Day Two

Got in a few more flights today for practice, not flying for the past 5 months is starting to show up a bit, but a few more flights should get most of that polished off.

Ivan came down from Ocala (where he is staying at the field in his motorhome) to get in some flights with us. He is flying his trusty Genesis from last season with a 170 CDI motor that is running really well for him.

Jason actually brought his plane out today and as usual is looking a little better than the rest of us (his flying that is, he needs a haircut lol ). We ran through both the P and F patterns and spent the afternoon playing around with the Eagletree datalogger getting a look at some inflight data of various setups.

I decided to go up for another flight, and I guess Jason was getting bored with flying and decided to try his skill at nature photography....so for his first subject a bee seemed like a good choice! I think the camera was less than 1" away when he took this shot.

Tomorrow we hope to get out a little earlier and put in a few more flights, so far I am up to 9 flights and hope to get in at least 30 more before I leave :)

Chad

First Day

Well, I arrived safe and sound late last night and Jason was still awake to get me at the airport. We got back to his place and unpacked as little as possible and pretty much went straight to sleep as it was nearing 2am local time.

This morning I was pretty lazy, and almost outslept Jason....and didn't get up until 11:30am. The plane came out of the box and everything was assembled and readied to hit the field...after a quick stop at the local McD's...(hey you can't hang out with Jason without going to McD's).

I manged to get in 4 flights today mostly of the F-09 pattern. I figured it was better to start out with F-09 because I have not flown since November.... :) The weather here is nice, perfect shorts weather for a white Canadian boy like me, maybe mid 20's. The wind was straight in our face at about 15-20 mph, so not too bad for the first flights in 5 months. There were a few other locals at the field practicing, Don and John Lowe, Dave Stoddart and Al McCaskill. Jason didn't bring his plane out so he flew Al's Dirty Birdy and found out on landing that its not so great at knife edge :)

Jason got a couple of shots, I was lazy and left my camera in the car tonite so my pics will have to wait until tomorrow.

John Lowe with his new Osmose Evolution, YS 170DZ power. Plane looks really nice and flew well with lots of performance. I would expect to see quite a number of these around this year.

Jason caught this shot of my Integral, not sure if its taking off or landing....must be taking off because all my landings ended up at the other end of the field :)

For all my friends at home enjoying the nice cold weather....see the shorts...ya its nice and warm here, and sunny......and no snow :)

2009 is starting!

It has sure been a long time since the last update, really not much has went on. It has been a normal winter, with some indoor flying but that is it. There are new projects on the way, and when they arrive there will be more content.

March has started to pick up, I just did an aerobatics seminar this past Saturday to kick off the season. Tomorrow I am heading to the airport to catch my flight to Orlando, FL. where I will meet up with Jason Shulman and spend a week practicing for the upcoming season. Coincidentally the Ocala contest will be on the weekend I am there, so we will be attending that. My friend Ivan Kristensen from Ontario has already made the trip down so I hope we can all meet up and get in some flying in the Florida weather. Keep your eyes on the blog for updates of the activities.

As soon as I get back from Orlando on the 26th, I will be busy getting ready for the first ever Canadian E-Fest type event. This will include an F3P contest and F3P-AM contest that I will be participating in. I am not sure there will be time to update the blog again until after that event, but in any case check back for pics and results of it as well.

Chad

My other hobby

Well, flying isn't really the only thing I do for fun. Living on the edge of the Rocky Mountains provides a lot of opportunity for outdoor adventures. Mountain biking has become very popular out here, and I dabble a little during the summer when flying is not occupying all my time.

I try to plan my trips such that broken limbs won't cause me to miss any important flying events. Some of the trails can be a little risky :) Also I am not really that good of a mountain biker...so I fall frequently lol!

These particular pictures are from a ride around Mt. Baldy and through Baldy pass. It was about 20km, 10 of which were uphill. Its a loop trail, on the 10k climb up you gain about 600m in elevation, and drop that same amount in about 3km on the way down :) Makes for an exciting trail!


Here is a shot of Mt. Baldy from the parking lot. Eventually we ended up on the other side of it.

There was a lot of logging going on along the first part of the trail.

Checking the map...you do not want to get lost out here. The trail networks are usually quite extensive, and it gets dark in a hurry.

This was a huge washout section likely created by the spring runoff, with my amazing biking skills I decided it was better to carry my bike across :)

This is at the pass, about 1850m ASL. You can sort of make out the trail just above my rear tire....yes that narrow little path of rocks that rapidly disappears is the trail, and that is the only fun way down :)

Not sure what happened here...but I probably fell and decided that this was as good a spot as any to have a break. Some of the downhill sections are pretty steep, and if you get timid and slow down is pretty easy to lose you balance and you have to stop.

A couple of the nicer sections of the trip downhill!

We had a 5km ride back down the highway to the parking lot, I thought this hill would never end.









That's it for now, my riding friend is expecting his first child any day so not sure when we will get out next. When we do though I will be sure we take more pictures and I will post them here.

Chad