Friday, October 13, 2006

Installed new fuel tank


John came over the other day and helped put the other fuel tank that he fixed on the machine. The older tank might have flown its last time due to stress on the spot where the leak is when it is mounted on the machine. John has fixed it twice and even though we thought it was fixed it keeps pulling the weld apart after minor usage. The other tank is also repaired ,but the leak in it was at the top of the tank and in a different spot so I do not believe it will give me any more trouble. We flew the other afternoon and it was a beautiful day to be up and about. The haze of summer was gone and we could see everything. This picture here was taken a while back in the summer. Unfortunately I forgot my camera the other afternoon, but John took a bunch so I will try to get some of those for the site soon.
We were flying around Joe's house when out of sky came another PPC pilot and we were quite shocked to see another pilot in the area. After attempting to contact them on radio w/ no luck the plane landed at Joes. I landed also and found out it was Jerry Claytor also of Bedford and him and his wife were out also enjoying the afternoon. He said he lent out his patch cord so that was the reason he was not able to talk to us while we were flying. They came over and visited for a while and than headed back home.
John, Joe, and I have also all been talking about this new Sport Pilot making its way into PPCing and we all seem to have very mixed feeling about it and the verdict is still out on our approval yet. It seems w/ the list of good things it will bring to powered parachuting their is a much longer one for bad things. We are all still trying to learn more about it so we can make a better decision with all the facts, but until than we will keep flying and enjoying our sport.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

John taking off

PPC takeoff
This was taken a while back on a nice afternoon to fly. Kiwi(John) has really been logging in some flying hours until this nasty weather moved in. It looks like most of the hot flying days are gone, and now it is getting close to flight suit time. We will fly year round just alll depends on the wind for us. We are also getting very close to getting a class set up for us to all go on and get our BFI(basic flight instructor). I hope we will all have this before to long so it will be easier to transition into sport pilot. We have also been looking into Sport Pilot and this seems like it could get pretty aggravating trying to get us and our planes registered. I know the whole idea of Sport Pilot is to make things simple and easy, but I will believe it when I see it. It seems everything is still in the making and nobody really knows for sure how it will all work.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Old Photos



Here is some shots of a house I got a while back I found as I was going through some older pictures of us flying. This house is a lady I know from the gym I goto and she lives just down the road from Joe's house. It is a beautiful house and everytime I seemed to take its picture it was just before dark and the pictures weren't that clear. As you can see from the one picture she lives on the side of mountain and that would be one heck of a backyard to have.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Grounded Again
















It was a beatiful afternoon today and I was over Joes and decided to try to get an hour in before it got dark. Their was no breeze and everything seemed perfect for a smooth flight, until I started filling the machine up w/ gas. I was filling it up and all of sudden I looked down at the tank and I noticed a small stream running down the side of the tank. Before I could even turn the pump off to stop filling the machine their was a steady stream of gas running down the side of the tank. Unfortunately where Kiwi had fixed my tank a while back it sprung a new leak. I guess it was just not meant to be w/ this tank. I still have the other tank that Kiwi also fixed and I am crossing my fingers that it want leak and I will be back flying soon and then I will have pictures of us flying.