It’s amazing just how quickly October crept up on me. I was thinking I still had another week before worrying about putting the Skywriter to bed when it occurred to me that the meeting is just 8 days away!!! Fortunately, we have a couple of great contributions from Troy Branch (which I shamelessly stole from his regular build progress e-mail) and Ed D’Antoni.

I know I harp on this all the time, but I really do need some more input from club members. Quite often, it can be a real struggle to fill these pages with interesting and enjoyable information. I know many of you have had some great flying adventures over the summer. A number of you made the pilgrimage to Arlington, and I believe a couple may have made it to Oshkosh. Please take a few minutes to put together a short article and a few pictures.

Unfortunately, September was a very busy month for me with little time for flying or airplane building. Every weekend has been spent out at the cabin as we try to race Mother Nature and get heat in the place before the plumbing starts to freeze. Last weekend, she pulled ahead as I found there was no water for a shower in the camper. A short investigation led to the discovery of slush in the hose that feeds the camper! If all goes well, the furnace will be turned on this weekend, and all the insulation should be installed over the next two weekends!

Last month, we had our first official visitors to the cabin. Barry Wood and his son flew up to Bashaw one fine Saturday afternoon, and we played a round of golf at the Country 9 Golf Course. The weather was pleasant, and we definitely enjoyed the day. What could be better than combining a favorite pastime with a favorite passion?

School continues to be interesting, if not that challenging. Having an aviation background is certainly helping out, as is my academic background in engineering. However, the composites and sheet metal courses are proving to be a bit of a challenge as we learn new techniques and construction processes.

Fortunately, September was not a complete bust when it came to flying. In fact, I was able to make it to the Rocky Mountain House Fly-In breakfast on September 8th. A number of our club members went down to Lethbridge that same morning, but I was time limited and stuck close to home.

As I arrived, there was a clutch of Yaks out doing their thing including a low fly-by with airshow smoke. The famous Ken Fowler Rocket was also in attendance. I didn’t see a lot of familiar faces, but Floyd and his son from Carstairs did show up in their Jodel.

I was also able to get in a couple of nice evening flights, including a perfect little excursion to Drumheller last week. With classes ending at 3:50 PM, I was in the air by 5:00 PM. The flight up along the river valley was wonderful, and I aced a couple of wheel landings in the circuit at Drumheller.

One thing I’ve been playing with over the past few weeks is the airspeed indicator (ASI). Last summer, on the Air Adventure tour, I had time to play with the E6B functions on the GPS and determined that the airspeed indicator was giving me readings closer to the true airspeed (TAS) than calibrated airspeed (CAS). At the speeds and altitudes I normally fly at, I should be seeing a 10% difference in indicated and true airspeed. So, when the ASI reads 95 MPH, my true airspeed should actually be around 105 MPH. However, I was noticing that the ASI was reading 105 MPH instead.

Since my static ports are on a ¼” aluminum tube mounted under the pitot tube, I tried experimenting with changing the static pressure. By putting an O-ring over the tube ahead of the static holes, I was able to reduce the static pressure and increase the indicated airspeed. When I had originally set up the plane back in 2004, I put a small rubber grommet with an OD of about ½” ahead of the holes. I’ve since switched to one about 3/8” OD, and I now have much more accurate readings.

On another evening, after watching the movie “Big Rocks and Long Props” (it took me a while to convince Renée that it was not porn… OK, well it is airplane porn…), I decided to play with the lower end of the envelope in Chrissy. I spent an hour doing stalls, slow flight, and short field landings. I had never really played much in this area with Chrissy and was pleasantly surprised at how well she performs. Stalls are a very mild affair at an indicated airspeed around 33-34 mph. Slow flight at 45 mph, including medium turns, proved to be easy and quite tame.

Short field landings at a lower 55-60 mph approach speed, rather than the more usual 70 mph, were definitely more interesting. The main problem is that with no flaps, you really need a nose-high attitude to do a full stall landing. This results in the tailwheel hitting the ground LONG before the mains, producing a rather firm arrival and slight bounce. However, the landing distance is about half of what I normally see.

If you’re starting to get a little bored with just boring holes in the sky, pushing the envelope with your plane can be an interesting way to spend a flight.