Flying in the Face of the Pandemic

I don't know about you, but this Coronavirus thing would be a lot more painful if it were not for the fact that 99% of my flying is solo. It's nice to have another soul to talk to, especially when it's a new experience for them, but I do enjoy wifferdilling along, watching the world go by and marveling at the peace and harmony of it from up to a couple of thousand feet in the air. The CallAir is perfect for that.

 

Whether ridge soaring when the wind is up or just poking around the mountains when the winds are calm, the CallAir lets me get a good long look at the landscape

I've reluctantly made the decision to sell the CallAir. It's a wonderful airplane, made better by a museum quality (expensive) restoration from 2013-2017, but I'm not flying it enough to justify keeping it on the payroll. The ad is on Barnstormers.com if you know anybody looking for a great buy.

For actually going places, the GlaStar is lurking in the back of the hangar .. no inflight pictures of it yet, but it's itching to fly more. In this era of viruses floating around, I don't see myself ever getting on another airliner and with my family in the South, I don't have to; they're all within striking distance in the 'Star.

For now, flying solo, flying safely ... mowing the grass, etc. A Fair Weather Flyer, for sure.

Air Filters, Paint Schemes, New Friends - the GlaStar adventure continues

I shoulda taken a picture. The niggling thought in the back of my head was that the air filter in my induction system probably needed closer inspection than we gave it last July when I bought the GlaStar ... the airplane had been sitting for a dozen years or so and things tend to deteriorate over that amount of time. Having flown it home from Indiana and a bit since, Mark and I found a few warmish days to pull the cowlings and go into the induction air filter box that is built into the right side of the GlaStar engine compartment.

The one on the left is like the one that came with the airplane; the one on the right is like the new K&N. I had to find a picture of a semi-goopy old style one - mine was much worse. 

The filter was a mess. The type used by the builder was the standard recommendation by Stoddard-Hamilton at the time; a circular wire cage around which was wrapped an oil-treated foam filter. It had gotten pretty goopy over the years. The foam dissolved, more or less, and there was that thick, sludgy oil left clinging to everything inside the filter box. I'm sure bits of this had been sucked into the engine and burned/exhausted. The decision was whether I wanted to go back with that same filter or use another by K&N, a reputable outfit in California that has been custom fitting filters for the automotive community for a long time. I went with K&N.

Now on to the paint scheme and colors ...

I fell in love with this airplane 15+ years ago at a Florida fly-in. The paint scheme is very unique - designed by a fellow named Leon Yoder in Indiana, the design was created using masks and the accents were painted on. The colors matched the palette for a 2002 VW Beetle - a car owned by the airplane builder at the time. Everyone who sees it today is in awe of the quality of workmanship. 

Another new friend is a fellow who built his GlaStar at the same time as mine. Don finished his first in 2001; Russ finished mine in 2002. Having a machinist and a tool&die maker working together at the same time made for some very practical and significant improvements over the construction manual way of doing things. One example is the nosewheel fairing:

The original nosewheel fairing is split longitudinally .. there's no room for a screwdriver to fit under the front of the fairing to install or remove the fairing to replace or add air to a tire, for example.

Don came up with a design that splits the fairing into a front and back half, making it easy to install and remove. Russ did the same.

Another example of Don's quest for the perfect GlaStar is the upper and lower cowling attachment system. The standard design uses a piano hinge on the inside of the cowling halves with a long wire pin that holds them together, same as on an RV airplane. The wire in the standard instructions runs from the forward lip of the cowling to the firewall and uses various ways of securing the pin so it doesn't back out and damage the prop. Don saw another builder's idea of inserting the pin from the cockpit and running it into position from there to the forward lip of the cowling. Russ did the same. I should mention that Don won a "Lindy" award for workmanship at Oshkosh for his completed GlaStar and pictures are beautiful.

So that's the story for March. As I'm writing, the Coronavirus pandemic is sweeping around the world and many events are being cancelled to keep people home and away from crowds. The Sun-n-Fun show at Lakeland FL has been postponed until May in hopes the infection will run its course by then [NEWS FLASH - Sun-n-Fun was cancelled this year, as was Oshkosh later on]. In the meantime, I fly now and then and enjoy polishing and tweaking and planning places to go and people to see. Hopefully non-contagious ones.