Time Flies

I didn't realize it had been so long since I've written anything.

I have been training in my borrowed Cherokee 180 since it has come out of annual. I really enjoy flying her and love having a low wing plane. Currently we are working on landings. Once I, and my instructors, are comfortable with my landing abilities, it will be solo time!

I was to practice landings today with Hal and all was going well until we were at the end of the taxi way doing the run-up. As I switched to the left mag there was a big drop in RPM's, not good. The right mag seemed fine, so Hal tried running the RPM's up to clean the plug and the left seemed better, but then the right mag was dropping off and the engine was running rough. We tried several more times to clear it. You do this by switching back to both mags, leaning out the engine, and giving it lots of power. We couldn't clear it up so we taxied back to the ramp and tried a few times more with no better results. At that point we taxied over to the mechanic that is on site to get it checked out.

"Stretch" pulled the bottom plugs. The plugs in the no.1 and no.3 cylinders were gummed up causing the problem. This probably happened from the last several flights being in the pattern, working on touch-and-gos and not being able to lean out the engine. He also pulled the top plugs just to check, but they were fine. The spark plugs were cleaned, put back in, and within an hour the Sky Pig was running strong again.

Of course by that time Hal needed to be back home to paint his windows, so no flying for me today. The up side is that I got to see under the cowling and learned a lot about the engine and all the other stuff under there. It was also a good lesson on the importance of going through your check lists and performing a proper run-up.

Jeff has been working on his IFR training with Lorin and I have been going along. I'm learning how to read the approach plates as I sit in the back, and I take a lot of pictures of clouds. It was gray and chilly here earlier in the week and it was so cool to get up above the clouds and into the sunshine!

Here is one of my favorite pictures from that day.

Under the clouds: gray and yucky.


Above the clouds: blue sky and sunshine!





Here is another neat shot...

If you look at these clouds you can see a rainbow-like circle, the dark image in the center of it is a shadow of our Piper Lance.






The sun casts a shadow of the plane on the cloud layer and the water in the clouds makes the rainbow effect. The closer we got to the clouds the bigger it got. I hope I can get a better picture of it another time.