First Flight in Colorado
| 2:51pm, setup at Yankee Field. Anheuser-Busch brewery in the background. |
| 3:11pm - wing is mostly ready |
| 3:29pm - Wing's ready for attachment to the carriage. |
| Wind sock's not doing much - slight breeze from the South. |
| Anheuser-Busch brewery. |
| 112.8 hours on the engine's timeclock. Warming up the motor. |
| 3:47pm - engine warm-up. Approx 5100 ft elevation. |
| 4:01pm - first photo from the air. |
| Yahnkee Field - 18/36 - 2700' x 55' grass field. |
| Looking west across I-25 with fields and mountains beyond. North (Cheyenne) is to the right with South (Denver) to the left. |
| Southwest over the nursery & golf course (to which I'm told - stay away from them), the brewery and Fort Collins. |
| Corn maze |
| Operational temps & stats 325 & 375F Cylinder Head Temps (front / rear cyl) 980 & 1020F Exhaust Gas Temps 5900RPM 51.1MPH (ground speed) Air speed, not listed, is about 35-40MPH so I'm in a 10-15MPH wind I'm traveling northeast. 6065 Ft above Mean Sea Level (runway is at 5077 Ft) 4:02pm |
| Water tanks. |
| Reservoirs are more common though the summertime green of the Midwest is less common. |
| Hmmm - a hitchhiker, likely from takeoff. |
| Power lines from from the Rawhide coal burning power plant north of town. |
| A more common sight in the area - drilling rigs for "energy extraction". No idea if this is involved in the controversial "fracking" process. It's unlikely to be involved in Uranium mining as I think those proposals were turned down. |
| Anheuser-Busch has several fields in the area. |
| Years back, before moving to the area, I went up as a passenger in an acrobatic glider ride. One item I learned from the pilot was how to tell the wind direction. His answer was to look at a reservoir and note where the water is calm and where it's rough. The calm area is where the wind is coming from. |
| 5:19pm - Disassembly to begin |
| 5:30pm |
| 5:42pm |
| 5:57pm - Wing disassembled and packed for transport |
| 5:57pm - Carriage ready to place onto the trailer. |
| 6:04pm - Loaded onto the trailer Close to ready to leave - it needs to be strapped to the trailer. |
| A registered ultralight class craft sitting in the weeds. |
