I came back to town to see that Linas had a couple of these babies lying around. Fred Kunkel (the man behind Clear Air Tools) came down and left one for each of us. I think Fred may be selling them now -- the cool thing is that the ballast and starter are in the power supply (plug), and the light is just the tube, as far as I can tell. It makes a nice compact, lightweight light.
It's made in the U.S. to boot. Looks like a great addition to the shop.
This afternoon was the EAA Chapter 1 fly-in at Flabob Airport. This is the only shot I got, unfortunately. John "Yellowtail" and I flew over in formation. We met a whole bunch of RV folks over there and grabbed some good lunch. I got this photo as John and Todd and I were pushing out to depart. We made a little in-trail high speed low pass and blew out of there.
This is something every engine operator is familiar with. It's the results from the first oil analysis I had done on my last oil change. I've been changing the oil every THREE WEEKS since the plane was airworthy. I religiously change the oil every 25 hours (sometimes I hit 30). I change the filter every other time, every 50 hours. You might say that if the plane is flown this frequently you could push oil changes out, and you'd be right. But I figure fresh oil is a relatively cheap way to keep the engine "new." I waited until about 175 hours (181) to start oil analysis, and I plan on having it done every 50 hours. Basically every time I change the filter I'll do an analysis. It costs like 15 bucks. Over the course of 2000 hours, that's 600 bucks. Cheap insurance if you ask me -- if the engine starts making metal, specifically of a nature that won't show up in the filter or screen, the oil analysis oughtta show signs of it. I'll post the analysis results as I do more of 'em. This one is A-OK as far as concentrations go, but there's no trend to see until the next one. We'll see.
