursday morning, Wife and her sister left for Charleston, South Carolina, to attend a tennis thing going on there this weekend.

On Thursday afternoon, I witnessed Niece’s wedding at the magistrate’s office.

On Friday, I’ll finish my work week, confirm aircraft status, and pack for the weekend’s travels. Probably not in that order.

Saturday will find me on the road to Manassas. 

Oops, I Did It Again

Busted the airplane. Honestly, I think this one has been coming for a while. Remember the carb ice post a few months ago? After today, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t carb ice. Instead, I think it was the first manifestation of the problem that escalated to the point on today’s flight that I’m not flying again until it is fixed.

I think the carburetor needs to be rebuilt. Power was all over the place. The run-up check was good, and it climbed to altitude fine. Normally, once the throttle is set, you don’t have to touch it again until time to change altitude/land. Not today. RPM would drop, and I’d gradually slide it to wide open. It made little difference. I’d have to pitch up to maintain altitude, which slowed me considerably.  It would still drop a couple hundred feet before I could get the descent stabilized and reversed without being abrupt with the controls. Then a few minutes later, the engine had sped up to near redline and I had to shove the nose over to stop the climb and pull back to half throttle to get the RPMs where they needed to be. Lather, rinse, repeat for most of the flight. Fortunately, it was VMC, so I didn’t have the stress of bad weather to add to it. And, ATC was too busy to ask about my +/- 200 feet excursions off of my assigned altitude.

I almost turned around, about thirty minutes into the flight, but it continued to make enough power to maintain altitude, even if I did have to slow to near Vy to do so. It always ran smoothly. It just wasn’t making normal power. So I continued and landed at my planned destination of HWY safely. There was a maintenance guy working today, and he took my info. He’ll look at it on Tuesday. If it needs a carb rebuild, it’ll have to be sent out, and it will take about three weeks to get it back.

Cost for a rebuild? $800 – 1,000. So, yes, another AMU.

Working For It

Dude is changing out my voltage regulator today. Earlier, he sent a picture of what he’s dealing with in order to get to it.

The old one is the blue component behind all those wires. This is back behind the avionics and instrument panel. Those wires are the new wiring for the IFR panel that went in last winter.

The new one is going in the engine compartment, attached to the battery box. It will be much easier to access, should I live long enough for such to be necessary.

He’s certainly earning his AMU today.