Dave wanted to take Colin flying, and since he's building an RV-6 with a sliding canopy, John volunteered to take him up. John has one of the nicest -6/slider setups around, with his custom seat back bulkhead mod and shoulder cutouts and stuff. Probably the most comfortable RV I've flown in, including my own. Anyway, John suggested we fly down to Brown (San Diego). Twist my arm...
I flew lead, and we took off as a 4-ship formation and headed southeast. Landing at Brown without getting cleared through the Class B is always interesting. I wanted to remain clear rather than talk to SoCal and get cleared through, because in formation it's easier if we stay on an air-to-air frequency. You've got Class B airspace above and next to you, and on your other wing you've got the Mexican border. It's a tight little corridor, and the terrain doesn't make it any easier. It's not that crazy, but we threaded the needle a bit getting in.
On the ground, a nice cool ocean breeze was blowing there -- a welcome change from the summer climate at Chino. We stopped in and visited a guy named Jack, who was working on his RV-6A. We poked our heads into the EAA hangars and checked out a beautiful Pietenpol restoration (or scratch build?) project.
Time to head out. Now what? I mentioned that I wanted somebody else to lead since I was gonna break off for Corona to get some fuel. Todd came up with the idea to go to Big Bear instead. Cheap fuel there...and a good cafe to boot. Fly, eat, fly, eat. It's what we do.
This time Colin flew with me in the RV-7. He wanted to get a feel for the difference in cabin size and stuff. John led the formation, and we swung up to Big Bear. I handed the stick over to Colin to do some flying, but since we were in formation I did most of the flying.
We landed at Big Bear, on the taxiway no less -- the runway is still closed, and they use the parallel taxiway as the runway. I got these shots of the four RVs.
The air up there was nice and cool, crisp, and clear. The clouds in the background were well off to the west.
We ate lunch (eat, fly, eat, fly) and babbled more about flying and stuff, and we decided that Colin would fly back to Chino with me, and that I'd lead the formation. Colin would take Dave's camera and get some formation photos -- since my plane isn't painted it's not worthy of formation shots... 8^) So I get to be the photo ship.
It was a great flight. I just kept it steady, and Colin took shots of the whole group, then took individual shots. Here's one that Dave sent to Gary to put up on the SoCal Wing web site. This is pretty much what my weekend looked like from where I sat. Does it get any better than this? Foreground back, this is Dave in his RV-8, John in his RV-6, and Todd in his RV-6A.
After the day was done, I was just getting started. It was time to replace the tires on 14D. About 25 or 30 hours ago, I had rotated the tires. As you can see here, the outboard edges of the tires wore pretty good. This is typical for RVs and the way the gear is angled. The left outboard was very worn, so I rotated that to become the right inboard. I figured I'd try to get another 40 or 50 hours out of these tires...and I could have. But after 25 or 30 hours, I had the new tires and tubes sitting here at the hangar, and I figured I'd rather not push it. Tires are cheap ($35 each).
My buddy Ron stopped by and helped out cleaning the wheel halves and stuff. I replaced the tires with new McCreary Air Hawk 5.00x5's. These aren't the best tires in the world, but they're cheap, and I like the way they handle. I could spend twice as much and get more tire life, or I could spend half as much and replace them more often. I don't mind the few hours' work to do it, so I'll stick with the el cheapo tires. But I did splurge for the Michelin AirStop butyl tubes this time. I've heard that you literally don't ever have to service them. Maybe once a year. Sign me up! With the original McCreary tubes, I had to put air in once or twice a month. It'll be nice if these AirStop tubes live up to their reputation.
Another reason I stuck with the Air Hawk tires is that if you get the same exact model tire every time, you don't have to tweak your wheel pants. Well, in my case, I'll never have to tweak 'em again, but I did have to tweak 'em this time. I installed my wheel pants when I had about 100 hours on the plane, so the tires had already worn considerably. Now that I had brand new tires installed, I had to enlarge the cutouts in the wheel pants to provide proper clearance (I use a minimum of a fingertip clearance all around). It only took a few minutes with the die grinder and some sandpaper to finish it. Now, in theory, I'll never have to alter the wheel pants if I stick with Air Hawks.
