Consistently Flying (for now)

With the airplane out of the shop, I've finally had some opportunities to just go fly, which is 50% of the reason I purchased the plane (getting my CFI/teaching my son the other half).  My job/family situation is such that it's difficult for me to just go disappear for 3-4 hours at a time, and with the airport 30-mins away, that's usually what I'm looking at.  Still, with the major first year maintenance mostly out of the way, I can now actually go up when the weather permits, and I gotta admit, it's a great feeling.

The weekend before last I took my son up for the first time in the plane (he had previously tried to go up when the solenoid issue kept it from starting).  We joked that it better start, and the starter did actually have an issue getting the prop to turn on the first try.  On the second it kicked over and started quickly.  I've since discovered that on cold days like this, if I rotate the prop a few turns during the preflight, she starts just fine, and the issue hasn't reappeared.  We had planned to fly down to BQ1 about 22nm south, which is home to the Pik n' Pig.  This was actually the first flight I ever took my kids on when we moved here, but the restaurant later burned down.  This would be my first trip back since it was rebuilt.  

Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate.  Our airport was just north of where the low ceilings were clearing, and we flew toward BQ1 to check out the conditions.  The low ceilings pushed us down to 1,000 MSL, and when we were three miles from BQ1, I opted to divert back to the north.  We could have gotten in, but there are a few towers at about 1,000 AGL off the departure end, and I was concerned that a go around would have put me too close to them while trying to stay VFR.  Not worth the risk. We broke off and headed back to TTA.  

This past weekend we had a great weather forecast for Saturday and opted to try the trip again.  I flew left seat on the way out since BQ1's runway is 2,538x36 with tall trees all around, so it wasn't the time to practice right seat landings.  Airplane started up great as usual and off we went.

BQ1 can be hard to see from the air, and much like the last time I flew in there, I was nearly on top of it by the time I saw it.  Did a full flap landing, but no need for short field approach in the 150, as I was stopped in the first third of the runway and taxied down to the end.  Found a spot in between two planes and hopped out.  A family was standing nearby at the fence and had some questions I was happy to answer.  Walked about 20-yards to the restaurant for some really solid 'Q.

The Pik n' Pig

Owning 4TV has been a major pain in the ass, as you can tell if you've read up to this point.  MX costs far outweighed even my most conservative estimates, and I have a few more to come.  But today felt like I got a little of that back.  If I were a renter, I would have never gotten a plane on such a beautiful Saturday, and if I had, I would have spent $300 to make this trip.  Because I could just take my plane and go, it cost me around $45 (yes, let's ignore my actual hourly rate when factoring in MX and other costs).  

For the ride back I wanted to ride right seat and let my son sit in the left.  I took him through the start up and run up procedures which he had some familiarity with.  I also let him handle the takeoff, except for the pedals which I took.  A little wobbly on rotation, but we departed the opposite way we had landed (calm winds, downhill and no massive trees at the end) and off we went.  As I'm not a CFI yet, I certainly didn't let him fly us back to Sanford and enter the pattern, but instead flew it myself from the right seat with his assistance.  In his assistance, he did a terrific job maintaining altitude and headings.

My son leading the start up procedure and checks

I need a whole hell of a lot more flights like this to make buying this thing not a good decision (we're well past that), but less of a bad decision.  Today I felt like a put a really good dent it in at least.

Airplane is Back, Shakedown Flight Complete

On Thursday 12/4 I received the invoice for the labor charges related to the annual that wasn't and took back possession of 4TV.  I had come up to the airport the day before expecting it to be ready, but they still needed to run the engine.  I needed to pay the invoice for the tailBeacon install, so that was no big deal, but the itch to fly was growing.  

When I arrived on Thursday I found the airplane on the line with the log sticker/documents from the tailBeacon inside the plane.  No key or other logs which were still with the A&P as I had yet to pay the invoice.  Mechanic was at lunch, but when he arrived I was able to get the logs, cover and key.  I had already pre-flighted the airplane while waiting, so she was good to go.  I could see the new bushings and the portions of the cabling I could see definitely looked better.  

My work/family life rarely allows me several hours of uninterrupted time, and today was no different, so I only had time to take her up for three circuits in the pattern.  She started up perfectly, despite it being in the 40s.  Three hits of the primer seems to be the magic number for this temperature.  It was really a fantastic day to fly - high overcast, chilly temps and zero wind.  Because it was a shakedown flight to make sure nothing fell off after the MX work was done, I flew from the left seat.  My preflight and runup were thorough, but everything functioned normally.

Back in the air again

The flight was great.  Took me a bit to takeoff since both entrances to the runway were blocked by airplanes waiting, but one guy offered to move and I jumped in front.  No winds made conditions severe smooth, and I greased all three of my landings.  This was also a shakedown flight of the tailBeacon.  I could see my track on my Foreflight map, so I figured it was working, but I called up one of the planes in the pattern to confirm that he saw me, and he did.  Flight Aware track track later confirmed this as well.

Track is slightly off, but I'm showing on Flight Aware now

I'll do an end of calendar year reckoning of my expenses and flight time, but at the moment ... it's not pretty.  The annual that wasn't an annual expenses amounted to right above $10K.  All told I've spent just shy of $18K on the maintenance for the airplane, and my total costs are just above $22K including operating, ownership and equipment/upgrades.  Total logged time - 11.1 hours.  So I'm averaging $2K per hour - I'd have been better off with a Caravan (he says with a smile, masking the pain).  

On the bright side, I've only had access to the plane in working condition for about two weeks of the four months I've owned it.  If I bang out some flights in December, it'll help that number - and theoretically, January-April should be smooth sailing (I'm literally knocking on wood) so if I can just fly without any MX issues, I should start to whittle away that that hourly rate.  Just looking at hourly operating costs with no reserves (so gas and oil), I'm averaging $41.57.  And that's the small silver lining here.  I'm not spending $200 an hour, and I'm not bitching about waiting to depart because it's costing me $4 a minute to sit there.  

Hoping to get some good flying weather on Sunday to finally take my son (the one interested in flying) up in her for the first time.  Also need to do more right seat flying and go up again with the CFI to bang out some CFI-I lessons.  

Cheers to being back in the air!

tailBeacon Installed

After getting the initial sticker shock from the annual that wasn't, I took my windows and tailBeacon back from the A&P and told him I'd do the windows myself and wait on the tailBeacon.  Just to get another estimate, I reached out to one of the recommended avionics shops on the field to get a quote for installing the uAvionix tailBeacon.  He quoted two hours including filing the STC paperwork, which was less than the four hours I was quoted by my A&P (which he probably quoted on the high end in case of any problems).  

Since I needed to run up to the airplane to install the pax side window anyways, I dropped off the tailBeacon with the avionics shop with instructions to just hold onto it until my A&P was done with the aiprlane.  Much to my surprise, I got a call on the Monday before Thanksgiving that they had the plane in the shop and had installed the tailBeacon, but were having trouble getting it to send a signal.  Not really a problem since my plane was on the ramp anyways, but I was a little annoyed that they brought it in when I had asked them to wait.

I hopped in the car and headed to the airport.  While the avionics guys were friendly, it seemed that they weren't terribly familiar with the tailBeacon.  In fact, one of the guys had earlier suggested that I needed a panel mounted GPS to connect it to, which he then corrected when I told him that it had its own internal GPS and sent him the specs.

Let there be light! (and an ADS-B Out signal)

The reason the tailBeacon wasn't communicating with their gear was simply because I hadn't configured it in the app.  I pulled out my iPad at the airport which already had the app installed and went through the process.  After a bit of trial and error, it seemed to be reading correctly, and the shop guys pulled out some type of device that looked like a miniature radar unit and pointed it at the tailBeacon and transponder antenna.  Both produced an altitude consistent with field altitude, and I was able to see my tail number populate in the app.

The mag was on its way back to my A&P before the holiday, so I expect it to be installed today or tomorrow, and hopefully have the plane back by Wednesday for a shakedown flight (Tuesday is going to be a rainy mess anyways).  I'll use that flight to check the ADSB-Out capability.