...where the weather was pretty poor most of the time...it reminded me very much of Manchester, where I went to college in the UK. A lot of dull, overcast days with light rain or drizzle.
Tomorrow (Sunday) I will be re-activating the plane - a preventitive maintenance cycle, oil change and inspection. Hopefully I will then get to take to the air for the first time in 4 months.
After that, I will work on the gear leg fairings. Then...it will be on to the baggage pods. I spoke to James Redmon this morning, and I have never previously heard him use the kind of "industrial language" that he uttered concerning the frustration level he has encountered in fitting pods to his Berkut. He estimated over 100 hours for fitting so far, and a lot of prep work is still not completed. He was hoping to be able to fly to Sun'n'Fun with the pods, but has abandoned that idea. Currently he prefixes every mention of the word "pods" with a word that most likely came out of a "Sopranos" script. Maybe this pod thingy won't be so much fun after all...

As part of the maintenance process that involved the fixing of the oil leak and the addition of an air-oil separator, we fitted the modified carburetor venturi built for me by Ed Spracher from Kenai, AK.
I have not completed any rigorous flight testing. However, initial testing shows that the engine now runs much smoother. The leaning capability is not affected - the uneven fuel distribution still prevents leaning past peak EGT on any cylinder.
More updates as I proceed through flight testing.

...where a city ordinance, passed to prevent a homebuilt aircraft from being assembled in a garage, has been declared to be constitutional.
We (the experimental aviation community) may need to fight this one through higher courts. Clearly, if other local cities emulate that approach, the creation of homebuilt aircraft in garages could become a lot more problematical.

Last weekend the good folks at J&S Aviation installed an M20 air-oil separator for me. I hope to have some photos up here in a couple of days.
The separator is installed on the left side of the engine (looking from the front of the plane). It is clamped to the baffling next to #4 cylinder, and the oil return line drains into the magneto cover plate on the accessory case. We also rerouted the crankcase breather tube to connect to a stainless steel tube which is clamped to the exhausts on that side of the engine. This will result in any remaining emissions being vaporized on their way down the tube. Oil streaking on the lower cowling will be a thing of the past.
Since I have only 45 minutes of flight testing the separator, it is too early to determine what impact it will have on oil comsumption. Given that most of my oil usage seems to consist of unburnt oil leaving the sump by way of the crankcase breather, the impact ought to be significant. More reports as I accumulate data.

(NOTE - Photos will be added to this report once I get the photo album up and running and attach it to the blog).
I flew to Escalante in Utah on 3rd November, returning to Lancaster on 5th November. The objective was to spend a weekend with a lady friend, go hiking in the sandstone hills and de-stress from city life.
Escalante is about 40 miles North of Lake Powell in southern Utah. The plan was to fly from Lancaster to Santa Fe, refuel and then fly from Santa Fe to Escalante.
I lifted off from Lancaster at 10.40 CST on the Friday. It soon became apparent that the new magneto (see previous posting) was making a major difference to the engine smoothness; the difference was very apparent above 2500 rpm, where the engine had previously been suffering from unpleasant vibration.
En route I was forced to divert to Breckenridge to re-seal a loose fuel cap (see separate True Confessions posting). I was fighting a headwind most of the way; after struggling to break 145 knots groundspeed at 8,500 feet over Texas, I descended to 6,500 and promptly picked up 15 knots in ground speed. After the delay due to the stop in Breckenridge, I landed at Santa Fe at 13.45 MST.
I refueled to 42 gallons onboard, bought new charts for the route of flight, and set off for Escalante. I soon found myself battling a headwind, with my ground speed never rising much above 152 knots even running at 2620 rpm. This part of the journey is, however, fairly spectacular, as you fly West of Farmington past Shiprock and to the East of Monument Valley, then over the Eastern end of Lake Powell, East of Navajo Mountain. This is wild country, with sandstone escarpments and ridges, little or no vegetation, little in the way of population centers, and few airports. I was always watching for potential landing sites in case I found myself listening to The Sound of Silence…
The last 50 miles into Escalante are mostly over some of the most forbidding terrain I have ever seen – mile after mile of Navajo Sandstone sculpted into crags, gullies and mini-canyons. There would be zero chance of landing a plane and staying in one piece, so I immediately climbed another 2000 feet to give myself more gliding distance.
When I arrived over Escalante I was 4000 feet above the airport altitude, so I circled in the valley over the airport to lose altitude. I was making radio calls to announce my position, although I realized afterwards that I was using body effort that could be saved for old age – there was no sign of any traffic, the airport has no permanent buildings, and the Airnav entry on Escalante showed a total of 2 aircraft based at the field.
I set up for a left-hand approach to runway 31 and soon realized that runway 31 sloped down to the North. With the windsock showing little wind, I circled and entered base for 13. As I turned from base to final, I saw three vehicles racing down the airport approach road. For a second, I wondered if I was seeing a welcoming committee, who, having ascertained that I am an agnostic, would promptly point me in the direction of away (remember this is Mormon country). However, when I noticed the occupants of two of the vehicles standing on the roof waving at me, I concluded that this was probably a welcoming committee.
After touching down, I found out that Escalante’s runway had grass growing in patches over the surface, and I weaved around the clumps of grass as best I could on rollout. I taxied onto the ramp and parked the plane. The ramp area had recently been re-surfaced, with fresh tie-down markings. However, there are only 6 marked tie-down places. Part of the ramp was being used for girders and other building materials (see below for more details).
The “welcoming committee” turned out to be the local Escalante aviation enthusiasts group, led by Paul Bowmar, a native of California who owns EPM.AV Corporation, a local business making parts for experimental aircraft.
We started talking about the state of the airport and future plans. There is a lot of resistance in Escalante to airport improvements or expansion. The population of 900+ is majority LDS, and a lot of the LDS families are suspicious of and antipathetic towards outsiders. Paul, who moved here over 30 years ago when his father relocated to Escalante from southern California, recounted a council meeting where a councillor (a leading member of the LDS church) looked him straight in the eye and said “you are an outsider. You should not expect to have the same rights as us”.
The following improvements are under way or planned for the airport:
1. Construction of 4 new hangars. This is due to start in about 2-3 weeks. The framing materials for the hangars were already on the ramp awaiting the commencement of work.
2. Demolition of the existing single hangar, which is very old and regarded as an eyesore.
3. Widening of the runway from 60 to 75 feet and extension from 5000 feet to 7500 feet, using FAA money. This is planned to occur in the next 2-3 years.

In the meantime, the runway is perfectly usable for most small planes.
I visited Paul’s machine shop in Escalante . I was greeted by a sleek-looking and friendly shop cat, who I suspect actually does all of the work while Paul and his employees sit in the office, surf the Web, shoot the breeze etc.
After returning to the airport, I was picked up by my lady friend. I found my way to the Boulder Mountain Ranch, where I had rented a 1 bedroom cabin (see picture).
We ate dinner at the Hell’s Backbone Grill, which is an innovative restaurant on the grounds of the Boulder Mountain Lodge. Boulder is about 30 minutes’ drive from Escalante along a road which at times affords spectacular views of the surrounding country, the highlight being the Hog’s Back, a narrow ridge with thousand-foot canyons either side. Boulder occupies several flat areas nestling in the sandstone hills, with the Boulder Mountain Lodge lying towards the North edge of the town. The New York Strip steak was excellent, washed down with a Valpolicella (it’s a horrible job but somebody had to do it).

Saturday
After a leisurely reveille, including breakfast at Hell’s Backbone Grill, we went hiking Lower Calf Creek Falls, among the Navajo Sandstone and the junction with the Red Sandstone.
In the afternoon we drove over to Escalante airport. Caroline climbed into the rear seat of the plane, and we took off, circled in the valley to gain altitude, and flew over the Navajo sandstone crags to Boulder, where we proceeded to buzz the restaurant several times from a progressively lower altitude. I discovered afterwards that this caused a lot of interest.

Sadly, circumstances forced us to yet again eat dinner at the Hells Backbone Grill…another terrible evening…

Sunday
After another excellent breakfast at the Hells Backbone Grill, I went over to Escalante and tried to get Dave (owner of the Boulder Mountain Lodge) into the Long-EZE, but he is 6’ 3” and wider than me, with a longer torso, and did not fit in the rear seat, no matter how much he scrunched himself down in the plane.
Eventually we gave up and put him in the front seat, so that I could take some photos of him in the pilot position.
I added 2 more quarts of oil to the plane, since running at high cruise on the way up to Escalante had reduced the oil level from 5.5 quarts to 4 quarts. (see squawks).
I took off from Escalante at 11.00 MST, buzzed the Hells Backbone Grill a couple of times, and then headed South-East to Santa Fe. This route of flight takes you over a wide and varied collection of geological features, some of which are explained on this web page collection made by a geologist. On the way to Santa Fe I took a number of photos of local geology from the plane, including a photo of
Shiprock .
A direct route to Santa Fe would have required me to climb above 14000 feet to gain enough mountain clearance, so I flew a curved route to avoid the mountains and approached Santa Fe from the South-West. Even this conservative route resulted in a period of flying in light turbulence from the mountains.
I arrived at Santa Fe, and taxied to the fuel self-serve pump. One of the more interesting aspects of Santa Fe is that despite its size, location, and level of activity, this airport does not have radar. The airport draws attention to this in the ATIS message, which includes a section where the airport essentially apologizes for not having radar…
I took on fuel, cleaned the canopy of bugs, and quickly flew out to the South-East. After first trying a cruise altitude of 11,500 feet, I found a larger tailwind component at 9,500 feet. At that altitude, running at 2580-2620 rpm, I saw groundspeeds varying between 175-182 knots. The weather was good all across New Mexico and West Texas, with the afternoon sun keeping the cockpit temperature above the OAT of 42-44 degrees.
On checking in with Flight Watch East of Tucumcari, I was informed that a Sigmet had been issued for an area of storms North of Dallas, centered on Wichita Falls. The Flight Watch frequency was busy with pilots checking in and adjusting routes to avoid the storm area, which included several large cells with tops above 50,000 feet. However, the system appeared to be moving North-East so at the time it did not seem like much of a threat.
As normal, I transitioned through Lubbock airspace and picked up VFR flight following at Lubbock for the rest of the journey back to Lancaster. Once East of Lubbock, the storm system over Wichita Falls came into view to the North-East. Broken clouds began to appear below me at 6000 feet, but I was reluctant to descend at this point because I was rattling along at 180-182 knots thanks to the tailwind.
It looked like the storm system was still to the North of Dallas. A call to Fort Worth Centre showed that the MOAs ahead of my flight path were not active, so I headed through them towards Dallas.
There was an increasing thickness of cloud below me, but there were gaps in this cloud cover. My plan was to stay above the clounds as long as possible and drop through a gap in the cover once I got closer to Dallas.
By now the sun had set on the ground, but the last of the sun was still shining up at 10,000 feet:
I have a rule that I will not fly at night on any route that I have not previously flown during the day. I adopted this rule after a stressful night scud-running attempt over Mississippi that ended with my overnighting in that state when ceilings kept dropping. Since I have flown this route a number of times in the day, I felt reasonably confident about continuing to Lancaster even though it would be dark by the time I arrived there.
About 30 miles West of Mineral Wells, I found that shower clouds were starting to build up above my current altitude of 9,500 feet. I began to climb to 11,500 feet to get over the top of the clouds, but then I noticed that the gaps in the clouds below were rapidly closing up. It looked like the shower systems were starting to build further South along my route. I decided that I needed to get below the clouds before I was trapped VFR on-top, so I told Center that I was descending below the cloud cover to 5,500 feet, and turned to the West to head for a gap in the clouds. This was the last significant gap that was visible, and it seemed to be closing.
I cut the throttle, spiralled down through the gap in the clouds to 6000 feet, and turned back East. However, below the clouds, there was almost no light left, and as I descended further to the East I suddenly found myself swallowed up by a lower bank of cloud.
Since I was under VFR flight following at the time, I made a pragmatic decision to engage the wing leveler and ride out the descent, rather than trying to back-track. One thing I learned in this brief period in the cloud is how spatial disorientation is insidious; I felt like I was turning to the right in the cloud, yet when I exited the cloud about 30 seconds later, the plane was flying the same heading as when I entered. I broke out at 5,500 feet. By now my eyes had adapted to the poor light, and I could see more lower clouds ahead of me, so I kept descending, turning as necessary to stay well clear of the clouds.
By the time I passed Mineral Wells, I was below 3000 feet, and I eventually ended up at 2500 feet as I approached the DFW Class B airspace. My ground speed had dramatically reduced, from 180+ knots above the clouds to 150 knots. It was clearly a damp and miserable night in the Metroplex. Visibility was actually quite good for night VFR at 8 to 10 miles, but there were broken clouds at various levels above me. I descended further to 2000 feet as I encountered broken cloud at around 2200 feet East of Mineral Wells.
As I flew East, I was under the floor of the Class B airspace, so clearances became a non-issue. However, Approach Control told me to fly over Arlington, in order to stay North of the TV towers at Cedar Hill. I turned towards what I thought was Arlington airport, only to be informed by the controller that I was turning towards Fort Worth Spinks. D’oh! There was this lump of technology in the cockpit called a GPS… I dialed Arlington into the GPS, and turned to the North-East to intercept the runway. Approach asked me to switch to Arlington tower. I switched to the tower frequency and informed them when I crossed midfield, at which point they told me to resume own navigation. I switched to VFR own navigation, and at 18.50 CST I touched down at Lancaster in total darkness. The runway and whole airport area were wet from earlier rain and drizzle.
I put the plane away, cleaned the prop of accumulated bugs, oil and soot, and left for home. As I drove home I could see lightning to the North and North West; the storm system was moving South into the fringes of the Metroplex.