Stijn!!

[flipper35]

When we take the dogs to the lake we go past this closed airport. The C97 is still there.

[GH85Carrera]

Brent, the 172 would really struggle to get much above 10,000 feet. It is a lower HP engine, and just dog slow on the climb out if the windows are open. We will close them for initial take off, and open them once we get to above 1000 feet. Our 182T has a service ceiling of 18,000 feet. I can't imagine we would ever try to get there. Maybe if we were hired to shoot the tops of some mountains in Colorado. That would be nice, but it is pretty unlikely.

[GH85Carrera]

My dad was a MATS pilot. I know he flew C47s, C-54s, and C-124s. I don't remember him talking about a C-97 but I bet he was in one or two over his career. He made over 50 round trips from California to Hawaii and many trips from Hawaii to Japan, and other pacific islands like Pago Pago. He was the first pilot to ever land a C-124 on the island of Pago Pago. Back in the days when the island women only wore tops on Sunday. The island is really pronounced Pango Pango, but the missionary that first brought western culture to the island had a typewriter that the letter N was defective. So his reports spelled the island name without the N. That stuck.

He had to land once on British island with a 124. They needed fuel, and only the civilian FBO had fuel that they could sell. He had to dig a metal credit card out of an envelope sealed up and in the airplane for situations like that. Of course a 124 took a lot of fuel. The FBO gave them a large load of beer. They headed to some other island, I think it was Christmas island. When they landed the island was out of beer. They had a solution for that. They were a very popular crew for the stay.

[RKDinOKC]

When bro was flying F4 training after his stint overseas he often scheduled flights from GA coast where he was stationed to Tinker AFB here in OKC. Think the flights were logged as "maintenance." He would pick up fresh shrimp from the docks at 4pm Eastern and have it here in OKC before 7pm Central. Dad traded him cases of Coors for the fresh shrimp. Evidently Coors was prized because you couldn't get it East of the Mississippi. Or maybe it was just a good excuse for a beer bust. Anyway, we went home and fixed fresh shrimp, he few back to GA and had a beer bust.

[flipper35]

Smokey and the Bandit airborne version?

[RKDinOKC]

Pretty much. Just not quite as much being transported. A trunk full instead of a semi trailer. Have no idea where they put either on the F4s, but they managed. Dad and I never even got to get near the planes. Just met my bro in the parking lot for the trade. Don't remember if the cases were labeled any different.

[GH85Carrera]

Yea, dad made many dozens of flight to Japan in the early 1960. He was flying a cargo plane, so space was not an issue. He brought home a stereo in 1960 that was two LARGE speakers, and a high end amp and turntable. It was pennies on the dollar to buy it new in Japan and just come home with no customs.

He started reading up on the stereo and of course learned it had woofers and tweeters in the speaker cabinets. They were playing scrabble with another couple and dad used tweeter and the other couple protested. So out came the dictionary and it was not in there yet. It was like using the work Astronaut, it was just not in there yet. The word was disallowed and they did not accept a poorly translated Japanese made manual as proof of the word.

[RKDinOKC]

In HS was really into HIFI stereo stuff. It was getting to where you had to have a good ear to hear any difference between the cheap stuff and high end.

All I have a few things left from back then. They are boxed up and stored in my attic. Not that they are really worth much now.

A Dual manual Direct Drive Turntable with Pickering cartridge (stored in the box it came in because I never use it). In 1981 I got a new cartridge because I accidentally broke the needle off dusting. The super high end shop I got the cartridge from ran a bunch of tests on it trying to sell me a new turntable. They were amazed at how well it tested and commented it's specs were as good as their top end $4000 straight line tracking turntable.

A K-V mono/stereo amplifier (made at the company I work, they used to make stereo stuff). It is 360 watts mono or 180 watts stereo. Only has .005% distortion. It was designed and built by the guy that designed the McIntosh tube stuff.

And a Phase Linear noise reducer. It filters and removes static and pops from a stereo signal without effecting the quality of the sound. It was really great for old records and tapes.

Also have a nice VCR and DVD I never use either.

Traded my Tuner, Preamp/Amp, Nakamichi cassette and speakers for a Macintosh II fx.
I had replaced the Tuner and Pream/amps with a Pioneer Elite receiver, never made cassettes any more, and got dbx Soundfield Design SF-150 speakers. (not the DAK stuff)

The onliest things I still use is the dbx speakers. Serveral years ago I had the dbx speaker drivers rebuilt at a local hi-fi shop. There is literally nothing like them on the market. No matter where you are in the room you get the same volume from each speaker so there is no sweet spot for a stereo image.

Would love to get some Bose 501 indirect reflecting speakers for my rear surround speakers. The Boston Accustics I have now for rear surround do pretty good at making a bigger sweet spot. But if you stand right next to one you can hear the sound coming from that speaker unlike the dbx front speakers..

[GH85Carrera]

Phew, I think I finally stopped sweating.

We hit an official 105 and that was the real temp, the heat index was 300 or so. Well, ok maybe just 115, but crazy hot. I am very happy that some engineer at Cessna decided that a 172 should have wings at the top of the fuselage. It does provide nice shade for getting the pre-flight done, and the equipment setup. Once we got to full flight altitude it really cooled off and felt a lot better and it was still 88 degrees. When 88 and humid feels much better, it is messed up hot.

As we came back to land it was like coming into a furnace. Then refueling the airplane was brutal. We like to top it off after each flight so we can just check it and get going on the next flight. Golly flying is fun.

[Porsche-poor]

morning all. back to the details. Two more ugly ones to CAD up then I don't know what.

[Jim Richards]

Our current weather temps have been hanging in the upper 60s (low) to mid-to-upper 70s (high). No complaints here. I’m taking the pickup to a shop to get a quote for replacing all 4 ball joints. Yesterday, I picked up a close-ratio 5-speed and a 3.90:1 diff. Currently, my Z has a 4-speed and a 3.54:1 diff. The swap will probably be my first project after I finish the interior resto.

[RKDinOKC]

There is some kind of duck in my neighborhood close enough I can hear it quacking like all the time, but can't tell where it is coming from. Quack, quack, quack, quack. Didn't mind the owl hooting late evening in the fall. This quack, quack, quacking is ao annoying.

[Jim Richards]

That’s just my buddy, Donald.

[GH85Carrera]

My dad's neighbors started raising ducks in their back yard. No big deal, except they did not keep it clean. It smelled horrible from duck crap. It is illegal to keep livestock in the city, so I called code enforcement. They said they no one answered the door, and they can't see the ducks in the back yard. I figured the neighbors must have had a friend in code enforcement.
I was trying to sell the property, and I did not want stinky neighbors to kill a sale. So I called a friend that is a cop. He told me to call a young eager code enforcement guy directly. I had him over to dad's house and had him stand on the back porch and enjoy the aroma. He could see into the neighbors back yard from the back porch. He wrote up a ticket for them, and stuck it on their front door. It still took several months to get them to clean up the stink, and I have no idea and don't care what happened to the ducks. They were gone and I sold the house with no issues.

Those same neighbors did not pay their electric bill and the power company shut them off. They asked dad it they could plug into one outlet to run the refrigerator for a few days until they got the power back on. One night he looked over to their house and saw a lot of lights on and the electrical cord was warm. He unplugged it and cut them off as well. They ended up buying a Honda generator, and of course gasoline to run it. They ran that generator for months. Smart economics there. I bet the the generator cost way more than the electric bill payoff.

[Porsche-poor]

some people are just not worth the time of day.

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

Phew, I think I finally stopped sweating.

We hit an official 105 and that was the real temp, the heat index was 300 or so. Well, ok maybe just 115, but crazy hot. I am very happy that some engineer at Cessna decided that a 172 should have wings at the top of the fuselage. It does provide nice shade for getting the pre-flight done, and the equipment setup. Once we got to full flight altitude it really cooled off and felt a lot better and it was still 88 degrees. When 88 and humid feels much better, it is messed up hot.

As we came back to land it was like coming into a furnace. Then refueling the airplane was brutal. We like to top it off after each flight so we can just check it and get going on the next flight. Golly flying is fun.

Having full tanks also keeps moisture from building up so much in the tanks, though maybe not so much in your area. The shade is nice from the wings, but the wing root vents are awesome for moving air in the cabin.

[Porsche-poor]

details done for now cause someone can't count.
"do details 1-9" well detail 5 is missing and details 7 and 9 are the same. I'm done.

[flipper35]

Must be common core details!

[GH85Carrera]

On the 172 yesterday during the flight I noticed the alternator was not charging. The meter show a slight discharge. I unplugged the laptop from the power connection and just ran on laptop power. We turned off one of the radios to save power. I was not worried at all, worst case is we lose all the radios, and it is real easy to find our way back to the home airport. Now we get to have the alternator replaced. Little doubt, I could do it, but that it has to be done by a licensed mechanic to sign off the log book. If it was a alternator for my El Camino it is under 100 bucks. This will likely be 500 to 600 bucks plus the mechanics charge.

It is nice to know that the engine will keep running with a dead battery, and there are two redundant magnetos and either one will make the engine run just fine.

[Porsche-poor]

Concrete vault details but the engineer I think used fuzzy logic to determine the amount of them.