On Wings Of Aluminum

Carburetor Icing

2009-02-17T01:59:00.000-08:00

Wow,

It's been a really, really long time since I last posted. My quest for my Private Pilot License has dragged on arduously, despite my efforts to hurry up and finish. *sigh* Alas, I have only three hours of test prep in the airplane and the checkride yet to finish, as I completed the last of my flights leading up to the final push last Friday night, which brings us to the subject of this post. Carburetor Icing...

That's what the carb heat knob is for, right? You know the one. It's right by the throttle & mixture knobs, it even has it's own placard that says: "carb heat" and below that it says: "pull on". Now I have always observed liberal use of the carb heat due to the low mounted carbs on the Contentental engines found in the 172 and 150 I have been training in, but up until Friday night, I had never, to my knowledge, experienced carburetor icing.
The sudden missfiring of the engine and very noticable vibration felt in the floorboard of the plane was a quick attention getter. This all happened on climb-out, while sharing the pattern with another plane and while my instructor was having to trouble-shoot the intercom because he couldn't hear me.

To borrow a line of text from Lex,

"I learned about flying from that."

Annual Fish Fry and Thorp Fly-In

2008-10-12T06:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our annual fall fish fry at the airport. The Thorp club was having a flyin at Kentucky Dam Resort and several of those guys flew down to eat at the invitation of our airport manager. We had about 20 T-18s, an RV-6A and an RV-7A show up. Bet you can guess which ones I spent the most time looking at... Also, a 1947 Piper PA-11 "Cub" showed up from Pirates Cove, a private airstrip at a campground nearby. I have inspected this airplane before and it's just beautiful! It's a '47 model and is *pristine*. No electrics, hand propped C-85 that purrs like a sewing machine. Just a really neat plane. Two two-ship formations of the T-18s came in and did overhead breaks right above me, which I enjoyed because I've never seen it before. Here's some pictures from the day.

As an aside, I did get to fly early Saturday morning and got my 90 day checkout with my CFI so I'm good to go again. Felt great to fly again and I plan on knocking out my long cross country soon.

This airplane I was told was an Oshkosh Grand Champion for plans-built aircraft. I can believe that because it was the best looking Thorp there.

This unique looking T-18 was very, very loud! That's because it has a very unusual engine in it. A 3.8L Ford v6! Pretty cool.

Scratching the flying bug

2008-10-09T22:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to fly in some time, (about 6 months) due to work and other obligations so my flight training has come to a complete stand still. Luckily for me, I was invited by a local pilot to go for a ride this past Saturday in his 182. I'd never ridden in a 182 before so I was happy to have the opportunity. Six months is WAY too long for a pilot to go without leaving the ground. It was a short hop and I enjoyed it. The haze was terrible and even though it was a cool morning, the thermal turbulence bounced us around a bit. Flying has given me an appreciation for winter, the promise of clear, smooth skies makes the cold temps worth it. It also served to get me re-motivated to finish my training. Hopefully I'll be able to get a lesson in this Saturday.

Picture Test

2008-07-10T01:23:00.000-07:00

This is an RV-8. Photo taken by Doug Reeves. www.vansairforce.net

Test.

2008-07-10T01:21:00.001-07:00

Trying this out to see how everything works.