Pietenpol-List: My first Pietenpol flight

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Original Posted By: "Jack Phillips"
I flew C-GFQY for the first time last evening. After attending to a few detailssince I bought her in the spring she was ready to go this weekend. Then itwas windy and then it rained, but Sunday about supper time, it promised to begood so I drove out to the field. On top of the elevator in town the nationalflag was fluttering with about 1/2 enthusiasm from the southwest. I wanted theuse the NW-SE runway though for the first flight, since the N-S one has housesat the south end and tall trees and there is a forest at the north end butthe other runway has large fields off each end. We decided to sit and wait forthe evening lull. During some conversation about my nerves and other thingsI noticed the flag hanging limp. It was now or never. But on starting the engineI got no oil pressure. Uh oh, was this a sign? My nerves were acting upagain. Jim Armstrong came out and offered some advice on getting the pump primedby adding an extra quart of oil and raising the tail while turning the prop.This trick worked like a charm. Drained the excess oil and off I went. I climbed to about 1000 feet and flew around for about half an hour over largeexpanses of farm land with young crops gradually relaxing and getting the feelof the piet. Then while heading west looking at the sparkle of the loweringsun on Lake Huron I became aware of a significant drift to the North in my track.I turned back to the the field and sure enough the flag was standing outindicating the onshore breeze from the SW had kicked up again. Hmmm. What todo? I decided to do a dry run on the approach so I could see how things mightgo with a light 90 deg cross on my preferred runway hoping that it was calm closeto ground level. With a wing low I had no trouble tracking straight downthe runway and sure enough the wind seemed to die off at tree top height andI could have continued on and landed but I don't like to deviate from a plan soI went around and did it again. I carried a little power till just over thethreshold! and had a nice smooth landing and roll out. What a charming airplane was the first reactionI had to the question How was it? from the folks gathered at the hangar.And that is just how I felt when I flew her looking over the nose past thoseeyebrows on the horizon. Charmed. It's just like stepping back in time toan earlier era of aviation to fly one of these isn't it? I look forward to manymore.JoeRead this topic online here:http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.p ... __________

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Original Posted By: owner-pietenpol-list-server(at)matronics.com
Fantastic, Joe!Will you bring it to Brodhead next month?Jack PhillipsNX899JPSmith Mountain Lake, Virginia-----Original Message-----

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Original Posted By: Jim Boyer