When You Get Back Is Not Like When You Left

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Six Chuter P32 Comments

The winds looked good this morning. They were not forecasted to pick up until after Noon. Seemed like a great morning to go fly. I got out to New Jerusalem at about 8:00am. There was no wind, dead calm. I unpacked as usual and set up as usual. One last look at the wind sock told me it was going to be a great flight. It was hanging down, not a breath of wind.

I took off and flew south along the San Joaquin River. I circled back to overfly the Screenshot_20180404-092604confluence of the Stanislaus and San Joaquin Rivers. It was probably a big deal back before the rivers were dammed. Now it looks like two irrigation canals coming together. I continued on south over Highway 132 and towards a large pond just next to the river. I wasn’t too keen on flying over the acres and acres of orchards in front of me (I’m still learning to trust this engine, it didn’t skip a beat) so I turned back north. Once I got just north of Highway 132 the cart started to swing and my ground speed dropped from 28 MPH to 19 MPH!

I was about 3 miles from the airport and my ground speed kept dropping and the cart kept swinging. I might have said a prayer or two. As I came in on final approach my ground speed was down to 14 MPH. Things got a little more swingy near the ground but I managed to make a really decent landing. The cart was rolling on the ground so I killed the engine and tugged the brakes to bring the chute down. After it settled down behind me I just sat there as is my habit. I listen to the wind, the birds, the sound of the engine ticking as it cooled down. I unbuckled and immediately the wind started inflating the parachute and pulling the cart backwards. I grabbed one of the brake lines to deflate the chute. I dropped my helmet on the rear corner to keep the chute from billowing up again. If the ride back to the airport was interesting packing the chute back up was every bit as interesting. I finally got it in the bag and stowed on the cart.

I thought it was just me having a problem with the wind but then I saw a Cessna 172 on final approach and he was bucking and crabbing every bit as much as I was. I was just of the runway on the downwind side and started backing up when I saw he kept drifting towards me and looking like he was going to land on my PPC! He finally decided to go-around and passed about 30 feet above me. Yeah, so much for a full flap landing in a stiff crosswind. I got the cart back to the trailer before he tried his second approach. He made it down this time. Good for him.

So the moral to today’s story is that weather conditions can change very quickly. Stay on top of the weather, stay on top of your skills, and be ready to use those skills.

And now enjoy a short video of (most of) the flight…

 

And if you’re interested in where I flew today…

Resurrection Day Weekend

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Faith, Opinion, TravelLeave a comment

You call it Easter, I call it Resurrection Day.  We all celebrate Christmas as the be-all end-all day in the Christian faith but I believe it should be Resurrection Day.  The day my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ defeated death.   He paid the price for our sins once and for all.  If we believe that He died for our sins then all our sins are forgiven.  This sounds like mythical nonsense to the unbeliever, but to those who believe, it is our guarantee of our salvation.  Our guarantee of eternal life in the presence of our heavenly Father.

Okay, sermon over, pass the collection plates.

So how did we celebrate this Resurrection Day weekend?  Well Saturday morning I headed out to New Jerusalem and took a nice long flight in my powered parachute.  I didn’t take any video or pictures of the flight because sometimes I like to just live in the moment and enjoy it for myself.  I was joined by a powered paraglider pilot friend.  Always good to have company.

I flew around the San Joaquin river between Highway 132 and the City of Tracy here in California’s vast Central Valley.  The engine purred without any hiccup or flaw during the whole flight.  I kept my RPMs right at about 5400 RPM.  This put me in a slow climb.  I flew around for about 40 minutes enjoying the butter smooth air.  ZERO turbulence.  I made my way back to New Jerusalem airport.  Made one pass over the field to check my windsock and then set up to land.  I made a slow power-on approach and let my machine drift as far down the runway as it wanted to.  I wanted to make this landing a smooth one and I wasn’t disappointed.  I held in just a bit of brake pressure on the parachute and smoothly applied full brake just as the wheels were touching down.  I killed the engine and kept kicking the break pedals and the chute fell down behind me.  Perfect.   My PPG friend took another flight and I paused to watch a while before leaving.

I packed up and headed home to pick up Cristy so we could head up to Jack and Myrna’s place in the foothills, Red Hills Ranch.  This has become a tradition for Cristy and I.  On the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter/Resurrection Day they hold a potluck for family and friends.  When I had my airplane we would fly in but now we drive up.  Much easier on Cristy.

 

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So here’s something for people who know about flowers.  I know nothing about them.  So if you do, can you help me identify these?  They are EVERYWHERE up at Jack and Myrna’s ranch.

 

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Flower 1 – What’s this?
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Flower 2 – What are these?
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Flower 3 – What’s this?
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Flower 4 – The white ones, what are they?
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Flower 5 – What are the bright pink ones?
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Flower 6 – What are they?

 

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Flower 7 – The purple ones with the white tips. What are they?

That’s it for the flowers.  Would love some help identifying them.

We enjoyed our time up with the Moyle’s.  We’re always treated like family.  Can’t wait to visit again.

Sunday morning we all got up and went to sunrise service then later in the morning we picked up our son and brought him to the 11:30am service.  Cristy made ham, potatoes, and green beans and for dessert, apple cobbler!

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All in all a wonderful weekend and a wonderful way to celebrate our Savior’s victory.  I hope your weekend was as good or better.

 

 

Quick Flight Before Church

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Six Chuter P32 Comments

I took a quick flight this past Sunday before heading off to church.  Weather was good if not chilly: 38 degrees F and 2-3 MPH crosswind from the right.  Otherwise wonderful flying conditions.  Thanks to some tips from a local group of PPC pilots I’m finally learning how to land!

Sorry for the low audio at the end.  What I basically said is that I’d like to thank J Bird Aviation and Six Chuter International for their amazing customer service.  They’ve been calm and helpful even when I wasn’t.  It’s a good machine and now I just need to learn to fly and enjoy it!

Back In The Saddle

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Six Chuter P3Leave a comment

 

We finally got a break in the MUCH needed rain storms here in central California on Sunday.  So in the afternoon I hitched up my hangar on wheels and drove out to New Jerusalem Airport (1Q4).  The day was perfect for flying a powered parachute; no wind and a high overcast so no thermals either.  I pulled in and got set up.  Within about 15 minutes the engine was warmed up and the chute was laid out.  I was set up on the displaced threshold on runway 30 and noticed an aircraft on final.  I turned my strobe on to increase my visibility.  When he was on short final he went around and flew off with absolutely no radio calls.  Well, it is an uncontrolled airport.  Radio calls are not mandatory but definitely suggested.

I strapped in and with one last look around the areas called “clear prop” to no one as the airport was completely empty, and fired up the engine.  Feet on the rudder bars and gave the throttle a smooth jab forward.  The little P3 lurched forward, pausing only briefly as the chute popped up and due to the lack of wind locked in overhead immediately.  I looked up and everything looked good, no tangles or sticks in the lines so I applied full power.  The P3 lifted off smoothly and glided skyward.

One of my primary missions today was to keep an eye on my cylinder head temperature gauge.  Ambient air temperature was 58 degrees F and happily the CHT never went above 350 degrees.  Exhaust gas temperature stayed below 1050 degrees.  Seeing my temps were stable I relaxed and set about flying around the area.  I did some sight seeing over the farms and river areas and then noticed my CHT was at 200 degrees!  That was odd.  I turned back toward the airport when the CHT went to 150 degrees.  Okay, that had to be a loose connection or something similar.  I was starting to get cold anyway so I continued back to the airport.

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I was a little high upon turning final so I pulled power back and the P3 began dropping down nicely.  After I had cleared the fence I applied a bit more power but not enough, the P3 landed SOLIDLY.  Well, what do I expect after 3 months of not flying?  Even so it was a great flight.  It felt good to be in the sky again.

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20 Lbs Down

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Opinion4 Comments

I hadn’t really wanted to chronicle my weight loss journey because I’ve been on these journeys so many times.  However, I’m at a minor milestone so I just wanted to mark the occasion.    Back in December I had decided I had finally had enough.   My feet were hurting (still are), clothing was not fitting correctly, and in fact it was becoming harder to find clothing.  My (overweight) doctor has been nagging me for years to lose weight.  I have lost weight before but for the wrong reasons (which I won’t go into) but I always gained it back.  This time, it was strictly for me.

So, again, back in December I changed my eating habits.  First of all, portion control.  Restaurants serve really BIG portions of food.  I tried to eat the vegetables first, and then the meats, and then the starches.  I tried to eat only until I didn’t feel hungry any longer and then stop.  Also, I did not limit the types of food I eat.  I hate diets where you can only eat this or that.   I eat whatever I want, just less of it.

Which brings me to the second change I made: I only ate when I felt hungry.  Meaning; when my stomach started to growl.  Eating on a schedule just doesn’t seem to work for me.  Rather, it works too well.  In other words, letting my body tell me when I was hungry rather than the clock.  The third major change was to cut out soda, period.  In fact all sugary drinks and fruit juices.  I still have fruit juice on occasion but I try to shoot for no more than once per week.

That’s pretty much it.  I haven’t really increased my exercise regimen at all, just trying to keep up the activity I engage in now.  All of this has had the net effect of helping me to lose 20 lbs as of yesterday.  I’ve gone down two pant sizes and about to have to buy the next size smaller.  Do I think this would work for everyone?  Nope.  But it’s working for me.  I don’t really have a target weight in mind but I’m going to keep this going for as long as it does NOT affect my health.  In fact I’m hoping it improves my health.  I have a lot of life planned for the future!

Domicile Decision

On By The Flying DutchmanIn RV Life1 Comment

I’m not retiring for 8.5 years.  We can’t travel full time at least until then so why am I deciding on our domicile so far in advance?  Because I can’t help it, I’m a planner.  We’ve had three states in the running; Florida, Texas, and South Dakota.  I had always thought we would move our domicile to Texas but recently I’ve been waffling.  South Dakota was starting to look very attractive which made me rethink my decision.  After crunching the numbers and reviewing health care options I have decided to stay with Texas.

So why even blog about this.  Mainly it just helps to write out my thought processes.   Also, I’ve done a lot more research on what we need to do to emigrate to Texas.  I’ve got a timeline now with what tasks we need to accomplish step by step as we moved to Texas.

The rough outline of the plan is this:

  • Purchase the RV prior to retirement
    • We’ll buy the RV a few years before we retire so we can get the RV outfitted and get some practice before we retire.
  • Sell the house
    • Once we are comfortable towing and living in the RV, we’ll select an RV park near my work to finish out the last few years of work.  Then we’ll clean out the house, do some minor remodeling, and then sell it.  We’ll pay off the RV and then invest the rest.
  • Full-Timing
    • At this point we will not have a house but I won’t be retired yet.  We’ll use this time to get used to full-timing and prepping for retirement.
  • Retirement
    • First we’ll set up a mail service in Texas.  More than likely this will be with Escapees.  They have tons of resources for full-time RV’ers.  This will give us our street address.  We’ll change our bank, insurance, etc to use this new address.
    • Next we’ll have to find an insurance agent in Texas to insure our vehicles just prior to the trip.
    • After retirement we’ll pull up stakes and head to Texas.  We have a 40 day trip planned to get to Texas.  Once we’re there we’ll set up shop and begin the process of registering vehicles and getting Texas driver’s licenses.

The domicile process:

  • Once we arrive in Texas we’ll head over to Escapees’ RV park, Rainbow’s End, to set up as a home base to begin all the tasks involved in becoming Texans.
  • Register our vehicles
    • We may be able to register our truck and trailer before we even leave for Texas.  However, it may be cleaner and easier to register once we get there.
  • Apply for Texas drivers’ license
    • Once we’ve insured and registered our vehicles we can apply for a driver’s license.  Once we have our TDL we are for all practical purposes, residents of the State of Texas.
  • Begin professional relationships
    • After we complete the domiciling process we need to talk to an attorney because California is notorious for going after people that it THINKS are California residents.  We want to talk to a lawyer to make sure we’ve got all our i’s dotted.

After we’ve got this process complete our next stop will be to near by Lake Livingston where we’ll stay for a month or so to just decompress and decide what to do next.  Again, we have 8.5 years before any of this happens but in that 8.5 years we need to buy a bigger truck, buy our 5th wheel trailer, get rid of our possessions, and sell our home all while holding down a full time job.  And we need to help our daughter move out and get established.  That’s probably JUST enough time to do all this.  It will be here before we know it.

The Dream Is Still Alive

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Ram Truck, RV Life, TravelLeave a comment

I haven’t written much about retirement plans lately because there isn’t much progress on that front except for the slow crawl of getting through the years to get there.  After starting with my present employer I found out that to receive the pension I must put in 10 years of full-time non-probationary employment with them.  As our probationary period is 1 year I have to work 11 years total before I can retire and get my pension.  At this point I am at the 8 and 1/2 year mark.

The dream is to be able to get out from under the crush of “stuff” we have and travel.  Since full-time travel won’t be a viable option for at least 9 more years we can still travel part time.  And we can still get out from under our home and the crush of “stuff.”

My brother is doing just this.  In fact he blantantly STOLE my idea of living in an RV full time and travelling.  (That’s humor folks, don’t get upset.)  But you did read it here first!  It was MY idea.  NO one EVER thought of this before me! 🙂  He and his wife are selling their home and embarking on a journey to Texas this week in his Airstream travel trailer.  Good for them.  I hope they enjoy this new chapter of their lives.

The Trailer

But as this post is titled, we haven’t given up the dream yet.  This past year we have struggled over whether to get a smaller trailer and take shorter trips while having a small “home base” to return to.  My wife has been looking at homes both near and far for several months now.  This past two weeks have been a game changer for her.  We went to look at the smaller trailer we were considering.  I asked her to just spend some time in it with me.  After 30 minutes or so she needed to get out.  I then asked her to imagine spending a rainy weekend in that small trailer.  Not a pleasant thought but the weather isn’t always sunny when you’re camping.

 

When we got home I showed her a slightly larger (yet oddly, less expensive) travel trailer.  The Grand Design Iagine 2670MK Travel Trailer.  It has a much more spacious floorplan and a desk which was a feature we loved!  It was easy to just sit in the recliners and either nap or read.  It alsoWe could see ourselves spending time in this trailer.  The only thing we really didn’t like about it was how cramped the bedroom was.

 

The salesman that was showing us the unit told us that they had a 5th wheel with a similar floor plan but had a bigger bedroom.  Now, we really didn’t want a 5th wheel but it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.  We walked across the lot and he showed us the Grand Design Reflection 320MKS 5th wheel.

Now… this was more like it!  It had all the same features; desk, outdoor kitchen, but it had a bigger bedroom WITH a closet!  The kitchen had a larger refrigerator and a large pantry.  Cristy was sold.  We spent quite a bit of time in this trailer.  There were some things we liked about the Imagine travel trailer better but the Reflection just seemed more rugged and spacious.  Cristy almost fell asleep in the recliner.

If you’ve followed my blog you know that we’ve changed our minds several times.  That’s the beauty of dreams!   But this is the dream at the moment.

The Truck

Trailers don’t pull themselves, you need a tow vehicle.  When we were going with the Lance my RAM 1500 was enough to pull it.  The moment we decided to go with a larger trailer the decision was made for us that we had to scale up the truck.  I want to stick with RAM trucks so that part of the decision was made.   The only thing we needed to decide was to go with a RAM 2500 or 3500.   While the RAM 2500 is enough to pull the Reflection 5th wheel, that’s really all it could do.  There would be very little load carrying capacity in the truck beyond the hitch weight of the trailer.  Therefore it had to be the 3500.  It would EASILY tow the trailer and anything we could cram into it.  Decision made.

So… when can all this happen?  We think it’s best to make this all happen while I’m still earning money.  After retirement we’ll be on a fixed income.  So step one is to finish paying off my current truck.  Then we’ll trade it in and buy the new truck.  A few years after that we’ll buy the trailer and hopefully get it paid off before retirement.  We are also talking about selling our house prior to retirement and just living in the trailer in the final few years before retirement.  But dreams are cheap and easily changed.

We’ll see.

Out With The Old, In With The New

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Six Chuter P3Leave a comment

It’s beautiful flying weather here in California’s vast Central Valley but I don’t have a wing so I’m grounded.  Since I can’t fly anyway I decided to do some preventative maintenance on the P3 Lite.  It’s recommended by some in the PPC field that you should replace your fuel lines one a year.  They are made of plastic and slowly degrade over time.  I took the opportunity to do that this morning.  It only took an hour.  It should only take 30 minutes but we’re having unseasonably warm weather here (sorry midwest), the sun was shining, the birds were singing, I figured I’d take my time.

Here are a few pictures of before and after.  Oh, and Happy New Year!

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At the bottom are the old fuel lines and fuel filter, the top is the new fuel lines and filter.

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The new fuel lines and primer bulb installed on the P3.

Proud Bragging Papa

On By The Flying DutchmanIn FaithLeave a comment

Sorry but I do feel the need to brag for a moment.  I have the most wonderful, talented, sweet daughter in the world.  I know all dads say that but in my case, it’s far truer than all the other dads in the world.  It just is.  More importantly, she has a wonderful relationship with Jesus Christ.  So allow me to brag just a bit more here in my blog space.  This is what you get when you stick with something even though it drives you crazy and you sometimes want to give up.  I’ve always encouraged her to stick with it and I’m so glad she did.

Because… this is the result.  No sheet music.  It’s all from her head.