During my last flight home I lost the ability to transmit through my radio. Before spending a lot of money having someone look it over I made several attemps to correct the problem myself. That didn't work so I decided to purchase a new intercom and see if that corrected the problem. I wanted a new one anyway, expanded so my back passengers would also be included in the conversations.
I received my new intercom before Christmas. I did take it to the airport and tested it. It seemed I could now send but receiving was very faint. I didn't want to sit in the cold and see if i could get it working so put it off until today. I hooked it all up and was thrilled to hear a loud clear voice talk back to me.
I finished a quick pre-flight check and fired up the new engine which hasn't run for nearly 4 months. It fired right away and ran smoothly. I let it warm up and applied full power to start moving. Unfortunately small ruts had formed and frozen under the wheels and i didn't have enough power to drive out. I shut it down, got out my handle, and pulled the plane sideways till one wheel was out of it's rut. Then pulled the other way to clear the other wheel. Then I climbed in, fired up and easily moved to the tarmac, received clearence, and took off. This picture is taken from 2000' above ground of LP. A OSB sheathing plant. The buildings are very large yet are dwarfed by the four piles of logs. You will have to click on the picture to enlarge it to make out the log piles. These piles are over 16' high and is the most logs i've ever seen in one place.
I started my flight by remaining in the circuit and completing 3 landings before flying off over the city. The wind was gusting at 20knts but was directly in line with the runway. Which did make for wonderful lift on take-off. I climbed at 1200' per min. On the approch for runway 24 there are several ravines which causes quite a bit of mechanical turbulance when there is air movement. Compensating for windy conditions quickly came back to me. Satisfied that i could still land an airplane I headed for the open sky.
You can see, from these pictures, why this area is called: "Big Sky Country!" The weather was sunny and warm. I flew most the entire trip with the heat off and window open. I flew over some friends house to see if they were home. Flying low when windy is difficult as mechanical turbulance increases near the ground. Also your speed must be kept up so one fly's by very quickly. I proceeded North towards Ft.St.John to another friends house. I flew over his 800 acres looking for the spot by the river that he wants to build a hunting cabin. Then I flew for home.
Over my left wing you can see all of Dawson Creek. I love it that you can access anything in town within 10 min. :-) To cross Abbotsford can take you more than half an hour. Flying here, with the wind behind me, I gave full throutle to see how fast I could travel in straight and level flight. My GPS clocked up to 145knt. per hr. ( 163 mph or 264 kmph. ) in ground speed. I landed, tied down the aircraft, put it's cabin tarp on, and headed home. It was good to be up again.
