On the Bottom Half

A Normal Weekend.

Friday night was taken up with hockey practice from 2230-0200. These late practices really mess with my head! But, I was housesitting again for my supervisor, so I had a car and a comfortable house and a cat to go home to, which made me happy.

First, another sweet picture from the airshow: A Lockheed Constellation! Flying! Restored! Awesome...

Regarding some recent comments: Terrafugia! Wow! You're right Ed. As for the foggy ice. While we weren't originally sure what he was doing, the Zamboni guy was out driving furiously around the ice between periods. It dawned on me later that he was trying to stir the air a bit. It didn't work for him, and the fog seemed to get worse when there were people skating about on it. Some kind of sticky advection fog, I suppose. Night vision would have been a much better choice! It would have cut through that fog like it wasn't even there...

I wasn't at the airshow for the Friday Night Alight performance, but I'll have to put it on the list for the next one. It's such a huge show that one day simply isn't enough. Well, one day isn't enough for me anyway, but at this show even more so! They start flying at 0900 and finish about 1630 with no breaks for you to check out the static displays. There were probably hundreds of static displays. You really need two days at least.

Thanks for the Birthday wishes! It was a good day. Sorry we didn't meet up at ScienceWorks, too! I was looking forward to it. Anyway, on with the rest of the weekend...

On Saturday, after working on Flat Stanley's Adventure Book for a few hours, I took off up to Sunbury and went flying! It was wonderful again and I actually remembered to take some pictures this time! This first is an airplane hero shot of the Texan TC. Still with it's dicky flap microswitch. But, that's alright because I'm getting good practice at flapless approaches!

I then proceeded to zoom around the north practice area around a town called Lancefield to the east of a 'mountain' called Mt Macedon! Fun! Bumpy! Good! I only have bad photos of the mount, though, so I'll wait to share one of those.

I figured that since the airplane got a hero shot in this post that I might get one as well. Excuse the 4 or 5 days growth around the jaw line... It was driving me nuts. This is my happy place. And I'll have everyone know that I was not looking inside the cockpit for this picture. That's poor airmanship! The beauty of mirrored sunglasses...

Then, on the way back home, I passed Romsey Airfield. There's seems to be an excellent proliferation of small airstrips in this part of the country. The trick is to find them amongst all the greenery in the positively rain-soaked countryside! Following the road from the bottom of the picture: if you take a look across the valley to the right at the bending in the road, you might find the airstrip. It reminds me of my first few flights at Netook in the autumn when the brown airfield was hiding amongst all the other brown fields.

Lastly, one for all the 150 and 172 pilots out there. Check out that climb performance! That's the Texan under full-power climb in still air with one person in it. That's not even max performance! I've had a question or two about what I am indicating with this picture: I should have mentioned to look at the instrument closest to picture centre. It is the Vertical Speed Indicator and it shows a 1200 fpm climb. While all you people out there who fly real airplanes won't be impressed, for a little carbon fibre, rotax-powered two seater, it is a rush! Especially when your used to the 500 fpm that a Cessna 150 gives you when on climb out (with a thermal helping!). I'm hoping to top this picture one day with something indicating 40,000 fpm, and I'll be sure to let you know when that happens...

posted by Kyle @ 18:54