Two Pilots & an LSW: Rise of the Tailwheels

Yesterday was an almost perfect Spring day, finally. It was warm but not hot, sunny, the only down side was the damn winds again. Bumpy, gusty, but at least not out of control. The C-45 annual paperwork came in early that morning from Nathan, and then Steve sent it off to Nick who had it up on RallyPoint for the CAF within literal minutes, and then it was time to test fly. Yay!

I did a very thorough preflight, because that thing had been completely apart. The tail was all the way off. The controls were all unhooked. Trims, control surfaces, engines apart, interior, I mean the whole thing was in pieces. So I took my sweet time. It started up nicely, and as I was taxiing out, I noticed that my travel on the left side rudder didn't go as far as the right side, but everything was working properly and smoothly, so I just made a note of it. Did the run up and everything looked good. Got on the runway, locked the tailwheel, added power, all green, released the brakes, rolling down the runway, all good. Lifted the tail up, picked up some speed, close to "rotate" speed, and you're dancing on the rudders, and I push the left rudder and it's stuck. I push harder and it breaks loose. I'm still dancing so I push it again, and it catches again. I'm at rotate speed so in that split second you decide scenarios and potential outcomes, and I decide to abort. I chopped the power, drove it down the runway with the tail up for a long time to bleed off the speed, the rudder kept catching a little but would break loose at least, put the tail down and taxied off. One of the guys watching said "Well that was anti-climatic", and I'm like "Maybe for YOU". lol

The guys take a look, and found and fixed the problem in like 10 minutes flat. Two screws in a panel that was put back on were too long, and the screws were interfering with my rudder cables. One was just rubbing the right cable, and the other was literally catching on the cable. Couldn't see that on a preflight, and could have been a pretty bad deal in another alternate universe. That fixed the difference in rudder travel on the left, too.

So I went back out. This time four people got on a golf cart and drove out to the runway to watch me do my required 3 takeoffs and landings to a full stop for legal currency for passengers, because it had been 5.5 months. Nothing like being observed on your first landings in 5.5 months by 4 guys with cameras taking videos and shots. :D Fortunately for me, even on the windy day, my landings were lovely, and they got some photos that I'll hopefully see soon. Jon uses a big SLR camera and he can be a little slow getting photos back to you.

One more maintenance glitch caused delays for the rest of the day. The gear transition light wasn't working. The airplane doesn't have "gear down 3 in the green" lights, it has a transition light. When you move the handle, a light comes on that says the position of the handle doesn't match the position of the gear. When it hits the switch limit, the light shuts off. So when the gear gets locked up or locked down, the light goes out. Without that light, I have no proof that the gear got locked when I come in to land. JP had flown up in a Comanche to do his checkride, and we waited around for hours to give them time to fix it. We agreed we didn't want to go fly deliberately with it like that, so we called it off after 5 pm and he flew home and the guys tugged it away. Mission Not accomplished.

Steve had already left to test drive a hybrid Jeep Cherokee with Kaylee, so Morgan and I went into town to eat dinner at Foxes Trail. Got done and it was still warm and sunny out and she was pushing me too, so I thought what the heck, and we went BACK to the airport, and I got my headset back out of BOB, where I found the guys had left the masters on in the airplane, for hours. Like...hours. Good thing I went back and got my headset, man, or we'd have two dead and possibly damaged batteries. Got the headset, and then pulled out the Champ, and I took Josh up for half an hour as a little benefit/treat/bonus for him. He's been working hard, after hours, extra helpful, not complaining, and he's trying to figure out wheel landings, and was feeling twitchy about tailwheel flying because me in BOB, Morgan and Ashley in the Champ, we all got to do it, and he didn't, so I helped a guy out. Then after half an hour, I had him land and shut down, he got out, and Morgan got in and I did an hour of my own stuff. The usual. Getting back in the groove, and it felt good, as always. Put it away as it was getting dark, and made it home around 9 pm. I love when it stays light so much later.

I get home, and AE had brought over some homemade peanut butter fudge ice cream. So rich and creamy and thick peanut butter taste. He's going to make another batch with less peanut butter and more fudge flavor. Darn, it'll be tough to be a guinea pig again. ;)

Today is Saturday. Jon got me a few of his pictures of me in BOB, and I enjoyed those. I took Kaylee down to Tipton to sign paperwork for her new car, which she can't pick up until Monday because we couldn't get the car insurance in order in time on Friday. We were there for a couple of hours, it took longer than expected because Steve had made a couple mistakes in the prep stuff. But we mostly got it done, along with a couple things to finish on Monday when she picks up the car. She's super excited. She loves the car, and the fact it's a hybrid will hopefully really help her gas mileage with all the travel to work and back.

After I dropped her back off at home, I headed back out to Kokomo Airport, where they were pulling the T-6 out for me to run for its post-annual engine check. Gauges, pressures, temps, mags, all the stuff. I got a nasty backfire when I first started it, and I was mortified. I did not pump the throttle or anything, I may have overprimed it, but...BANG. SO not cool. Eric (IA) back there said "I'm glad *I* didn't do that!" Worst of all, Nathan was out there and heard it too. Ugh. Steve said Nathan laughed about it and explained to a guy who asked that these old radials just don't like to sit for 6 months and then fire up, and they can be cantankerous. So at least he wasn't too perturbed by it. But I was. Anyway. After that bang, it ran well and sounded good and seemed to be operating the way it's supposed to. Eric will sign it off and we'll finish up a patch on the cowl and then I'll hopefully be able to fly it Wednesday. I'm supposed to do training in it Fri-Sun and I haven't even flown it in 6 months, so I sure hope I get to fly it before then. I'm more bothered by that than by BOB. I like BOB. BOB is easier. ;)

After running the Six, we all hung out there for a few hours while Steve finished up some work, and then he and I went to Grindestones before heading home to get some work done. I have nothing on tap for tomorrow, and then we begin next week.