John & Anne Wiley

2010/05/22

Sparrow & Hawk

Filed under: Aviation,Has Photos,People,Random,SB Region,Tripp — John @ 04:52

Today I decided to share a snap of Tripp in the hangar, and found it poetic as I chose the angle. A sparrow nesting in the hangar was singing magnificently as a red tailed hawk circled outside. Tripp huddled at the back of the hangar as an A-4 Skyhawk jet “watched” her from just outside the beautiful old Accurate Aviation hangar.

0791 Tripp at Accurate Aviation for annual

0791 Tripp's Annual

All the planes in the shot are faster and bigger, yet Tripp seems perfectly comfortable and confident. Maybe because she knows we treasure the relatively low and slow flight she excels at. Today was all about the routine checklist of every annual inspection. I did lots of mundane stuff while Anne’s focus was waxing & cleaning. Also getting done are lots of little things on my “squawk” list with supervision and tools provided by Glenn Fuller, Chris Jewell and the sharp crew of A&Ps working for them.

It’s fascinating to hang out in that environment, watching the wide variety of planes and pilots come in with problems and leave happy. Still, we felt some disappointment when it became clear Tripp’s going to sit in the hangar this weekend instead of taking us on some fun flights. sigh…

2010/05/21

Itchy Feathers

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Random,Tripp — John @ 07:25

When I haven’t flown for a week or two, a pervasive feeling comes over me that we call itchy feathers. I look at the mountains assessing air clarity, look out toward the beach to check for coastal low clouds or fog, look both East and West along the coast to see what routes might be most fun, and of course I’m keenly aware of every indication of winds.  Perhaps more noticeable though is that my head whips around to locate every passing aircraft.  At least I don’t jump up and run outside unless it’s that distinctive sound of the Merlin announcing the brief presence of a P-51 (probably my fav airplane, and interestingly Tripp’s tail number once belonged to one). Anyway, we took yesterday off from helping with the annual and today worked another half day. Starting this morning, even though it’s only been a week since our last flight I was exhibiting every symptom of itchy feather syndrome. Only love of our still partly dismantled bird kept me from trying to beg a ride with someone. I’m hoping we can at least have her airworthy tomorrow so we don’t have to suffer through a flightless weekend. We’ll see…

2010/05/19

Tired Old Birds

Filed under: Aviation,Random,Tripp — John @ 05:53

Tonight we feel a bit like tired old birds resting from some sort of migration. Slightly sleep deprived from all the fun we’ve been having with family and friends visiting from out of town, we also helped refresh a slightly tired old bird and then went to an aviation meeting tonight. In case you missed the reference, the slightly tired bird of course was Tripp as we pitched in a few hours on the annual inspection. Anne waxed and cleaned here and there, while I took things apart and put them back together under the watchful eye of several expert aviation mechanics. We’re resting up tonight to hopefully put in a longer day tomorrow doing more of the same. Today I was able to diagnose and fix a minor problem, and might have saved a few dollars – unless they end up charging us more for being in the way 🙂 – while also learning a lot more about how Tripp works. She’s such a simple and solid airplane, and seeing her opened up gave us even more respect for how solidly-built she is. We sure are tired though, having crawled inside small spaces and held ourselves in awkward stances doing this and that. Bet we’ll sleep well, and I wonder what our dreams will be like…

2010/05/18

First Annual

Filed under: Aviation,Random,Tripp — John @ 07:27

Tripp began her first annual inspection today, and so far great news: the engine checks out perfectly! Tomorrow we start looking at the airframe. It feels really good to be looking at everything in much greater detail than we did on the pre-buy inspection and subsequent minor checkups and fixes. It’s also really scary of course, because we could find something very expensive that needs fixing. The good news there is, we’d be finding it before things could get worse or even more expensive to fix. We’re also starting on my collection of “squawks” (things I’ve noticed that we want fixed, updated, improved, etc.). Within a week or two we should have a much spiffier and even healthier Tripp. Then we begin longer Tripp trips. 🙂

2010/05/13

SBA Work

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Has Photos,Random,SB Region — John @ 07:00

The massive project at the airport has made not just commercial airline passenger service more difficult, but has reduced the amount of parking available for General Aviation planes like ours. Still, it’s interesting to watch the progress. Today I snapped this as we were on a downwind departure from 15L climbing through 1,700 feet or so.

KSBA Airline Terminal project

KSBA Airline Terminal Expansion (click to enlarge)

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