The weather and schedules were finally conducive to haul the Sunmate seat cushion foam and patterns to Livingston TX 00R. I preflighted the plane the night before, adding a little air to the nose tire, updated the Skyview database. I filed a flight plan from Hicks T67 to Livingston 00R using FlyQ EFB the night before.
An email to Richard (the upholsterer) was sent to reconfirm I'd be on my way and I received his reply Monday morning.
Occasionally leg cramps have bothered me so I try to remember to use Theraworx (for muscle cramps) before longer flights. I also carry some homeopathic cramp remedy which are small tablets that go under your tongue, and always carry water.
Monday morning I made a quick breakfast, checked the weather, pushed the plane out, started and taxied. A few students were already in the pattern. I checked my pre-take off list and set Com2 to Meacham, anticipating a transition immediately after departing Hicks. After taking off, I called Meacham and the tower responded "Do you have a working transponder?". I'm already going about 150 KTAS, climbing to 2500. I make a quick 180 and respond to the tower that I'm checking... Usually the transponder is set to Automatic but it had manually been set to Standby. I hit the VFR button, but still showed Standby...so hit the Automatic button and the tower advised they saw me going North near Hicks. She asks if I'd still like to transition at 2500, showing a Cessna at 2000' 1/2 mile south of me and I reply affirmative. She clears me through on the West side of the field.
The Avidyne IFD540 alert audio is announcing "Airspace ahead". This is new to me after spending a few days during the CI, pinning the wires that hadn't been installed by the shop that built the audio harness. I hadn't worried about it much as getting my IFR certification has been lower on my priorities. I'd suspected that the lack of alert audio was a configuration issue but that would have been to easy.
After passing South through KFTW's airspace, the tower approved the frequency change and apologized for the confusion which I replied, "The pleasure was ALL mine!" lol
I was monitoring several frequencies and the air space was plenty busy. I opted to skirt around Arlington then climb after exiting out from under Class B. I'd been hand flying and finally dialed in the altitude and engaged the AP in Nav mode. After skirting Arlington, headed direct to 00R.
FlyQ EFB has a nice "winds" feature under the weather tab. It showed if I climbed up to 5500, I'd avoid a head wind. It was moderately bumpy so had the power pulled back yet was showing some respectable ground speed. I watched the map along with the roads and airports nearby, monitored local airport radio traffic occasionally until the heterodyning crosstalk made it difficult to listen to, so turned the volume down.
Nearing Lake Livingston (5th largest lake in TX) from the Northwest when descending to TPA, there is mostly wetlands and trees. I disengaged the AP about 15 miles out in a 800 FPM decent. A Cherokee called 7 miles out shooting an RNAV from the South as I landed straight in on Rwy 12 on the 3700' runway. Trees are on the ends of both runways. There is no taxiway so back taxied to the ramp. The Cherokee did a low approach and exited to the East.
I closed my flight plan and called Richard (the upholstery guy). I repositioned the plane closer to the vehicle entrance and heard a firetruck siren, then a medivac chopper approaching. I double checked the ELT to make sure it wasn't going off. Soon an ambulance arrived, then Richard. After a few minutes, the patient on an ambulance was loaded into the medivac and it departed.
Richard took photos of the interior and we loaded up the boxes of foam and patterns, then drove to his shop. One of his customers had recently had some seats done for a Ferrari. He showed me different types of stitching and material. We talked about pricing and (ouch) I had some sticker shock. Not terribly surprised though as a neighbor just had a Mooney seat redone and it was $3600 just for one seat. This neighbor had also bought a Juki machine and said it was hard to sew a straight line. Months previous, my wife caught me watching upholstery videos and commented that I wasn't going to buy a sewing machine. Other amateur upholsterers in the past had commented they wouldn't make any one else's seats. The mental gymnastics going through my head had lead me to this path of having someone else do it. I put down a deposit after deciding on material. Then we laid out the foam and patterns to make sure it was in order and instructions were clear. Richard showed me some large RC aircraft that he'd designed and built. He also had a large bicycle that he'd made.
Richard took me to lunch and then back to the airport. We chatted some more, he took more photos and he watched me depart.
Initially, on climb out, full power, the turbulence wasn't bad but after starting to level off, it was not pleasant. I pulled the throttle back to about 2300 RPM. Ground speed fluctuated from 150 mph to 180 mph. The AP was doing it's job better than I could at maintaining altitude and heading.
Soon, I started to get cramps in my legs. I reached down to massage my legs and noticed they were cold to my hands, so turned the heat on a little and that helped some. Suspect the turbulence and lack of cushion under my thighs were also contributing to lack of circulation. I drank some water, took some of the homeopathic tablets and suffered a couple more cycles of cramps. I also recalled that I didn't exactly follow the directions for applying Theraworx. Lesson learned.
Nearing Class B, air traffic was very busy around the airports. The rainy weather had many students grounded and now they're trying to get their lessons in and time building back in motion. I opted to stay further south and skirt the Class D's and B to get back to T67.
Finally back on the ground, I hobbled around and managed to push the Cozy back in the hangar. The leading edges were splattered with bugs, probably the worst I've seen in two years. A hazard of flying over lakes.
This is probably one of my least enjoyable flights ever and if every flight was like this, I'd probably quit flying. OTOH, this would have been almost a 4 hour drive one way and would convince me that flying is wonderful even when it's bumpy. I know better weather is coming and will soon have some awesome seats. Oh....and my wife had sticker shock too. My daughter nailed the price when mom asked her how much she thought it would be. She said, "You can't take it with you." and I replied, "That might be soon!" lol
In four weeks, the patio furniture cushions should be back where I borrowed them from. Maybe I should finish the wheel pants?
