The valley of the sun is only a 6 hours drive south and down the big hill. You drop 4000 feet into what should be warmth and sunshine. So here we were on day 2 and it was raining. Cold, too. At least we had yesterday’s flying on the Rio Verde, brief though it was.
That’s ok, motor maintenance was calling and this was a perfect chance to respond. Mine needed netting work, was having kill switch problems and the decompression valve was sticky.
Tim installed a new carb (solved the problem nicely) and replaced the ubiquitous Sky Cruiser snap buttons (McMaster). I fixed my kill switch and installed a secondary one. It was frustrating the day before—I wanted to shut off the motor for some backwards flying and couldn’t because my kill switch quit. Everything is fixed now and she’s running perfect. I took pictures while we did this for some future content here on FootFlyer.
We wound up at a favorite site in Phoenix, Idaho and SR 60. Another pilot was there but had some motor issues and wasn’t able to fly. The weather wasn’t so great but I did get to try out my motor and everything worked perfect once I got the wires in the right place.
Last Day
We spent our last day here at Idaho because of Laziness. The weather was going to be cold so we knew there wouldn’t be any long flights. After a 10 minute flight we’d have to retreat to the warm Enterprise. It got bumpy and windy, too so while it might have been cold and cloudy at least we had ratty air to fly in.
Given my short endurance I figured it would be good for practicing spot landings so I set out to do so. Then he found her. In the bushes, naked, cold and with a broken body, Tim rescued a little girl. Here is the story of Suzy.
Later, when the wind picked up even more, it got fun. The Enterprise was pointed straight into it so I took to kiting up the windshield and then kiting on the top. That was way cool. At least once I thought a gust was gonna rip me off but managed to stay reasonably put. That was fun.
The strong blow also meant flying was over. Unable to help Suzy anymore, we packed up and headed for home. Sky Harbor, that is, for our return to reality. It wasn’t much, but we were happy to get in some ‘Nylon Stylin.’