Well day number 3 was a little slower day as far as flying is concerned, or at least as compared to our previous two days.Since we are very close to where the manufacturer of my plane kit was produced, Vans Aviation, and it was only a short distance away in Aurora, OR, I decided to fly down and meet the people and take a tour of their factory.
Ron had previously been through their facility, so he and Barb decided to pass on that and just relax here in Olympia making parts for his plane :>} He and Barb made up a gust lock for his rudder and chalks for the wheels. Always only settling for the very best, Ron went to Home Depot and Ace Hardware and bought the material to make these high end items from. See the photos below on his master piece that he concockted. Barb was the head helper on this project.
David and I launched off at about 9:30 for about a 45 minute flight down to Aurora. The area is really green right now and the country side is very beautiful. On our way down we were flying parallel to various snow capped mountain ranges one being Mount St. Helen. You will see them in the pictures posted below. We were given a tour of the facility by Ken Grueger and later when out by the plane, Van, the owner of the company, came out and visted with us for quite awhile. He seems like a really smart and humble guy and he shared his thoughts with us on a variety of airplane type thoughts.
We then flew back down to Olympia and got ready for the evening get together dinner and trip briefing. The organizer of the event, Dale Hemman, has this really great hangar that you have to see to believe. See the pictures below, it's a guy type of thing. After the dinner Dale briefed us on the full route we will be flying over the next twelve days and what we would see and what to expect. He also went over what the rules and responsiblities we were to have as the pilot because we will be flying in a formation type enviroment with 12 other planes. This will be interesting until we all get the method down over the next couple of days.
We will be launcing out of Olympia tomorrow morning at about 10:30 heading for Abbotsford, BC where we will clear customs and then on to Quesnel for an overnight stay. Dale made this a shorter day to allow us to get better aquainted with the type of flying we will be doing over the next couple of weeks.
Id better get the photos posted and then get off to bed. Time zone changes and long flying days are starting to catch up with me. I need a good nights sleep :>}
Wayne
Mount St. Helen
Mt St. Helen in the distance
At the evening dinner, David, Ron & Barb
Dales toys.
Ron's master piece gust lock he made
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