The primary mission for my airplane is travel. There are others...like acro and lite back country flying, but travel is what I really want to do with this plane. With this in mind, I built it with a lot of creature comforts, which I realize made it heavy, and I'm ok with that. All of this so that we could cruise in style from point A to point B.
I didn't waste any time putting the plane to its first big test. Sheryl and I picked up the plane on Wednesday, June 4th, from Dallas. I then spent Thursday prepping it for its first long cross country flight...over the Rockies to the heart of Washington state. For this newbie pilot, it would turn out to be the longest, by far, cross country flight I have ever tackled. It challenged me as an aviator and my airmanship, I came away with many lessons learned and some hard earned confidence in myself and the plane.
All of this...in a new airplane that I built, with my girlfriend and her dog, definitely precious cargo. I was a little apprehensive, but knew I was up for the challenge. Chance would have it that during May I was due for a BFR. On the last day of May, I took the opportunity to really go deep on this one...to get the cobwebs dusted off after spending 5 yrs building and to review the flight plan I had put together for the trip. Both were a huge success...really enjoyed studying and "remembering" a lot of my primary training, and got a thumbs up on my route choice from my CFI.
The main reason for the trip was to watch my niece, Kaylee, graduate high school in Ephrata, WA. I also, selfishly wanted to show off the plane to family. I flight planned for this trip for about two weeks. Three days ahead I was constantly watching weather patterns over the route. I purposely chose a somewhat conservative flight path, avoiding hostile terrain whenever it made sense. I was amazed at how easy that was to do and also that it didn't add much time to the trip...a good practice even when I am more comfortable with the plane and pilot.
We took off bright and early from my home airport in Broomfield, CO for the 858 nm trip. I wanted to knock out all of the high country flying (which we had up until about Boise, ID) before it got too late in the day for weather reasons. The climb from my airport to Rollins pass, which is at our doorstep, is rather brutal. You really need to do some serious climbing to get the altitude needed to cross the pass. I really had to baby the engine to keep the CHT's under control...and learned I need to be better at this. First lesson learned...these tightly cowled RV's need plenty of airflow over the engine to stay cool. Keep your climbs shallow or do step climbs. This lesson would be drummed into my head several times on this trip.
This was my route to WA. Pretty straightforward except for a slight deviation over my hometown of Dayton, WA, Walla Walla (where I played college baseball) and Little Goose Dam where my Dad used to work.
At the last minute we decided to take Sheryl's dog Shadow with us. We bought him a pair of Mutt Muffs, but they appeared to be too small to stay on his head so he went without. I was a little worried how he would adapt to cockpit life and the noise. As you can see, he didn't appear to be uncomfortable. It wasn't long before we realized he had complete faith in the pilot and nodded off to sleep.
I can never get enough of this scenery from altitude...I really dig it. This was on the way out...not exactly sure where we were at this particular moment? Wyoming maybe, Utah?
Our first actual fuel stop, which was short of my first intended fuel stop...or more to the point--bladder stop. Traveling with women and dogs does add to the frequency. Nice little FBO that we had all to ourselves and two courtesy cars.
These high altitude plateau's northeast of Salt Lake City were fascinating to me. Huge, flat tabletops of grass with tree's lined up like tree farms. It looked like something out of Scotland. Much better in person than can be captured in these photos.
Sheryl...also adapting to cockpit life and traveling by small airplane. Its a new world for her too. We both learned a lot about efficient cockpit planning/packing.
Gotta get a group in-flight selfie...:) I mean, ya just gotta...
Uh...I kind of need that throttle hand free Shadow...
Here are some shots of us arriving in Ephrata to a large welcoming party. The airport is about a half mile away from my parents house. With my flight computer basically telling me exactly when we would land and texting this information to my Dad, it was an easy logistical feat for everyone to be waving us in.
Ephrata is an old B-24 training base from WWII, mentioned in the excellent book, Unbroken (must read if you haven't read it yet) As such, Wablosa spent her first night away from home in an old B-24 hangar...if that wasn't cool enough, there was an added bonus. There was a weekend aerobatic camp going on, so we were surrounded by hot acro planes. Many thanks to the airport manager, Mike Wren, for finding room for us.
Of course, as you can see, plenty of photo ops with everyone getting a turn getting a picture with the plane. Wablosa is already shaping up to be a popular photography subject.
The next morning was "ride" day. First up was my Dad. We took off and I said how about we fly out and see your old workplace, Little Goose Dam. He somewhat incredously said, "all the way out there?" I chuckled...we'll be "all the way out there" in 24 mins. Gotta love the RV's. He flew it out there, I then followed the winding Snake River for awhile at low altitude and then he flew us home. It was a good flight, Pop loved how the plane flew.
Next up was dear ol' Mom. She used to fly around with my Dad back in the day and actually took a few flying lessons at one point so this was nothing new to her. Although, she did comment on the instrumentation being much more modern nowadays. She had a great time...she caught me off guard when she later asked why we didn't do a roll or loop?? haha! Next time Mom!
My 7 yr old nephew was a real treat, as you can see by his RV grin, he was very much enjoying the moment...as was his Uncle. I hope to one day teach him to fly in Wablosa. Although my first shallow banked turn after takeoff caught him a little off guard, I smiled as he says "no aerobatic stuff Uncle". Soon he settled in nicely and enjoyed the ride. He was hysterical to talk with throughout the flight. At one point, I turn to him and say over the intercom, "Gabriel, quiet for a minute while I make a radio call." He immediately fires back, "copy that". That brought a huge grin to my face...ya just never know what these kids are gonna say.
Lastly was my niece Kristen. She's been flying with her Uncle before and was a real trooper as we took off late in the afternoon and it was hot and bumpy during our flight, unlike the others earlier in the day. She did great with the conditions however and we had another RV grin.
There were others among the family that I invited, but they opted out and I didn't force the issue, really no sense in that. Maybe next time. I thoroughly enjoyed the ones that did venture out with me, that was a real treat!
Love this pic...reminds me of the one I have posted on my site of when I was even younger than Gabriel and my parents snapped the pic of me in this similar pose. Probably where it all started for me.
Sunday morning, time to fuel up and head for home. I knew the weather in and around Denver looked sketchy for our arrival time. I monitored the conditions as we traveled with my inflight weather via the GDL39.
The air, much like the trip out, was smooth as glass for the first couple hours out of Ephrata and past Boise, ID. We stopped for fuel and when I went to power up the SkyView for engine start, my circuit breaker popped. I tried a couple times to reset it with no luck (you should try once, and then accept it, so I've been told). So...now faced with decision time. What to do now? I did a visual to see if I could see anything obvious with the wiring...nada, everything looked good. Grounding the airplane there wasn't a real good option, we were in the middle of nowhere and really didn't know how I would troubleshoot it on a ramp anyway.
I knew I had the one hour backup battery on the SkyView, coupled with the fact it was a day VFR flight. I could get by without the SkyView if need be. We are flying visual, after all...look outside. I could use the Garmin and iPad for a GPS panel, which is better than nothing. I also installed a basic engine oil pressure light as a stand alone device for just such a scenario. That way, without engine monitoring, I could ferry the plane home and at least know if I lost oil pressure. I decided to do my runup, see if anything made me uncomfortable and, if not, fly on.
As we got into Wyoming T-storms started popping up all around us. I could not only see them on my cockpit radar, but also with my eyeballs. It started getting quite bumpy and I was looking for a place to set her down so we could monitor the Denver weather, which wasn't looking good (see above screenshot), from the ground. About this time, my SkyView backup battery gave up and the screen went black. That was, shall we say, interesting to see. I quickly realized how much I depended on that information. I tried my backup circuit to power on the SkyView with no luck...another darn thing to look into later. I had other things to focus on...like getting us down safely.
I called up three airports (AWOS) in our vicinity...two of them had direct crosswinds. The third, was Kemmering, WY...where we stopped for fuel on the way out. The winds were not exactly welcoming, screaming at 20G28kts at 60 degs off the nose...which translates to a direct crosswind component of 17G24kts! Crap I thought...I hadn't landed in anything over 10 kts direct with the -7 yet and usually like to set my limits at 15kts direct in an airplane I am comfortable with.
As every pilot knows, at one point or another, you gotta make a tough decision...suck it up and execute. There are no magic fairies to safely get us on the ground, as PIC, that responsibility falls directly on our shoulders. I knew this airport was my best alternative...so I set up on final, bucking around like a bull rider at a rodeo. Going by feel and sound of the engine. I had no manifold pressure and no indicated airspeed. I used my Garmin ground speed for a sanity check and brought it in fairly fast for some margin. I banked my left wing into the wind and straightened it out on centerline with right rudder...classic sideslip approach. The rudder authority on the -7 was impressive as this didn't seem to be near its limit. I felt reasonably comfortable with my approach, all things considered. I bounced it a little on touchdown, but let out a huge sigh of relief as we were safely down and under control.
Looking back to the west, it looked pretty good as we shared the ramp with another pilot who was visiting his cabin for the weekend. Here you can see the courtesy cars...an SUV and a minivan. The winds sounded like a freight train as they howled over the tin roof of the FBO all afternoon...I was glad to be on the ground.
When we landed, in spite of the fact there were t-storms around us and the wind was whipping...I wondered if I was being too conservative to land at that point. We could have picked our way through the t-storms and at the very least got closer to Denver, or so that nagging voice in my head said to me.
A couple hours after we landed, a Giles 200 landed and in came Phil DeTurk from Ft. Collins (small aviation world...he knew my acro instructor, Dagmar). Unbeknownst to me, he had also been at Ephrata for the acro school. He recognized my RV immediately and chuckled that we both ended up in Wyoming for the same reason.
I asked him why he landed...he said, weather. Before landing, he tried to push on and saw a lightning bolt hit the ground and decided to do a 180 right then and there and park it. I felt vindicated...I had made the right decision after all.
As we waited until 5pm at the FBO, Sheryl and Shadow grabbed a nap. This was my "go-no-go" time...a check of radar (free Wi-Fi at the FBO) showed deteriorating conditions in Denver at that point and forecasts said it wouldn't clear out until 10pm. I had seen enough, flying for this day was officially scrubbed.
I found out later a tornado touched down not far from my house at about 1pm (about the time we would have arrived back in Denver) and a blizzard had closed Berthoud pass about the same time. It was clear...staying put was easily the right choice on this occasion. Decision making is tricky when flying small aircraft, especially when you are a rookie...this was my first taste of it and learned plenty from the experience.
We grabbed the courtesy car and headed to a nice Best Western in town for the night...darn comfy bed. We ordered some pizza and had an in-room dinner and then faded off to sleep after a long day...I was exhausted. The plan was to be up before light so we could takeoff by daybreak to get started on the 1.5 hr flight back to Denver. We both had to work Monday morning, so an early start was necessary.
As we got to the airport, the guy parked on the ramp with the cabin in the area was also getting prepped for flight. He and his wife were going out sightseeing by air. He took off first and radioed me to have a safe flight back to Denver...a nice gesture, good people in aviation.
We took off and banked to the east into the morning sun, the big whirlwind prop clawing for altitude. We were greeted with breath taking views as we smoothly climbed toward Rollins pass, then the front range and Denver beyond. There is nothing better than flying in smooth, cool air when the sun comes up...pure bliss. The last leg was uneventful and we landed back at BJC in no time. I took Sheryl to work and then got my butt to work as well, albeit a little late. All in all, an amazing first trip and a confidence builder for me personally. Already looking forward to the next one! KPR...its all worth it, I promise you're gonna love it.
