Monday, February 13, 2006


The Ten Commandments of Aviation
1. Maintain thy airspeed lest the earth rise up and smite thee.
2. Comply with the incantations of the tower priests, lest chaos reign in thy traffic pattern.
3. Observe thy birds of thy kingdom; they let not ice be upon their wings.
4. Landeth not with the wind at thy back, for thou shalt dash thy machine against a stone.
5. He who inspecteth not his flying machine giveth angels cause to concern him.
6. Always check thy liquid propellant, for it is surely the staff of life.
7. Sample not the fruit of thy grape unless thy sandals are planted firmly on the ground, or verily, you will be planted into the ground.
8. Thou shalt not journey in thy flying machine without consultation of thy atmospheric prophet, and if thy weather be evil, forsake thy journey.
9. Check thy radiance of thy gear light, for thou knowest not the hour disaster cometh.
10. Let infinite wisdom govern thy movement near the earth, for vast is the area of destruction.

It ran! Well not exactly. It spun, coughed, lurched, whirled ... yeah, that was about it. But we are undeterred. Instead of the bright sunshine we enjoyed yesterday, we faced a blizzard and spent the day troubleshooting indoors. We determined that it was not getting enough fuel. We have an IO-470 that is carbureted instead of injected and was lacking in the fuel delivery and priming department. We will give it another shot when it is not snowing so hard and I will post a truly spinning propeller.

The final adjustments and a happy shot of the team just prior to "running" the engine.

Another day at the office. Well not yet, but some day soon. We are cruising along through powerplant and have just wrapped up our section on reciprocating engines and started Turbines today. Turbines are rapidly replacing recips around the world as fuel is more readily available and less expensive. The neat thing about aircraft like the Kodiak is that we will still be able to land at the same strips serviced by 206's and helio's (pictured above).

Arial perspective of a typical airstrip in Papua New Guinea. Stay clear of the giant Broccoli.

Thursday, February 2, 2006

Bloomsday


Bloomsday is coming!! We have paid our fee and are in training now. It will be a blast. For a preview video, click Here.