denverpilot
Tied Down
Took dad up so he could play ham radio during the Colorado Ham Radio 14er Event today. The premise is that folks hike or drive up 14,000' MSL mountains and then work the other peaks and folks not on peaks as a small contest and generally just enjoy hiking and playing radio from high locations.
This is the second time we've taken the 182 up as an Aeronautical Mobile station (no, we don't count for any contest points) just for fun. We don't even really need to get to 14,000' or mess with bringing the O2... We just putter around and the radio ops on the peaks get a chuckle out of working an aeronautical station that's below them.
We worked 10 peaks this time, and had a good flight. VFR down the West side of Colorado Springs ( chatting with Longs, Evans, Pikes, and various northern peaks as we headed south) down to Cheseman Reservior, past Fremont County (1V6), over Silver West (C08), over Mosca Pass to jump across the Sangre de Christo mountains, which pops out right over the Great Sand Dunes National Monument for some aeronautical eye candy, and then overhead Alamosa (ALS) we were able to work the southwest and southeast peaks. There was a group of hams in New Mexico up on the volcano which had a great signal from anywhere south of Colorado Springs south. Weather was perfect and only tiny light chop crossing the Sangres, so we took the somewhat "infamous" La Veta Pass North route back across the ridgeline and back to Pueblo for a big green chile smothered burrito at the Spitfire Grill. From there knowing that most folks would have started their descent, we just played around on 146.52 simplex FM headed direct north.
Dad wanted to see his house near Elizabeth, CO from the air so we headed there, then on into Centennial to complete the round trip. We circled the house a few times and had called dad's neighbor Bob who is a great welder and fixed our tug when one of the arms busted a weld at the engine platform a couple of years ago. Bob came out and waved. We've given his kids a ride since then but need to get Bob and his wife up for a promised ride at night to see the city lights.
Originally cleared to land straight in Runway 28, the calm wind picked up right as we arrived and was an 8 knot quartering tailwind, so I opted to request 17L instead. No biggie. Rolled out to A-8, and on into Area Hotel to the hangar.
Good news of the day (well, actually Friday) was I crawled under the passenger side seat to see why it wouldn't move quite right during the OSH trip and found the left rear seat claw wasn't on the seat rail. Sheesh. Removed the stopper, slid the seat back, got it n the stupid rail, and put the stopper back. Fixed! Friday night the newly reinstalled DME powered up but today at Avionics Master on, nothing. I'm convinced there's a connection problem behind the tray. Grrr. When we got back, I did the upside down pilot thing and stuffed myself under there sweating on everything with limited cursing and found that the Transponder is so freaking huge you can't see the back of the DME tray above it. So it probably needs to be pulled to investigate what's going on above it. Sigh.
Airplane is going to be out of State next week, so it's /U for another long XC unless we fly it to the shop this week. Silly DME. The DME is fine on the bench, so this is wiring/connector issues.
Only other interesting thing was a C-17 sitting on the ramp at PUB. As we sat in the window seats at the terminal restaurant, we realize that one of the "Marine One" helos is being pushed by with a tug and about eight boxes of rolling gear on behind the tug which is pushing it by the tailwheel.
Ah yeah. We're a "swing" State, and yup... the politicians keep coming here to annoy us... Oh well. So nice to be loved by folks who wouldn't otherwise give any of us the time of day...
While we're sitting there eating, the TFR warnings for the 8th start hitting my inbox. Took a photo and Jesse said I was going to get a visit to Guantanamo on Facebook. Haha. Dad quipped, "Tell him I've been to Guantanamo three times and all I ever saw was the beer special on the board at the O Club."
So as we walked back out on the ramp at Flower to leave, we watched the bored folks in OD green jammies sitting in the shade of the hangar they'd shoved the helo into, and all the high-tech orange cones and police tape "securing" it. (Well, and some bored kids with automatic weapons.)
There was also a Southwest Airlines branded set of air stairs shoved in there with the helo. Probably all scanned six ways from sideways and checked out and then sequestered. The Great Mistakes (Great Lakes) Beech 1900D that flies into PUB doesn't need air stairs. Those folks also came and went while we were eating lunch. No grass growing under that 1900D. In, on, loaded, and gone in about 15 minutes. As usual.
Then the C-17 launched downwind to the West. Probably headed over to Grand Junction which is one of the campaign stops already listed on the TFR. (PUB isn't ... yet.)
It was a nice day out aviating and observing my taxpayer bucks at work. Booyah to the crews having to sit there on the ramp in PUB. Sorry your boss wants to hang around in such a boring place this week.
This is the second time we've taken the 182 up as an Aeronautical Mobile station (no, we don't count for any contest points) just for fun. We don't even really need to get to 14,000' or mess with bringing the O2... We just putter around and the radio ops on the peaks get a chuckle out of working an aeronautical station that's below them.
We worked 10 peaks this time, and had a good flight. VFR down the West side of Colorado Springs ( chatting with Longs, Evans, Pikes, and various northern peaks as we headed south) down to Cheseman Reservior, past Fremont County (1V6), over Silver West (C08), over Mosca Pass to jump across the Sangre de Christo mountains, which pops out right over the Great Sand Dunes National Monument for some aeronautical eye candy, and then overhead Alamosa (ALS) we were able to work the southwest and southeast peaks. There was a group of hams in New Mexico up on the volcano which had a great signal from anywhere south of Colorado Springs south. Weather was perfect and only tiny light chop crossing the Sangres, so we took the somewhat "infamous" La Veta Pass North route back across the ridgeline and back to Pueblo for a big green chile smothered burrito at the Spitfire Grill. From there knowing that most folks would have started their descent, we just played around on 146.52 simplex FM headed direct north.
Dad wanted to see his house near Elizabeth, CO from the air so we headed there, then on into Centennial to complete the round trip. We circled the house a few times and had called dad's neighbor Bob who is a great welder and fixed our tug when one of the arms busted a weld at the engine platform a couple of years ago. Bob came out and waved. We've given his kids a ride since then but need to get Bob and his wife up for a promised ride at night to see the city lights.
Originally cleared to land straight in Runway 28, the calm wind picked up right as we arrived and was an 8 knot quartering tailwind, so I opted to request 17L instead. No biggie. Rolled out to A-8, and on into Area Hotel to the hangar.
Good news of the day (well, actually Friday) was I crawled under the passenger side seat to see why it wouldn't move quite right during the OSH trip and found the left rear seat claw wasn't on the seat rail. Sheesh. Removed the stopper, slid the seat back, got it n the stupid rail, and put the stopper back. Fixed! Friday night the newly reinstalled DME powered up but today at Avionics Master on, nothing. I'm convinced there's a connection problem behind the tray. Grrr. When we got back, I did the upside down pilot thing and stuffed myself under there sweating on everything with limited cursing and found that the Transponder is so freaking huge you can't see the back of the DME tray above it. So it probably needs to be pulled to investigate what's going on above it. Sigh.
Airplane is going to be out of State next week, so it's /U for another long XC unless we fly it to the shop this week. Silly DME. The DME is fine on the bench, so this is wiring/connector issues.
Only other interesting thing was a C-17 sitting on the ramp at PUB. As we sat in the window seats at the terminal restaurant, we realize that one of the "Marine One" helos is being pushed by with a tug and about eight boxes of rolling gear on behind the tug which is pushing it by the tailwheel.
Ah yeah. We're a "swing" State, and yup... the politicians keep coming here to annoy us... Oh well. So nice to be loved by folks who wouldn't otherwise give any of us the time of day...
While we're sitting there eating, the TFR warnings for the 8th start hitting my inbox. Took a photo and Jesse said I was going to get a visit to Guantanamo on Facebook. Haha. Dad quipped, "Tell him I've been to Guantanamo three times and all I ever saw was the beer special on the board at the O Club."
So as we walked back out on the ramp at Flower to leave, we watched the bored folks in OD green jammies sitting in the shade of the hangar they'd shoved the helo into, and all the high-tech orange cones and police tape "securing" it. (Well, and some bored kids with automatic weapons.)
There was also a Southwest Airlines branded set of air stairs shoved in there with the helo. Probably all scanned six ways from sideways and checked out and then sequestered. The Great Mistakes (Great Lakes) Beech 1900D that flies into PUB doesn't need air stairs.
Those folks also came and went while we were eating lunch. No grass growing under that 1900D. In, on, loaded, and gone in about 15 minutes. As usual. Then the C-17 launched downwind to the West. Probably headed over to Grand Junction which is one of the campaign stops already listed on the TFR. (PUB isn't ... yet.)
It was a nice day out aviating and observing my taxpayer bucks at work. Booyah to the crews having to sit there on the ramp in PUB. Sorry your boss wants to hang around in such a boring place this week.
