My family needed help fixing some windmills at my dad's place in Nebraska. My wife had some things going on and the trip up was going to be pretty bumpy so she opted to stay home. Since this wasn't my first trip up, planning was a bit easier but the weather was going to make it a challenge. Normally I like to take off early in the morning but the weather was IFR here and cleared around 11 AM. Monday morning (late) I departed North and followed Hwy 237 towards Wichita Falls. The weather wasn't very good around Altus and Sherman so I stayed to the South for quite a ways, figuring I may need to go to Dalhart before going North. Before getting close to Amarillo, the weather on the western side of Oklahoma and Kansas was looking better but it was very turbulent and clouds weren't very high. My ground speed was between 120 and 135 knots most of the time with a crossing headwind hitting as much as 50 knots. As I neared Garden City, noticed Meade KS had cheaper fuel so buzzed over there. The leading edges were plastered with mashed bugs so I took a few minutes to clean them off.
I departed Meade and ultimately climbed to 13,500 to clear broken clouds and skirted one of the MOAs that appeared to have a tanker active. The OAT was showing 34 F but the cabin heat was working good. It was about a 5 hour trip. George, one of my sisters and brother in law were ready for me and helped push the Cozy inside his big hangar for transients. George pumped in 30 gallons which would be enough to get me home on the return trip.
A week was spent working on windmills, vehicles and other miscellaneous tasks. It was hard work and brought back a lot of memories working with dad growing up. A couple of nephews and a friend also helped with one of the mills. We made informal plans to tackle more projects on the next gathering.
My brother in law hauled me to the airport the following Monday and watched me depart. The weather coming from the West wasn't looking good and Kansas was looking sketchy. Leaving Sidney and climbing high enough to see off towards Ft. Scott KS, decided to head towards Dalhart TX where I could have a nice lunch if I needed a rest and to check weather. As I passed Burlington CO, I could see cumulo nimbus clouds further south that weren't showing up on ADS-B weather. They were probably south of Dalhart. Checking other options, a direct to T67 actually looked pretty good but was skirting IFR weather in Oklahoma. Most of the trip was around 11,700 with a bit of a head wind. As I neared the MOAs, I descended to 7500, skirting Altus and Wichita Falls. Soon I was near Class B and dropped down to 3500, then lower to get into the pattern for T67. Flightaware shows 684 miles in 3h 41m.
After getting back, a builder contacted me about giving him some assistance. He's about a two hour flight from here. I contacted another builder/flier to see if he'd be available as well to get another pair of eyes. I'll probably be able to buzz over there soon.
Another fellow that I gave a ride to texted and called me about a Cozy he's buying. Sounds like the prebuy has gone well with minor concerns. He's making the decision to proceed with the purchase.
Mark Rieger contacted me and discussed some issues with broken ring gear teeth.
I spent a few days prepping the plane for the Mark Hardin SARL race at KTRL on 5/25/2024. Changed the oil, spark plugs etc. The vinyl trip on the trailing edge fins was starting to peel some so I pulled it off and put race numbers on the rudders. The glare shield was recovered with black mat vinyl. I ran to XBP for fuel and found the ceilings were low. There were thunderstorms forming so I didn't go to the dinner on Friday in Terrell. Saturday morning, the weather at T67 was misty with a low ceiling with broken clouds higher. I took off, skirted Alliance and Meacham's airspace, down towards Cedar Hill and was on top at 2500'. It was looking like a solid deck the further east I traveled. I'd hoped that the clouds would be breaking up but instead, they were lifting and there was still haze being reported at various airports. I flew over KTRL but there weren't any holes to drop through. Johnson County showed VFR just east of KTRL so I flew over there, but there was a sold deck there too. I'd been cruising at pretty low power since I wasn't in a hurry and was thinking that the weather was going to get better, but ended up having to climb to 4500 to stay above the tops. Then 6500 as I headed back west to get back to some accessible VFR airports. I had 40 gallons on board and the EFIS was showing over 800 mile range. As I got near Cleburne, it looked like Waco was VFR. The front that was moving through was further west and I wanted to be a little closer to T67 so cruised by Granbury. I could see the ground south of there, but there was a heavy fog like layer covering Granbury. There was an airshow going on at Breckenridge but some of the nearby airports like Bridgeport and Graham were showing IFR. I noticed Stephenville was VFR so punched in direct to and sat there for a couple hours watching weather, ADSB exchange and chatting with the few pilots that were at the airport. The National Weather Service advised there was a likelihood of severe weather in the afternoon coming from the west. The folks in Terrell decided to race. I didn't want to get painted in a corner by the bad weather coming from the west so decided to get back to T67. KAFW and nearby airports were showing marginal. A few aircraft had departed T67 according to Flightaware so left KSEP and headed for T67. It was awfully warm and bumpy with a low ceiling.
I pulled up KTRL on Flightaware to watch the racers. Wow...they are fast!
The evening was spent cleaning bugs off again. I fired up the grill, ate dinner with my wife and then putted around the airport on the golf cart for awhile. It's nice to be home for awhile.
