John & Anne Wiley

2010/07/30

Missed Moments-GT&R

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,NxNW Adventure,Random — John @ 14:00

You may recall that back on the 23rd we flew some particularly spectacular sights but weren’t able to share pix. Here then are a few from our exploration of the Grand Tetons and Rushmore. The view up-slope from our hotel provided a great start to the day as we could see the chair lifts taking tourists up for a low and distant glimpse of what we were about to survey on wings.

8168 Jackson WY

8168 Jackson WY

The airport is much closer to the Grand Tetons, and our excitement built considerably as we approached Tripp and contemplated our route along the range.

8252 Teton Setting

8252 Teton Setting

A few minutes later our magic carpet provided this view back toward Jackson with the airport just out of view to the left and of course the town further out of view beyond. Some peaks in the range have a distinctive “Matterhorn” look, as you can see in one of the snaps I’m about to put on my Photo Page.

8365 Back Toward Jackson

8365 Back Toward Jackson

Next we toured massive Yellowstone Lake, and this tiny slice of shoreline shows one of the many areas of bubbling hot springs and mud pots at the left edge. The lake is surrounded by a tumble of small peaks and a distant rim of tall mountains. As we traversed the vast valley I explained to Anne that the entire thing is a volcano. She tried to grasp that for a few minutes, looking for a large cinder cone or crater. “This whole valley to the mountains all around in the dim distance,” I repeated. It’s called a super volcano, the last time it erupted launched an ice age, and it’s due to blow again. Pretty sobering to contemplate that from a few thousand feet up where the whole thing surrounded us.

8382 Yellowstone Lake Pots

8382 Yellowstone Lake Pots

Not many miles later we searched a rock outcrop for signs of the Mt. Rushmore monuments. In the dim haze we first spotted a few large buildings and a parking lot so we flew toward it. Such an enchanting moment when rock outcrops suddenly emerged into crisp faces.

8468 Mt. Rushmore

8468 Mt. Rushmore

Now we’re off to find coffee and then back to Tripp for more miracles…

Wawa & T.Bay

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,NxNW Adventure,People,Random — John @ 03:26

Big Brother and Cousin Corpo slowed our progress today. First came all the hoops of CBP’s new and improved eAPIS reporting system for planes flying across U.S. borders. In the old days they were interested only in people and things entering the country, but now they are intrigued by departures as well. If larger than a Canada goose flying across, you must answer lots of questions and carry documents. Once out of the land of the free you must deal with an entirely different Canadian Customs than 2007 or so when we simply taxied our plane into a box painted on the tarmac, picked up a phone to assure them we had no weapons or other stuff they didn’t like, and we were free to fly on. Today we waited two hours while two armed men drove the five miles or so from Soo Canada to that airport. We had failed to phone giving two hours’ notice of our intention to invade this beautiful land. Now we know, so hopefully next time the CanPass system they told us about will ease our transition North. Once they’d done their work we enjoyed a few minutes of easy conversation and laughter as people rather than the roles we humans so often become entangled in. At least the roles and procedures help us all feel safer, right? 😉

While waiting we tried to activate Anne’s phone for use in Canada. Verizon it seems has special torments for anyone taking phones into Canada. To get it working we were to dial a number on the phone, but of course the phone didn’t work. Mine somehow did, so it’s activated. Now I have the right to pay the better part of a dollar per minute of talk time. As an added bonus, the new Android phone I bought for the trip is equipped with a data connection that racks up charges even when not in use. I think that great feature is now turned off. Too bad that neither the data connection nor the phone voice connections work reliably. 🙂

Happily, we did finally take off to see how far we could fly around the top of Lake Superior toward Thunder Bay. The scattered clouds were too low for us to fly high and thus shortcut more of the highway’s curves to save time, so we kept within 5-10 miles most of the way. A nice benefit of flying low of course is the intimate perspective on our green planet. There were many small lakes in variety of shapes and hues, like this little gem surrounded by miles of forest.

0046 Small Lake

0046 Small Lake

The first airport along the Trans-Canada highway from Soo is in the small town of Wawa. Do you love that name too? At the edge of Lake Superior a couple of miles from town was a scene so placid as to be ethereal.

0061 Quiet Waters

0061 Quiet Waters

I just love the curve of the ripples in the lagoon. Be sure to click and see the largest version of this one. I’ll probably post larger versions of some snaps from this flight on my Photo Page too.

Rounding the tip of Superior just offshore is a cluster of small islets descending gracefully into the clear water.

0075 Floating Islands

0075 Floating Islands

At last we turned away from the moderate headwinds and sped toward Thunder Bay, where a long row of bluffs reflects the lowering sun.

0082 Approaching T. Bay

0082 Approaching T. Bay

It wasn’t getting dark as this photo seems to show. Thick clouds were blocking most of the sun, and much of the remaining light surrendered to fairly thick smoke from fires further North. T’Bay is off to the right of this photo, in the distance. Thus ends another glorious day on our North by Northwest adventure. We bid you pleasant dreams and happiness in your homes as we wander the continent.

2010/07/28

Airshow Ecstacy

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,NxNW Adventure,Random,Tripp — John @ 15:32

We’re about to go exploring Sault Ste Marie but I wanted to take a few minutes to share some of the photos I finally got time to download. First is my expression just after a flight of P-51s had arrived at Oshkosh on Monday. 🙂

1307 P-51 Mustangs at Oshkosh

1307 P-51 Mustangs at Oshkosh

A kid was staring at this next one asking aloud to nobody in particular, “Where does the pilot sit?” “On the ground,” I replied. After our brief ensuing conversation I paused to stare at it myself, imagining the ability of this machine to watch without being seen and strike without warning. How the world has changed since the P-51, eh? Back in 1945 that plane was scary because you could see and hear it, yet now it is music and art for aviation enthusiasts.

1319 Drone

1319 Drone

What will our world be like in 65 years? Will people painstakingly restore, maintain and fly these for adoring fans when the military has long since moved on to something vastly more scary?

One of the big events for this year’s Oshkosh was to be a mass C-47 flyover. This was another great WWII plane, starting with flying relief supplies over the mountains to China before the U.S. entered the war and culminating in providing the foundation for Allied logistics at Normandy where they again carried supplies and also pulled troop-laden gliders. After the war it was known and loved by many as the DC-3, owned by celebrities like John Wayne (who also flew his), and is still in service around the world. Again my imagination turned to pausing on the beach at Normandy for a moment of reassurance at the sight of reinforcements going to parachute behind German lines.

1320 C-47 Flyover

1320 C-47 Flyover

Here’s the one I mentioned before was using a smoke generator that alarmed some non-aviation observers. I imagined some having been dragged to the show by fanatic loved ones, and others like Anne who had caught the fly bug to become fascinated themselves.

1322 C-47 Smoke Trail

1322 C-47 Smoke Trail

There’s a treat at Oshkosh many people miss: the seaplane base. Just 15 minutes from all the crowds, concrete and stimulation is a quiet wooded lake where people mix air and water.

1336 Seaplane OSH

1336 Seaplane OSH

Click to enlarge and you might make out the mass of planes floating in the distance. This view shows perhaps 1/5 of the planes there, with more arriving regularly. Back at the land OSH base there had been team after team of aerobatic jets arriving, so the weekend show that we’ll miss is sure to be spectacular.

Here are some snaps of the glorious P-51 that was buzzing the runway back at FDL as we were packing up Tripp.

8574 Here Comes Fun!

8574 Here Comes Fun!

8578 Speed & Grace

8578 Speed & Grace

This one was further away than some passes, and even panning with the plane at 1/800th of a second there’s motion blur. With the thrilling speed and distinctive music of the engine, there’s a special grace in the way this plane dances in the air. Can you tell this is one of my fav planes? Sigh…

Here’s a snap Anne took as we climbed up near FDL to have a look at the cloud situation before deciding whether (and in which direction) to circumvent the storm toward our upcoming Canada leg.

1348 FDL Departure

1348 FDL Departure

I’ve added a yellow oval just below the white hangar just right of lower-center in the pic, to show where Tripp had been parked with our tent beneath her wing. You can just make out the other planes still parked on the grass along the taxiway and stuffed into the area around the terminal building at the left edge, but you can’t see the hordes of planes parked along the intersecting runway out of frame to the left.

Last is this shot of Escanaba as we began to approach the Great Lakes intersection town of Sault Ste. Marie.

8607 Escanaba

8607 Escanaba

Well, this quick post turned into quite a photoessay, eh? We’re off to explore…

Wheee!

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Inner World,NxNW Adventure,Tripp — John @ 02:03

We landed half an hour ago in Sault Ste Marie (but not the Canadian one), and now we’re getting organized. Coming out of Fond du Lac (FDL), there were scattered clouds at various levels and weather reports (and radar) showed 2″ hail along our intended route here. Needless to say, we diverted around it. After poking around in the big gaps between clouds and cloud layers, we settled on 10,500 feet as having the best view. We plugged along for half an hour, then as we reached the edge of where the storm should have been it looked passable. So at that point we finally made radio contact. We’d love to have done that earlier, but ATC didn’t want to hear from Oshkosh people like us so we’d waited until well away from the air show. First we checked with Flight Service to get the latest weather, and learned the storm had indeed abated but the vastly larger one predicted to follow it was bearing down on us as predicted. Good time to turn right as planned! Now we set course direct for Sault Ste Marie (pronounced Soo of course) and contacted Center for Flight Following. This is when Anne began to fully relax (she likes having extra eyes helping us watch out for other planes – even more than I like it).

Anyway, we’re now looking into transportation, hotel (ah to Shower!), and options for a hangar in case the hail reaches here (though it’s not expected to). I’m hoping to post again later with a few pix from our Oshkosh adventure. Today in particular was thrilling, because we left the show at 1pm to pack up for departure back at FDL and a P-51 has been parked there for two nights (did I already mention that?). Well this afternoon as we packed Tripp where she’s been parked on grass next to the taxiway, the P-51 was selling rides. It turns out the active runway today was a few yards from us, and the P-51 was doing low passes at high speed – sometimes over our taxiway. It’s pretty rare for one of those magnificent planes going that fast to be close enough that you could hit it with a whiffle ball! Ah the Glory!! As you’ve guessed, our packing took much longer than planned. And yes, I got photos.

As for this post’s title, flying in front of the storm we had smooth air and great ground speed. Flying relatively fast for Tripp, we were burning 8-9 gallons per hour, and covering 160 miles per hour. Wheee! 🙂

2010/07/27

Happy Tired

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Inner World,NxNW Adventure,People,Random,Relationships,Tripp — John @ 01:49

There are at least as many kinds of tired for me as there are types of snow for Eskimos. You have hard work tired, stifling heat tired, boredom tired, lack of sleep tired, and on. Today I’m happy tired. I just saw a P-51 flying fast and low, and doing stunts. We had started walking toward the gate to get an early lead on the mobs still watching the stunning stunt plane routines, when that sound snapped my head around. The sound of the P-51 engine is both riveting and enchanting for me. Even when they’re idling, the crackling rumble is distinctive. Mid-stride, I was walking back toward the field to watch. Anne asked if an airplane was in trouble or something, not having my romantic attachment to that sound.

Alas, after a few steps it had already dwindled into the distance so I thought maybe it was leaving the area. Then I remembered the hand-held nav/comm radio I’d just bought.  Finding a seat in the shade I unpacked it and scanned for the “Air Boss” channel (133.85 as I recall). I heard the P-51 pilot report ready for his routine, so we found a better vantage point in the shade and waited. Watching the bone-crushing maneuvers of the stunt pilots was more fun, as we listened to their calm radio calls. How can someone snapping plus and minus 5-10 times the force of gravity sound as if they’ve been sipping beer watching football?

So even after walking several thousand miles today in the muggy sun, I’m happy tired. Again though, I didn’t bring along the stuff needed for sharing photos! 😦

We talked with several experts about valve failure potential in 0360 engines, and got some new ideas for what to look for in assuring our engine will be solid for another thousand hours of flying. Most notably pulling the exhaust manifold open and inspecting the exhaust valve shaft near the head for signs of rust or pitting. Another suggestion was to get the much more expensive “valve wobble” test, though experts are quite divided on whether it’s definitive or even better than much cheaper tests like the “bore scope” exam Tripp had just before our departure. We’ll think about it all, and then talk to our mechanic when we get back home.

Even with all the things to see and do though, the most fun part of AirVenture (I still think of it as Oshkosh), is people. The people you hear talking about all things aviation as they stroll past gives me the feeling of being in my flock. If I say bore scope to my psychologist friends, they wonder if it’s a new objective boredom quantification tool. (Actually, it’s just a little tv camera and light on the end of a flex shaft that mechanics stick into the guts of an engine to have a look inside without all the work of taking it apart)

People we talk with are always fun and interesting. Aviators and the people who love them are just birds of a feather I guess. We know what it’s like to skim between white fluffy clouds, or avoid scary thunderstorm cells. We’ve tasted the joy of watching the world unfold in dream time. We share the pride and affection toward a complex anti-gravity machine. Each of us has felt the tug to take flight when a plane passes overhead.

Speaking of which, I’m getting really twitchy to fly! Watching all these planes coming and going, the display and stunt flights, and all the planes and flying gear, well … I’m ready for some air in my hair!

Tomorrow our tentative plan is to go for a couple of hours and then fly out in the afternoon or early Wednesday depending on weather. Kinda adds to the happy in our tired, knowing we’re still pretty early in this big North by Northwest adventure. 🙂

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