The weather was forecast to be broken near Montgomery but as we got near, the cloud deck below was getting more solid and holes more sparse. I could make out some water/rivers through some of the holes that were Northeast of Auburn so called Approach to terminate FF and maintained VFR when we were well clear of Montgomery. I diverted over to one of the cloud canyons and descended under the clouds. The weather reporting at AUO had been malfunctioning but the Unicom had a jet announce landing on RWY 29. As I neared the airport, a Citation reported a 5 mile base for 36. I called that I'd extend my downwind for 36, he thanked me and we followed them in. I sort of regretted that as there was a bit of turbulence on final. We slowed and I braked enough that we exited on C. We taxied to the terminal and were parked in about the same spot as last time with 8 gallons left in the tanks. We chatted with the line guy about what traffic was going to be like with the Alabama/Auburn football game on Saturday and he confirmed that it gets very busy. We advised we'd probably be leaving early Saturday due to forecast weather in FTW (rain). The wind was bumping the rudders so it reminded me to put gust locks on and the exhaust plugs in. My son helped put the cover on. And I found later that I left the buss switch on (to raise the landing brake) which powers a relay...and almost drained the battery. 20 gallons of fuel were added.
We enjoyed time with our son & family who fixed a huge Thanksgiving dinner and hosted several dozen relatives. The weather was great but a bit chilly.
Friday evening some social media posts regarding the airport were made and a temporary NOTAM advised one of the runways would be closed to park aircraft and that a control tower and ground control would be active at 1030. The forecast weather was still predicting rain in the FTW area Saturday afternoon with ceilings becoming lower.
We got to the airport a little before 0800 and my wife took care of the ramp fee and fuel while my son and I preflighted. I discovered that I'd left the switch on but the battery wasn't dead yet. I went ahead and tried a few start cycles but the battery went into protection mode after the third attempt. My son got jumper cables and the line guys brought a truck over to jump with. It only took a few minutes to boost the battery and the engine fired up. I left the nose down and the engine idling to warm up with ambient temp a little above 40F. I showed my wife how to kill the engine if necessary while I went back in to use the restroom one more time. My wife climbed into the back and I raised the nose before climbing in. The oil temp was over 100 now and the amperage was indicating the battery was taking a charge. I dialed up Montgomery approach and the Unicom before taxiing. After taking off and calling that I was turning downwind at Auburn, Montgomery approach called my tail number and asked my request....ooops....I was transmitting on Approach. Oh well...I requested Flight Following to KTVR Vicksburg Tallulah @ 8500. After passing Montgomery, we descended to 6500 for less headwind. Fuel burn was a bit higher at the lower altitude. There's some long stretches of heavily forested areas below and occasionally an Interstate or other roads are visible. ADS-B wasn't showing much other traffic (filtered to 15 NM/+/- 3500') except when near towered airports. While en route, KTVR had gone MVFR with haze. The alternate airport nearby to the south was VFR. Visibility to the ground as we got further west had dropped to about 20 miles due to haze. KTVR's ASOS was reporting improved 6 mile visibility and the airport could be seen when I was within 20 miles so discontinued flight following. We landed and were greeted by a lineman who mentioned my transmit audio was "scratchy". It's probably because my microphone is to far from my mouth again.
We got 20 gallons of fuel, took off and requested flight following to T67. I wasn't sure if I'd be up to getting entangled with the DFW Class B traffic but it would make the trip shorter if we could get clearance to go direct. As we passed Monroe, I thought of Paul Roberts and got a quick video of the airport. As we neared Shreveport, traffic advisories became more frequent and the light cloud layer seemed to be getting lower. Less than 10 miles from Class B, FTW Center handed me off to a different frequency than I expected, where the controller was in auctioneer mode. He cleared me into Class B and soon vectored us lower, eventually terminating flight following when we were at 2500 just south of KAFW. It was 1 PM when we unloaded the plane and was showing 8 gallons remaining. I did get a few photos of Love Field and DFW. Click on them for a larger image.
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| Dallas Love Field |
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| Let the fun begin. Entering DFW Bravo. |
After we landed, I got a text from Paul that he'd seen us fly over Monroe! https://youtube.com/shorts/qS3g4L4JgpI?si=eJ5kcmlpB595JkHA
We unloaded the plane and got a late lunch. Some items were added to the squawk list. My wife complained that the rear seat belt attachment was digging into her hip. I'd heard a squeal that I think is whistle from the canard cover not sealing as well after adding a second Dynon back up battery. I also want to add an audible warning to alert me when I leave the buss switch on and the engine is not running. The canopy's (magnetic door switch) contacts seem to bounce when taxiing (and the latch is barely touching the "locked" contact) so I may need to change that to something more robust. There's a few Dynon configuration items I need to look at as well such as the glide ring not displaying when zoomed out and some other autopilot/Nav settings. I suspect that when the EarthX battery is charged, it's not smoothing out the electrical noise so either I need to add a lead acid battery or a filter to smooth out the noise...or both. It would be nice to have a built in boost battery for jump starting or extending endurance should the alternator fail.
Nice write up!
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