A Tigger Tale II
5/26/2004
A great view |
Tigger Goes to Soaring Heaven
by Mike Thompson
The plan was to run out to Marfa, TX, see the sailplanes and continue to expand the aircraft’s (and pilot’s) experience base, adding high-density altitude operations.
Sunday, 19 June – Father’s Day – dawned with broken clouds at 4,500 feet. I met Jim Hard and his passenger Dave at Taylor airport, where we would two-ship my RV-6 and his RV-7A out West. We briefed the flight plan: altitudes, speeds, frequencies, etc. The route of flight was to be T74-SOA (Sonora)-MRF (Marfa) and back. The weather briefer was expecting to issue a convective sigmet shortly, with a dry line out around our ultimate destination promising thunder-boomers. We decided to go as far as Sonora and re-evaluate the weather from there.
Launching about 0930, we picked up our course line, switched to enroute ship-to-ship frequency and climbed through some broken stuff to our planned cruise altitude. Level, trimmed and leaned we settled into cruise profile – Jim in the lead and me and Tigger stepped down at his 7 o’clock in “loose cruise” formation, favorite Big Band CD in the stereo. Sonora was a mere166 NM in front of us – not even time for my butt to go to sleep... even at the reduced speed due to the lack of gear leg and intersection fairings on Jim’s –7A.
Now this was only the second flight after finally getting the wheel pants on Jim’s –7A, and my truly poor attempt at station keeping still had me close enough to notice the right main mount was vibrating a tad. Hmmm…. Called Jim up and sure enough, he had felt it and was wondering if his engine was the running rough. We discussed some speed changes and in the end decided to continue as is.
By this time the terrain was definitely beginning to change shape, color and height. And all those oil wells! No worry about emergency landing spots, either.
Pretty soon Sonora showed up on the left edge of the GPS moving map, and at 10 minutes out we exchanged the lead. Noting the field elevation I took us downstairs, setting up for the overhead to runway 18. Jim always prefers I lead our overheads for some reason – I think he worries about me hitting him or something. Naw…..
A call to Unicom got us more than expected from my “Sonora traffic, experimental one four zero romeo victor, flight of two, 5 miles East, three thousand, inbound”. We got an airport traffic advisory (nada), field conditions (hot), weather conditions (South winds), altimeter setting, - everything but a weather forecast and town history.
Into the break and around the pattern, down the line to touchdown. Perhaps you know the feeling when you get the airspeed, attitude and rate of decent all just right. The tug when the tires kiss and spin up, a burnout in reverse - chirp! A surprise perfect wheel landing! Now, maybe you can do it every time, but it still puts a grin on my face!
Stick forward now, forward as we slow, walking the rudder, until time to ease it all the way back and then plant that tail wheel. Turn off the runway, canopy slides back, arm goes up on the rail… the RVs have arrived!
Now, we were barely an hour out of Taylor, but rule number one is to fuel whenever you get the chance. Rule number two is to support local airfields. Since fuel is how they make their money, rules one and two generally coincide nicely.
Sonora was first established as an “experimental station”, run, would you believe, by Texas A&M University and dedicated to researching livestock diseases and methods of improving production of the local industry, wool and mohair. It wasn’t until 1957 that a runway was paved and hangars erected (and they’re still there!), and Joe Berger Field was born. Through oil boom and bust, Sonora grew and declined to the present megatropolis of just under 3,000 inhabitants – counting children, chickens, cats and dogs.
The airport manager at Sonora is Tony Lane, and a friendlier airport manager you’ll never meet. While Tony topped off the planes, we stretched our legs, made a head call and then implemented an idea that Jim had about his vibrating wheel pant. Since there is a gaping hole where the wheel meets the gear leg, he opined that his wheel pant was “shipping and unshipping air”. Out came the tool bag and the 200 MPH tape (specially made for RVs, versus the normal 100 MPH tape). This situation will be remedied permanently when we get around to installing the gear leg and intersection fairings.
There was still the specter of thunderstorms at Marfa, so out came the cell phone and a call to the weather briefer was placed. Clear Skies! Let’s went!
We bid farewell to Tony (for a couple of hours) and launched into the clear blue, Westward.
Very interesting terrain, out there in West Texas. Also interesting was that Jim’s starboard wheel pant was now as rock-solid as the port side! Now that’s what you call a field-expedient repair…
The Sonora-Marfa leg was uneventful – changed CDs to Kirk Whalum jazz and added two thousand feet to our cruise level, as our height AGL was shrinking rapidly. I knew we were getting close (GPS and watch notwithstanding) when we switched to the Unicom frequency and heard “Marfa traffic, tug has just released a glider at eight thousand over Marfa”. Grin!
Jim and I both have licenses that read, “Airplane Single Engine Land, Glider”.
We’re both motorglider drivers and have kicked around visiting a place like Marfa to get the tow restriction removed from the Glider part… perhaps some day.
Once again we changed lead, made our calls and Jim followed me through the break and around the pattern. My Rocky Mountain Micro Encoder has a nice feature that lets you get TAS and Density Altitude without fumbling with a whiz-wheel and try to keep it straight and level at the same time. I checked before we entered the pattern and found that our density altitude was almost nine thousand feet. I passed that information to Jim, and hope I didn’t insult him by adding to take it easy in the break. I didn’t say out loud but thought, “ We don’t want any accelerated stalls today, boys”.
Now I’ve read that your typical flat-lander-in-high-DA environment will land hot, due to some brain malfunction thinking you need more speed because of the thin air. Well, I stand before you today and say, “I am a flat-lander”. Jim’s landing was way better than mine, and we’ll leave it at that.
The Marfa facilities are very nice, and we topped the tanks and went inside for a snack.
Before you react to our topping the tanks, remember that (one of) the reasons for this trip was to see how the aircraft handles takeoffs and landings in a high-density altitude situation. Will I really reach the end of the runway and wonder, “When is this thing going to lift off?”
So I wanted it full of gas and heavy. The only thing missing from the load was my wife – why should more than one of us be scared to death?
Marfa is a premier soaring destination and hosts several contests a year. I could go on and on as soaring is an interest of mine, but will provide you this link in the interest of space:
I really wanted to spend some time among the sailplanes and talk with the pilots whose Lycoming is “gravity”, maybe hold a wingtip and help with a launch like I used to do before the Fault Line Flyers moved from Georgetown to Briggs. But this was not to be.
While resting and watching the soaring activity, we also noticed cumulonimbus rapidly building in the Northern sky, threatening to cut off our return route. From nothing to thunderstorm in the time it takes to stand and gawk. Time to go!
Before we taxied out, I did have a chat with Jim and passed along some wisdom I had gleaned from articles and web sites and talking with the more experienced among us, on high altitude operations. At Sonora we had discussed and implemented leaning the engines for best power at takeoff. With the additional altitude at Marfa, we agreed that a little flap would be good to throw in. How much flap and where do you break even between extra lift and extra drag? In experimental aircraft such as ours, simple. Push the stick hard over and run the flaps down until they match the downward aileron - a rule of thumb that works.
We took off in trail (me first) instead of as a section partly because we didn’t know what the takeoff would be like, and partly because the gliders guys were setting up a tow on the left side of the runway and we didn’t want to zap them with prop wash.
I was pleasantly surprised at the performance of my 180 HP engine and fixed (86-inch cruise) pitch Sensenich prop combination. It took a little longer to get the tail up, but I was looking down from a couple of hundred feet when I reached the crossing runway.
Jim said later that he was ten or twelve feet in the air when he crossed the end of the runway, but since he has the same engine and prop combination (his is 85-inch pitch, even), I suspect he was exaggerating a little…
After the join up we beat a hasty retreat East, bypassing one small-but-growing cell that stood above us, even at our nine thousand five hundred foot cruise level.
We retraced our steps to Sonora where we hailed Tony and smoothed on in. Mine was another landing to remember among my normal slam! and bam! and no-thank you ma’am! arrivals. Something about that Sonora runway…. It beckons.
Full to the top just because we could, we launched towards home plate and knew when we were getting closer when we started getting a cloud deck forming off the rising Central Texas moisture.
Soon we were recognizing the terrain, and started downhill into Taylor – although we stayed as high as we could for as long as we could because the 75 degrees at altitude was a lot nicer than what we knew we would have on the ramp, mid-afternoon – never mind the sure-to-be bumpy ride once under the layer!
On the way down I thought about what we had done that day. We had covered roughly 700 miles (maybe a little more the way we weave back and forth across the course line) and had been in the saddle about four and a half hours. In the middle of June. In Texas.
That thought reminded me of a saying I’ve heard: “I never get all I want, but I occasionally get all I can stand”. For me, that applies to Margaritas, frozen banana pudding, death-by-chocolate cheesecake, and sex. I guess I’ll have to add flying the RV in Texas in June to the list…
But I learned a lot on the trip. Among the lessons were:
- The guy flying wing on a cross-country doesn’t get to sightsee very much.
- My neck prefers flying left echelon for long periods of time (I did switch sides
- occasionally)
- They beat it into us during instrument training, but it applies to day VFR in high DA environments: trust your instruments.
- High DA environments aren’t a big deal as long as you recognize and accommodate the need for changes in engine management and flight operations.
- Lean for best power and fly the wing!
We had a good time. If you’re still building, keep smashing those rivets! IT’S WORTH IT!
- Mike and Tig (co-pilot) and Tigger, the RV-6
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