Yeah, I hear you Al. My 150 is 1963 model, still has the straight back before they added the rear window. and of course the last year for the Pacers I'm thinking of was 1955. Someday I hope to own a plane that's younger than I am. Your landing story sounds like one of mine this spring. I was coming home to the air park I live at on a gusty day. Since there's trees all around the runway I came in a little hot. A little too hot... And of course on final I was looking at several of my neighbors standing out by their planes, and mowing the lawn next to the runway. So lots of spectators. We're only allowed 3 touch and goes per day as a courtesy to the non-flying neighbors, and I later told one of the old pilots down the strip that I'd just done all 3 with one approach.
Al, I think you'd be a fun guy to get on a podcast one day. Our club used to have a member with his own hanger, and he built small two-seat and four-seat planes. If you wanted to build one, he'd lease you a spot to work, and provided you with tools. If you needed his help, he charged an hourly rate. It was something I would have liked to do, and it wasn't priced so high I couldn't ever do it. His wife did all the interior leather/vinyl stitching. I think he said it would cost rougly $80k to build a plane (final product) and it could be done in 8 months. Of course, then I'd have to get a pilot's license. Fortunately for my wallet, he moved away.
Tri-Pacer... ahhh the old reliable "Milk Stool". Never been in one myself! It's amazing how WELL planes hold (and in many instances GAIN) in value over long periods of time. Some people would die if they knew we were tooling around in 40 year old planes over their heads! Our society is such a disposable one that a car more than 4-5 years old is a relic. LOL! You hit the nail on the head with the 150 being "cozy". That's putting it mildly! I do love the 172XP. I took one to Sevierville, Tennessee a couple of years ago. The approach is "Fun" to say the least. I had to come in a lil heavy to carry some speed to "hop" over some power lines and then just didn't manage my energy well. "Fortunately" there was a goup of F-O-Ps (blank-ing Old Pilots) there watching as I landed "Hot" and should have counted each "hop" as a Touch n Go! When I taxied over to tie-up they all clapped and laughed! One guy said, "Captain Kangaroo has arrived!" LOL! Needless to say I was embarrassed and wanted to crawl into the cockpit and HIDE but looking back it was pretty humorous! Basically I was used to a much older, heavier, less efficient 172 and this XP wanted to do nothing but keep on flying.
Hmmm...not a bad suggestion Marc, so after nearly 6 years is your reef tank "finished" yet?
We're thinking about a Pacer or Tri-Pacer, but want to check one out for room and handling first. A Cessna 182 or even a 172XP would be great, but out of our budget right now. Maybe if I give up reefing.... I'm not looking for a lot of speed, or STOL capability, 100mph+ cruise and a useful load of 700lbs or more that I can operate out of 1500ft runways will do the trick. And big enough to carry the two of us comfortably. The 150 is a bit cozy even for newlyweds. If you look at the very back of the hangar in the first photo, you'll see the ribs for a Bearhawk Patrol. Since I'm building it from scratch, it'll be 10 years or so before it's ready.
Phil what plane are you looking for? Do you need STOL or do you use a standard runway? The 182 can carry a lot but dang it loves GAS!! I believe it was a 182 with the STOL kit I saw a while back taking off in a local cow pasture. Was WILD because we don't get that much around here. When it left the ground his climb out looked almost rocket assisted! We went and looked into a Velocity XL a while back at Sun-n-Fun and I fell in LOVE! Very sleek looking plane but costly to build. Fairly economical to fly and can carry a lot of stuff (rumored if you can close the doors it'll carry it). My first love will always be the Piper J-3
I hope it hangs in there. I'd be willing to ship you some frags if you wanted some.
Unfortunately, I don't have another saltwater tank set up at the moment. Not even a hospital tank. So I'm going to test, adjust as necessary, run carbon and pray. The entire colony is affected, but it's not completely white yet. Most of the polyps still have some color, but are very very pale compared to last week.
Totally bleached already? Do you have another tank by any chance? I "think" if I were in your shoes I'd at least try to frag a piece of it out of the tank into another just in case. Here's how I do "Emergency" stuff: A) Toss in bag(s) of Carbon B) Check Temp & Flow C) Test Test Test if Rapid issue (as this sounds it is) I personally will frag a piece of the coral, do a IODINE dip and get it into another tank (not on the same System). This causes additional stress on the coral but it may be the only shot at saving a piece of it if you don't resolve the issue. The CATCH here is that when you go to frag the coral it causes more stress and it may "slime" more than usual and affect other near-by coral.
Al, you'd be amazed how many people got their first flight or pilot liscense in 150's. They're great little planes and a lot of fun, but certainly not spectacular in the take-off and climb departments. I've had mine for 8 years, but now that I'm married I'm thinking about getting something a little larger so we can take plenty of camping gear along.
Marc, I haven't been testing Mg since my salt contains plenty and I've been keeping up with regular water changes. I'll test it tonight, I've got some Tech M on hand if needed. Big Al, I hope you're right, it's looking almost completely bleached now.
Anytime you run softies in a tank with SPS you run the risk of some "issues" with the softies sloughing and causing problems I had a slight "Monti-issue" early last summer when a breaker tripped and the A/C didn't run. The tank went from 79ish to 83ish for a day and the Monti exhibited some slight bleaching on the outer edges but in a month's time you couldn't tell it. As Marc said Carbon is GREAT and it's my "First Aide" for anything tank related except a leak! The Carbon doesn't absorb the water as fast as I would like LOL.
LOL - that's a good story, BIG Al.
Phil, you have a plane in ya garage? You fly, wow! Why don't ya gas her up and come visit me, my wife and I would love to meet ya. ;-p. I'm only a hop-skip-and a big jump from ya.
Running carbon is a very good plan. And Montipora specifically likes Magnesium. Another thing to consider is the leather may be shedding, which in turn aggravated the monti. Again, carbon will help.
Alk has been consistenly 8.5 to 9.0 and my toadstool has been happy most of the time, which is usually a good indicator that my Alk and pH are where they need to be. But I'll have Tuan check it with his kits too.
SPS bleaching is often Alk. Test it and get ti tested by someone else or at least another test kit. Sorry to hear this but SPS are VERY resilient... once we know what's wrong and correct it it can bounce right back.
Ahhh the Cessna 150! That's the plane I took my first "Discovery Flight" in many years ago to see if I wanted to pursue getting my Private Ticket! It was a HOT summer day... Myself (I'm not Petite, 6'4" 250+/-lbs at the time) and the instructor who was short but "thick". We crammed in and he said, "It's not gonna take off quickly or climb like a home-sick angel but just hang tight and we'll be flying before we get to the corn!" LOL! I literally lifted my feet as we went over the fence of the cornfield it was so close (or it FELT close anyway)! LOL! Man that brings back some memories!
That a Challenger II kit plane. I've been very slowly finishing it up for a friend who's health has deteriorated. The plane in the background of the second photo is my Cessna 150.
Blog Categories
Recent Visitors
Go to Profile
Mark as Read
