RV7 Flight across Washington

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Altitude and Altimeter

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Altitude and Altimeter . As everyone knows, an altimeter is of utmost importance when flying. The pilot needs to know the altitude of the ground he's flying over. He needs to know the altitude of the surrounding hills and mountains, if flying in a mountainous region. He needs to know the altitude of any airplanes flying in the vicinity, and he obviously needs to know his own altitude. To do these things, the pilot checks his altimeter. Our airplane, a kit-built, Vans RV7, has several instruments capable of reading altitude. One altimeter looks like the one at left. Although this type is old technology, often called a "steam gauge" instrument, it's on the instrument panel for redundancy. If the electronic gadgets hubby relies on for altitude readings were to give out, he could use this. Otherwise, he mostly relies on the Dynon  and the AvMap to give him altitude readings as well as a host of other necessary information. The electronic devices give a colored, moving ma...
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Contrail

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Contrail .  A contrail is a vapor trail, which is something we see all the time in the sky, and take for granted. The one time in recent history when there were no contrails for almost two weeks was after 911.  All flight was grounded, even for private pilots like my husband. It felt very eerie for us, here in Eastern Washington and so far removed from the terrible tragedy, to look up into the sky and see no contrails. It was a constant reminder of the terrible thing that had happened.   Are you aware of contrails? Do you live in an area where they criss-cross the sky?
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Ditch

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Ditch Sometimes when there is an engine failure, or other malfunction, in an airplane, a pilot needs to make a forced landing, otherwise known as needing to "ditch the airplane." The definition of "ditch" is to land safely on a surface that it not a runway. The picture below was taken in 1985 when Mike owned an UltraLight. The U.S. definition of an UltraLight, according to Wikipedia, is a powered vehicle weighing less than 254 pounds empty. Though it flew, it was not defined as an aircraft, which enabled enthusiasts to own and fly something that didn't need to be registered with the F.A.A. Nor did the pilot need a pilot's license. I'll have a better picture of the UltraLight when we get to the letter U. But for now, here's a picture where Mike had to ditch it in a wheat field. It looks quite broken, as its wings should be straight and parallel to the ground. Mike was able to walk away from it with only a twisted ankle. But after a number of forced ...
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