Saturday 8/1/20 marked the end of a very long, hot week. Monday was the hottest day of the year, so far (hopefully for the rest of the year). Saturday was scheduled to be much cooler with morning clouds and afternoon sun. The clouds appeared right on schedule, but for a while the clearing was in serious question.
As soon as I got to the airport I saw the airplane shown below. I knew it wasn't the run of the mill, but I couldn't quite place it. I thought maybe Porterfield and Carl thought maybe Aeronca, but the tail was wrong for both of those. With nothing else to do I walked over to take a look. Once I saw the name on the tail, it didn't help all that much.
OK, great. Commonwealth. I've heard of them, but Commonwealth what?
OK, Commonwealth Skyranger. Well, that still doesn't help a lot, can I buy a vowel? It is pretty common for designs of the 1940s, but I didn't have anything in the memory banks, so off to the Google.
In walking around, it didn't take long to figure out that something was amiss. Now, that is a real high speed, low drag design, but I don't think it will go very fast without a propeller. I wonder where it is?
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| Oh, there it is. |
That's an interesting security system. I suppose no one is going to fly off with the airplane if the propeller is in the pilot's seat. I looked at it and it looked to be in fine shape, so why was it removed.
At first I didn't notice that wrinkle in the top cowl or other damage to the nose bowl or bottom cowl. After I looked in the passenger side window, it made a little more sense.
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| That's not what you want to see. |
You can't really see it in the above picture, but the leading edge of the blade that is largely missing is undamaged. If it had hit something, you'd think the front of the blade would be damaged also. It looks like the blade just failed, but it wasn't on a lamination, it went across all laminations. It looks like it might have started at one of the bolt holes. Maybe it was cracked for some reason.
Here are a couple more pictures.
The sky was still not clearing as fast as we would have liked and there was quite a bit of debate about whether to go or abort. All indications were for clearing and for that trend to continue, so we decided to launch a little after noon.
There aren't too many choices of where to go, particularly if you want a place to eat, and we do. In this case we decided to go back to Forks. It is always an interesting trip and no two are exactly alike.
There was a fire at Crescent Lake just to the southwest of Port Angeles so we had to go a little farther out over the water than usual to stay clear of it. For some reason, it went all the way up to 10,000'. That's pretty high for a firefighting TFR.
Even though the clouds were still pretty low at Arlington, there was brighter sky to the west hinting at higher ceilings or even fewer clouds. It turned out to be about normal, as soon as we got over Pt. Susan the clouds disappeared and we could climb on top.
When we got out to Forks it was still a little low, but higher than Arlington so we went through our usual hole in the hills. The ground is lower through this small pass allowing good ground and cloud clearance even on low ceiling days.
Before leaving I decided to get a shot of the airplane in front of the logging museum that is just across the street from the parking ramp.
The trip home was easier as there were fewer clouds. There were still some in the vicinity of Forks, but it was clear that they ended not too far away. There was a hole just off the end of the runway, but I thought it might be too small so I stayed beneath the clouds until I got to the coast. I think it was more dramatic that way.
We played around a bit on the way up the coast and turned at Neah Bay to head back down the Strait.
Here is the outbound track log: https://plan.foreflight.com/s/track/0C6B9176-D59D-43FD-90E7-2102A9CB5F04
Here is the homeward track log: https://plan.foreflight.com/s/track/CC0B5BB8-CB54-487C-ABCF-79DB37F1EB8D
Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyBe0xdm1mU
And this week you get an extra, special BONUS video!!!
For the first time in a couple of months I actually had the time to fly both Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday I chose to go and get a good look at Snoqualmie Falls since I hadn't really done that before. It was mostly clear, but as expected a bit bumpy down low. I was amazed at how many people there were on the river. I think I got some good footage though, so here is that video as well.
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