Another "UFO" in Stephenville, TX (1/19/08): OK, I guess that picture needs some back-story. You may have seen on the national news, the story about the UFO sighting by many town-folk in Stephenville a few days before this fly-out date. It was big news down here in Texas as about 100 folks saw this big "thing" in the sky. I won't go into it here, but you can look it up via a Google search. Anyway, the local EAA chapter had a fly-out to Stephenville planned for this Saturday anyway...so I figured...my pickle fork looking aircraft might just make the news. ;-) Actually, it was very cold and windy and the fly-out was officially cancelled, but several of us still wanted to go...so we did. I flew down in formation with Tom Moore (RV-7A). We arrived at SEP and noticed that a few others had already flown in. So Tom and I stuck our thumbs out and hitched a ride on the BBQ Express. It's about a 3/4 mile ride down a dirt trail to get to the restaurant...but that's part of the fun. When we arrived, we were greeted by the smell of some FINE BBQ. You order by the pound, and get the "fix'ins" inside. They even serve the original Dr.Pepper on TAP - straight from Dublin, TX...just down the road a bit. MMMmmmm! Anyway, the lot of us were licking our chops and wondering if we needed to calculate a new CG for the trip home. Good eat'n!
Lunch Run to the Blue Pig (2/2/08): Another favorite eatery is the Blue Pig BBQ at the airport in Ardmore, OK. A bunch of us just up and said "Let's eat pig" and the props began turning. Food is often inspiration enough for us to burn some dino-juce and punch holes in the sky...and this day, we did. We were a motley lot walking up the ramp at ADM. But what was more surprising is that the canards outnumbered the RVs this outing! Pretty neat-o I'd say. Lunch was just that - lunch. So, now that the humans are all tanked up...it was the planes turn. We all headed back via Sherman Muni (SWI) and filled-up with the cheapest gas around and headed home. I flew formation with Scot Carter most of the way while he was taking some pictures. All I could think about was "how am I going to get rid of that draggy belly scoop before race season starts". Well...I'm still "thinking"...and race season is almost here! Yikes!
UPDATE 3-15-08: I have not had much time to fly "13" lately as I have been working on and test flying Berkut #24 (Scott Charlton's) for it's first few flights. So, here I am a month and a half later and the EAA Chapter fly-out is to...you guessed it...Ardmore, OK. That's fine by me...I like the food. I'll have pics up shortly, but I wanted to post the Google Earth file taken from the GPS data logger I use for races. You have to first download and install the Google Earth program itself on your computer - it's free. Once you have that all installed, just click HERE and my GPS track data will be displayed in 3D on Google Earth. Be sure you play around with the pan/tilt/zoom functions to really "see" the track in 3D. You'll note the GPS coordinates are tracked every second and I have colorized the track by speed and the legend is over on the left. I really like this technology - I record each race (or speed run) and go back and analyze my performance. I can see if I climbed too much in the turns, didn't keep a true course line, or was too unsteady in pitch. It's extremely accurate and easy to do. I'll also post some information on the GPS logger itself in the Performance Modifications section. Enjoy!
UPDATE 3-16-08: I finally remembered to bring the camera home from the airport so I can post the pics now. Yeaaaah. First, earlier this week, we were graced by something we don't see very often here - SNOW!. Actually, it snowed two days in the same week...in March no less. Weird. So when the weekend came around...lots of folks wanted to fly...including ME! This made for a good crowd of airplanes at ADM. A few more even arrived aft I took this picture. We even had a little grudge match air-race between two SARL Formula RG Blue Class Racers - that's me and Pete Huff's White Lightening. These are two very fast birds...and we had fun burning lots of fuel and reporting weather back to the rest of the gang. ;-) After hitting the chow line it was back to McKinney. A fun time had by all.
Taylor 125 Air Race (3/29/08): (EVENT WEATHERED OUT) Low ceilings, rain and lack of good visability kept the race from being run. I was not even able to get out of McKinney, let alone get into Taylor. So, this one was a bust for all involved. The good news is that everyone is still equal in points and a winning season is still possible.
Sun n' Fun 2008 (4/8/08): WEATHERED OUT - Our gang from Dallas waited for 4 days straight for an opening either here, there, or in the middle to no avail. Thunderstorms, stationary fronts, heavy rains, low vis/ceilings...the works. It was just not meant to be for us this year. Reports from folks that made it in earlier in the week indicated flooding in the camp grounds, lots of mud, and airplane parking problems. In fact, the very spot we would have been camping in looked like THIS on Sunday. At best, it would have been logistical nightmare and we would likely not have been able to camp with the airplane - MAJOR BUMMER! So, 2008 is certainly shaping up as a bad weather year...I hope things improve from here on out.
The Texoma 100 Air Race - Sherman, TX (4/19/08): I was really excited about this race since it was the first race with the all the new mods and Taylor was weathered out - this was the season opening race! This one was in my own backyard, just a few miles north at the Grayson County Airport (GYI), so I just flew over on Saturday morning. The flight over was glass smooth and calm...that was not to be the case with the rest of the day, however. There were not too many planes on the ramp yet when I arrived. Bruce Hammer and my rival Larry Henney had camped out the night before and were just waking up. I made my way over to the race tent and checked in. After a bit, more planes started to arrive, things picked up and the starting order began to take shape. Of course, Rene Dugas and the Turbine Legend were in the lead slot. The race was held in conjunction with a Fly-In sponsored by TexomaJet FBO. Nice folks, great service, and good prices. We were thankful for the support. With just a few minutes to go before the briefing, the ramp was getting filled with race planes. I love it! The race briefing was held in the FBO's large break area. A few scant minutes later, we were all taxiing out into position for launch. As the racers say: "when the checkers drop, the bullshit stops"...time to but the numbers up to back up my speed mod claims.
The race was the staggered start in order from fastest to slowest. I was 5th to launch out of about 25, right behind Larry and Bruce. And....there....off!! I watched Bruce take-off, then Larry, then I launched. We were all in the air by the time Bruce got to the end of the runway and began his downwind turn, due to GYI's 9,000' runway. I was watching Bruce and Larry as the turned crosswind, then downwind, then....when I expected them to turn right toward the start line...they didn't. For some reason Bruce overshot the turn point, then Larry peeled off (late) to the right (back toward the start line) and dove - I lost him in the ground clutter. Oh, man...not good. If I turned right now, Larry and I could be in conflict over the start. By the way, the start line was a small grass strip just 2 miles NE from the airport. It is extremely hard to see as the runway is N/S and we are approaching form the West...not to mention it is the same color as everything else around it and blocked by trees. (sigh) So, here I am...not watching my GPS, but looking for Larry...and the start line...and for traffic...and waiting for the GPS to catch up...and looking for the start line....and Larry, well, you get the idea. In short, I had no idea where the start line was now in relationship to me. So, I executed a climbing left turn as briefed and came around for the start in the proper position. A picture is worth a thousand words but a GPS track tells it all. (GPS data logger data, colorized by speed, each point is one second) You can see here, I actually passed well south of the start, but the timers saw me and recorded my time, then didn't capture my second corrected pass. So, I ended up with a penalty lap...oh, well...that's racing. Un-daunted, I blasted on at wickedly fast speeds. The first turn was a very sharp one and I chose a pop-up turn which worked out well - according to the GPS data, I recovered all my energy after the turn. Turn two was not as sharp so I just kept a steady level turn going and kept my energy up. A short time later I was crossing the finish line (now looking south, follow the blue line) which was the same as the start, but I was actually using the GPS this time...(sigh). I smoothly decelerated and turned into the downwind to GYI and recovered with the other racers. A good run, but that penalty lap cost me a lot of time...and thus speed. I didn't beat Larry, but I did post my fastest speed yet @ 256.03mph!!! Now, if the pilot and just do a better job flying...we might just have get that win at the next race.
After the race, the racers and fly-in crowd enjoyed some great food, looked around at some smaller racers and some vendors. In fact, one of those "smaller racers" shared a little Rutan lineage...yep, a baby Race 13! Cute, huh. Some interesting planes also showed up for the fly-in: DC-3, A-4, and many others. I had a good time despite having an "off day" I the air. I've analyzed the GPS logger data, I know where I screwed up...and will be making some changed for next time. Hey, that's what this is all about...the plane can't be the only part of this team that gets upgraded, you know.
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