Some pictures of all the fun we had yesterday.
Sorry about the random order.
Kent camped @ our hangar overnight ... he was starting to unload when I arrived bright & early!
He has a great low profile trailer / camper ... easy to load/unload MTO.
He has a good rotor hoist system to make rotor-up easy for one.
We planned - preflighted ... final brief & set off for Highpoint private fields @ Valley center 12NM south.
We did a low pass & around then landed ... my FIRST on grass in MY machine
... went great ... I'm getting the sight picture & descent rate better in new fields!A 1/2 hr to visit with early birds & hosts Doug & Sabrina & plan another fly-around ... as we were early as I didn't want to land first time there in front of a crowd!
off to next nearby airport Stearman Field @ Benton ... should'a PLANNED better ... OH-crap moment when I couldn't get the right radio freq & there was a BIG "Stearman Days" fly-in ... bloody planes everywhere ... I just went low ... got in pattern & put down nice at the end & straight off to parking! ( No radio) ... Kent saw me landed & came in too ... he'd been telling everyone ... there were TWO gyros in the area! Good lessons learned ... NHD ...BLOODY LUCKY ... thankful for alert & watchful professional pilots! Anyway ... Kent was thrilled with the excursion & after a drink & fielding lots of ???'s about the gyros ... we took off back to Highpoint & were 1/2 hr late for lunch ... but no wait in chow-line!
... awesome crowd there in Dougs hangar. Lots of good visiting ... rides in several planes & bug-eater breezy .. Kent borrowed my helmet for his passengers & took several up ... great response with new gyro-grins! Density alt was high mid-arvo & he had to stop .. a couple of sad heavy-weights unable to ride that day!We got ready to return to KEWK via a fly-over of our farm ... I managed to get a rough bit of ground to start my TO roll & set up a wicked frontwheel shimmy ...aborted TO & checked all out ... Kent was helpful with advice about the smooth area of runway & I lined up straight & did a near Metro-launch .. to get front up fast ... very little headwind to help!
Flying with a "wingman/ leader" is SO incredibly fun & takes a LOT of the newbie "all alone up here" stress out!
The wind was a perfect light southerly all day! ... perfect for me!
All our great plans for flying my long XC circuit today went bye-bye with the early IFR & then crazy strong & gusty winds ... NOT really predicted either!!!
Had a nice relaxing couple of hours this AM polishing rotors, cleaning, preflighting, fuelling .. all ready to go next weekend ... weather permitting!
Meanwhile ... a couple of days rain ...nice for me in 48 hours ( maybe) ... I will work on tweaking my prop pitch to get better cruise performance ... totallly sluggo at present & engine working too hard!
Just ecstatic!! Cloud 10!!!
LOL ..... well looks like I forgot to log-in when posting my pics from the 'puter ... you guys figured out it was my post not FJ's!!!