Let's see:
Pro detailing job. Couldn't get a local kid to do it, and I physically cannot.
Oops...generator fails.
Good friend sends battery powered GPS.
Dust off the battery packs on my handheld radio.
Another good friend and wonderful mechanic rearranges his life to fix my electrical problems. The problem is more than hardware; there's a wiring problem and the poor guy spends hours under that...panel, fixing it. Bill for generator overhaul is...high, but they do it fast, I also needed a new voltage regulator. I would have had to get this stuff fixed anyway, but haste made it cost a whole lot more. 170 bucks just for overnight shipping, one way, to the one place that will overhaul that old generator.
I hire a sign painter guy to renew the red, slanted <image "Bellanca" slanting forward> letters on my stainless steel cowl trim. 14-19s had that.
For a change I fix something: my rotating beacon. No big deal, except to me, it was hard to get to, and harder to find the broken connection when the beacon itself was okay, and I don't want to turn up to a show like this with a frigging STROBE on MY airplane.
Tune up flights. Managed to get the take-off nice and short, employing as much flap as fully deflected aileron, and get my approach speed below 75mph. Not easy on mine. It's, like me, overweight. Antique Airfield is short and what are the two things EVERYONE wants to try - first - in an airplane (mine has mostly been down the past two years): how short can I take-off, and how short can I land.
Bought antenna and fresh ionic bipolar drug (Lithium-Ion) battery for the GPS.
Lightspeed headset earcups turn to shredded power...order new ones and replace them.
Create the minidisk music disks for the trip. These are wittle CDs that go into a small music player and have MUCH higher fidelity than Aye Pods. You'd notice. Lightspeed headsets are pretty good. They're not ear buds.
Order current sectionals from Marv Golden along with the ear cups. Local FBOs here don't have sectionals anymore.
Update those thin, thin pages of my Flight Guide.
Write Paul Bertonelli, editor of Aviation Consumer and AvWeb. He says Aviation Consumer is not interested in reviewing aviation products from the 20s and 30s, but he wants "podcasts" for AvWeb on this event. I plan on interviewing folks there. I used to do that sort of thing.
Robert asks for an article comparing our Triple Tails to other classics at the event. I eagerly agree.
Load the cell numbers of Glenn and Lynn into my cell phone and pack up the airplane.
Am trapped by the remnants of some hurricane for two days.
On the second day of being trapped, I fly along the east side of the Appalachian ridge trying to file a hole through its cloud bunting. Fail
On the third day it looks promising. I blast off. Find myself in the clouds. Nobody really find themselves in clouds but I was plenty pissed off. Return to my senses, turn around, and get on top of a cloud layer on my way back.
That seasoned aviator/mechanic who helped me is getting frustrated. Tells me I'm low time. Compared to him, and his years of pipeline patrol, crop dusting (sorry, Monty: aerial application), and all sorts of weather flying I am indeed very low time. Says I am incapable of analyzing a surface chart. Says if I head south to Kentucky I'll find a hole.
Try it, and fail.
Am told I need to learn more about surface charts.
Glenn calls me last night from Blakesburg. He's the only guy who makes it: a Triple Tail Tour of one. He's on the way to the bar. I could use a really good bar, but would prefer a bottle of Beam by myself. Resist the notion. Am happy for Glenn really. He alone managed to plant our flag at the best Blakesburg event in at least a decade.
It's Sunday morning. Getting out of bed is oddly difficult. I come downstairs and look at the bag packed with clothes, the Flight Guides, the sectionals with course lines drawn on them, and all sort of other...stuff.
This is private aviation, I tell myself: private aviation in old airplanes represented amidst the detritus and piles of things; private aviation involving airplanes unsuited to IFR, owned by a "low time" pilot who could never heed the advice of his parents who counseled, "Don't get your hopes up."
I ponder giving Lynn a call, fly up to Butler and have a Triple Tail Tour of two. That would be twice the number that turned out for Blakesburg.
But the weather sucks.
Polish my resume. Time to get the hell out of Virginia and back to a place where a low-time guy like me can go places.
Jonathan
