Arrived in Duluth on the afternoon of the 11th just before a storm came through. Cirrus was kind enough to find some hangar space for my CFI’s Amphib that we came in with, 2" hail was predicted. That’s OK because 122KM was delayed because the stormscope was giving erroneous readings, no it wasn’t the storm. Apparently the mesh that is used to disipate lightning was 2" too long and interferred with the Stormscope antenna. Fixed a day later, but we did start ground school. Our first flight was to Annoka County airport north of the Twin Cities. There I refueled for the first time. The kid who refueled decided to move my plane while I visited the restroom and scratched the decal on the boot! And as we were taxing away we saw another guy smoking a cigarette while leaning on the fuel station! Let’s get out of here, the fuel was inexpensive but not worth it! We too had transponder problems in a section of Northern Wisconsin even though it read R (Receiving) and came back after 20 miles. Going back to Duluth that evening the Alt 2 light came on. Going through procedures didn’t help. Had to land and wait until the next morning when the squak was fixed. Appenrently the MCU unit had a problem. Next flight the landing light was inopt? We left the area for a couple days to get away from weather and had difficulty working into Cirrus’ repair schedule the 2 days later? Once you take delivery it’s no longer the same people that repair the plane, you have to go through Chris Dixson and schedule like anyone else. They did accomidate me since I left Voice Mail and flew from Milwaukee back to Duluth to get it fixed. Guess what it failed again when we got back to Milwaukee that night. Landing at night with airport lighting not working, no landing light, had to do it twice now! On Father’s Day I did what I wanted so I washed her, notice that there are deep scratches were the flaps go up. My Wings Aloft instructor warned me to watch this, they just need to be adjusted. On our way back to Milwaukee, Adam Nelson the Wings Aloft instructor came back with me to hang out for the weekend…nice guy…good instructor…thumbs up. We were up 11,500 and with a little cross tail wind of 21 knots we cruising at 206 knots GS! To plan our arrival he showed me how to use the vertical speed on the Garmin, we did a 400 foot decent starting a 100 miles away! You really need to plan your flight to avoid overcooling the engine. More later, but when you wash your new baby, anticipate an extra hour or two to visit with wannabes! Rick Kummerow 122KM
Hey thanks for the good mention Rick. I hope all is going well with 122KM. I’m still planning on Oshkosh! See you then.
Adam