Flight to Fort Macloud

 October 23 2021

Two days ago I flew down to Fort Macloud to see a friend who used to own Quickie's and Dragonfly' airplanes in the past.  He now flies a Taylorcraft out of his own acreage strip just East of Fort Macloud.  I had planned on going a day earlier but we were in fereezing ice fog in the morning that didn't clear up until about 1-2 pm that day.   We had a very nice chat catching up in the airport terminal building since we had not seen each other in about 2-3 years.  Below is a capture of my flight which you can see with live history data on the aprs.fi website.

Bag Lunch to Flagstaff Airport Alberta

 September 8 2021

I put out a call for available flyers to meet at Flagstaff airport Killam Alberta and have a bag lunch together.  Lucky for me I was not alone as four others met up there.  We enjoyed a great time gabbing about everything happening in the past month.  It was great fun to get together with friends again as Covid is keeping many from getting out socializing.  Some responded not able to make it which is normal for these spur of the moment gatherings.  All were retired that showed up and it was not long before we realised a couple of hours had gone by.  Flight out in the Q2 was at 5500 ft with a tail wind giving me a kind push going 140 mph ground speed at times at a temp of 17c at altitude.  On the way out I did a circle over a farmer working his mature field in his combine, giving the opportunity to check the local wind direction from his line of dust.  Return flight was slower into a quartering head wind, but hey I am enjoying the scenery on these nice days.  The wind dropped off to very light half way home and temperature was 23c at 6500 feet.

New ADSB In and Out Installed

 September 1 2021,  

I purchased from Aircraft Spruce the ADSB U-Avionics Sky-ECHO package  with the antenna and the wireless controller box.  I installed into the aft area behind the baggage compartment fully inside of the tail cone of the plane.  I installed in a totally removable method so that should the next owner not want it I could remove it with ease.  The antenna needed a ground plane made up for it and I fabricated my usual octagon shaped aluminum plate type and mounted to a wood standoff glued to the floor.  The antenna of course can see through fiberglass like it was not even there.

Update:  After flying quite a few flights with the ADSB I am thoroughly pleased with the unit and it's operation.  Although in Canada we presently do not have 978mhz weather and notams I recently heard a company down east has about four towers working well in Ontario.  Maybe it will be spreading out across the country soon.

Presently I am able to see lots of other airplanes in the sky around me many of which I could never see in the past.  Because there are few airplanes with ADSB out in Canada yet many which have the new mode S  Transponders with Extended Squitter, I am able to see many on my tablet map.  My estimation is that I on;y see about 30% of all VFR traffic since most are using standard Mode C transponders just squaking 1200 frequency.  I do foresee that this will be a emerging market with more airplanes gettting ADSB soon.

Parked behind my hangar at Springbank airport

August 29 2021.  This is a AN2 Antonov aircraft on floats, very rare to see.  The plane was built in Poland and is in Canada under a  Special CofA it appears.  I say that because on the door it is marked EXPERIMENTAL, a little reading and that seems is the only way it can be registered in Canada.  I also read on the internet that Canada doesn't want planes in Canada that would compete against Canada's  homebuilt bush planes.  The floats and attachment hardware all appear to be brand new as they are all pristine.  The floats are made out of  fiberglass and much cost a pretty penny.  There are no water rudders on the floats so that may be an item yet to be installed or i don't know how they would steer it.  What a huge beast this plane is!

Update:  I found out the floats were custom designed by the owner with plans to market them.  They have installed inside the floats a water jet system for steering.

August 13 2021 Flight to Camrose AB

 Aug 13 2021 Trip to Camrose AB 110 nm each way.  I put out a email to see if anyone wanted to meet in Camrose for a bag lunch.  We had seven friends attend and 6 aircraft.  We all had a good discussion on  what folks were doing and where they had been flying.  Not much flying had been going on over the past 2 months as we had severe smoke in Alberta.  Smoke was  so thick at times from the BC wildfires that visibility would be down to 2 miles and occasionally 3/4 mile.

August 9 2021 Flight to Three Hills AB

 Aug 9/21. Trip to Three Hills AB only 65 miles each way.  I made a flight to see my friend Dennis who has a flying RV8 that he built.  I had a great visit and lunch in  his hangar and he showed me his homebuilt Cubby aircraft under construction.  It is in bare metal frame fuselage stage and the wood rib wings are built and hanging on the hangar walls.  Sorry no pictures.

Portable ADSB Receiver in the Q2 ****Now removed, I have a new ADSB In and OUT installed

 February 6 2021

I received a portable ADSB receiver for Christmas, now it is time to install into the Q2.  This is a portable unit (Stratux) from "Sky Dog Electronics" "and came with a battery pack and external GPS puck.  You can buy the unit as a kit or as a completed ready to uses unit.  The unit works as a receiver only and I do not have a ADSB out unit in my airplane.  In Canada however this is all a moot point since ADSB is not in wide use here.  There are no ground stations in Canada broadcasting weather, Notams or Radar.  So what is it good for?   For giving the pilot a better view of the airplanes that are flying in the airspace you are flying in.  A note of caution here though is that it will NOT show airplanes that are transmitting a 1200 transponder code, those you will still have to be on the look out for.  Going into the USA though you will receive more traffic and get weather.  I am  using the "Stratux" and picking up it's WiFi signal on my Samsung S2 Tablet and all is working very well.  After doing some testing I found that it will show all traffic that has ADSB out as well as any airplane that is transmitting with a Mode S transponder.  This covers quite a few that would be in my airspace.  I did some testing at home and found that there were many aircraft that I could not find with my eyes only.  I live 5 miles from and active airport with lots of small aircraft traffic and training going on.  It was quite a surprise  how many I could not find easily.  Traffic can be filtered so  you only see traffic within say 2000 feet altitude and it will give you color coded examples if they get to close.  So this is a inexpensive traffic observation tool you can add easily.  Should you be a frequent US flyer you can add a ADSB Out unit when needed.

Installation in my plane.  Although I received a battery pack I wanted to install onto the airplane electrical system so it would always be on when aircraft power was running and off otherwise.  Wiring was easy and power via a switched 12 volt cigar lighter plug in the aft of the plane.  Easy also because it can see through fiberglass and can be placed anywhere convenient.  The only problem I ran into was finding a USB power plug to go into the cigar lighter which would not make noise on the radio.  Some trial and error tests with various units finally worked out.

Winter job, Re-Surfacing Upgrades

 January 2021

Down time in the winter.  Weather has been dismal and a lot of snow is on the ground and the local taxiways.  Time to do a few upgrades on the Q2.  I have never finished the fiberglass support structure for the canopy, it has been left as bare fiberglass since building it.  Now it is time to sand fill and paint the canopy frame as well as four locations on the fuselage that have shallow blisters that show in the sunlight.  The canopy was sanded and then filled with micro and then finish fill three times with NAPA two part auto body putty.  These same materials were used on the fuselage blister locations after they were cut out and sanded.  I found under the fiberglass blister the foam was not attached to the fiberglass and was the reason for the blister.  I cleaned the area to good foam then layered in a couple of layers of micro/epoxy to fill most of the space leaving room for new cloth.  Glassed over, sanded and then applied a few skim coats of body putty for finishing then spray can primer/filler.

After the micro then body putty filling was smooth I rolled on "Featherfill" prmer/filler.  I used a 3 inch wide foam roller and it turned out very good.

The finish color on primer/filler is never consistent but I don't mind as this is and ongoing fill and finish project on the surface of the Q2.

Aft side of the canopy bulkhead was also roller'd with primer filler onto the bare fiberglass so that when opened it looked like the exterior.