Cleared For Takeoff

Posted on July 19, 2011 by aldinardi

Kansas City, Nashville, Oshkosh here we come!

Tomor­row July 20th 2011 we embark on Al and Jim­my’s excel­lent sum­mer air­ven­ture.  Our minds filled with a gar­gan­tu­an ware­house full of gui­tars in Kansas City, enjoy­ing time with pre­cious friends in Nashville, soak­ing in the sights and sounds of Sum­mer NAMM, savor­ing the Nashville night life, doing “church” south­ern style, more sights and sounds in Oshkosh — this time air­planes, and stuff we don’t even know about (the best part)

First, we have to get there!  That usu­al­ly turns out to be the real adven­ture — filled with aer­i­al splen­dor, tur­bu­lence, weath­er watch­ing, nav­i­gat­ing, more tur­bu­lence, fuel stops to places we’ve nev­er even heard of, and like­ly unplanned re-rout­ing or even unplanned stops along the way.

Aside from any unfore­seen devi­a­tions, here is “The Flightplan”:

enroute 7-20-11

Last minute prepa­ra­tions:  the RV-10 is ready, almost.  Today we rein­stall the Autopi­lot, test fly and recal­i­brate it.  The tip fuel tanks are being timed and cal­i­brat­ed.  Last­ly, more pro­gram­ing of way­points into the flight­plan, and cre­at­ing more legs.  Hope­ful­ly all this air­plane prep stuff stops soon so I can pack for the trip!

Ded­i­ca­tion.  We are ded­i­cat­ing the leg between Kansas City and Nashville to our pre­cious sis­ter Tam­my Hodge, who under­went surgery yes­ter­day.  Please join us in pray­ing for her com­fort, and a swift full recov­ery.  We love you Tam­my, and will see you real­ly soon:)

Updates.  I hope to do dai­ly blog updates, with pho­tos and anec­dotes as we progress our way into this air­ven­ture.  With temps in the 50’s and 60’s here at home, it will be a shock enter­ing the heat­waves cur­rent­ly going on along our route.  Pack­ing plen­ty of water, apples (of course), mel­ons, and plan on fly­ing high!

That’s it for now — time to pack — this air­ven­ture starts at 4:30am tomor­row!  Keep your comm radio tuned to Air­BorneA­gain for more updates.

Over and out,

Al

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    Categories: 2011, July 2011, Nashville, Tn July 2011, Oshkosh, Wi July 2011, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

    Kick the Tires and Light the Fires!

    Posted on July 12, 2011 by aldinardi

    Anoth­er Mile­stone for N104AL

    Today was a mile­stone event for N104AL RV-10: after a near­ly sev­en-year build, she com­plet­ed her FAA required 40-hour flight tests.

    So, what does that mean?

    Well, for the first 40 hours of flight of any air­craft — in this case an exper­i­men­tal air­craft — the FAA requires all flights to be:

    1) Restrict­ed to a des­ig­nat­ed 100 mile radius tests area — which can be nego­ti­at­ed by the builder / own­er. In the case of 104AL, I chose the cen­ter of that area to be Prospect, Ore­gon — which allowed me to reach most of my favorite destinations.

    2) No non-crew pas­sen­gers allowed. Most of these flights were solo, with a few occa­sion­al excep­tions such as with Bryan Milani who was the des­ig­nat­ed Builder / Advi­sor on the whole project.

    3) Only VFR flight allowed. (no IFR, or fly­ing into clouds, fog, etc.)

    4) All flights logged and documented.

    Upon com­plet­ing the 40 required hours (today), all of these restric­tions are now removed — mean­ing we can for the first time fly any­where, with any pas­sen­gers, into any weath­er that meets pilot cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (all-weath­er in my case)

    So now what?

    The upper and low­er engine cowl were removed, a new fuel pump gets installed, oil change, and a few minor tweaks to improve cool­ing. Also, avion­ics data bases are all being updat­ed to cur­rent, sun visors, oxy­gen, glare shield dash­board, and a host of oth­er details in prepa­ra­tion for her first “real” long cross-coun­try trip.

    Nashville / Oshkosh

    July 20 N104AL will depart Med­ford, Ore­gon and head east to Kansas City, Nashville, Oshkosh — with a few fuel stops along the way. This will pro­vide us a chance to real­ly ring her out and find any lurk­ing squaks — while at the same time vis­it pre­cious friends in Nashville, attend the annu­al NAMM (Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Music Mer­chants) con­ven­tion, as well as the Oshkosh Air­ven­ture air show.

    Once N104AL gets home, she will be torn down, and a com­plete new (per­ma­nent) engine cowl fab­ri­cat­ed and installed, fin­ish up the inte­ri­or, and get ready to go into the paint shop. By ear­ly spring N104AL will final­ly be a com­plete and fin­ished air­craft. (whew!).

    Retired — again

    I have final­ly decid­ed to retire from the air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ing busi­ness, and con­cen­trate on fly­ing instead! Cess­na N9836C will be sold, and God will­ing I will fly-out my days in N104AL and N36AL — the two babies I helped cre­ate. They are both like my kids, and thanks to both Bryan and Butch Milani, are among the high­est qual­i­ty air­craft in the world — attest­ed by the tro­phies and awards 36AL has earned over the years, and undoubt­ed­ly N104AL will accumulate.

    Ded­i­cat­ed to the Best!
    That said, this post is ded­i­cat­ed to the best air­craft builders on plan­et earth: Butch and son Bryan Milani. I feel hon­ored to know them as friends, and to have par­tic­i­pat­ed in these excit­ing (though at times frus­trat­ing) projects over the past 13 years! You guys are Top Gun in my book:)

    Al

    Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

    Camel power? Far from it!

    Posted on June 28, 2011 by aldinardi

    Noth­ing real­ly here to read — yet.  Except, click on the About page above and you will see what we’re up to.

    Mean­while, no we’re not head­ing towards the pyra­mids in Egypt on a camel — but soon we will be head­ing to Nashville Ten­nessee (depart July 20) to vis­it friends Brent & Tami Hodge and fam­i­ly (Kass, Koda) and Alece — our “sis­ter from anoth­er mister”.

    While in Nashville — we will attend the annu­al sum­mer NAMM music show — I just can’t stay away from them:)

    Speak­ing of can’t stay away — after all that we fly up to Oshkosh Wis­con­sin for the annu­al EAA Oshkosh Air­ven­ture show — largest air­show in the world!  Near­ly a mil­lion peo­ple from all over the world attend this week long event.

    What — no camel? Nope.  We’ll be speed­ing along in the new Van’s RV-10 high-per­for­mance air­craft that has been under con­struc­tion since the Wright Broth­ers invent­ed flight (okay, it’s only been 6 years, but feels like forever).

    Who is we? We is me, and my good friend, fel­low musi­cian and wor­ship leader Jim­my Durham.  Still try­ing to fig­ure out how to cram two gui­tars into the cock­pit so we can play along with the in-flight Sir­ius music — while Otto (pilot) is at the controls.

    So, stand­by and keep your comm radio tuned as we pre­pare for this high­ly antic­i­pat­ed flight in July — we’ll post pho­tos of all the places between here and there — both on the ground and in the air (did I men­tion the Rocky Moun­tains are awe­some this time of year?)

    We’ll even send a link to FlightAware so you can see where we are, how fast we’re going (real­ly fast!), cur­rent alti­tude, and ETA of each leg as we progress.

    So, fas­ten your seat belt and tight­en up the strap — this air­ven­ture is about to begin soon!

    Kickin’ the tires and Light­in’ the fires,

    Al

    Categories: 2011, July 2011, Nashville, Tn July 2011, Oshkosh, Wi July 2011 | Leave a comment