Adventure Through Air and Space, The Evergreen Way

Sunday we met up with several others from the Mulino OPA for breakfast in Newberg at Finnigan's (spinach, mushroom, bacon, Swiss, and avocado omelet... very good)

After breakfast and hanger talk, we left as a group for the Evergreen Aviation and Space museum in McMinnville - http://www.evergreenmuseum.org/

The museum is divided into two buildings (four if you include the water park and IMAX theater).

One building covers space exploration from the earliest rockets, through the international space station, plus modern military aircraft.

Audrey was very excited to get a close up look at a real SR71.

The other building houses the centerpiece of the museum, the HK-1 Spruce Goose, so large it's hard to get a clear idea of it's size inside the building. Around and under the massive wings and tail of the Spruce Goose is a large collection of aircraft spanning very early aviation, military, commercial, and general aviation.

We had a tour guide for this portion of the museum that provided additional insight into the aircraft and displays. Turns out that our guide was assigned to Marine One during the Reagan administration.

Best part of the museum? Sitting under the museum's B17 was Bill, who at the age of 20, had completed 30 combat missions over Germany and occupied France as the pilot of a Flying Fortress. Over 300 hrs of combat flight time, Bill spoke in a quite voice of his first mission, the only from which he returned with no damage, the following missions, his crew, his best mission (the last), and the B17 itself. Bill thought it was a wonderful flying aircraft. Bill also shared some of his more humorous experiences training pilots back home for the remainder of the war in the AT-6 Texan. I could have spent the remainder of the day with Bill, but our tour moved on, and left with deep gratitude to a man that fought in a war a quarter century before I was born.





After 5 hours, and more than one previous visit, there was still more to see. Fortunately we opted for a membership this time.

Daddy It's an SR71 Blackbird

Audrey has become quite interested in airplanes lately (a mystery right?) and the SR71 has risen above the others as the clear favorite.

We were at Coyote Hobby (our local hobby shop), and around from the other isle comes a beaming Audrey, with a box in her hand. "daddy, it's an SR71 Blackbird!".

So after dinner and bath, we set out like the best and brightest at Lockheed to assemble an SR71.  So theirs was bigger, ours took less time.

Good times.   

        

Knobs, Switches, Dials, and Gages

Ever wonder what they all do?

Tim Morgan will tell you in less than 10,000 words here -
What do all the controls in an airplane cockpit do? - Quora

Actually really interesting if you've ever looked into the cockpit of an airliner and wondered if two human beings could possibly ever use, let alone keep track of, all that. Makes the panel in a 172 look no more difficult than operating an alarm clock.

Blog Editor

The new blog editor is really frustrating.  Just sayin'

Birthday, flying, and doughnuts

The weather forecast March 2nd looked promising, and being my birthday, was the all that was needed to ditch work for a few hours, and spend a little time working on landings, which over the past couple of flights had regressed back towards the "any landing you can walk away from" category. Okay, maybe not really that bad, but I tend to towards the perfectionist side.
I arrived at Twin Oaks by 6:30, and spotted my plane in the back of the hanger. No problem, pulling several planes out, and arranging them around the ramp so I could 4KU out was a good warm up on a chilly morning.

By 7:00 I was rolling down 20. Still after more than 350 takeoffs, the excitement as the plane becomes unstuck from the ground, and the runway descends below, never fails.

The ridge line south was thick with clouds, so I departed to the east, towards higher overcast in the Willamette valley. McMinnville was under a low cloud layer, so I headed over to Aurora to work on landing.

First landing was as disappointing as the last several had been. Rolling out I thought about the absence of the stall warning that normally accompanies the last second before the mains touch down, as well as some elevator travel remaining. I'm not holding it off long enough to bleed off airspeed, and touching down to fast, skipping along on the main gear.

The second trip around the pattern seemed to confirm this as I landed much smoother with the stall warning just beginning to squeak, and the yoke all the way back.

Being Friday meant that there would be a gathering over coffee and doughnuts at Lenhardt (7S9) just a few minutes south of Aurora.

As I rolled out on final for 20 at Lenhardt, I considered landing in the grass adjacent to the runway, which is a common practice here, but went for the pavement, not sure of the impact that the recent rains may have had on the turf.

Exiting the runway and hoping not to find anything too squishy in the grass, I taxied over to the FBO. Like driving a car on grass, there's something fun about taxiing an airplane on the grass, least I think so.

After a short visit of hanger talk, I needed to get headed back toward Twin Oaks. The downside of renting...

A light rain had started and I wondered if the low overcast that held south when the morning began, had moved in over Twin Oaks. The ASOS at Aurora was reporting visibility at 10, broken at 2500 overcast at 4800, and light rain, so I had a return to Lenhardt or Aurora as an out if I couldn't get back into Twin Oaks. Off 20 and a right turn out towards home.

It's always surprising how much noise rain can make over the air traveling over my aluminum surroundings at 110kts, engine, and an ANR headset.

Passing over Wilsonville and turning northwest, I could see through the rain streaked windshield Twin Oaks in the distance. No need to turn around and wait anything out.





Too soon, I was back at Twin Oaks, preparing to return to work and life on the ground.

Turned out to be a very nice day; flying, a drink with my boss and coworker after work, sushi with my family that night, and it was my birthday.