Electronics lab cart

I bit off a bigger project with my Shaper Origin:

That's a new cart to organize my electronics "lab", which consists of a soldering iron, a few instruments, and lots and lots of shoeboxes.

It's made with tab-and-slot construction. The sides have ellipses cut out to make it a bit lighter in a style reminiscent of  1940s aviation. The back has 0.2" plywood shear panels; holes are added here also to provide ventilation.

I used pre-finished plywood from China by way of Home Depot; two $45 sheets. I had trouble with the bit burning; I suspect using pre-finished wood was causing carbon to build up very quickly on the bits. Pre-finished wood would be really convenient if it didn't eat bits, but for the next project, I think I'll stick with sanded dry plywood.

I also had trouble with the bit jumping, which was very frustrating. Then, nearly at the end of the project, I discovered that the spindle clamp had been loose, probably the whole time. The locator pin had chewed up the spindle slot. :v( I cleaned things up with a file; hopefully things will work smoothly again now that I have the spindle clamped securely.

It was fun to draw furniture in Inkscape and then print it out. But for this project, it would have been a lot faster (and maybe a little prettier) to cut the outline on a bandsaw, dado the shelves into the sides, and just not bother with the mostly-decorative ellipse holes.

Finishing what I started

Guinivere and I flew the plane home to Washington today.

Here's Helens, Adams in the foreground, and Rainier:

We shut down the motor and stopped the propellor for a short glide towards Yakima.

Tied down in our parking space #27 Ellensburg:

Sitting inert on the rods

Train got to Boeing Field and the engine broke down.

... We're rolling again. Passing through a foggy Chehalis.

Riding the rods

Guinivere and I just boarded Amtrak 501 back to Salem to retrieve the plane.

Awwww...

Waiting for me when I came in the door today:

Today's aircraft

Red sky in the morning; a rainbow to the west. So today we'll be switching aircraft:

Close enough

This morning's forecast looked like smooth sailing into Seattle. Some good tailwinds, but I  had to slow down for turbulence in a few spots. Weather started showing up at the North end of the route, which I didn't want to approach at night, so I roped Jeremy into coming to meet me at Chehalis. And then Kelso. And then weather started eating up Hillsboro and Newberg, and prudence demanded calling it quits before sunset.

I pulled the power and glided into Salem, tied down in front of the Flight Deck restaurant.

My ambition today was to ride the south winds before tomorrow's storm. The storm won the race, but I'm close enough now. Tomorrow I'll come home on the train, and I'll come back to fetch the plane when fair weather returns this weekend.

Lake Shasta, Mount Shasta

Approaching Mount Shasta

And finally some tailwinds! 24 knots blowing from behind.

I too like to recover and reuse my aeronautical vehicles after flight.

Stopping at Santa Monica for dinner with David

It's a good thing the only empty space had two neighbors that both have low wings!

Parked at Hawthorne

Landed at a Hawthorne

This morning, my fingers were freezing in 19F temps in Winslow at dawn. Now I'm sitting in shirtsleeves in the LA sun.

Hello, California!

Headed west again

Winslow had calm winds, but it was cold this morning; 19 degrees Fahrenheit.

First view was meteor crater

... and then the Sedona area. Gorgeous!

Failure to leave Arizona

This morning's forecast had turbulence and wind shear, but I'm flying a motor glider, right? Turbulence is what we signed up for!

Unfortunately, I misunderstood the source of the turbulence. Air is being pumped from the high pressure over L.A. into the low over New Mexico, and moving pretty fast.

Conditions on the ground in Taylor, Arizona were exciting (22 knots gusting 32), but right down the runway. But once I climbed up past 8,500 feet, things really got interesting, with 45, 50, and eventually 60 knot (70 mph) winds aloft. It was pretty bumpy, too, as the fast air aloft spun over the merely 30-knot surface flow, so I had to fly pretty slowly, giving me a 30-knot ground speed. I have a lot of fuel, but a four hour trip to Phoenix seems out of hand, especially in the wild turbulence. That, and I hadn't yet gotten to the mountainous terrain; big winds over terrain can mean severe turbulence.

I played around with a few different destinations, to try to at least find something that made progress towards L.A. I looked at Flagstaff, only 87nm away, but again, three hours at 30kts. Finally I settled on Winslow, which was actually downwind. Even with a quartering tailwind, I had the plane pointed 60 degrees left of Winslow to account for the wind, sliding sideways to my destination, and occasionally riding a bucking bull of turbulence.

Getting back into the surface flow, things calmed right back down into the "windy but not insane" regime, and landing at Winslow was uneventful. But it's blowing hard here! Street signs and flagpoles are bending...

Tomorrow's forecast has a much more reasonable flow aloft; the excitement will have moved a couple states east by then.

Into Arizona!

Nasty 20-25kt headwinds all day today. In the morning, I subtracted those numbers from 110kt true airspeed in cruise, because it was calm. By the end of the first leg, the thermal activity was picking up, and going too high for me to fly over it, so I had to slow the plane down, too. For most of the day, I was making only 60-70kt (70-80 mph) over the ground.

Before I landed at Belen, NM, I did stop and try to turn a few thermals. They were definitely big enough, but I wasn't patient enough to practice. It's a shame to miss out on New Mexico thermals, but it would be a bigger shame to miss out on visiting David in LA.

Arizona is pretty!

All those headwinds meant changing plans; no way was I going to approach Cottonwood, Arizona in a crosswind at night! Various replanning steps led me to arrive in Taylor, Arizona a half hour before sunset. 35kt winds at 1500', and 12 gusting 22 at the surface, but right down the runway.

The bad news was that I had no cell service since Albuquerque, and still none in Taylor. The good news is that they had a payphone (!) so I could close my flight plan, and the pilot's lounge was open. And there's a sedan outside that just screams crew car! The bad news is that no one was inside. The good news is that the airport manager left his phone number on the wall. The bad news is that, when I called it, the phone company said "the party you are trying to call is on the same line. Hang up and wait for it to ring..." I hung up and the same phone rang. The good news is that they had WiFi. The bad news is that it had an unspecified password. The good news is that I could call the 1-800 weather briefing service, and the guy there looked up the airport manager's cell phone. The bad news is that the number was long distance. To put this story out of its misery, I'm writing this as I walk from the airport to the highway in a windy high desert dusk.

The thrilling conclusion, which I'm uploading from my wifi-equipped hotel room, is that the hotel is 2.7 miles from the airport. The route went by a decent dinner stop, too.

New Mexico

Visiting "family" in Walters, Oklahoma

Last night's stop was 3O5 to visit Jim and Cathy Reynolds. Jim was my hang gliding instructor fifteen years ago. Jim and Cathy moved to Oklahoma and have a trike runway in their front yard.

Before I left this morning, Jim helped me top off my in flight beverage service, and took a lap around the patch with me.

Into Louisiana

Stopped at Oak Grove for fuel; my first fill on this trip.

Clark and another fellow came out to visit when I landed, and were really hospitable.

I was able to stand up inside a 182!

Now this is a flying day.

Worth the wait. Off to the airport!

Wish this had shown up earlier!

Ah well. It should still be here tomorrow.

Another good day to not fly

This cold front is being persistently slow to drag past Meridian, Mississippi.

The forecast suggested that by 3PM maybe the weather would clear up enough to escape. I could only make it to Texarkana, halfway to Lawton, but that would still be helpful.

But, in practice, the front isn't moving fast, the clouds aren't lifting much, and a Pilatus reported severe turbulence near Texarkana.

This, too, is another good day to not fly. Apparently it's a good day for La Quinta and Waffle House.

A good day to not fly.

Sure, just a little light green and yellow rain. And only marginal VFR. But it's eleven in the morning. Let's see this map again at 2pm...

Tracking my progress

Jeremy points out that because I have an ADS-B Out transmitter on my plane, you can spy on me as I'm enroute! Here's one site:

https://www.radarbox24.com/flight/N550AR

First cross-country leg: Zephyrhills, Florida (near Tampa) to Meridian, Mississippi

This morning I showed up at the airport and gave Amy Unspecifiedlastname, the person who did the graphics on my plane, a quick Inkscape tutorial. Then Rand met up with me to wrap up some logbook details while I packed the plane.

My plane has two seats and a luggage space behind them, part of which is occupied by the parachute rocket tube and the emergency locator radio. Into those spaces I endeavored to put:

• myself,
• my clothes bag,
• my snack bag,
• my flight bag,
• a little bag of cleaning tools for the plane,
• the plane's documentation pouch,
• the plane's toolkit,
• my computer backpack,
• and the tie-down kit.

I rearranged things several times. I placed the flight bag in the passenger seat, but I couldn't put much there, because the stick needs to be able to move freely. Finally, I had just about everything squeezed in, and Rand pointed out that I hadn't yet packed the short wingtips.

I ended up leaving out an empty hard-sided suitcase, the covers for the long tips, and a pair of Crocs; Rand is going to mail those home for me.

I did some last-minute planning to find a destination and alternate airport with hangar space. Rand topped off the oil, and I'm on my way!

I climbed up above the cloud layer into calm air, and trimmed out at 112 kts. Unfortunately, I ended up battling a 20-25 kt headwind the whole way; my choice was 112 minus headwind above the clouds, or 76 kts in the bumps below.

I made a speedy stop in Cross City, Florida (KCTY) for fluid exchange.

Airports around Tallahassee were showing "marginal IFR" conditions, which was disconcerting, but once I got to that area, it was clear that there were plenty of safe options on my route.

On this route, I was flying 131 mph through the air, getting 44 miles per gallon. It didn't really work out that well over the ground; with the headwinds, I was getting a mere 108 mph and 33 mpg. Still quite a bit better performance than my pickup truck.

I overflew just a corner of Georgia and then Alabama to land in Meridian, Mississippi. Look at the cool planes I shared the ramp with!

The hangar at Meridian turned out to be enormous. The doors weren't even all the way open, and I was able to drag my plane right in with the long wingtips still attached.

Thunderstorms still forecast west of here tomorrow, so Wednesday will be a rest and work day. NOAA willing, I'll be back in the saddle on Thursday!

New graphics

I had ordered the plane with no graphics and no N-number lettering, so we could do my own here. Unfortunately, the factory didn't get the message, and installed generic N-number lettering and the huge SINUS logo that I didn't much care for:

Rand arranged to change them. He had Larry and Amy of Revo Trikes do the work. Larry carefully removed the factory graphics...

and Amy cut and installed these gorgeous new ones!

Sunday in Zephyrhills

More training today. My landings improved substantially; I'm starting to get the muscle memory for this aircraft. We flew to lunch at Tampa North airport, 13 miles west of Zephyrhills:

Usually pilots call this a "$100 hamburger", because you spend $10 on the burger and $90 in aviation gas to get there. The Pipistrel is so efficient (and this cafe so close), I think it cost about $2.14 in gas for the round trip. And besides, I had a salad.

I flew that leg in the right seat, too; I wanted practice having flown both halves of the airplane.

We came back via a couple other airports. Back at KZPH, we picked out colors for the replacement N-number graphics, and then I spent an hour in the pattern practicing solo landings and evading the jump planes whose operations runway intersect with the general aviation runway.

Back at the hotel for rest; it looks like the best weather for starting the long cross-country will be Tuesday.

Being in Florida in February is weirdly exotic, for a Pacific Northwesterner. Tonight I had fried chicken cubes and plantains at a Puerto Rican restaurant, with live music, and then came back to my hotel in balmy 80 degree temps.