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This weekend we managed to jam a trip to Manitowoc, WI to visit Terry’s many sisters into our schedule. We got airborne at 0900 on Saturday, flew to Sault Ste. Marie, MI (KANJ) to clear Customs and refuel, then flew to Manitowoc (KMTW). 3:50 total flying time plus 1:22 on the ground (we took longer on the ground in Sault Ste. Marie than expected, as we had to wait in the plane for Customs for 20 minutes). Even with the head winds and long wait for Customs it was still a very quick way to get from home to WI.

Manitowoc’s claim to fame is it is where “Sputnik 4” crashed to earth in 1962.

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I spent most of the week in Washington DC for meetings with the aviation industry. Monday morning, before flying to Washington, I took the altimeter and altitude encoder to First Air Avionics for the required biannual calibrations. They weren’t quite due yet, but the altitude encoder had obviously drifted out of tolerance, as the pressure altitudes it reported differed from the two altimeters.

Tuesday morning, the NASA guy at the meeting mentioned that the Space Shuttle Discovery was scheduled to fly over the National Mall that morning before landing at Washington Dulles Airport to be enshrined in the National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center. We were close to a Metro stop, so we agreed to take a break from the meeting to witness this historic event, then work late to make up the lost hour. Fortunately I had decided to bring my camera that morning. Normally I would have left it in the hotel room, but I stuck it in my satchel for some crazy reason.

We came out of the Smithsonian Metro stop moments before the 747 with Discovery on its back came into view. We watched it pass by the Capital Building and White House, and I got this shot as it flew westwards.

I got this great close up shot as it made it’s next pass east bound. Then we headed back into the Metro to get back to work.

It was great to have seen Discovery on its last flight, but very sad to know that these magnificent machines will never go to space again.

This weekend the weather was pretty poor, but I did get a very short flight off after reinstalling the altimeter and altitude encoder and doing a static system leak check.

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No RV–8 flying this weekend, as I’m fighting a cold, and don’t feel nearly as sharp as usual. I did spend several hours working on a mount for the oxygen bottle I bought at SNF. I tried out a proof of concept plywood mount early in the week - I found that the basic idea would work, but that I needed to adjust some of the intial dimensions. I wanted to discover any issues before I cut metal, so I’m glad I made the first version from plywood.

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Terry got a new iPad 3 a couple of weeks ago, and I inherited her ancient iPad 1. I had tried it with Foreflight a few weeks ago, and determined that the iPad was a very workable replacement for paper charts. I decided to do the acid test on the SNF trip.

I loaded Foreflight with all the required US sectional charts, low altitude IFR charts, instrument approach plates, etc. I also loaded the SNF NOTAM, my RV–8 POH, the FAA Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM), Transport Canada AIM, etc. For electronic backup, I also loaded ForeFlight on my iPod Touch. And for paper backup, I took along my Air Chart Systems VFR Sectional Atlas and IFR Atlas, just in case. I had also printed out approach charts for all my planned destination, alternate and potential diversion airfields.

I found that I used neither the Air Chart Systems charts nor the hard copy approach charts I had printed out. I did prefer the printed copy of the SNF NOTAM to the electronic copy. The iPad was reasonably visible in all lighting conditions, including bright sunlight. But, in bright sun, I did occassionally have to change its angle on my knee, to avoid glare.

I found that I tended to keep Foreflight showing the VFR sectional chart most of the time, so I could keep an eye on the local terrain and airports. The one time that I did get a reroute from ATC, it was easy to drag the route line to the new waypoints.

It was comforting to see the moving airplane symbol motoring along the chart. But, something was interferering with the GPS signal for about an hour over Pennsylvania and West Virgina. The iPad GPS lost lock, and the Aera 510 showed lower GPS signal strength (but it never lost lock). The GNS 430W never lost lock, but it showed a small degradation in Horizontal Figure of Merit. Interestingly, this GPS interference was also present on the way home, in the same geographical area. But, all this did is stop the little airplane symbol from moving along the track line. The functionality without the moving aircraft was no different than if I was using paper charts.

I bought a Dual Bluetooth GPS at SNF. I didn’t use it on the way home as I wanted to try it on VFR flights before using it for an IFR trip, just in case it somehow disrupted the iPad or ForeFlight. I have since used it on several flights, and it works well with both the iPad and the iPod Touch. It can only send data to one device at a time, and it takes a bit of fiddling around to switch it from one device to the other. It’ll be interesting to see how it works on next year’s SNF trip.

I concluded that I will move to 100% electronic charts and approach plates in the USA, and mostly electronic in Canada. I will not renew my subscription to Air Chart Systems, nor will I renew my subscription to the Nav Canada aeronautical publications, except for the Canada Flight Supplement, which appears to be not included in the Forelight Canadian content. I’ll still need to purchase paper Canadian VFR charts, as they are not yet available electronically.

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I had booked a couple of extra vacation days after the SNF week, as I didn’t know exactly when I would make it back home. On Tuesday, 03 Apr, I did some aircraft maintenance, including an oil change. Yesterday I finished the firewall forward inspection, inspected, cleaned and lubricated the tail wheel pivot, and then put everything back together.

Terry had suggested that we wash and wax the aircraft this weekend - I was completely floored when she offered to help with that huge job. But, the weather was decidedly nippy, with a very cold, strong north wind. So we defered that task until we get warmer weather.

Plan B was to fly to London, ON today, to have lunch at the Katana Kafé, a gourmet restaurant at the London airport, owned by Christain Dries, who owns Diamond Aircraft. In the “good old days”, before the local community discovered this restaurant, you could just show up and be sure to get a seat. But, now the London residents have flooded to it, and you really need reservations if you want to be sure to get in. I couldn’t get an answer on their phone yesterday, so I gave up on that plan, and moved to Plan C.

Plan C was a flight to Peterborough today to check out the recently opened Landing 27 Bistro. The previous Peterborough airport restaurant closed on short notice earlier this year, and it is good to see another restaurant finally take its place. We both enjoyed our meals - it was definitely worth the flight.

The winds were fairly strong in Peterborough, straight across the runway. It was rough on final, and I was stirring the pot with the stick to keep things going in the right direction during the landing. I got very lucky with the wing down touchdown, and the right wheel touched down so smoothly that at first I wasn’t sure whether it was on the ground or not. But, once I saw that the altitude wasn’t changing as I moved the stick fore and aft I realized that the right wheel was down and I closed the throttle, gently lowered the left wheel, and finished the landing. The winds in Smiths Falls were even stronger - the landing wasn’t quite as perfect, but it was still better than I had any right to expect. Landings usually go I cycles - I’m due for a few clangers now.

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I had the day off today, and the weather was beautiful, so Terry and I flew out for lunch. She had commented that it had been a while since I flew her anywhere nice, so we went to the Fud Grill, at the Edenvale airport.