Below: Sunset Jan 1, west of Hillsboro. Minox 35EL camera.

The next two months saw mostly IFR lessons and Romeo's annual. March 6 Debbie and I flew to Tillamook to visit the Tillamook Naval Air Station Air Museum located in the blimp hangar. We flew around the bay to take in the view of the beaches. On the way back we flew up by Seaside, then followed Highway 26 back to the valley. Debbie recognized a number of landmarks.

Sunday morning the weather was marginally adequate for the Sunday Morning pilgrammage to the Flying M ranch. I called the Ranch to get a report on things but there was no answer. (Their phone service was out.) I almost decided not to go, but then decided I'd fly over the ranch and land only if other planes were there. There was a slight chop on the flight over. Three planes were parked there when I arrived, including a Stationair that landed a few minutes ahead of me. I looked at the windsock. The tailwind was a bit stronger than I was used to. I almost decided against landing. The landing itself was uneventful, that is, if you choose to call any landing at Flying M uneventful. Dick van Dyke was sporting his new Tee-shirt. I added more pictures to the Flying M page.

Next Saturday Debbie and I flew up to Hoquiam for lunch at Lana's Airport Cafe. I bought her her own pair of headphones, which she had chosen herself. We flew north to Centralia, then followed the Chelalis River to Hoquiam. The Olympic Mountains were off in the distance to the north. The ride was bumpy but Debbie was a good sport. Debbie is used to driving on bumpy roads so this was nothing new.

For the return trip we flew down the Washington coast. Low ceilings kept me down to 500 feet. The ceiling was a bit lower than it was during my November visit to Hoquiam, but this time the visibility was fine. I flew a half mile off the coast to minimize turbulence. I hugged the Washington side of the Columbia to avoid the Class E to the surface airspace at Astoria. Shortly afterwards the ceiling lifted.

Back in April 2 the autopilot servo was removed and sent to the S-Tec factory for repairs. The servo is mounted in the left wing away from the access panels. Only Doug (left) had arms small enough to get at the device to remove it.

The servo came back with instructions for its re-installation. Unfortunately, having the instructions didn't seem to make the installation any less of a chore. After the servo was finally installed and checked out, I preflighted the airplane, paying close attention to the controls. I didn't like a slight binding I detected in the last inch of travel. I didn't like a rubbing noise I could hear when the airport was quiet. Hillsboro Aviation had disconnected the aileron control cables in the process of replacing the roll servo, and did not reconnect the cables correctly. I asked the mechanic to check for something rubbing, and we discovered the aileron cable was crossed over and rubbing on itself. So poor Doug had to redo most of the control cable installation.

After my test flight I complained that the airplane's rigging was way off to the left. Doug put a tension meter on the aileron cable and found the tension out of spec. After retensioning the cable, the airplane flew better.

Somewhat later I learned that employing a bit of forethought eliminates the need to disconnect the aileron control cables to install the roll servo.

During my IFR lessons the left wing heaviness was a constant irritant. If I dialed in right rudder trim so the plane would hold a heading by itself, the left wing was low, and the attitude indicator would show a slight left bank. If I didn't use rudder trim a constant right pressure would be needed to maintain a steady course.

Saturday April 30 I flew the plane from the right seat. This would allow me to determine how much of the left wing heaviness was caused by my weight and how much was caused by rigging problems with the plane.

I also decided to fly near Caddyshack so Debbie could take some pictures of me flying by. I didn't fly low enough for Debbie to get much of a picture, even using a 200mm telephoto lens.

I took a number of pictures with a Cannon Stylus point-and-shoot camera. Like most cameras, the Stylus is designed for right hand operation. This meant I couldn't aim the camera from the right seat, so I pointed the camera in the general direction of interest and clicked away. My aim wasn't accurate enough to get any pictures of Caddyshack, and I wasn't able to check for glare. Few of the pictures came out well. The picture above was heavily processed to allow both the inside and outside to display.

As before, flying from the right seat was unnatural for me. I touched down with a definite "scrumpf" sound from the tires. That would be acceptable for landing in nasty winds, but not in relatively smooth air.