SUMMER IS HERE!!!!!

It’s been a long wait for us Calgarians, but we’ve finally been blessed with some true summer weather. Fortunately for me, I booked the first week of July for vacation. We had originally planned to do a flying vacation to Terrace, BC, but due to a number of reasons, we decided to spend the week at the lake. However, it was still going to be a flying vacation!

On Friday, July 1st, we loaded up and made our way to our cabin near Bashaw. Renée took the trusty Subaru along with the dogs and our gear. I headed for Carstairs and saddled up in the Christavia. Interestingly enough, we both left the house at 11 AM and both ended up at the Bashaw airport at 2 PM. So much for flying being faster. Granted, I did chat with Glenn Bishell for a while, and I did make a dog leg over Ponoka to take in the Stampede.

Of course, Saturday morning was Bob Kirkby’s 20th Annual Fly-In Breakfast. I was up early and in the air by 8:30, after a hesitant engine start. I assumed that the battery was starting to fail. I usually keep the battery plugged into a BatteryMinder in the hangar, but tied down in Bashaw, that was not an option. Oh well, the hour or more trip to Chestermere should be more than enough to charge it up.

It was a pretty good turnout at Bob’s place, with about 15 airplanes showing up, 120 breakfasts served, and $305 raised for the COPA Freedom To Fly Fund. Bob doesn’t charge anything for the fine breakfast he provides, but he does ask for donations.

With a full belly, I decided it was time to head back to Bashaw. At around 11 AM I hit the starter expecting the normal Franklin roar but getting a disappointing click instead. Of course, I was in a great place for a problem to happen. Before long, Stu and Carl were hauling out tools, hauling on props, and wiring me up for a jump start. Unfortunately, it quickly became obvious that the battery was just fine, and it was the starter that was pooched.

No problem, I thought, only three nuts hold the starter to the engine, and it was easily accessible. I had replaced the Franklin starter with a SkyTech about four years ago, and the serviceable original was still on the shelf at home. In a couple of minutes, the starter was loose, but not out. Something started to emerge from my memory. When I replaced the starter, there was a big label on the starter warning the installer not to engage the Bendix before installing it. With the Bendix engaged, it would NOT fit in the engine. This meant that it wouldn’t come out with the Bendix engaged either. If you hadn’t guessed by now, the starter was engaged! We made a valiant effort to remove the starter, but it became obvious that the only way to get it out was to spin the starter up to 300 RPM, which meant starting the engine.

We put everything back together and tried restarting the engine, with Stu doing a LOT of pulling. Eventually, we flooded it, so I opened the throttle and closed the mixture. Three pulls later and she fired, and with a quick flick of the wrist, I had it idling smoothly. This whole process would have been a lot easier if Stu didn’t have to pull the engine against the starter.

I headed up to Carstairs, where I had a car and my tools to replace the starter. Fortunately, the starter disengaged on start-up, and it took about 5 minutes to remove it once I got to Carstairs. After a trip back to Calgary for the starter, I was again sitting in Chrissy with fingers and toes crossed as I turned the key. It started with gusto! My original plan was to be back in Bashaw by 2 PM. It was 8 PM when I walked in the door! A big thanks goes to Stu, Carl, and Bob for helping me out and for a great Fly-in.

Monday evening, I took up a neighbor for a flight and ended up learning tons about the local area. She knew most of the farms and residents we toured over. She loved the flight, but I think I got more out of it than she did! It certainly helped that it was a wonderfully calm evening.

Tuesday, I flew to Lacombe to meet with Steve Whitenect to check out his new Glastar. Steve and I have been good friends for years, first meeting in Newfoundland in ’89, where we were both building Christavias together. He’s been my wingman to Oshkosh in ’05, ’06, and ’08. The plan was to meet for lunch and take a quick run around the patch in the Glastar. Everything went well until we went to turn at the end of the runway after landing in the Glastar. The brake line popped off with a bang. This time, the fix only took three hours, but when Steve left, everything was working fine.

Wednesday evening was another passenger flight; this time with one of the local teenagers who is extremely interested in flying. Since I needed fuel, we headed up to Camrose and then did a tour of the lake on the flight home. I had noticed a Beaver ultralight flying over the lake on the nice evenings but did not know where it was based. As we flew over the south end of the lake, Matt pointed out the bright yellow Beaver tied down on the shoreline, buried in the trees. Alongside it was a short strip cut out of the grass and extending onto the beach. The next evening, I walked down the beach and found the airstrip and Beaver. The plane was a little rough, but it did sport the registration C-IDHC. I doubt that this Beaver was built by DHC (in other words, deHavilland Canada). The strip was about 1200’ x 50’, making it a possible landing strip for the Christavia. With only a 3 km walk to the cabin, this would be pretty neat.

Unfortunately, the forecast for the area was looking pretty poor for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in the Camrose/Bashaw area. Thursday morning, I took the plane home to Carstairs and drove back up for the last couple of days. This turned out to be a wise decision. A supercell hit Thursday evening, the same one that dumped baseball-sized hail and rumors of funnel clouds between Sundre and Red Deer. Friday and Saturday were very windy, with winds near 60 knots on Friday night. In all, I logged 10.2 hours over the week. It turned out to be a great flying vacation and a great primer for the big one next week: Oshkosh!