This restricted area is one that I have worked strenuously to avoid over the last few years. It is a 3 mile Prohibited area when the President is not at the ranch, but expends to a 30 mile radius Restricted area when he is there.
Sadly, I might not have worked hard enough to avoid it on a flight to Port Aransas last Saturday, for I found myself greeted by an F-16 on Saturday afternoon while flying to Fredericksburg from Lancaster. What happened next will be summarized in future blog postings.
Lesson #1 - join the AOPA Legal Services Plan. It may be the best $39 you will ever spend.
More news as this unfolds. The good news is that I am alive and well, so is my passenger, the plane and me are not grounded, and I will continue to fly until (or if) the FAA applies any sanction to me. However, I do not expect to be flying anywhere near P-49 in the future.
UPDATE - After exchanges of letters with the FAA, they wrote to me in early December that they intended to suspend my license for 60 days. Since I am currently grounded for medical reasons (I was taking a drug of which the FAA disapproved, and I have to wait 90 days before I can renew my medical certificate) I decided to not appeal, and sent them back my license. I will get it back after 19th February, and since I am still working on the plane, this fits neatly with my plans. I need to conduct a biennial flight review before I can take to the air again, so all of this works out pretty well.

..staying at my parents' house in Margate, Kent. This is just across the Isle of Thanet from Kent International Airport (formerly RAF Manston) which is struggling to maintain a viable aviation business, with several recent attempts at passenger operations having failed.
A look at one of the websites for the airport reveals the reality of user fees at UK airports. If I land my Long-EZ at KIA it will cost me £19.00 exclusive of VAT (add another 17.5% if you pay VAT). That works out at over $40 per landing, even for a touch-and-go landing...if that is what eventually happens in the USA, small general aviation operations will shrink to a small fraction of their current levels.

On Thursday I went off to get my FAA Medical Certificate renewed - it had expired on 2nd September. I duly filled in the form for a 3rd Class Certificate, took all of the vision tests, peed in the cup etc. Then I went for the physical exam. However, when the doc read the form, he said "oh dear"...which is where the trouble started. It emerged that I am currently taking a drug which is on the FAA listed of proscribed drugs. So...no medical certificate could be issued.
I am therefore grounded. I have to stop taking the drug, wait 90 days, and then get my doctor to write a letter to the FAA saying that I am capable of flying, after which time the FAA should issue my medical certificate again. I have to take the drug for at least another month, after which time the 90 day period starts. It looks like the earliest I will be back in the air is the end of January 2008.
However, every cloud has a silver lining...I have a long list of items that I wanted to work on to improve the plane. Now I cannot fly until the New Year, I will be working on them. At the moment the list includes (but is not limited to):

- Baggage pods (already have the kit)
- fuselage pontoons (a la Paul Tackabury)
- new GPS
- move battery to firewall
- new cowlings including better cooling
- cockpit heating via nose oil cooler
- Grove brakes
- completion of gear leg fairing work
- new upholstery
- newer radio/VOR/transponder (I have antique boat anchors)

I will also add a photo album to this blog so that I can compete with James Redmon for documentation of improvements...

Link: http://www.uscghawaii.com/go/doc/800/69155/

Several years ago, Bill Swears, intending to retire to Alaska, set out to fly to the US mainland from Hawaii. Unfortunately he did not get very far before he hit engine problems and had to ditch in the Pacific. Thanks to good preparation and excellent air-sea rescue processes, he was rescued, injured but still very much alive.
This is the best available account of his experience.

At the end of last year I fitted an air/oil separator to the engine. This was an effort to address high oil consumption (1 quart every 3 hours). I was always finding a lot of oil on the lower cowling after longer flights, and also finding oil streaks on the prop. Those oil streaks were unburnt oil.
Until last weekend, when I flew to Santa Fe, Farmington, Aztec and Telluride, I had insufficient operational data to determine the impact on oil consumption from fitting the air/oil separator.
Preliminary data from the trip shows that oil consumption has improved, but not greatly. I am using 1 quart every 3.5 hours.
On Saturday I had John Hooker of J&S Aviation remove and inspect the lower plugs after I had flown up to Sherman running with the mixture full rich. None of the plugs showed any evidence of oil fouling; they looked perfectly normal.
I am coming around to the point of view that I have done all that I can to remedy the oil consumption issue, short of re-honing the cylinders and fitting new rings. I am not prepared to do that right now. The only issue with the current oil consumption level is that I cannot fly for more than 6-7 hours without installing a catch-tank...but since I never stay in the air that long, it is not a short-term issue.