Gripes

Problems. Minor ones, the kind that you can fly with but will eventually require some attention. Just before leaving for Oshkosh Sally lost her ability to hold GPS tracking. "GPS Fix unavailable" was the error message and could be caused by a number of things each taking some time to troubleshoot. We opted to let her fly and resolve the "gripe" another day.

With some help from SCFlier I narrowed it down to a hardware problem. Specifically a loose connection. Unfortunately I didn't find a specific loose wire or detached connector. After looking at the backside of the pilot's panel and tracing the GPS connectors and checking all of them for general health, I did a test flight today to find that everything worked properly. Its fixed. (But I have that lingering feeling that I didn't really fix anything, that the problem simply went away. That happens sometimes.)

Video Notes: My cockpit camera failed due to a full memory card. I need to remember to delete the old flights.

Morning Flight

"To assume that moving “down” is always less demanding is every bit as inaccurate — and dangerous — as responding to the intuitive sense of up and down that can lead pilots to mishandle an aerodynamic stall. Any pilot who has transitioned from a standard category airplane to a light sport aircraft (LSA) will attest to the very real challenges involved in moving to a lower-performance airplane. Whether moving to a more capable aircraft or to a simpler machine, every bird we fly deserves, and indeed demands, the utmost level of respect from its pilot". - FAA Safety September/October 2014 SAFETY BRIEFING-