WAAAM fly-in

If you're just going by this posting's title, you may think this article is something to do with Batman.

Well, I'm finally back at the blog.  Here's a quick update since I left off: I did my annual in the early spring -- a couple of months early, in my effort to relocate the inconvenient inspection to a time when I might be earthbound for other reasons, like weather for example. But at the same time, it can't be too early in the year when it would be uncomfortably cold in my unheated hangar.

Following the annual, which uncovered very little, but still consumed two weeks, we made a series of small trips around California. None of that really inspired me to sit down and blog about it.

Then we had a long hot summer of near-continuous forest fires and smoke in Northern California.  Now that September has arrived with slightly cooler temperatures and a bit less smoke, I've been motivated to go on a weekend trip somewhere.

By good fortune, I was given some information on a big aviation to-do in Hood River, Oregon.  My benefactors in this case were my brother-in-law's parents who just happen to live there.  Well, I had never heard of this particular fly-in before, but if aviation enthusiasts are gathering, I want to be there.

The fly-in occurs annually at the Ken Jernstedt Airfield (4S2) in conjunction with WAAAM.  I came to learn this interesting acronym stands for the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum, which makes a lot more sense than something that one sees on Batman, as I had earlier suspected.

At this point, we have the nucleus of a weekend getaway, but I needed more.   How about stopping at nearby Van's Aircraft Inc for a tour.  Great, what else?  Visit a friend who lives near Portland.  Sounds good, I thought, but we're still lacking something.  Brewpubs in Portland!  Mission accepted.

As usual, time would be tight.  This Mission Possible would depend on split second timing, strict adherence to the plan, and naturally, synchronized watches.

It turns out that I had a long scheduled doctor's appointment the morning of our departure that would delay our egress from Grass Valley.  In order to improve our odds of actually leaving on Friday, we decided to pack our stuff and load the RV the night before.

When we opened the hangar door we were greeted with the sight of a lopsided airplane -- the right main tire had gone flat.  No problem, I've got a spare tube and at least 12 hours until my appointment.  It might be nice to sleep during some of that time, but hey, sacrifices must be made.  I didn't seriously think that it would take more than an hour to get the tire repaired.  In retrospect, my thinking on this may have been a little suspect since it took me nearly that long to get the tire off of the plane in the first place.

I then took the tire home with me where I had a larger assortment of implements with which to torture the poor tire.  That is, I have more tools at home.  Unfortunately, try as I might, I was unable to separate one half of the split rim from the tire.  Now, this was a predicament.  Luckily, there is an FBO at the airport that opens before my doctor's appointment and they agreed to fix the tire on short notice while I was being poked and prodded.  As it turns out, my doctor is also a pilot, so I don't really mind going there if we can keep the subject on flying.

Returning from my appointment, the tire was ready as promised and I wasted no time getting it back on the plane.  Carol arrived at the airport just as I was buttoning up the wheel pant and we were finally ready to depart.

Climbing out of Grass Valley all we could see above was smoke.  At cruise altitude and viewed from the other side, it still looks like, well, smoke.

Passing near Mt. Lassen the smoke layer was getting thicker and we climbed to stay on top.

As we approached Crater Lake we were able to come back down to to about 10,500'.

The lake was not quite the beautiful scene I remembered from our last trip through here.

Our first stop in Oregon would be the Van's Aircraft company, the birthplace of my RV-7A kit.  I had never taken the Van's tour so this would be of great interest to me and a kind of homecoming for our plane.  The last tour starts at 1:30pm and we touched down at Aurora State airport about 1:20pm.  A quick taxi back and we were walking in the backdoor just as the tour began.

Here is the obligatory view of the quick build canoes.  I don't want to take anything away from those who opt for a quick build solution, but for me, assembling the aircraft structure was the really fun part of the whole process.  And it goes by so quickly.  My project took four and a half years, but I had what looked like a fully assembled plane in my shop after only two years.  It's kind of hard to understand what I was doing for the last two and a half.  Although, the words electrical, engine, canopy, and fiberglass come to mind, it's so hard for me to remember now.  I guess the RV grin has erased the memory of the less fun parts of the process.

Here is Van's latest acquisition:  A new automated punch that can turn out parts faster and with more precision.

At the conclusion of the tour, we find ourselves in the hangar with the demo aircraft.  This is not unlike Disneyland where one exits a ride only to find themselves in the midst of a gift shop.  The main difference here is that the souvenirs cost a bit more.

I'll have to admit that my principal motivation for flying to Van's was to get a close up view of the RV-10.  I've been thinking about building again.  Having the opportunity to see the 10 up close has done nothing to quell my interest in building another plane.

Due diligence requires that I prepare a financial justification for building another plane:  I built a shop to build a plane.  If I were to build a second plane in it, my amortized cost per plane would be cut in half.  Heck, we can't afford not to build another plane!  Needless to say, Carol was not convinced.

After the tour, we visited the actual gift shop at Van's, otherwise known at the parts department.  I purchased a spare inter-tube to replace the one I used earlier at the heart stopping price of $54.  We may need to put off the RV-10 for a while.

On leaving Van's we headed for Scappoose OR, where we were availed a courtesy car by an FBO on the field called Transwestern Aviation.  They are some really nice people there and they allowed us to have the vehicle overnight so that we could drive to our hotel in nearby St. Helens, OR.

That evening we met up with a friend of ours who used to live here in Grass Valley.  We first met Angie while we worked at the same company in 1986.  Of course, I was just a toddler back then.  Angie took us down to Portland for dinner and we sampled some local beers.  Their fair city's motto - "Keep Portland Weird" seems to be working.  Although to be fair, it's not the city that's weird so much as it's denizens.  However one describes it, there is a definite hipster vibe going on there -- at least in the downtown area.

We visited two brewpubs on this Friday evening, 10 Barrel and Deschutes.  At 10 barrel I was at least twice as old as 95% of the other patrons.  It was very crowded and at the ripe old age of 56, I felt a bit out of place...  After enjoying a passable blonde ale we walked a few blocks to the Deschutes brewpub. It too was filled beyond capacity, but we staked out a table, and then by sheer force of our mental will, we caused the table's occupants to leave -- as soon as they finished their meal.  Sorry to have to use Jedi mind tricks, but when you're hangry, it's dog eat dog out there.  It's times like these that I often appreciate how very nice it is to simply sit down.  And so we proceeded to enjoy a very nice dinner and the company of our long time friend Angie.  Not to mention a couple of pints of an extremely pleasant wheat beer.

The next morning was overcast which led to some concern that we might get stuck under it.  By the time we were fueled and ready to go a few small holes had opened up and we blasted right up through one with the knowledge that our destination was reporting clear skies.

So we traveled along and found ourselves, VFR on top, over a solid cloud layer. We dodged some of the taller build ups as we skimmed along the cloud tops.  As we neared our destination a hole in the clouds appeared right on cue and I could see the Columbia river below.  If it seems confusing that the town of Hood River sits along side of the Columbia River, the locals were unaware of it.

After dropping through the hole we proceeded east down the Columbia river gorge which is quite scenic, but unfortunately I failed to take a picture.  We stayed on the right and the opposing airplane traffic stayed on the left hand side of the gorge just like a highway.  

Shortly, we emerged from the deep canyon and diverted slightly south of the river to enter left downwind at the Ken Jernstedt airport, Hood River OR.  Since we were attending a fly in, we were expecting some traffic and confusion about the pattern.  We weren't entirely disappointed.  Fortunately we were able to self-sequence in the downwind culminating with a decent landing despite the gusting wind.

On the ground, we quickly tied down and made our way to the registration tent.  The fee was a very reasonable $10 and that included admission to the WAAAM museum. We were met at registration by Dick and Linda, the previously mentioned parents of my brother-in-law.

For the rest of the day, we wandered about the museum whose title is about as descriptive as they come.  Inside were Antique Aero-planes and Antique automobiles of every description most, if not all of them, in flyable condition.

It was a fascinating experience to see aircraft evolution occurring before our eyes.  A 1910 Curtis flyer to WWII era aircraft and literally everything in between.   

After lunch, I dragged Dick and Linda to an aviation safety seminar about running out of gas in your airplane. It turns out that it is not such a good idea.  Not being pilots, I'm not sure how much they got out of it, but at least we were sitting down. On the flight home, I would have time to ponder the subject, but for now, there were still more planes to see.  We finished up inside the museum and then made a brief tour of the grounds to view the various aircraft that had flown in.

Here's a picture of our hosts for the day, Linda and Dick beside our pride and joy.

On our way out of the fly-in,  I turned around to snap this photo of Mt. Hood in distance.  

Dick and Linda graciously agreed to drive us to our hotel and threw in a tour of Hood River and some scenic views of the surrounding valley.

After a brief respite at our hotel, Dick and Linda returned to take us out to dinner.  The restaurant was located near the edge of town overlooking the beautifully groomed fairways and greens of Indian Creek golf course.  We enjoyed a delicious meal and the company, but after a long day at the fly-in and of course the late night in Portland the previous eve, we were tired and ready for an early evening.

The next morning, Dick and Linda once again offered to chauffeur us back to the airport.  We said our good-byes and launched into clear blue skies headed south.  Mt. Hood was not far off of our heading home so I applied max power in an effort to climb above its summit before we got there.  It's only about 20 miles or so from Hood River and that doesn't give a lot of time to cover the 10,600' difference in altitude between the airport and the mountain peak.

About halfway there, the mountain looms large in our field of vision.

Approaching the summit I begin a counterclockwise circle around it.

These mountain peak pictures are always a little disappointing to me as the wide angle lens doesn't really capture how close we were.

From the vicinity of the mountain peak at 11,500' I could see the edge of the smoke that we flew through on the way up to Oregon.  We really did not want to go through that again, so we diverted to the west.  We thought that perhaps it would be clear of smoke along the coast.  So I punched in direct to Coos Bay OR and we flew southwest until we got to the Pacific ocean. 

It wasn't really that much clearer there so we followed the coast south hoping for clean air.  Along the way, just south of Coos Bay, we spotted this fire just starting.  There were no firefighters there so I assumed it was a new fire.  Just as I was about to report it to the Coos Bay controller, another aircraft beat me to it!  Well, there goes my junior firefighter merit badge.  

After flying south down the coast for a while I began to be concerned about our fuel.  We would need to stop for fuel at our present rate of consumption after having made the big detour to the coast.  I considered Eureka, CA as a fuel stop, but I elected instead to make the turn for home -- direct to Grass Valley.  The direct course put us over some very rough terrain, but not to worry, we wouldn't see any of it.  Now to deal with the fuel.  I needed to reduce our flow in order to make it home with the appropriate fuel reserves.  The irony of running out of fuel after having just attended a safety seminar on how not to do it was not lost on me.

There exists a method of reducing fuel consumption called Lean Of Peak operation.  This simply means adjusting the air/fuel mixture to the lean side of the rich/lean mixture curve where peak refers to peak exhaust temperature (think peak engine power) along that curve. 

Going LOP can reduce fuel consumption by as much as 40% with only a modest decrease in performance.  Our Garmin displays a map on which is drawn a circle that represents how far we can fly with the amount of fuel we have remaining.  When you are worried about your fuel quantity it's a beautiful thing to watch it expand on the display as you reduce the fuel flow.  Of course, I do the math in my head as a cross check.  It's entirely for my own peace of mind, as the Garmin is almost certainly correct.

When we landed at our home airport in Grass Valley, I still had about 10 gallons left in the tanks.  That would have been enough for another 180 miles, or about an hour and twenty minutes of flight.  Ultimately, we had plenty of fuel and it was good to be home.

It was the end of a long weekend that saw a Van's Aircraft tour, an evening in Portland with good food and a long time friend, a very well attended fly-in with antique aircraft, some interesting driving by my brother in-law's dad, and a total of 7.1 hours of flying.  And smoke, don't forget the smoke.  Lots and lots of smoke.

Fort Bragg Christmas Parade

One of the benefits of owning a plane is the ability to make long trips shorter.  It sounds perfectly obvious, and it is, but it has practical consequences.  It means that we are more likely to go for a weekend because it requires less time and effort en route.  And we are more likely to go further for the same reasons.  

Unlike many of our trips, on this outing, we were under no particular time pressure to depart.  Our destination, Fort Bragg CA, is just a 50 minute hop to the west from our home base at Grass Valley CA.  Unfortunately, Fort Bragg has no public airport, so we fly into Little River (KLLR) and rent a car to drive the remaining 12 miles north along the scenic coastline via highway 1.  On this trip, we were expecting overnight rain in Fort Bragg, but Sunday was forecast to be clear, so all we really needed to accomplish on Saturday was to arrive before the rain.

Fort Bragg is a small town located along the rugged Northern California coast about 120 miles north of San Francisco.  In the past, the town thrived on the logging and fishing industries, but today it seems more touristy than anything else.  As a kid in the 1970's my parents took us camping there many times.  I well remember exploring the rocky coastline and tide pools within the various state parks that dot the area.  Today it seems that there is still some fishing going on, but the Georgia Pacific sawmill that used to be at the town's core is long gone.  Fort Bragg is still a great place to visit and it's got a less touristy vibe than the nearby town of Mendocino, just a few miles to the south.

We left Grass Valley under blue skies in the early afternoon for the nearly hour long flight.  Shortly we were passing to the north of the perpetual TFR at Beal AFB.  Then it's over the peaks of the coastal range and to our left is Clear Lake -- a large natural lake that is anything but clear.  Continuing on we begin a slow descent to the Little River airport.  This little beauty of an aerodrome is over 5000' long and sits just above and slightly to the south of Mendocino.  There is an FBO on the field called Air Galore that rents bikes and cars.  The overnight tie down fee is $7.

Our concern about flying to the coast is always the ever present possibility of fog.  There is no foolproof way to predict it so we just go and hope for the best.  In the past, I have phoned the airport attendant before departing for a first hand weather report, but since the fog can roll in at any time, the report is of limited value. Just because it's clear when we depart is no guarantee that it will be clear when we arrive.   On this trip, there were just a few thin wisps of low clouds near the airport, and we landed without difficulty.  The car was delivered right to the plane as we pulled up on the ramp and soon we were on our way to Fort Bragg.

Our first order of business was to find some lunch.  There is a little 'hole-in-the-wall' kind of pizza place called Piaci Pub and Pizzeria that we stumbled across on a previous visit.  They attract a mostly local crowd and they have a good beer selection.  Two very good signs for sure.  The pizza is pretty good as this well fed dog will attest.  He has been there standing there outside the front door each time we've visited.

After lunch, we decided to drive out to the Pacific Star Winery about 20 minutes north of Fort Bragg.  By this time the sky had clouded over and it was clear that rain was not too far off.  It was little consequence to us since our plane was safely tied down back in Little River.

The Pacific Star winery is located right on the water and they have tables and chairs outside to enjoy their wine and the spectacular views of the crashing surf.

The wine hunter and her quarry:

Walking the grounds of the winery gave these views of the Pacific and the rocky coastline.  

It looked like the rain was imminent so we decided to make our way back to the car for the short drive back to Fort Bragg.  After a stop at our hotel, we were on to the main event:  The Christmas light parade.

Last year we just happened to be in Fort Bragg on the day of the Christmas parade.  We enjoyed it so much that we made a point to return this year.  There is a great brewpub on the parade's route called North Coast Brewing Company.  We arrived early and sat at the bar while staking out a table by the window.  When a window table became available, Carol sprang into action.  But, it turns out that we had some competition for the table.  Without revealing her trade secrets, let's just say the table was won by cunning and persistence.  

So I ordered a sampler and Carol, her wine.  She is just beaming after finally laying claim to the much coveted window seat.

Here's a magic trick:

Tada!

Want to see it again?  So do I :)

Uh-oh!  The shirt says it all.

Wine crisis averted.

Now it was time for dinner.  These fish and chips are the best I've ever had. I don't know if they've used the local catch or not, but they sure seemed fresh.

After dinner, the parade still hadn't started, so we ordered some dessert rather than give up our hard won window table. After much anticipation, the parade finally arrived at our end of the route. It surprises me that such a small town as Fort Bragg can put together a terrific parade such as this. Clearly, a lot of effort went into decorating these floats.

I really enjoyed this one: 'A Christmas Story' themed float

And finally, the man himself:

I wasn't able to photograph everything from our vantage point since there were people on the sidewalk outside.  I did get most of the pageantry and remained dry to boot, while it literally rained on their parade. 

The next morning the weather was crystal clear.  The bleached out colors in the photo below are definitely not due to a hangover :)  I took the camera off of auto to photograph the parade and forgot to reset it.

Along our route home, we passed to the north of the Sutter Buttes which have been called the world's smallest mountain range.  These isolated peaks stick up 2000' above the flat farmland of the Sacramento valley and are usually visible for many miles.

Back in Grass Valley on Sunday morning, the Sutter Buttes are just barely visible in the photo below at center, some 38 nautical miles distant.

I started this post with a remark about how having a plane makes the quick weekend getaway more likely.  I'll end here with concrete examples of driving vs. flying.  Our trip to Fort Bragg took a little less than 1 hour.  In the past, the minimum driving time for us to the same location has been 4 hours.

By auto, and when we consider the return trip, we find that we've turned our two day weekend getaway into a one day excursion plus a whole lot of driving. We love the Fort Bragg area, but we just didn't go very often.  Partly because of the limited time we would have at the destination, but mostly because of the grueling drive itself.

But what if 4 hours in the plane is not too much? With an airplane such as our RV-7A, those same 4 hours spent in the car could take us to much of the western United States.  And making use of the autopilot, 4 hours in the air is not nearly so tiresome as driving.

Assuming a 150 knot ground speed, we can scribe a 600 nautical mile arc from Grass Valley to reveal that Grand Junction Colorado to the east, as well as the northern and southern U.S. borders are in reach.  That's a whole lot of territory opened up for weekend exploration.

So what exactly is my point here?  That planes are better than cars?  Yes, of course, but it is also that for us, investing in travel by air has returned the dividend of time.  And with that time, we've purchased a richer life experience.