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The weather was still wonderful today, so we did a trip we have been talking about for a while - lunch in Lake Placid, NY. Lake Placid is a very scenic small town in upper NY state, most famous for hosting the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics.

 

We did a 20 minute flight to Massena, NY to clear US Customs, then a 28 minute flight to Lake Placid. The weather guys were wrong, again - it was supposed to be clear, but there was a broken layer of cloud based at about 5000 ft. We were flying IFR, in the smooth air above the cloud, but it definitely disrupted the view of the hills and fall colours.

Here you see the aircraft on the ramp at Lake Placid.

 

You can see the ski jump ramps on the horizon in the distance.

 

We had planned on taking a taxi to town, but the very friendly staff at Adirondack Flying Service told us about the free trolley system that serves the area. There was a stop right outside the airport, and the driver let us off right outside the Pan Dolce restaurant. We chose that restaurant because it had the top reviews on TripAdvisor, but there were certainly any number of other great candidates. We really enjoyed our lunch at the Pan Dolce, but next time we will probably try the Cottage, based on recommendations from the staff at the airport.

 

Here you see part of Lake Placid as we leave, heading NW.

 

Fall colours, NW of Lake Placid.

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Peter Lubig, a professional aviation photographer and journalist, and I have been trying to get together for an air-to-air photo shoot for many months. Our respective schedules, aircraft serviceability and the weather all finally come together yesterday. We briefed the mission over the telephone, then I was airborne just after 0700, and rendezvoused with his aircraft Piper PA-20 overhead Peterborough airport, then shot the pictures southeast of there.

See a bunch more images from the shoot here.

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There’s been nothing happening on the RV-8 front lately, as I spent the week in Toulouse, France at several days of meetings. I left Ottawa on Saturday, 24 Sept, and returned home on Friday the 30th. It is always good to get back to France. My command of the French language has lost a lot since my year in France in 1987 & 88, but I get by. The weather was perfect - overnight lows around 15 deg C, and highs around 29 deg C. The food and wine was wonderful, as always.

The weather was terrible in Ottawa this weekend, with low cloud, drizzle, and strong crosswinds, so the RV-8 stayed on the ground. The leaves are starting to turn, so Terry and I hope to get a sight seeing flight in next weekend.

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I was in Montreal most of the week, doing some avionics testing in the simulator. The paying customers get the good simulator slots, so we had the late slots, and finished late every night.

I went for a short RV-8 flight this morning. Plan A was to head to Ottawa to fly some instrument approach practice, but for some crazy reason Ottawa had a NOTAM:

CZUL DUE REDUCED SYSTEM CAPACITY AND ANTICIPATED DEMANDS, IFRTRAINING FLT AND VFR FLT ARE NOT AUTH IN THE OTTAWA TERMINAL CLASS DAIRSPACE.  INFO CTC 514-633-33651109181310 TIL 1109190200

So, I went down to Brockville instead. I was surprised to see the “GPSV” LED blinking on the autopilot when I flew the RVAV 04 approach, which meant the autopilot was receiving a vertical guidance signal, so I anxiously waited to see if it would couple up to the advisory vertical guidance for the approach. It did! I tried again at Smiths Falls, and it worked there too.

I had tried coupling up to the LNAV+V vertical guidance on the RNAV approach at Smiths Falls many months ago, and it hadn’t worked then, so I had assumed that the autopilot didn’t have that capability (the Trio docs weren’t clear on this at all). Then when I tried to do an LPV approach in Wisconsin in July, the autopilot wouldn’t couple up to the vertical guidance there either, which was clearly a problem, as Trio advertised that capability. I got some good advice from a Garmin guy who told me to change some of the GNS-430W data out settings, and the next LPV approaches worked correctly. It looks like that settings change also allowed it to couple up to non-LPV approaches with advisory vertical guidance. This is great news, as Garmin provides advisory vertical guidance on most RNAV approaches.

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The weather yesterday was pretty much perfect, with clear skies and warm temperatures, so we decided to fly up to Killarney for lunch - 242 nm each way. Killarney is a very small town on the north shore of Georgian, Bay (Georgian Bay is a very large bay on the north-east side of Lake Huron). Killarney was settled in the early 1800’s, but didn’t have road access until the 1960’s. Up to then you got there by boat or aircraft. The big attraction for us was the renowned fish and chips, from the Herbert Fisheries chip wagon (old school bus), right on the dock, with fresh fish coming from the fishing boats to the chip wagon.

 

The flight up was scenic, if you like trees and lakes. We arrived at Killarney at the same time as a gaggle of aircraft from Brampton - four RVs and a Long-EZ. Charlie Douma was leading the RVs in his latest RV-3 (Charlie has built a lot of RVs over the years). Bernie Wurster was there too, as was Don Hersey and an RV-4 owner whose name I missed.

 

It was a great day for the walk into town, and we were soon in the line to order lunch. The fish was wonderful - fresh and tasty.

 

Shortly after we started eating, a large commercial fishing boat came to the dock right behind the chip wagon, and the crew started filleting the fish on a table inside the cabin.

 

After lunch, we walked east along the main street, and passed by the town’s General Store. Definitely a view from the past.

 

Next we walked past Killarney Mountain Lodge, where the Northern Lake Amphibian Pilots were having their annual Fly-In and Safety Seminar. There wa a whole herd of Lake amphibian aircraft parked all around the lodge. They landed in the water, then lowered the landing gear and taxied up an aircraft beaching ramp onto the grounds of the lodge.

 

Terry took this nice shot of the area shortly after take-off. The dock with the chip wagon is right at the end of the main road that comes into town from the north. Killarney Mountain Lodge with all the aircraft parked in front is at the far right of the picture.

 

It was a great day. Perfect flying. Great food. Wonderful bunch of people. Seven pieces of fish (and french fries) for $24 + about $190 of fuel. That’s only about $30 per piece of fish.

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The weather was nice on Tuesday, and I have a lot of comp time built up at work, so I took the day off. First I did an engine run with the cowling removed, to see if I could identify where the oil leak is at the front of the engine. It looked like it might possibly be coming from the seam between the two crankcase halves. I checked the torque on all the bolts that hold the two halves together in that area, and they were all up to spec. I'll attack this problem again when I do my annual inspection in October.Then I put the cowling on and went flying. Everything is working great! It was wonderful to get airborne again, and for a bonus there were a lot of clouds around to chase. And the landings were better than average too. All in all it was a great day.