denverpilot
Tied Down
And I’m not talking about Taco Bell.
Flew to KTAD this evening to knock the rust off. Haven’t flown since the end of April. Gah!
KTAD has $3.95 S/S 100LL right now. Nice.
Wind was gusting 190@24 when I landed and 190@26 when I left but lulled nicely just for fueling activities. Can’t beat that!
I stuck 10 gallons on at home base at $4.99/gal because I’m a big chicken and our sticks aren’t super accurate at lower numbers due to the sheer size of the 80 gallons worth of tanks. It’d be nice to have a really accurate totalizer but we don’t have it, so I’m conservative on fuel.
Ended up being 50 gal of cheap cheap fuel at KTAD and had 62 left in the tanks when I put the airplane away.
Timed it so I would arrive back at APA at night and did my three landings. Two S&G, one F/S, with about a 5-8 knot direct crosswind.
Played some more with the GTN going down and flew the RNAV 21 into KTAD while VMC just to see it all behaving. Also played with the utterly useless autopilot some more. Ha. It’s so bad. I turn it on for a bit and get annoyed with it’s wing wagging and go back to hand flying. Hahaha.
Got the brain cells moving again. XC, high wind landing, crosswind night landings. Yay.
Have to be in the office all this next week due to someone else being out of town, but hoping MAYBE to start knocking out the CFII a week after next. MIGHT get it done before that written expires but not counting on it. Life goes on if I have to do another one.
Battery was definitely weak. Airplane goes in for a checkup on the nosewheel since it’s wobbling a bit (think it’s just out of balance but they’ll check bearing and other hardware just to be sure), a look at the blistering paint behind the battery drain, and a new battery.
It started at APA but was weak, and charged heavily on the way to the APA S/S. Started a little stronger at the S/S or I wouldn’t have done the flight. Started okay but not be strongest start ever at KTAD, so the battery is done for, as we predicted, this summer, and is ready to be replaced. Ammeter never really got back to centered up the whole flight so that tells me the battery has too much internal resistance. Making the alternator work harder than it should to maintain.
But I sure like that cheap gas! Not as cheap as Mogas but that’s down there for 100LL around here.
Flew to KTAD this evening to knock the rust off. Haven’t flown since the end of April. Gah!
KTAD has $3.95 S/S 100LL right now. Nice.
Wind was gusting 190@24 when I landed and 190@26 when I left but lulled nicely just for fueling activities. Can’t beat that!
I stuck 10 gallons on at home base at $4.99/gal because I’m a big chicken and our sticks aren’t super accurate at lower numbers due to the sheer size of the 80 gallons worth of tanks. It’d be nice to have a really accurate totalizer but we don’t have it, so I’m conservative on fuel.
Ended up being 50 gal of cheap cheap fuel at KTAD and had 62 left in the tanks when I put the airplane away.
Timed it so I would arrive back at APA at night and did my three landings. Two S&G, one F/S, with about a 5-8 knot direct crosswind.
Played some more with the GTN going down and flew the RNAV 21 into KTAD while VMC just to see it all behaving. Also played with the utterly useless autopilot some more. Ha. It’s so bad. I turn it on for a bit and get annoyed with it’s wing wagging and go back to hand flying. Hahaha.
Got the brain cells moving again. XC, high wind landing, crosswind night landings. Yay.
Have to be in the office all this next week due to someone else being out of town, but hoping MAYBE to start knocking out the CFII a week after next. MIGHT get it done before that written expires but not counting on it. Life goes on if I have to do another one.
Battery was definitely weak. Airplane goes in for a checkup on the nosewheel since it’s wobbling a bit (think it’s just out of balance but they’ll check bearing and other hardware just to be sure), a look at the blistering paint behind the battery drain, and a new battery.
It started at APA but was weak, and charged heavily on the way to the APA S/S. Started a little stronger at the S/S or I wouldn’t have done the flight. Started okay but not be strongest start ever at KTAD, so the battery is done for, as we predicted, this summer, and is ready to be replaced. Ammeter never really got back to centered up the whole flight so that tells me the battery has too much internal resistance. Making the alternator work harder than it should to maintain.
But I sure like that cheap gas! Not as cheap as Mogas but that’s down there for 100LL around here.
