Scott & Tanya Card RV9A build log (N4822C)

Today we got our act together in the late morning and headed to the airport to begin our first annual condition inspection. The Airworthiness Certificate for N4822C is dated 6/30/07, today is 6/29/08. It is high time to get going with one of the most important parts of aircraft ownership. This is where we try to ensure, as much as possible, that safety will be maintained.

We quickly got all of the inspection panels off. Tanya began attacking the removal of all of the cabin floors, covers, and panels. While she was doing basic dis-assembly, I started at the tail with detailed inspection and lubrication. I worked my way forward, then from each wing tip inboard. Tanya is really a trooper and her involvement in the construction process is really paying off here. She knows exactly what she is looking at, how it should look, and when things look funny. She did “the crawl” back into the tail for inspections and rod end bearing lubrication. I used my new aircraft jacks to keep the tail from hitting the floor while she was back there. Really, she doesn’t weigh much at all, but leverage has its way of taking over :). Of course, it is the beginning of July in central Texas. This means that it is 101 degrees outside. I had to turn on the master to drop the flaps this afternoon, and noticed that the OAT on the EIS read 101, and the oil temp, just sitting there in the hangar, was 99 degrees. It was hot. I had all of the fans running but eventually it just takes it out of you.

We completed everything from the tail forward to the roll bar. All inspected and ready for reassembly. Next time we’ll continue inspecting forward of the roll bar and take a look at the wing roots. The basic airframe inspections go pretty quick. I suspect some other things such as wheels and brakes and firewall forward will be slower going. However, it is amazing how much ground we can cover when both of us are fully engaged in the task at hand. So far so good. No issues found.

Yesterday I took the day off of real work and drove down to San Antonio to the local FAA Flight Standards District Office (FSDO) to get my repairman certificate. I have to have that in order to sign off the annual condition inspection that is due soon. I had all of my documents in order and it was a completely painless exercise. It took about 20min. total. They didn’t really ask any questions to establish that I was the builder. They thumbed through the few sample pages of my build log that I had printed off in about 3 seconds. Totally easy. Now on to the condition inspection. I can’t believe it has already been a year.

For a few months, we had been contemplating how we were going to expand our travel envelope in the RV-9A. A very sad event in our household prompted us into action. My dad died suddenly, and the funeral was to be held in Winsted, MN the next weekend. While I was in my stupor with my family, Scott was hatching a plan. He suggested we look at this as a final grand adventure conjured up by my dad and fly the RV up to Minneapolis.

That idea was very appealing. The thoughts of not having to deal with the cramped quarters, walking in my socks through an airport, dealing with someone else’s schedule, and keeping my mind on the flying task at hand for the trip up there were flying through my mind. At that point, it was time to get planning.

We pulled together all the resources, airnav, runwayfinder, weathermeister, noaa, and starting making arrangements. We decided to drop in at Flying Cloud on the southwest side of the cities. They had a hangar and rental car for us.

The flight up was extremely eventful. We woke up to thunderstorms in the Dallas area first thing in the morning. We sprung into action. Scott finalized the flight plan and got a briefing. I dropped the dog off at Hearts and Paws (they treat Watson like he is theirs), made some sandwiches, and packed the car.

We took off from Georgetown as the rain was coming down 20 or so miles north of the field. We had planned on heading northeast to Harrison, AK, but we had to go much more east to get around the first set of thunderstorms we would encounter that day. We made it around the leading edge of the storm and headed north to Harrison.

The stop in Harrison got us fuel, a bathroom break, and another peak at the weather. We found another storm heading east across Arkansas. So, another takeoff that took us more to the east than we had anticipated. We rounded that storm and headed up central Missouri to Kirksville. As we passed Jefferson City, the capital of Misery, we chomped down our lunch and marveled at the small size of the capital city.

As we were about 50 miles south of Kirksville, another thunderstorm complex was heading straight for it. We decided to divert to Macon, about 25 miles to the south, for our last fuel stop. I was a bit bummed about that one as I attended college in Kirksville and was hoping to buzz the campus, at a legal altitude of course. We were in and out of Macon for the usual 3 - fuel, bathroom, and weather - as quickly as possible. We met up with a flight crew that had been surveying the damage and potential levee problems over the Mighty Mississippi. They gave us their version of the weather and some nice airports to the east that would be a good place to land if we needed to put down instead of making it around the weather.

That departure took us due east until we hit the Mississippi. The flooding was pretty incredible to see first hand. The storm pushed us up the Mississippi for a few miles, and then we were able to turn to the northwest around it. To add to the excitement, there was a TFR to our northeast for the President to tour the flood ravished midwest. We snuck through with about 7 miles on the west to the rain and 7 miles east to the TFR. Yeah for XM aviation package! We never got a drop of rain on the airframe.

We landed at Flying Cloud about 9 hours and 900 miles after we started. We had to fly low most of the day to stay clear of the clouds and got bumped around quite a bit. To our amazement, we weren’t completely exhausted. We were probably better off than we would have been dealing with all the hassles of a commercial flight. Be sure you don’t skimp on the seats!

The funeral and party went as well as possible. Yes, a party. Dad always told us that when the time came (much too soon as it was) to throw a party with whatever money he had left. He had a good life and wanted us to celebrate it. So, off to the events we went in red, maroon, fuscia, and any other bright color we could don.

The flight back was uneventful. We left in the cool, northern morning with a clear blue sky and smooooooth air. We were fortunate to have some nice tail winds and made the trip back with only a single fuel stop.

It was a grand adventure that won’t be forgotten for many reasons.