Arty's Ultimate Ultralight Adventure

I talked with Randy tonight, and he is tent camping in a field 5 miles north of Dunsmuir, under the wing of his Carrera. He took off this morning and was making great time as he left the Yreka Valley heading into the Siskiyous. The, as he neared Dunsmuir Airport, his engine started losing RPMs; in spite of throttling up, he kept losing altitude. He realized that he wasn't going to be able to make it to Dunsmuir, nor could he turn back safely. So he found the last possible landing spot before all turned into forest - a field on the side of I-5. He said it was a "very visible landing" and soon local ultralighters were coming out of the woodwork to help. He has diagnosed the problem as having jets that are too small for the engine (a 130 and a 140 for the Roxtax 582.) Tomorrow Larry, a local ultralighter, will bring him 155 jets and he's sure he'll be able to continue without any difficulty. He will probably catch up with me by the time Daniel and I get to the Phoenix area.
YEAH!!!

Meanwhile, this morning I took off from Davis, CA and had a very fast flight to Lodi, thanks to a marvelous 35+ mph tailwind. When I landed, Bill Bardin who has a Light Sport full service center at the airpark (instruction, repairs, etc.) was there along with a number of other Lodi-based pilots. AND Daniel Kelley, who had flown his Carrera from Camarillo, CA to meet me and fly with me as far as Phoenix.

After grins and hugs, they all started inspecting my Drifter. I really appreciate how new eyes can catch things that I've missed due to my over-familiarity with my plane. Ken immediately saw that the head was leaking oil; when I told him that I'd had the engine worked on just before this flight, he asked if I'd torqued the head bolts after my one hour test flight. DUH!! I know that - but had forgotten to do it in the excitement of getting ready to go. So Ken promptly began taking off the cowling; after the torquing was done, he fixed my brake line, which had burst when I landed in Corning.

Meanwhile, Joseph, one of the Lodi pilots, found that my vertical stabilizer spacer was cracked, due to the bracket having been tightened too much and thus rounding slightly, causing it to rock slightly. Not a safety factor right now, but something to watch.

Meanwhile, the wind was picking up - gusting to 30+ mph on the ground. More turbulence than I want to fly in. Daniel was willing to chance it, but I wasn't. We had just decided not to try and fly out when Bill Bardin landed with a student. He said that while it was difficult on the ground, once in the air it smoothed out and was fine. That was enough - a local pilot's actual report - and so we decided to take off.

The Drifter leapt into the air - didn't seem to take any roll-out at all! Turning to go south was "interesting and challenging" - as in "can I really make this happen?" But once we made the turn, we just FLEW!! My GPS was showing 96 mph over the ground, while my airspeed indicator was barely above 50 mph. It was pretty bumpy, though - not scary bumpy (as in "let me out of here!") just "this is a lot of work keeping things as straight and level as I can" bumpy. No time to really enjoy the scenery. By the time we got to Hanford Airport (221 miles away, about 2 hrs after takeoff,) I was pretty tired of fighting the stick the entire way and tromping on the rudder pedals. I was glad to veg out in the FBO while Daniel got some more fuel.

Taking off we had slightly lesser tailwinds and much less turbulence. So out came the camera and we had fun taking pics of each other and the scenery.

We made it to Shafter-Minter Airport by mid-afternoon to the exuberant welcome of Gary Orpe, with whom I've been in touch by e-mail. Gary thoughtfully provided ethanol-free gas for us, (more about the difficulty of finding E-0 in a later post,) so we refueled and then he took us into town to - I hesitate to admit what wusses we are - a Motel 6. It is really comfortable to be writing this at a desk instead of in a tent! I figure I'll be doing plenty of camping on the trip.

Tomorrow we plan to be wheels off at 8:00 a.m. to get over the Tehachapis. We had the time to do it this afternoon (it's about 90 miles from Shafter to Brian Ranch, our next stop, in the Mohave Desert) but with the winds what they are, we didn't want to chance it. There's a reason that there's a huge wind farm on the southern end of the Tehachapis!

We're hoping to make Blythe, CA tomorrow night and the Phoenix AZ area the night after. Daniel turns around at Phoenix to head home. Depending where Randy is, I'll either wait for him there or continue on until he catches up!