1999 Cessna172SP N963AC, a.k.a. "La Paloma", flown home to 6B6 (Minuteman Airport, Stow, MA) from BUY (Burlington, NC) on January 20, 2011, by Charlotte with instructor Devan. Charlotte is Devan's first official student. The plane sees its first blizzard on January 22nd.
20 March 2011, formation flying to photograph Tenle Aviation's Cessna; Paul was in the photo subject plane to get shots of '3AC.
Winter 2011-2012 engine overhaul (engine swap, actually) and first test flight of the new engine: too much downtime for my tastes:
May 2014: N963AC's third trip to the Dayton Hamvention, this time with Charlotte and Jerry Muller flying the Cessna. Paul, who as a speaker at the convention had to be sure to actually get there, took a commercial flight. It was instrument condtions nearly all the way out other than when we broke out on top, including a several-hour delay at our fuel stop in State College, PA, while we waited for the cold front to pass. To clear the worst of the weather, we flew northwest almost to the shore of Lake Erie before turning southwest towards Dayton. We were still in rain, but broke out between cloud layers in time to enjoy a beautiful sunset, landing at Dayton about 10:30 that evening. Some of the way home we were in IMC as well though it was clear when we left Dayton and only broken clouds as we crossed over downtown Pittsburgh. As Jerry says, it never gets old.
Winter 2014-15 avionics upgrade: GPSS roll steering converter, new audio panel, Avidyne IFD540 GPS, new nav2 indicator, new transponder, and new ELT.
Dayton 2015: N963AC's fourth Dayton trip, a lot of work for Charlotte as the only pilot aboard and a good chance to give the new avionics a good workout on a long cross-country flight. We took off on an IFR flight plan but in in severe-clear conditions from our temporary base in KFIT during the construction at 6B6, crossed over the Hudson River, refueled at our usual fuel stop in central Pennsylvania with several brush fires visible in the surrounding very-dry farmland area, flew over Pittsburgh, and continued toward Dayton. We diverted 13 NM south from our course to Zanesville, Ohio, about an hour's flight short of KDAY, because of what turned out to be a failed transducer in the oil pressure sensor. You can see how high I was on that approach. I did not want to give up any unnecessary altitude until I was sure I could land without the engine going suddenly quiet, since we were not certain what the oil system problem really was. Since the oil temperature remained normal, the situation was not as scary as it would have been if the oil had read hot instead of normal or if the oil pressure had read zero rather than maximum. We rented a "staff car" from the airport there and drove two more hours west to Dayton. We had the necessary part shipped overnight for a Saturday delivery and so had the plane back in working order for our flight home from the Hamvention on Sunday. The first leg home was in actual IMC, taking off from Zanesville in pouring rain. We out-ran the weather, however, refueled in Binghamton, New York, to keep us north of the approaching rain, and continued back to KFIT. We like the new GPS!
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Last modified 16 June 2015