Monday, April 19, 2021

Back By Popular Demand. . .

 Yea so I've been slacking for a bit and my devoted followers , all three of them , have been complaining about my absence . . . . . . sheesh the things I have to do ! ! ! ! !

OK guys . . . I'll throw you a bone . . .

So there I was on a sunny Sunday a week ago making space in my tool shed to put away my snow blower . This involves chucking out most of the crap from the shed , evicting the mice that have taken up residence and rearranging all my junk to make space for the snow blower . Thrilling stuff eh ?

  When I got the call to go play with the Bonanza . . .  Well yea  !  

So I chuck all that crap back in the shed real quick and meet Clint at the airport thirty minutes later .

 Seems the autopilot had developed a mind of its own and it had been in the shop to have the servos replaced , so we needed to test it . We also needed to update the software for the Garmin radios. 

So we moved the plane out of the hangar so the radios could see the satellites and locate itself . 

Loaded the updates in the radios , fired up the engine and got our clearance from the tower .

A quick takeoff on runway 18 puts us over Rigby Yard in South Portland .

And soon over Scarborough . . . the red arrow points at my house .

When we engage the autopilot it quickly proves it is still on the fritz .  As soon as we switch it on the plane initiates a steep climb and wants to do its own aerobatic sequence . . . . Yikes that's not good . . . Switch it off . . . Electric trim is also doing what ever it wants now . . . . OK that's enough of that .

We did get the Garmin to talk to the I-pad so we have real time image on the approach plates as we set up to do a practice approach into runway 11 .
 
This is what it looks like once we are on short final and initiate the missed approach .
 
And as we turn downwind for runway 18 over Portland


and turning base to final for landing on runway 18

Just a short figure eight around the patch .