I arrived a bit before 1:00 to find the staging already in progress.  The light NE wind allowed a convenient 31-13 operation.  It was a beautiful and comfortable day.  Lift was however only tantalizing resulting in all five flights being in the :19 – :29 range.  Bob A. brought his grandson Noah (high school senior) out for a ride.  Dan took Noah up on the first flight.  Tom S. and Bob A. then each took solo flights.  Last Friday Whit flew with them in a C-172 and accomplished flight reviews which satisfies the absurd FAA interpretation that  transition pilots need a current fight review to solo.  Hooray for Whit!  Paul then flew the “long” :29 flight solo.  I got the hangar flight taking Noah along for the ride.  We divided up the towing with Whit towing first, I towed a couple, followed by Dan and Paul.  All flights were in the L23 because the L33 tire pressure is low and we couldn’t fit the air pump nozzle on to the tire valve stem because of the close fitting wheel pant.  Dan thinks his air tank fitting will work.  The JD tractor has a new battery and started up fine.  My hangar flight landed at 4:11.  It took a little longer than usual to get out the gate because some time was spent wrestling with the Pawnee south side hangar doors.  The recent fix didn’t last.

 

Oh yes, a word of caution:  My car was parked near the tent.  While carrying stuff to the tent I stepped into a gopher hole obscured by the long grass.  My left foot went down maybe 15 inches and got stuck.  Then off balance I fell, thinking an ankle or knee is surely going to suffer.  But fortunately I wasn’t hurt.  Tom saw me and thinking that looks kind of strange, came and helped me sort it out.  Once I got upright I had to work my foot out of the shoe to get loose.  There are two take away points:  1) There is a bare area of packed dirt near the hole which I failed to see as a warning, and 2) the hole is still there.

 

Seeya

Jaime