My Evening...

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So here I am. Brandt is playing the xbox. That means he's ignoring me. It's a teenager thing... :) So I figured the race was coming on so I figured I'd have my own little party. I'm sitting out by the pool with my laptop. I have the tiki torches going. I have the extra TV ( don't ask where it came from ) out on the porch with the race on. Ceiling fans are going full blast so it's nice and cool. The grill is warming up, the chicken is almost ready to put on and Jimmy Beam is keeping me company. I'm kinda diggin it... If only the pool was just a tad bit warmer it would be perfect

Out by the pool

Pool time...

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So today I played with the pool a bit. I actually didn't have to do much to it. I refilled the chlorine dispenser and empties all the baskets. I back flushed the filter and refilled the DE. I brushed the steps and the shelf but it didn't really need it. It was really just to make me feel better. The big surprise was that when I check the water chemicals they were perfect. Not close or just about, but 100 percent perfect. I have been taking care of the water most of the winter but I haven't actually tested it. The temp is up to 80 degrees so it's just about swimmable. Well, you can swim it now, but personally I like it over 85 degrees. Anyway, enough of my rambling...

Bad day...

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Yesterday was a bad day...   First, I cam to the realization that I was not going to be able to go to the Jimmy Buffett concert. I could have gotten tickets but I couldn't find anybody to go with me. The women in my life just aren't cooperating with me. Then I had to take care of Leo's food and water dish along with his litter box. And finally I had to put up new lost kitty posters from the ones the rain took out. Pretty bad day all around.  :(

X-Plane Update...

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So last we left off I was in Grand Junction. A couple of days ago I made a dusk flight from Grand Junction to Las Vegas(KLAS). Pretty uneventful flight. I had a landing gear indicator fail. The desert is pretty from 15,000 foot. Later that same day I made the flight from Vegas to Onterio California(KONT). About 30 minutes after take off I has a complete autopilot failure. I wasn't up for flying the last hour and a half by hand. I didn't really want to go back to Vegas so I divered to a small private field 0L7 and fixed the autopilot. After that little fix I continued on to Onterio with no further problems. After landing and thinking I was done for the night I changed my mind and did a little sight seeing flight around the L.A. area. Just wanted to look at the lights at night. It was nice...

Today I made the trek up the coast to Sacremento(KSMF). I know it's too close to be a good alternate but I HAD to use Rio Linda as my alternate. Wouldn't do it in real life, but in a sim it's ok. I may shoot a touch and go there before I leave on my next flight. The flight up was very smooth. Nearly no wind the entire way. Landing wasn't as pretty as it should have been but I was looking at the canals and the river rather than paying attention to landing. I know, not good... Don't know where I'll head next, but I'm sure it'll be good. :)

Below is a snippet of my logbook on this trip.

Date Dep Arr Landings Tot Time Night Inst X-Cnty Tail # Acft Type

80316 KADM KADM 0 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 N172SP Cessna_172SP
80316 KADM KOKC 1 0.9 0.0 0.0 0.7 N172SP Cessna_172SP
80316 KOKC KDEN 1 7.5 1.0 0.3 2.0 N13PC Piper Malibu
80316 KDEN 1V5 1 0.8 0.8 0.3 0.4 N13PC Piper Malibu
80317 1V5 1V5 1 0.2 0.0 0.1 0.0 N13PC Piper Malibu
80317 1V5 1V5 1 0.5 0.0 0.2 0.0 N13PC Piper Malibu
80317 1V5 KEGE 1 1.1 0.0 0.1 0.6 N13PC Piper Malibu
80317 KEGE KGJT 1 1.0 0.1 0.0 0.8 N13PC Piper Malibu
80321 KGJT KLAS 1 2.5 0.0 0.0 1.9 N13PC Piper Malibu
80321 KLAS 0L7 1 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.3 N13PC Piper Malibu
80321 0L7 KONT 1 1.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 N13PC Piper Malibu
80321 KONT KONT 1 0.4 0.4 0.0 0.2 N13PC Piper Malibu
80323 KONT KSMF 1 2.4 0.0 0.0 1.4 N13PC Piper Malibu

X-Plane Update...

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Last night I had a very nice flight in the Malibu from Eagle County to Grand Junction(KGJT). Had just some light icing on climb out but after the previous days flights I was happy to see just the light icing. It was just before dusk so it was a very pretty flight. Landing at night in the mountains is a little scary but fun. You know those mountains are 12,000 feet and you are descending below 8,000 foot is a weird feeling. The approach controller handed me off to the tower way to high so it made getting on glide slop very interesting. It was ugly, but i made it by the middle marker. Landing was smooth and technically nearly ideal. Don't know where I'm headed tomorrow, most likely further west.

X-Plane Update...

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Late last night after the weather let up a bit I finally made the flight that last 8 miles from Erie to Boulder. It was interesting, the weather was not bad but I landed with the greatest crosswind I've ever landed with. It was scary but fun.

So today the plan was to fly from Boulder Muni to Eagle Co Regional(KEGE). I had some pretty serious icing on climb out. It cleared out just over FL150. I settled in just a bit over that. It's a pretty short flight so it wasn't too long after I was in the mountains I was looking to descend.

Decent was fun. You have to descend with the mountains so it always look like your close.  There was some pretty heavy fog on final but I broke out on short final and was able to make a very pretty loc ils landing. My glide slope was a little goofed with the mountains and not a full ils, but it wasn't too bad. Nice airport. I'll fly out either later tonight or tomorrow. Don't know where I'm going just yet.

X-Plane Update...

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This morning I made the flight in a Piper Malibu from Oklahoma City(KOKC) to Denver(KDEN). It was pretty uneventful. I had a generator button malfunction but other than that it was a nice flight.

Tonight I was going to make a little hop from Denver to Boulder Muni(KBDU) just to be a little closer to the mountains. The weather was looking pretty bad but I figured it was only 28 miles. I had 2 degrees C and heavy rain. Knowing that standard day you loose 2 degrees C for every 1,000 ft of altitude I knew there was going to be some serious icing. Well it's a simulator so I guess it's OK to take a few more chances.

I took off from Denver with my malfunctioning   generator button and headed NW. I tried to go as fast as possible and keep my alt low to limit the icing. Literally just minutes after take off I started having issues. Less than two minutes after TO I hate the anti-ice in the prop fail. That's when I knew I needed to do anything. I had already flown through some pretty heavy stuff and I was just over half way so I turning back wasn't really an option. I decided to continue.

I was just coming up on Erie Muni(KEIK) when the plane got really mushy and I iced the pitot completely casuseing some crazy indications. Visabiltiy was near zero and making it to Boulder was looking ugly. I decided to land short at Erie Muni just to be safe. I hate crashing even in a simulator.

Luckily I had sight of the runway so I just locked on to it, declared an emergency, and landed with out incident.