It never fails when you're in a hurry...

... you always get stuck in the slow lane:



I didn't have a great deal of time to fly today and pretty much needed to have it wrapped up and myself back to the ranch by noon. That was no problem since near-by Urbana was hosting a balloon fly-thing (I don't know what to call it since they're actually trucked in and launched, rather than flown in as you would in a traditional 'fly-in'), and I'm of the opinion that you simply cannot take a bad picture of a hot air balloon. With an early enough start, I figured I could be there and back before my curfew.

Well, wouldn't you know that I'd get behind the exact same guy up on the airway? Poking along in the fast lane too! I'm surprised he didn't have a turn signal on, like those folks you get behind on the highway that go for miles promising a lane change that they never seem to get around to.



There's a metaphor in the way the reflected compass rose from my directional gyro encircles the plane, I suppose, but I'm just not poetic enough to know what it is.

Anyway, I finally got a chance to pass, and as I went by I recognized the driver: none other than RV-9A builder Rick, taking a break from his building tasks to join me for breakfast at the balloon fly-thingy. He's borrowing that Cherokee from a friend while he finishes up his RV, which is convenient for me as I still get someone to eat with but don't have a witness to my landings. Win-win. I tease him a lot about how slow it is, but it's really a nice, well-equipped airplane and I suspect it's even a knot or two faster than my Tampico was.



Now, I said before that it's darn near impossible to get a bad picture of a hot air balloon. You may assume that to be a statement regarding their photogenic nature, but in fact it means you can never find one to take a picture of at a balloon fly-thingy. I'm not sure if 9:00 was simply too late to catch them, or if the forecast of 10G15 wind was enough to dissuade them, but they were trucking up and leaving as I landed. I'm pretty sensitive to the wind in my taildragger, but as you can imagine balloonists are positively adverse to anything but a light breeze, or so it seems. I know I would be!

I needed gas, and Rick did too, so we briefed for a quick hop down to MadCo. We had to wait a few minutes for our turn at the pump, but it was no big deal since the plane we were waiting for was so nice to look at (and long for):



Things were really hopping at MadCo. Just before I saddled up for the jaunt back to Bolton, this crop duster landed for a refill. It's a turbine, so I got a whiff of the fumes that take me back to an overseas RF-4C flightline much in the way that the whop-whop-whop of a Huey probably effects a Nam vet. I think it would be a tremendous amount of fun (and risk, I suppose) to fly a duster like that. If I was wealthy enough to work at something that doesn't pay, I think I'd try on a new job every year and write a book about each experience. Crop dusting would be on my list. Oddly enough, even more sedate things like being a steward on a cruise ship would make the list.



Coming back into Bolton, I heard a Grumman report in to the tower as 7 miles west, and a quick glance at the GPS showed me at 6.8 miles west. That was fine, though, as the GPS also informed me of my 171 knot groundspeed. There's no Grumman shy of the F-14 (ok, their probably is, but I invoke literary privilege) that would be in danger of catching up and running me over, so I felt it safe to ignore him, as long as I let Papa keep up the pace. If I'd had the wheel pants back on, I'd have been doing at least 180 knots. As it was, we were cooking right along.


Photo courtesy of Richard J. Schwandt


Photo courtesy of Richard J. Schwandt

As I was entering mid-field right downwind to 22, a Cessna 172RG had already been cleared to land from a 1 1/2 mile left base. This being my home field and my plane known to the controllers, the tower guy told me that if I could keep a tight pattern, he could clear me in front of the Cessna. "I can do it," I told him, and was immediately cleared to land. I had whoa-ed Papa a bit on the entry to the pattern, but thinking that I'd be flying an extended downwind to land #2 behind the Cessna, I hadn't yet slowed down to the 100mph limit for dumping the flaps. I also had an 11 knot tailwind, so I was eating up pattern distance at a far more prodigious rate than the other guy.

Throttle to idle and no wheel pants to block the drag from the wheels got me down to flap speed quickly enough, so I dumped them down and turned base just past the numbers. At this point, the 11 knot wind RDTR worked in my favor. I was high and fast pretty close in to the threshold, but the headwind was keeping my distance across the ground manageable so I didn't even need to resort to a slip. I also target a spot 1000' down the runway for my touchdown so I am slowing to turning/taxi speed just as I reach the A3 taxiway, so I had plenty of room to work with. It was a nice, smooth touchdown and I had turned off of the runway at A3 and onto the parallel taxiway to head back to the barn by the time the Cessna was flaring for his touchdown. I don't think I've ever ridden a more controllable and eager-to-please mount than PapaGolf.

Update: just playing around in Picasa, I tried the grainy WWII newsprint look:


Photo courtesy of Richard J. Schwandt

Therapy, Times Two

I went to the physical therapist for the first visit today. As you may remember, I tried this two weeks ago, sans Rx from the Doc, and was turned away at the door. I waited a week to get an appointment with the Doctor, just to have him squeeze my foot a couple of times and ask (quite reduntantly, in my opinion, as a strong wince or its absence was all the answer he really needed) "whether this hurts or not." This was quickly followed with an Rx for physical therapy and a shove out the door, with a $20 co-pay on the way out. Another week to get the first PT appointment, all the while not sure how much or how little I should be trying to use the ankle.

Anyway, I got to the (different location, as I didn't want to return to the scene of the crime) PT office on time, and with all of my paperwork carefully prepared in advance and collected into an envelope left by my cell phone overnight to ensure that I didn't forget to bring it. That worked pretty well, except for the annoying little fact that I forgot to put the Rx in there too. I didn't notice until I got to the front desk to check-in. The receptionist didn't ask, but honor (and her questioning glance as I smacked myself on the forehead in disgust) prompted me to fess up. "No problem," she said. She just called the doctor's office and had a copy faxed over. That was a relief!

The therapist was a younger guy, with a veneer of medical professionalism provided by his somber and all-business demeanor. Always ready to rise to such a challenge, I immediately dialed up '8' on the BanterAmp(tm) and prepared to chip away at him. Not many opportunities arose as he squeezed all the same places on my foot as my doctor had, but every opening, no matter how small, was an excuse to try a quip. He didn't find anything on my foot to make me wince, and I didn't say anything to make him smile. It was a draw. Ironically, though, I think I might have caused him to wince once or twice. Hey, it's not like it was a target rich environment like I'd have had a proctologist, you know. I did the best I could.

After some more twisting and tugging, apparently to determine whether my foot was now detachable, he gave me a list of exercises to do. The first involves stretching out the injured leg and pressing my extended arms against a wall and pushing. Well, that was perfect! It was exactly like pushing something, say an RV-6, up a hill into something kinda-exactly like a hangar. I told him that I was reasonably sure I'd be able to find a way to do that particular exercise this very day! I positively exuded enthusiasm! I'm sure he chalked that up to his professionalism, and I sure wasn't about to correct him.

The second exercise was a bit odd. He told me to imagine that I had a pen sticking out of my foot (which I found hard to do because had that actually been the case, I think I would have stuck with the actual doctor for treatment) and to write through the alphabet.

Me: "Upper or lower case?"

Him (deadpan): "It doesn't matter."

Me: "Oh, so it's not like a spell or anything? Any motion will do?"

Him (deadpan): "Well, not just any motion."

Me: "How about Greek letters? Would that work?"

Him (deadpan): "Yes."

Me (clicking BanterAmp to '9'): "How about hieroglyphics? You know, so easy that a caveman could do it?"

Him (deadpan): "Sure."

Me (clicking BanterAmp to '11' and going for the kill): "Pornographic images?"

Got 'im! Right between the eyes. He never saw it coming. The veneer, while not shattered, was certainly cracked.

I started looking at the temperature on the way home and while it was mildly distressing to see 95F, I decided that I could handle it for at least a quick hop. This too would be therapy because to be perfectly honest, this has been the longest three weeks ever. The weather has been wildly beautiful (that being in the eye of this beholder anyway, as I'm sure grass blades and farmers have been worried) and not having been able to fly because of the ankle has been distinctly worse than not being able to fly due to ice/snow storms/residue like we had over the winter.

The wind was 220 @ 9 knots RDTR, as I call it. Right Down The Runway. The sky was hazy, though, so it wasn't going to be a sightseeing flight. In fact, all I did was putter around for 20 minutes and headed back. The pattern had a couple of touch & go 172s orbiting around burning Hobbs, so I had to figure out a way to slide into the flow. As I was 5 miles out to the west, one of the Skyhawks was reporting final and the other was calling left downwind. Forming a mental picture of where everyone was and where they were about to be, I figured the best plan was to throw some coal on the fire and get into crosswind ahead of the guy on final. I had five miles to go and he only had 2, but I had 150 knots and he had 70. Less, actually, as he would spend some time rolling out on the runway. Worked like a charm, it did. I was on downwind before he was past the departure end of the runway. As I was ready to turn base, the second Skyhawk was on short final. By this point I was slowed down to their speed, so it was easy to get a good spacing and land behind him. It was a '7' of a landing, with a nice flare but a little bouncing, albeit recovered well.

As I was pushing the plane back into the hangar doing my physical therapy exercise, the only thing that was even mildly painful was the tug of 8 gallons per hour at the rate of $4.07 per being removed from my glutimous walletimus, and even that was more like the welcome ache after a good workout than it was any kind of pain.

What did hurt, though, was the burn I got when I tried to hug the big lug. I sure did miss him!

Batten down the hatches!

It's a good thing my ankle still isn't quite ready for flying since our months long drought chose July 4th to end. Today, the 5th, is muggy and generally a good day to be working inside at the Blue Heron Boat Works.

Today's task was a measure of fortitude: it's time for the big cut. That would be the hatch covers fore and aft of the cockpit. Now, to be perfectly honest, I would have been more than happy to skip this step, what with it involving the making of two good-sized cuts in the deck. It's akin to the cuts you have to make for your landing light(s) on an RV: cutting into the leading edge of the wing is enough to cause severe puckering just as cutting into the deck of a boat is. You can't skip it though, and the fact that this specific question is explicitly addressed in the builders manual indicates that I am far from the first builder to look for the cowardly way out. You can't just leave the deck unmolested because then you wouldn't have the access to the inner parts of the boat that is essential to the next steps.

I carefully placed the inner sills on top of the deck to trace the inner edge, which would provide the exact size hole required. The idea is to make this a very neat and precise cut so as to end up with a nice piece of cut away wood to act as the hatch. I put down masking tape before making the Sharpie marker line that I would cut along, knowing that I could easily drift off of the line with the saw, and I didn't want a permanent reminder of my incompetence enshrined forevermore into the deck of my boat. Of course, I could have done myself a favor and positioned it better - lesson learned and soon thereafter applied in the cutting of the aft hatch.



To make a slot for the jigsaw blade, I placed a metal straightedge along the Sharpie line and used it to hold a 1/16" drill bit in position:



I widened the slot with my nifty finger box cutter. The jigsaw then fit into the slot, and I made a careful cut crosswise across the deck:





The corners were a little trickier, which is unfortunate as that is where I managed to get the Sharpie mark directly onto the wood. Doh! I suppose it'll sand off.





This was even more fortuitous on the aft hatch, when the hatch collapsed into the hull during the second crosswise cut. That let it flop up and down as I was sawing it, which led to a parabolic detour away from the straight and narrow:



Looks like a boat still, but the next step is to remove the deck (again) and start on the fiberglass sarcophagus:



I put masking tape along the seams where I thought the epoxy might soak through a gap during the "tack welding" process, but obviously missed one. The idea was to use that piece of carpet for the hull to rest on to keep it from getting dinged up. It worked, I suppose, but this is going to leave a mess when I try to get it off of there:

The day I've been dreading

It was bound to happen: a weekend day with weather conditions so extremely suited to flying that I would be severely frustrated by not being able to fly. The ankle, while improving, is still not flight worthy. I could push it I suppose, but knowing the level of peer-level acerbic comment that would arise from an NTSB report citing "stupid decision to fly with a bum ankle" as a contributing factor in an accident is enough to dissuade me. Note the approbation thrown at this fella, rightly or wrongly (your mileage will vary), here:

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=18991

Lucky for me, the gimp factor has declined to the degree that I can safely make the 13 step commute to the Blue Heron Boat Works and make some progress on the kayak:


Here I'm beveling the edges of the shear panels, which are synonymous with the longerons on the RV. Sitting on the floor like this was very uncomfortable for my ankle, and as this was the last step before everything is up off of the floor and can be worked on from a standing or sitting in a chair position, I was happy to have it done. Still, it was a neat step because it involved actual wood work. This was the first step in which I took responsibility for the quality of the work; up until this step, all fabrication had been done by the factory.


Here you can see how stitching the major panels together with copper wire pulls the deck into the rounded shape that makes it so darn good looking. The wires have to be twisted pretty tightly to pull the pieces together, which very quickly goes from being really cool to being really painful. I suspect it's a lot like learning to play the guitar: your fingers hurt, but the progress made towards creating something very aesthetically pleasing is all of the encouragement you need to keep going.


This is the deck, inverted. It will be lifted, turned over, and trial-placed on the hull to make sure everything aligns correctly, and that no unwanted twist is being built into the boat.


Co-pilot Egg assisted in the delicate lifting and placing of the deck on the hull. It will be loosely wired to the hull, then the spacers will be removed and the wires tightened. This is the last step of fitting and aligning before gluing, so it needs to be done patiently and precisely. I wish I could hire that out, as I am not known for possessing copious amounts of either of those traits.


It's really starting to look like a boat!








Just as with an RV, when it looks 90% done, you only have 90% left to do. There will now be a whole lot of assembling, fitting, disassembling, reassembling, gluing, filling, taping, glassing, and sanding.

UPDATE:

One of the deciding factors for going with CLC Boats was their attractive and content-rich web site. Included in that is a Builders Forum. Well, I had a question regarding the fit of the aft end of the boat, and I posted said question on the forum last night. As you can see, the very aft end of the shear panel doesn't fit as nicely as the forward point did, and there is some overhang from the shear panel to the side panel. It's equal on both sides of the boat, so it's not indicative of twist in the hull. My question was whether it could simply be planed or sanded flush, or if I needed to find a way to get the hull spread apart a bit more. It seems that either option will work, so I'm going to try spreading the hull with a dowel stick, but not be overly anal about the results.



There were two good answers waiting for me this morning and I'm basically splitting the difference between them. That kind of quick peer-level response, similar to what we get in the Vans RV world with Doug Reeves' tremendous site, really impresses me as a customer. It tells me that other customers truly love the product and are willing to devote their time and brain power to helping other customers. It says a lot about both the product and the manufacturer.

In fact, I'm so happy with this (so far) that once the kayak is done I'm going to consider building another of their boats, only this one would be a row/sail/outboard motor boat called the Passagemaker Dinghy:

Shuffling Around

The ankle started to feel a lot better over the weekend (imagine that!) so I abandoned the crutches and hobbled around to the best of my ability, trying to both keep myself entertained and to help out (again, to the best of my ability, which ain't all that great under normal circumstances) around the house. That, to my eventual chagrin, included a trip to the grocery store. At the time, though, it seemed a grand idea: co-pilot Egg and I would explore the brand new Giant Eagle store that just opened in the neighborhood of Harbor Freight. Alas, I actually had no need for a tool buy so it was just to be the grocery store, but still, a brand new store.

How'd it turn out? Well, nice store. But there must have been serious demand for a new store at that location because it was packed to the rafters with shoppers. That entailed a lot more walking and swerving because we had to go up and down each aisle, slaloming through the folks standing in thrall of various brightly colored sundries arrayed in orderly rows, quite the opposite of what they were used to seeing at other stores like, say, Wal-Mart. There was also an extended delay at the checkout while the older woman in front of us figured out how to use the credit card slider. Now I grant you that a little homogeneity in the design of these pesky little devices would be a friendly thing to provide for us customers, but still, could this possibly have been the very first time she had used a credit card? If so, I'm honored to have present at such a momentous event. If not, well let's just say that it was a tad frustrating. Still, I must consider that I myself have to often ask the co-pilot how to set things on my cell phone, so it's really only a question of degree - life is confusing for everybody these days. I'm really just saying that the adventure ended up being rather more physically demanding than I had planned on.

The ankle felt fine, though. I was moving around easily and well. Then came Monday morning. It was very tender getting out of bed and was kind of naggy in the morning, so I went most of the day crutchless but curtailed my normal walkabouts at work. Then came Monday afternoon: toes and ankle purple as Liberace's prom dress and throbbing in time with a Sousa march. At this point I started to realize that I had just maybe rushed things a bit over the weekend.

Today was my long-awaited appointment with the therapy place, but that was a bust. They turned me away for want of a prescription form from a doctor. I objected that we had consulted with our insurance carrier twice and been told each time that a prescription was not required for the visit to be covered, but they informed me that it wasn't about insurance, it was about their office policy. Liability or something, I suppose. That's unfortunate, really, because it means another trip to the doctor and another co-pay, just to get right back where I already was. They were very apologetic about it, and asked if there was anything they could do to help. It seemed an honest question, so I gave an honest answer: "Yes, just remember next year when you vote that a vote for Hillary is a vote for more of this exact kind of thing." Well, I may not have said "thing," exactly, but I'm conveniently unclear enough on the memory that I can with good conscience substitute it for whatever descriptive euphemism might have been the actual case. In any event, I said it nicely.

The doc can't see me until Monday. I could have been to Cuba by now.

Ankle Update

Still not able to fly, but the swelling is down from 'Michael Moore' to somewhere between 'Alec Baldwin' and 'Al Gore.' Fortunately, it never got as bad as 'Rosie O'Donnell.' Had it, I would have insisted on amputation. The color is improving as well, and it's no longer as many shades of purple as The-Artist-Formerly-and-Currently-Known-As-Prince's wardrobe.

It never really hurt all that much after the second day, which is a definite plus. I won't know the prognosis for sure until I can get in to see a specialist next Tuesday. That was the earliest appointment I could get, and it involves driving all the way cross town. The office closer to home was booked solid until mid-July. I considered trying Cuba, where they reportedly have world-class medical support free-for-the-asking, but the idea of paddling a rubber raft from Miami to Havana, (against the prevaling raft current, such as it may be) was too daunting.

I'm getting around without crutches for short distances, but I'm still a little leery of braving the basement steps so I could at least work on the kayak. I've been doing a lot of reading to kill the time, and I recommend John Nance's new book (Orbit) for a bit of escapism, should you feel the need. I'm currently working through a murder mystery called The Pale Blue Eye, by Louis Bayard, and enjoying it quite a bit.

So, one of my more boring postings, but what can I say - my non-flying life isn't nearly as interesting, even to me, as my flying is. I hope to be back in the air some time next week, so stay tuned.

Fathers Day

It was a great plan. Drive the Miata out to the farm for a visit on Saturday, fly to Beach City for the Fathers Day Fly-in at Beach City with co-pilot Egg on Sunday. Both 2-seaters get to contribute in their unique ways, Fathers Day was to be celebrated equally in both of the capacities required by one who sits in the middle, and the weather was going to allow for both.

Well, you know what they say about mice, men, and plans. I had driven no further than ten miles towards the Saturday destination when I was interrupted by a call on my electronic leash: an email had come in at home to notify me of the impending arrival of my friends Jim and Lisa in their very recently overhauled Mooney 252. Figuring that I could defer the farm visit until Sunday and skip the Fathers Day fly-in, I turned around and headed back.

I was home well before the ETA of high noon, so I spent a bit of time working on the kayak. The project is coming along nicely, and is following pretty much the normal, albeit for more complex, steps involved in building an RV. First step: inventory the contents of the kit. Second step: scan the documentation for excuses to buy stuff at Harbor Freight. Step three: buy a bunch of stuff at Harbor Freight. Step four: go to Lowes and pay too much for the stuff Harbor didn't have. Step five assumes the example RV to be a slow-built: cleco the parts together.

Given that this is a 17-foot kayak, and that it shipped in an 8-foot box, it shouldn't be a surprise that some of the wooden pieces need to be joined into their full length before putting them together. In the past, these parts had beveled edges that were joined with epoxy and fiberglass tape, but it was difficult to get the parts well aligned. They apparently had a tendency to slide apart and add an unsightly joggle to the panel. Now they use CNC saws to cut very precise jigsaw shapes into the panels to ensure a correctly aligned joint:



I glued these joints with the parts laid out on a big sheet of plastic on the basement floor. This approach offered the benefit of being extremely low cost (as compared to building work benches), but very hard on my back. I needed weights to hold the panels together over night while the epoxy cured, which led to a funny incident in the great room as I hauled load after load of canned goods and bottled water to the basement, right in front of the quizzical stare of the wife who, due to being involved in a phone conversation, couldn't ask me just what the heck I thought I was going to do with all of those rations.

So, back to step five: no, we don't use actual clecos to hold the panels together. In a process known as "stitch & glue," it's actually done with short pieces of copper wire run through holes drilled in the edges of the panels and twisted together to snug up the joint. You can do it by hand, but I've found that 6" safety wire pliers work very well for when you need to get one really tight. The wire will hold the panels together while epoxy is used to glue the joints together:



In older versions of the kit, all of those holes had to be located and drilled by the builder. Fortunately, I came along just after they upgraded the kits to be essentially pre-punched; almost all of the holes are already drilled. Because of that, I already have the bottom panels joined at the keel and one of the side panels on:



After a lengthy debate, I ignored my conscience and listened to the little devil whispering "Hey, what's another $40 on top of a $1,000 kit?" into my ear and ordered an onlay to dress up the boat a little. It's laser cut wood only a few millimeters thick that will be glassed onto the front deck of the boat. Here it is, still in it's plastic protector:



I finished wiring the side panel into place and headed to the airport a little before noon to make sure I was there when they arrived. I needn't have hurried - I had forgotten all about Pilot Tip #16: if the pilot you are meeting at the airport is departing from a different time zone, make sure to be clear about exactly what it meant by "noon." Or better yet, use Zulu time. Oh well, there are worse places to be than sitting in the shade of the control tower with a scanner, just watching the planes fly in and out on a nice, sunny afternoon.

The plan was to chow down on some fine JP's BBQ, but if there were to be RV rides involved in the visit I've learned to get those out of the way first and have lunch later when the risk of having an unwanted 2nd visit with your victuals is substantially reduced. Two rides later, we worked through a pleasant lunch and they headed back towards Chicago:



Sunday was Fathers Day, so breakfast was up to me. Not having been in awhile, and one being conveniently located on the drive to the farm, I chose Waffle House. Also in another exercise of my Fathers Days prerogatives, we got out of the house early. The dog was loaded up in the Forester, the Beretta Neos was in its lock box and ready to go do a little plinking, and the family were at least nominally headed towards the car. I noticed that I had forgotten my hat, so I ducked back into the kitchen to grab it. I missed the top step of the garage stairs on my way back out, and twisted my ankle badly enough to give it a nasty sprain, and managed to end up flat on my side on the garage floor after flopping off of the stairs, words normally reserved for one of my patented Tourettes Landings spewing out uncontrollably. Well, that was that.

Hoping that the pain would subside and the swelling would just as soon skip the show, we headed towards breakfast. It was to no avail, though, as it soon became apparent that I couldn't walk. We headed back home where I found that the ankle was swollen to somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a baseball. We ended up just cutting my sock off rather than trying to get it over the painful knob of my ankle.

The rest of the day has been spent lying around watching TV. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but swelling is down and I hope to at least be able to hobble around. Oh, and Rick: I guess messing up one of your legs and delaying your build progress is another of those parallels I was talking about before. Sigh.

UPDATE: It's a Class III sprain, which is the worst kind. The doctor says it will never fully heal, I'll feel it when the weather is changing, I'm going to require physical therapy, etc. Not the greatest news, really:

A third degree sprain is the most severe of the three. A third degree sprain is the result of a complete tear or rupture of one or more of the ligaments that make up the ankle joint. A third degree sprain will result in massive swelling, severe pain and gross instability.

One interesting point to note with a third degree sprain is that shortly after the injury, most of the localized pain will disappear. This is a result of the nerve endings being severed, which causes a lack of feeling at the injury site.

The part about the pain receding is counterintuitive, and led me to believe that this would be no big deal. Ah, well. Google knows better, as usual.