Saturday aviating

Saturday dawned clear and blue, so we went out for a fly.

 For of bit of instrument practice

 As we depart Portland RWY 29 air was a bit bumpy but we had fun anyhow

Went up to Brunswick Naval Air Station where we shot a partial panel GPS approach

And stopped by at the old hangar for a chat with Scott at Kestrel Aircraft

The cavernous space never ceases to amaze me.  When it was an active Naval Air Station, they used to park P-3 Orion sub chasers in there. 

Right now it makes the Kestrel prototype look tiny

The Piper Malibu Meridian undergoing some experimental modifications

An expensive looking autoclave to cook composite aircraft parts.

Then a quick ride up to Augusta for some lunch at the airport takes us past the State Capitol building undergoing some renovation to the dome.

At Augusta we land up-hill on runway 17 

After lunch we make our way over the railroad trestle to Wisscassett.

 Where make a stop and we take on 85 gallons of 100LL

 

Then we fly down past Bath Iron Works where we can see two new Zumwalt class destroyers under construction and being made ready to deliver a case of whoop-ass to the despots of the world should we actually one day again have a president with the testicles to do something about it.

And back down to Brunswick

Where we take advantage of the facilities and pull the Bonanza in to the hangar ahead of the Citabria

And wash the Bonanza with the special P-3 Orion washing hose.

The scale of the place is overwhelming, and all we see inside is half the space as beyond the divider is an equally cavernous second half.

Clean and sparkly in the sunshine

We head back down to Portland and get a view of the Cousins Island power plant.

Getting vectors for an ILS approach to RWY 29 in the glimmering afternoon sunshine

We fly past Peaks Island and the Casco Bay islands

Over one of the sailing party boats

Over South Portland looking at the Portland waterfront with the gynormous 3000 passenger cruise ship at the dock.

The view of the waterfront as we fly by

Over the bridge on final

Just over the Casco Bay Bridge

Over the harbor looking back over my right shoulder give us a sense of scale of the cruise ship against the Portland East End Skyline.

Short final on a practice ILS approach to 29 we reach minimums and do the missed approach to do a second one.

Back around the city looking at the other side of the Portland peninsula

And back around for another go at the approach we get the East End view with the cruise ship.

Final approach and touch down

Garden Update

Despite assorted blights and diseases things seem to be surviving.

Yellow bell pepper plant has just produced it first, about an inch across at this point.

Though the red bell pepper seems a bit stunted and just yesterday was all droopy for some odd reason. It did get plenty of water.

 While the yellow pepper seems quite happy

The volunteer tomato that sprouted out by my burn pile seems happy as well

And even has sprouted a tomato. We shall discover what variety it is

The Sun Gold still smelly as a pot plant has produced some decent results

And the Patio Tomato has two big juicy hybrids going

 

The early Girl though looking rather stressed sees to be producing some results as well

Our pickings from that one so far.

Pears seem to be doing well

Best crop so far

Not always the prettiest

All on one of the two trees. The other one has one single pear.

Squash, both Acorn and Yellow (Courgete) is another story

Though it sees to be growing by leaps and bounds

And is producing some fruit

These are about three inches across

One already harvested and consumed

Now seems to be showing signs of a bad case of powdery mildew. So this morning I sprayed it with a sulfur powder solution to see it that helps.

Tomatoes got put to good use. Starting with some beer dough and a coating of my cilantro sauce

Some left over chicken and some mozzarella.. 10 minutes at 500 degrees F, makes for an easy supper

Bowman Field Fly-in

On Saturday we went up to the annual Bowman Field fly-in in East Livermore. Unusually cool  weather, nice planes and good company.

A Hatz amateur built experimental.

The general scene

across the runway

some came for the weekend

a home-built RV

and another side-by-each RV

RV stands for Ran-van-Gruvsen, but there is a reason the call them Ramp Vermin, they are everywhere.

160K$ Carbon Cub, proving once again that contrary to popular belief it is not physics but $$ and lots of them that makes planes fly

A 1940s Taylorcraft, more my speed

The dual bogey Hummel Cruiser stopped in for a visit

A Rans S-7 Coyote about to depart

A Zeenith CH-701 with a 100 hp Rotax built by a Dutch man

A straight tail Cessna 150 taildragger conversion.

And a later swept tail model with 150 hp engine.

And N6976S one of the planes I learned to fly in.

A Supercub on amphib floats

And a 1960s vintage Cessna 175 on floats

A Cub special

Citabria Scout with tundra tires

An older Searey with an 80 hp Rotax

 

A Mitchelwing lightning  home-built from the late 70s

Way too exposed for my taste.

After my ride in the powered parachute I think I'll stay with closed fuselage airplanes

The old Pietenpol project still forgotten in the hanger

Its wings stashed in anther hangar across the way.

The helicopter dropped candy for the kids

There were a couple of cars on display, this  a straight 8 rat rod monster with a newspaper mailbox for an air scoop.

the antique engine club had their huff-and-puff single cylinder engines going

magnificent simplicity, chugging away

nicely restored

simple colors

The name tags are an art form on to themselves

you don't see them like that anymore

An icon of early American farm equipment

A later emblem for the same company

Low HP high torque

a symbol of industry

A Foos Jr in action

A symphony of mechanical simplicity