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The valley of the sun is only a
6 hours drive south and down the big hill. You drop 4000 feet into what
should be warmth and sunshine. So here we were on day 2 and it was
raining. Cold, too. At least we had yesterday's flying on the Rio Verde,
brief though it was.
That's ok, motor maintenance
was calling and this was a perfect chance to respond. Mine needed netting
work, was having kill switch problems and the decompression valve was
sticky.
Tim installed a new carb
(solved the problem nicely) and replaced the ubiquitous Sky Cruiser snap
buttons (McMaster). I fixed my kill
switch and installed a secondary one. It was frustrating the day before—I
wanted to shut off the motor for some backwards flying and couldn't because
my kill switch quit. Everything is fixed now and she's running perfect.
I took pictures while we did this for some future content here on
FootFlyer.
We wound up at a favorite site
in Phoenix, Idaho and SR 60. Another pilot was there but had some motor
issues and wasn't able to fly. The weather wasn't so great but I did get
to try out my motor and everything worked perfect once I got the wires in
the right place.
Last Day
We spent our last day here at
Idaho because of Laziness. The weather was going to be cold so we knew
there wouldn't be any long flights. After a 10 minute flight we'd have to
retreat to the warm Enterprise. It got bumpy and windy, too so while it
might have been cold and cloudy at least we had ratty air to fly in.
Given my short endurance I
figured it would be good for practicing spot landings so I set out to do
so. Then he found her. In the bushes, naked, cold and with a broken body,
Tim rescued a little girl. Here is the story
of Suzy.
Later, when the wind picked up
even more, it got fun. The Enterprise was pointed straight into it so I
took to kiting up the windshield and then kiting on the top. That was way
cool. At least once I thought a gust was gonna rip me off but managed to
stay reasonably put. That was fun.
The strong blow also meant
flying was over. Unable to help Suzy anymore, we packed up and headed for
home. Sky Harbor, that is, for our return to reality. It wasn't much, but
we were happy to get in some 'Nylon Stylin.'
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Strongish
winds made climbing the Enterprise easier. They were bumpy, though, and
tried to pull me off but I managed to remain.
We
both flew a bunch of short flights. Even with the flight suits (if you can
call that brown thing I'm wearing a flight suit) it was cold. Like
everyone, I despise flying with thick gloves, but that was the only way I
could do it. You'd think that, being from Illinois, this cool weather
would be nothing. You'd think wrong. I hate the cold!
I
know, get over it, most of the country is just now succumbing to winter's
true self. But next time I'm gonna check the weather and go to where it's
really warm. On this day in Tampa, it was 82
It
was good to get the maintenance done--both of our motors ran like champs. |
