Flight to Vulcan Alberta for Lunch

It was a beautiful day with some high scattered cloud around, a mostly sunny day.  Temperature was at 24 degrees C in the afternoon.  We flight planned for an altitude of 5500 ft for this short flight to the SE from Springbank airport.  The flight time was showing to be a 41 minute flight using my FltplanGo software with the current winds.  The actual flight time turned out to be 42 minutes and we encountered very light turbulence due to the daytime heating beginning.

I was accompanied by Alan in his RV3 who flew about 5 minutes behind me as we departed Springbank.  The RV3 is faster than the Q2 and I knew this would work out fine for our 41 minute trip to Vulcan.  The landing strip is paved and 2950 feet long at a elevation of 3440 feet.  My landing went very well and I used about 3/4 of the runway length before turning around and backtracking on the runway.  After climbing out of my cockpit on the parking ramp I heard Alan arriving on the downwind approach for landing and was able to watch his nice 2 wheel landing.  As we stood talking after Alan shut down we heard a sound similar to a turbine coming into the airport.  Not a turbine at all but the exquisite Subaru powered Q2 of Reg Clarke from the Lethbridge area.  Reg later noted he was probably going about 150 knots as he flew over top the airfield, what a beautiful sound.  He quickly slowed and did a beautiful landing.  Reg later explained to me that he has to have a very light touchdown as there is no landing gear shock absorption in his custom landing gear configuration.  This is very different to my Q2 in which the full Canard wing is a spring for my landing gear.

We were going to walk across the golf course to lunch in the club house but a local pilot Don was admiring our planes and offered to drive us over.  We had a nice lunch with great conversation around the table.  We walked back to the airport (15 minute) from the golf course and prepared for departure.

  Alan left right away for a meeting back home and Reg offered to do a tandem takeoff with me on our departure.  He would give me a comfortable lead and shortly after takeoff he called me up his position and I saw the beautiful yellow Q2 screaming by about 300 feet below in our left turn. This turbo Subaru with an SDS electronic ignition system from Ross Farnam in Alberta is one fine example of a Q2 tandem wing aircraft.

View or trip track at:
https://aprs.fi/#!mt=roadmap&z=11&ts=1498262400&te=1498348800&call=a%2FCGMBK
More coming soon.

Fun flight for lunch

We organised a fun flight to Red Deer Alberta for a lunch once again.  I was joined by my friend Joel in his "Cozy Mk 4" and had a visit from another friend up from Lethbridge in his Q2 with a Turbo Subaru engine.  Reg's airplane is a beauty but we missed each other on this trip by a mere 15 minutes.  We will get together later and I will supply some pictures of his plane.

A great chance to burn off a bit of 100LL fuel and see how my plane is performing.  I was very pleased with the how my Q2 is operating.  There are only two small repair items that have to be attended to and they has now been completed.  One was tightening up a mounting point for my trim system and the other a test of  my tracking system to find out why my APRS transmission is interfering with my engine monitor display.  We had  a great flight with 25 km wind from the NW and only scattered cloud up around 8000 feet.    This flight was at 6500 feet each way and the flight time was 45 minutes each way.  Joel mentioned he could not spot my plane as he was gaining on me from behind.  Considering I have a strobe on top and on the belly of the plane that is a surprise to me although I know my surface area is extremely small.  I just love flying this airplane with it's sensitive fingertip control and fabulous view out of the large bubble canopy.

Click this link to see map of trip:
https://aprs.fi/#!mt=roadmap&z=11&ts=1497657600&te=1497744000&call=a%2FCGMBK
More coming soon.