Scudrunners

Last Friday evening: “Hey Slick, come on out to the airport tomorrow. I have a bunch of girls who want to go on their first biplane rides... I’ll pay for gas.”



So head out to the airport, preflight and tidy the Moth, and a day of ‘meeting interesting new people.’ Lots of hand propping, grass runways, sunshine, formation, lazy eights, hotties, jealous dudes, and selfies. I gotta say:



The moral of the story is that I apparently need a Waco. Can take two up at once that way...

Sounds like a perfect aviation day (at least to me). "Twins, Basil!"

I used to spend winters in Key West. This is January:



I have said it before, and I will say it again: if all you ever do in aviation
is fly a tube & fabric taildragger off grass, you haven't missed much.

Biplane and radial engine is a bonus. Floats is nice, too.

Not a bad way to spend the afternoon:

I can almost see the bugs on the windscreen, and hear the rumble of the tires after touchdown :^)

Heaven!

That was taken 5 years ago almost to the day.
It’s one of my favorites, because as I was taking the pic, my phone rang. It was the HR lady from the days prior interview offering me a job.
From her offer, I was able to move another rung up the ladder and was able to purchase this: (Doesn’t meet the tube and fabric qualifier, but I’ll live with it none-the-less)

Hey, if you like to spend your spare time polishing .... :^)

A beauty!

PS. Check the gear boxes: https://pponk.com/landing-gear/

I did fly a C170 with a P.PONK mod.

Anybody know where the name came from?





The founder of the company has the last name of: KNOPP

I like that nic-nac factoids.

I ordered the beef up kit on Thursday, got them Saturday. I’ll have to coordinate a lift, but I’ll have time Wednesday to install it. Should be an easy install.

Glad to hear that! Not something you want failing.

PS. Take pictures of what you find, when you take it apart. It
can be scary what you discover - corrosion, cracking - when you
peek inside.

This may sound strange, but there are two Cessnas that give me
a hard-on the cat can't scratch:

1) Citation X. They'll go supersonic if you know some tricks. How
cool is that?

2) C185 with turbo-normalizer and glass cockpit and autopilot and
kevlar O2 tank with cannulas and extra fuel. I would file IFR in the
teens for the tailwinds, and I could land it anywhere. I really
like the C185. I made friends with one, decades ago, that I ferried
to the southwest. First flight was IFR out of Brampton, I think. Many
weird skinny little taxiways. Popped up on top of the clouds. Glad
the AI worked. Did a gnarly ILS at Flint, MI in cloud with a howling
crosswind for my first landing in it. That wasn't so bad - taxiing it
was a bit wild. Had a STOL kit which didn't help that much. After
I tied it down on the ramp, it sat there, bouncing in the wind. Wish
I had lift spoilers for the wings, but ... off to the hotel and dinner.
GPH was impressive, the power settings I used, IIRC. Needed bigger
gas tanks. Most aircraft do.

Meta-lesson: Life is more interesting if you say "Yes" - and survive.
Someone says, "Hey, you want to ferry a 185 to Colorado? First flight
is in cloud with lots of wind and turbulence and no auto-pilot".

I took it to just south of Leadville. Crazy altitudes. I never knew
they put airports up that high in the sky.

Found it:



That's Salida, CO. Elevation 7,000. Ridiculous place to put an airport,
I had the mixture leaned to almost ICO. Rockies in the background are
maybe 12,000?

I don't know shit about flying little airplanes in the hills. Still don't. So,
I found a river that took me into the valley that ran north/south where
Salida was. I figure water finds the low country. But off to my right was
this big, scary, ugly looking hill. I'm looking a looong way up at it, and I'm
at 8,000 feet. So I climb to 10,000 feet. Still looking miles up. I climb to
12,000 feet. Still looking up. Fuck it, this is ridiculous. I'm a flat-lander
pilot. All I know about hills is, don't go there when there are clouds or wind,
and the "experts" that do, in little airplanes, all end up dead.

It was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikes_Peak which is over 14,000 feet.

The summit of Pikes Peak has a polar climate due to its elevation.
Snow is a possibility any time year-round, and thunderstorms with high winds
gusting up to 100 miles per hour or more are common in the afternoons

Yeah, let me know how that works out for you in a little airplane.

an accident in Winston, Montana, on June 3, 2007 ...
a pilot crashing with an instructor on board due to a down-draft ...
instructor was none other than Sparky Imeson and the accident occurred during a mountain flying safety seminar.

Note the staples in the photo above - it was in one of my logbooks. I remember
showing up at the TC district office with my latest logbook - I think it was for a
type rating or something. I smiled at the TC Inspector and asked, "So, what have
I been up to, lately?" Inspector looked at my logbook and said, "OOooo, I'd like
to get my hands on that!" I laughed. They were only seeing the entries for the
rating, sorry.

I routinely fly above 10,000 just to piss off ORD, because I’m above their class B. Can’t tell me no, if I’m not in their airspace!
If I can get a good push, I’ve been up to the 12’s.
The 180, and what I’ve done to it is just about perfect for me. A good day tripper, I can land anywhere, and I can mess with the IFR Bubba’s in the low teens.

Pulled the inspection panel to right up the cargo tie down. Found this little guy... a 44 mag from her days in Alaska