Ned Gravel

Here's another of my favourites: Because I Fly, I envy no man on earth. — Grover C. Norwood

+ 1 If you are not paying attention, Gaia will kill you. At sea it can take up to four or five hours. In the air, it will take only minutes.

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+ 1 Sent from my iPad

Did not get off the ground. While showing my recognition and strobes to Byron, it appears I left the Master on. So at 40 minutes prior to departure, I cancelled the flight plan and proceeded, battery in hand, to the EAA Emergency repair station. Thanks to Brett and Dawn for looking after Ute while I was away. Put my very good (five year old) Concorde RG35-AXC into the charger and after 35 minutes or so, it was drawing around 9 amps. The experts felt I could take it off the 12 amp charger and put it on the 2 amp overnight and it should be good to go tomorrow. Now the plan is to pick up the battery and plan for an 11:30 am or so departure tomorrow. Weather is changing so we may have to change our route. [update; - the folks at the EAA emergency repair centre were absolutely wonderful. I picked up my battery, fully charged, from them on Sunday morning and installed it. It works great. I have been told that two times is the limit for fully discharging a Concorde. Took a total of 4:42 flying to come home (mostly IFR) but dodging some buildups along the way.]

Did Sloshkosh, but because ours is a '65, we went to VAC and it was both open and drier. The Fisk arrival scared the living bejees out of me. Skipped 2011 and 2012 (work got in the way) and went via the Caravan last year and this. Yves did a great job in organizing us both (with some others) for "station keeping" training in the Ottawa area last year and this. Merci mon chum. Caravan is a far safer arrival evolution. I will be back again next year.

The FBO at Kingston is a badly run commercial operation. Always has been. I got my license at the Kingston Flying Club and I can tell you that most of the owners who park their aircraft in the club hanger or in the one to the East of it only use the FBO for the gas. KFC is a great place, Byron - as you have already discovered. Welcome to the Great White North.

I will be back - and for my sins (demonstrating initiative in the face of two lawyers) bring two bottles this time. What Dave Piehler (flight lead) brought this year was better than what I brought - so I will want to bring two of those. Anyone with any influence should try and prevent either Darwin ("Hot Dog") or Dave Marten ("Sardot") to acquire any until they learn the difference between single malt and blended (my Scot staff sergeant used to tell me that blended was only for foreigners). I have already filed (VFR) for KANJ to depart today at 13:30 local. I will use their wi-fi and file eAPIS and call CANPASS. Looks like CBs over the home drome are forecast till 9:00 pm. Plan B is either Sudbury or North Bay this evening (unless the buildups dissipate sufficiently for an approach into Ottawa between 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm). Hope to see you all next year - and for the Caravan officialdom - think East Coast (where the greatest need for clinics exist). "Flanders"

Ute and I left on Friday for Madison and had a great time with the Mooney Caravan activities. We are coming back next year and Yves and I are looking to try and host a clinic in Ottawa with some of the expertise available within the Caravan. This is the little video of our adventure to get here. See We are still here (as of the time of writing this post on 31 July) and will be leaving on Sunday to go back into the harsh world of working for a living. Thank you to all who helped make this a great vacation. "Flanders"

I practice mine every time I land. My gear won't work without using the manual landing gear extension equipment. "Johnson Bar"

OK, so here is one from last night. Yves got two others to do some formation training at an airport about 30 miles away from my home drome and 35 from his. We were four aircraft. The instructors jumped in to the newbie's a/c and Yves and I played lead for an hour. One of the newbies (David) was a fellow I had apparently met four years ago at Rockcliffe as he was hanging around. interested in a ride in a Mooney because he was considering one, but he needed to get the feel of one. Big fella worried about the space in the cabin. No problem. We do the walk around, jump in and go for about 30 minutes. I let him fly it a little. He was apparently grinning from ear to ear. He was convinced. Last night he told me it was the 150 mph in no time that did it for him. Now, as a Mooney owner, he was interested in formation training with a bunch of other Mooney drivers. Last night his wobble box for his first lesson was smaller than mine last year. He is very good at station keeping. Next year, he plans to fly with the Caravan. He made sure I understood that I was the reason he was a fellow Mooney owner now. Made my day. Thanks David.

Clarence: I have been through three owner-assisted annuals with you and therefore I know you check it. So, mine is.

Annual is done and I am coming home. Today I booked to fly out of Mexico and I will be in Ottawa tomorrow morning off a flight from IAD. My Mooney was flown home by Yves yesterday afternoon/evening after he was flown to Waterloo from Ottawa by a 231 owner in Kingston. My thanks (publicly) to Yves for doing this. Extra care and attention worth far more than the cost of any gas and food incurred for this ferry service. Here is what was planned: We were taking out the beautiful doghouse that Clarence rebuilt for me following engine overhaul and we are replacing it all with a 201 style baffle kit. (DID NOT HAPPEN - Ran out of time) We were relocating the oil cooler to the back of the engine. (DID NOT HAPPEN - Ran out of time) We were rotating the brake callipers to take them out of the slipstream in flight. (Done!) We were hoping to create a "taxi light" space where the oil cooler once was. (DID NOT HAPPEN - Ran out of time related to 1 and 2 above) I got a Sirs compass to replace the vibrating (canted in flight) thrice-rebuilt piece of junk that is mounted to the centre pose of the cockpit. (Done!) I am OK with not having done the change to the 201 style baffling as I was skeptical about airflow over the cylinders being as good as the doghouse Clarence manufactured after the engine overhaul. Here is what Yves wrote me this morning regarding the flight home: I really enjoyed flying C-FSWR yesterday. The new compass is not vibrating at all. I put the autopilot on and enjoyed the show at 5.5 K About mid point I was getting bored and then I saw this control called "power boost" which does not exists in my C. I pulled this and saw MP go up and wham... 150 knots From now on I will call your bird "the speed machine" ....... ...... Thanks for letting me fly it. So she is now home and parked on her "patio." My girl is picking me up at the YOW tomorrow morning and we are spending the morning on a date to start our vacation and sometime during the morning she wants to drive over to Rockcliffe to "pet" the airplane and straighten out things in the storage box. The next three weeks will involve a LOT of flying to get back up to speed, to become current, and to practice for Oshkosh and Caravan.

I also vote for the Monday. Sent from my iPad

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Brian: Have you considered the Mooney Caravan?

Folks: Just a consideration. We have an assessor in our accreditation body that stands 6' 2", but when he sits in my car, he is shorter than I am (at 5' 11"). Why? Because his legs are long and his torso is comparatively short. So he would probably not need the pedal extensions to fly (if he was a pilot) but he might need booster cushions. The point of this? Overall height may not be the biggest factor in determining the need for pedal extensions.

I own an E model and the big difference between the C and E, in terms of maintenance cost, is the cost of jug replacement. That is about it. Carburetor versus fuel injector should not be much difference in maintenance costs (watch a real maintainer prove me wrong :-) and the rest is the same between the two airframes. I bought four jugs over the first five years of ownership and they were $2,500 apiece. Performance differences between the two are the reason I own an E, instead of a C.

Nope. Ham.

We're Canajun Eh! Canada celebrates its independence day on 1 July, 3 days before y'all. We used to call it Dominion Day, but now we call it Canada Day. My little home drome is a Canadian version of College Park, nestled within TFR distance (not really, but we do have restricted airspace) of our own National Capital, Ottawa. We host a fly in breakfast on Canada Day and we usually end up seeing some other aviation goodies because our field will often be overflown by our Snowbirds and other airshow aircraft doing a show for the National Capital. I am attaching a portion of the FAA Sectional for our area and you can get the goodies about Rockcliffe from Sky Vector at http://skyvector.com/airport/CYRO/Ottawa-Rockcliffe-Airport.%C2'> I went looking for the NOTAM, but it is not out yet. I am also attaching a copy of the flyer. Pretty gaudy, but there ya go. The airport will operate as per normal up until about 11:00 am or so. Then it is closed while airshow events take place, and it will open up around 12:00 or 12:30 for departures. The Canadian Museum of Aviation is on the other side of the runway and they have a whole day of rides and such planned. So, come one, come all. There are now only four Mooney's on the field since Yves moved his across the river to Gatineau, so when you are tired fending off all the oohs and awws over your aircraft, you can still trade humility lessons with one of the Mooney drivers still on the field.

One of the advantages of continuing to live in the "those that will column" is playing the "what if" scenarios available. For me, a moment of absolute clarity was provided to me by one of our flying school instructors as I was trying to "get back on the horse" following a ground loop in our Arrow (which totalled the aircraft). We were practicing all kinds of emergency procedures in a 172 and some other things. We did stalls, spins, heavy crosswind landings, engine-out landings, no-elevator landings, no-aileron landings, and no-rudder landings - all designed to get my confidence back. During the roll out on the last one he turned to me and said: "If it ever goes wrong and you have to make an emergency engine-out landing remember this. The instant that the prop stops turning, the aircraft belongs to the insurance company. Concentrate on saving the people."

Sensationalist in the extreme. Written only to shine a spotlight on the author.

It may be that the surrounding terrain does not meet the criteria for an approach down the centreline of either runway. I have a friend at our flying club who designs these for a living, and while we would love to have a GPS approach to Rockcliffe (CYRO), he tells me that the Canadian Museum of Aviation buildings are too close to the south edge of the runway and the trees on the approach to 27 are too close to the threshold (it is already displaced some 1000' for night landings).

There is a 1965 POH for E models right here on Mooneyspace at http://mooneyspace.com/files/file/12-1965-m20e-poh/

+ 1. Responsive (for a Mooney). Light. And you can coax it along the edges of the envelope (like holding it off the runway until the purple dot on 36 at KOSH) during the formation arrival. Stable as any Mooney and rock solid through the clag. Sent from my iPad