wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
"what the heck?????" 
Lousy start to the day. Had to take the plane up to HGR for annual. Went out to the hangar yesterday, fired it up, made sure there was charge on the battery, checked things out (a little mouse milk on the cowl flap cables, etc). All seemed good to go.
I had a 1 PM conference call in my office, so the plan was to be in the air by about 8:30, drop the plane, be in a rental car by about 9:45 for the 90-ish minute ride back to Rosslyn.
I was on the road by 7:20, should be no problem with the schedule as HEF is counter-traffic to me. Should. I got 3/4 of the way to the airport and realized I left the log books at home. Crap. That cost me a little over an hour as I now needed to go home (WITH rush hour traffic on the interstate), pick up the books and go back.
("What the heck")....
Got back to HEF by 9:15 (cost me an hour). Fuel truck came promptly (I probably had enough, but why chance it). Now the plane wouldn't start. Battery too low. (It's been cold, and I haven't flown in a while). ("what the heck"). 15 minutes on the charger, got it primed, and finally got it to fire. Ran it a few minutes to warm up & charge the battery a bit, shut down, locked up hangar. Took 2 tries to barely turn over, but finally fired up. Yee Haw. I was on the way by 10. (10 was my cutoff. If I didn't get away from the hangar by 10, it was time to scrap for today and try tomorrow).
Foreflight, for some reason, decided to show the wrong distances to HGR ("what the heck?"). Fortunately, I had paper VFR charts & my trusty panel Garmin. Got a little more tailwind than expected, and finally got Foreflight to give good data by selecting the destination as "direct to". It worked fine thereafter, including the drive home.
Good thing that I made up some time - HGR tower sent me on long downwind for 27 - they were launching a twin Cessna on 9. Guess he didn't want to taxi. The nose strut seemed soft on landing & taxi - sure enough, it was - there was hyd. fluid coming out of the strut seal. ("What the heck?"). Fortunately, we were at the shop - add it to the list of squawks.
Got a ride over to Avis, got the car. It's now 11:15. I HAD planned to drop the car at DCA and hop Metro back to the office. Metro is screwed up - cracked rail on the Blue Line ("What the heck"). So, that wasn't going to happen - change plan to go to the office, do conference call, take car back tomorrow AM, and plan on taking the train out to HEF to retrieve my truck.
Hopefully the logistics will be better when it comes to pick the plane up in a couple of weeks....
Lousy start to the day. Had to take the plane up to HGR for annual. Went out to the hangar yesterday, fired it up, made sure there was charge on the battery, checked things out (a little mouse milk on the cowl flap cables, etc). All seemed good to go.
I had a 1 PM conference call in my office, so the plan was to be in the air by about 8:30, drop the plane, be in a rental car by about 9:45 for the 90-ish minute ride back to Rosslyn.
I was on the road by 7:20, should be no problem with the schedule as HEF is counter-traffic to me. Should. I got 3/4 of the way to the airport and realized I left the log books at home. Crap. That cost me a little over an hour as I now needed to go home (WITH rush hour traffic on the interstate), pick up the books and go back.
("What the heck")
....Got back to HEF by 9:15 (cost me an hour). Fuel truck came promptly (I probably had enough, but why chance it). Now the plane wouldn't start. Battery too low. (It's been cold, and I haven't flown in a while). ("what the heck")
. 15 minutes on the charger, got it primed, and finally got it to fire. Ran it a few minutes to warm up & charge the battery a bit, shut down, locked up hangar. Took 2 tries to barely turn over, but finally fired up. Yee Haw. I was on the way by 10. (10 was my cutoff. If I didn't get away from the hangar by 10, it was time to scrap for today and try tomorrow).Foreflight, for some reason, decided to show the wrong distances to HGR ("what the heck?")
. Fortunately, I had paper VFR charts & my trusty panel Garmin. Got a little more tailwind than expected, and finally got Foreflight to give good data by selecting the destination as "direct to". It worked fine thereafter, including the drive home. Good thing that I made up some time - HGR tower sent me on long downwind for 27 - they were launching a twin Cessna on 9. Guess he didn't want to taxi. The nose strut seemed soft on landing & taxi - sure enough, it was - there was hyd. fluid coming out of the strut seal. ("What the heck?")
. Fortunately, we were at the shop - add it to the list of squawks. Got a ride over to Avis, got the car. It's now 11:15. I HAD planned to drop the car at DCA and hop Metro back to the office. Metro is screwed up - cracked rail on the Blue Line ("What the heck")
. So, that wasn't going to happen - change plan to go to the office, do conference call, take car back tomorrow AM, and plan on taking the train out to HEF to retrieve my truck.Hopefully the logistics will be better when it comes to pick the plane up in a couple of weeks....
