Weathered in, Addison

The alarm clock went off well before sunrise on Sunday morning. It was time to leave Fort Worth and get Kathy to the DFW airport for her flight home. The road construction and lack of signage still confused me and we made a few wrong turns along the way, but got her to the airport in plenty of time to get through security to her gate. Goodbyes are hard.

Sisters

I continued over to Addison to attend a systems briefing given by US Sport Aircraft. Patrick had set up some tables and chairs in a "U" shape and positioned Sally in the opening of the "U". She was going to be the demonstration article! Fortunately I had just had her washed and waxed. I was one proud Papa. Perhaps a dozen owners/pilots had come to learn about wheels and brakes, oil and fuel systems, and general tips and misconceptions about Rotax engines. Patrick did a great job going over all the material and answering questions. It was great until he started her; rough runner. Although he used the situation to explain carburetor balancing it became clear Sally needed more help. Class dismissed.

Patrick and staff spent the next few hours of a Sunday afternoon to troubleshoot the problem. Ultimately it turned out to be a bad carburetor seal and soon she was purring nicely.  Thanks guys, I really appreciated the efforts to get me ready for a Monday morning departure.

Waiting on the weather.

Ohdarkthirty Monday morning I checked the weather. There was really no decision to make as the strong cold front was just west of Addison dumping buckets of rain on Texas. It was hard IFR. There are times when I miss exercising IFR privileges, but I'm not sure I would have wanted to fly in this weather if I were current. They needed the rain but it was clear I wouldn't be going anywhere for awhile.When I checked in, Patrick asked if I had any afternoon plans. Knowing my interest in aviation education he invited me to go out to a high school US Sport was sponsoring. I had the opportunity to inspect their Red Bird flight simulator and talk to the (roughly 15) kids for a few minutes. Later we chatted with the school principal and the curriculum administrator. Their enthusiasm was infectious and I can only hope high schools in other parts of the country can implement this kind of program.

Ohdarkthirty Tuesday morning I checked the weather. Nope, not going today. I went over to the hangar to talk to folks about airplanes and their experiences. Not a bad way to spend a rainy day. My friend Duane called to ask how things were going and pointed out that there was a new service bulletin to inspect the nose strut. I added that to the list of maintenance done on Sally. Sam loaded the latest firmware revision from Dynon. I would validate the improvement on the way home, but this effectively fixed the problem I had losing GPS steering.

S2 - "Stoof"

Ohdarkthirty Wednesday morning I checked the weather. Still raining, but finally the forecast was showing improvement. I decided to go visit the Cavenaugh Flight Museum located right on KADS. As I pulled up I could see an S2 sitting on the ramp. After walking through the hangars enjoying the old warbirds from WW1 to present, I wandered across the ramp to inspect the "Stoof". I took a picture of the bureau number and when I got home checked my log book. I had flown this one on Sept 25th, 1975.


Ohdarkthirty Thursday morning I checked the weather. It was time to go.