(This post actually made byAlison on Linda's computer). Linda, Barbara and I are in adjoining rooms at the Sheraton with a connecting door, which is fun. We got to lie in till 7am or so today, and after a very lovely breakfast we went for a walk around Iowa City downtown to wake us up. The University of Iowa campus dominates the town. We crashed a writers' conference to take a look at the museum in the old capitol building (below). I have decided that I want a golden dome on my house, it looks so pretty!
There is som interesting outdoor art, including this large book containing an extract from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo!
Linda and Barbara pretending to be faculty.
Alison and Barbara are swept away by a tornado statue (entitled "Dorothy").
Then, it was time to head off back to the Iowa City airport (which is only 5 minutes drive away from downtown!) to take care of the race business for the day. Two major items still remained - the airplane inspection, and the handicapping flight. The latter was supposed to occur last night with Linda flying left seat and Gretchen Jahn as check pilot, but after 7 hours flying our hot little airplane didn't want to start, and we had to give up. This sometimes happens with our C182, and is a bit embarrassing when it happens, but Vern explained to us that the starter in the later C182s is not a good brand and that we probably should replace it at some point. So we tried regular start, hot start, and flooded start techniques last night but although the prop turned it wouldn't catch. So... our first order of the day was to start the plane up and get it over to the hangars for inspection. We cranked it a couple more times, but still, no success! By now, the battery was basically dead after all the failed attempts. We found Vern who took a look and advised us to get the Jet Air shop mechanics to give us a jump start and then recharge the battery. Well, this turned out to be the best thing that happened to us all day, as you will shortly see! I walked over and introduced myself to Josh, who shortly sent over the 24V power cart, plugged it into the cowling, and we were able to get it going!! Linda taxied it over where Josh and the staff did the inspection. Here is one of them looking at our Lycoming IO360 engine.
By the way, here is a picture of our baby birds Nicole and Meghan from University of Kansas, during their inspection! We have been emailing back and forth a bit, so it was great to finally meet them in person.
Here Josh is going over all the log books with me, checking off all the items on his checklist. One of the things we have to provide is all the FAA form 337s and STCs for any major work performed on the airplane. The last plane we raced was basically factory stock and had none of these, but our plane has had some major modifications, upgrades and repairs in the past, so we had a whole slew of them. You should have copies of all of them, but some of ours were missing, even from the FAA disc record that I bought, so it was a major exercise in detective work to track some of them down, but I did it (or so I thought...). Our excellent home mechanic Kent at Pottstown PA also helped us complete the record. During the inspection Josh did find one STC that I missed (darn it!!), but owing to the miracle of technology we were able to locate it in the FAA database, download and print it immediately. Inspection passed!!
So now, we restart (phew!) and taxi the plane back over to Josh's maintenance hangar, and meet Kelly, who removes the battery in the tailcone of the airplane and puts it on trickle charge for a couple hours. In the meantime, we tell him how on the way out, the pilot side mic became unusable because every time you pressed the push to talk switch an unholy screaming noise occurred - we had to have the copilot make all the radio transmissions. Josh immediately identified the likely culprit as the alternator noise filter (something I never previously knew existed, but I now know is a small cylindrical object towards the front firewall..). Kelly located one in inventory, and switched it out, and a couple hours later when we restarted the plane complete with newly charged battery, the noise was gone!!! Josh and Kelly, you were awesome and helped us out so much - you guys rock!!!
Here is Linda standing by another sign... the airport flightline is in the background.
During the day a very successful girl scout event was held at the terminus, with several hundred participants taking airplane rides, looking at static displays and meeting the racers. (we didn't take part, but passed it several times on our many trips to and from the maintenance hangar!) .
Next post will follow shortly...
There is som interesting outdoor art, including this large book containing an extract from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo!
Linda and Barbara pretending to be faculty.
Alison and Barbara are swept away by a tornado statue (entitled "Dorothy").
Then, it was time to head off back to the Iowa City airport (which is only 5 minutes drive away from downtown!) to take care of the race business for the day. Two major items still remained - the airplane inspection, and the handicapping flight. The latter was supposed to occur last night with Linda flying left seat and Gretchen Jahn as check pilot, but after 7 hours flying our hot little airplane didn't want to start, and we had to give up. This sometimes happens with our C182, and is a bit embarrassing when it happens, but Vern explained to us that the starter in the later C182s is not a good brand and that we probably should replace it at some point. So we tried regular start, hot start, and flooded start techniques last night but although the prop turned it wouldn't catch. So... our first order of the day was to start the plane up and get it over to the hangars for inspection. We cranked it a couple more times, but still, no success! By now, the battery was basically dead after all the failed attempts. We found Vern who took a look and advised us to get the Jet Air shop mechanics to give us a jump start and then recharge the battery. Well, this turned out to be the best thing that happened to us all day, as you will shortly see! I walked over and introduced myself to Josh, who shortly sent over the 24V power cart, plugged it into the cowling, and we were able to get it going!! Linda taxied it over where Josh and the staff did the inspection. Here is one of them looking at our Lycoming IO360 engine.
By the way, here is a picture of our baby birds Nicole and Meghan from University of Kansas, during their inspection! We have been emailing back and forth a bit, so it was great to finally meet them in person.
Here Josh is going over all the log books with me, checking off all the items on his checklist. One of the things we have to provide is all the FAA form 337s and STCs for any major work performed on the airplane. The last plane we raced was basically factory stock and had none of these, but our plane has had some major modifications, upgrades and repairs in the past, so we had a whole slew of them. You should have copies of all of them, but some of ours were missing, even from the FAA disc record that I bought, so it was a major exercise in detective work to track some of them down, but I did it (or so I thought...). Our excellent home mechanic Kent at Pottstown PA also helped us complete the record. During the inspection Josh did find one STC that I missed (darn it!!), but owing to the miracle of technology we were able to locate it in the FAA database, download and print it immediately. Inspection passed!!
So now, we restart (phew!) and taxi the plane back over to Josh's maintenance hangar, and meet Kelly, who removes the battery in the tailcone of the airplane and puts it on trickle charge for a couple hours. In the meantime, we tell him how on the way out, the pilot side mic became unusable because every time you pressed the push to talk switch an unholy screaming noise occurred - we had to have the copilot make all the radio transmissions. Josh immediately identified the likely culprit as the alternator noise filter (something I never previously knew existed, but I now know is a small cylindrical object towards the front firewall..). Kelly located one in inventory, and switched it out, and a couple hours later when we restarted the plane complete with newly charged battery, the noise was gone!!! Josh and Kelly, you were awesome and helped us out so much - you guys rock!!!
Here is Linda standing by another sign... the airport flightline is in the background.
During the day a very successful girl scout event was held at the terminus, with several hundred participants taking airplane rides, looking at static displays and meeting the racers. (we didn't take part, but passed it several times on our many trips to and from the maintenance hangar!) .
Next post will follow shortly...