North Central Fly-In KANE in North Minneapolis Saturday 4/15/17

[niechiro]

Your are invited to a fly-in on Saturday, April 15th at AnokaCounty Airport, KANE, in north Minneapolis. Plan to arrive by 11:30 a.m.with lunch at noon. We can exchange maintenance stories, war stories andotherwise just have a good time. Andy Kavie may give us a tour ofhis plane which is down for major maintenance. Park at the wash pad by the control tower where there is limited room. From there you will see it is a very short walk to the shelteredpicnic table. Overflow planes can park via taxiway Charlie at the formerCirrus Apron, now called Lynx South. Self serve fuel is available betweenthe control tower and Lynx South. Right now the price is $4.19/gal. Spouses, kids, friends and anyone else you can load up are all welcome. Drive or fly. Please e-mail me a countwhen you know how many in your group are coming. We will watch weather asit gets closer and, if necessary, move the location to a weather appropriateone. My e-mail is niechiro@qwestoffice.net. My cell is 308-340-7283. If you have topark at Lynx South, call my cell phone for a ride to the picnic area. Here are a couple of diagrams of the airport and where things are:

 

[niechiro]

So far I have heard that we may have six possible pilots fly-in. Here are a list of possible pilots flying in:

Doug Gavin from Alexandria, MN.
Fed Moskol, Madison, WI
Bryan Sharp, Minot, N.D.
Jack Shelton may taxi from his hangar on KANE field
Andy Kavie of KANE whose plane is down for maintenance
Andy Nielsen
Mike Nielsen


Remember spouses, kids, unrelated guests are all welcome. Just give us as good a count as you can by April 14th.

 

[mdunlevie]

Hope you all have fun. How is it that our region includes a fly in that is 7.5 hours away (1 way) from another part of the region? Does that happen in the eastern regions?

 

[CleoBen]

I plan to be there, Mike. Likely just me, but I'll let you know if that changes.

CB

 

[niechiro]

Mike, Our North Central region has over a half million square miles with only about 35 members in it. The only thing we can do is hold fly-ins in various parts of the region and try to spread them around. The toughest areas are North and South Dakota as I think I remember we only have 2 or 3 members combined in those states. The Pueblo, CO fly-in for May 13th is now postponed and that won't hurt your feelings as you were not going to be around anyway. Will try to get one scheduled there when our Colorado members can make it.

 

[mdunlevie]

Yes I want those making it to have fun, sorry for the grip. That fly in we did in Colorado Springs was great, maybe we'll find a way for more, just one of the benefits of being able to fly around in the big west.

 

[niechiro]

Just so you know Mike, I joined the Colorado Pilots Association in February and now I am following what they are doing. They to have a fly-in to Pueblo 4/15 to the museums. In May they have one to Hutchinson to the salt mines and Cosmosphere that sounds interesting. It only costs $20 per year to join and they have a lot of activity going, not that I want to chase you away from the BAC.

 

[mgooderum]

Weather willing I'll actually make it from Texas. I was planning to fly to Minnesota through 15th so I'll just move up a day.
--
Mark

 

[niechiro]

We'll have to come up with a new award for reigonal fly-ins for the plane that comes the longest distance. LOL! It will be great to see you. Can we assume your first officer will be with you?

 

[niechiro]

This fly-in is just 5 days away and it looks like we'll have good weather on Saturday. I am excited that there is quite a bit of interest in this one and we hope you can join us. Here are a list of those who are considering coming:

Jack Shelton from KANE
Andy Kavie from Kane
Joe Waggoner from KANE
Andy & Laura Nielsen from KANE
Kyle Setrum from Iowa
Tom Braag
Mark & Candy Gooderum from Texas
Doug Gavin From KAXN (Alexandria, MN)
Ken Schuler from KGFK (Grand Forks, ND)
Fred Moskol from KMSN (Madison, WI)
Bryan Sharp from Minot, N.D.
Mike & Linda Nielsen from KMCK(McCook, NE)

Not all of those above are certain they will attend, but have expressed interest. It would be super if all of them plus family and friends come. I will need a more accurate count by the end of this week, so if your name is listed, please let me know if you are planning on attending for sure and how many you will be bringing with you.

They just inserted a 20% chance of showers Saturday into the forecast, and that is not much but we will keep an eye on that. So far we have a good chance of having great weather.

 

[niechiro]

The weather man has been playing with our fly-in. Here's the latest forecast for Saturday at KANE as of early afternoon Tuesday.

A chance of rain and thunderstorms, then rain likely after 1pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 66. West northwest wind around 5 mph becoming southwest in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 60%.

We'll all keep an eye on this. Should this not change, I want all of you to be thinking about whether or not you want to stay with the current plan or try an alternative. The next day is Easter Sunday and we could have a late afternoon fly-in such as 4 p.m. The forecast for Sunday is Sunny and 59F. (so far). I can be very flexible so will appreciate your thoughts in a couple of days.

 

[mgooderum]

Right now with the forecast my plan is to Fly to KC (Olathe really) on Friday and then the Fly-In Saturday morning. I don't know enough of the forecast to know if the stuff Saturday is supposed to be a line or scattered. In my case I'm don't actually need to leave KANE until later in the week but I know the rest of you need to get home.

If Saturday gets scratched I might go into KFCM instead. Sunday I've got family stuff in Rochester and a juggle for late afternoon probably doesn't work. Do what makes sense for those of you local. Given the unsettled forecast I'm guessing there's at least a 1:4-1:3 chance I have to scratch and come commercial or drive.

Overall into at least Thursday the Surface Analysis shows cold fronts descending North to South more than East to West. That will make for some interesting choices on weather.

We'll see what the weather gods give us. We were forecast for ~20 hours of rain here in Austin and it all went North other than a few hours here and there.
-=-
Mark

 

[ksetrum]

My Super is still in annual waiting for a fuel pump to get rebuilt. Apparently the shop that is rebuilding it went to Sun and Fun last week and didn't work on it. So I'm out for this weekend. I'll still stop by one of these weekends on my way to Little Falls.

So far here are the excuses for parts for repairs in the past:
- in 2014 I needed a new muffler that took a month... Excuse "the guy that rebuilds them went on a deer hunting trip"
- last year waiting on a cable for the nose gear 3 weeks... Excuse "the guy that rebuilds our cable was on vacation"
- and now.. waiting on a new fuel pump and Sun and Fun, the Super has been in annual since March 20th

Apparently my plane goes to the shop when everyone is on vacation. At least the weather has been pretty bad around here for the most part so I wouldn't have been flying much anyway. Nothing makes you miss your plane more than having it sit in the shop.

 

[niechiro]

There is nothing like scheduling a fly-in to cause the weather forecast to go south. I have been fortunate the past few years to use an A&P at KANE who allows owner assisted annuals. Usually we plan for improvements at the end of one year's annual for next years. This time I bought a new ignition harness and tires for the mains at Oshkosh last year. My biggest problem was getting the bearings and bushings for the stabilator. Everyone says buy them at a non-aviation source. I could not find them anywhere and they cost about $450 for two small nickel sized bearings and four bushings that look like thick washers. Anyway, the bottom line is once I got the back log of maintenance under control, We can usually accomplish everything at annual that needs to be done without waiting on parts. I used to have the same problem as you, Kyle, where it would take 3 to 4 weeks for an annual. Hopefully we can get together next year when I go to KANE for my next annual.

 

[CleoBen]

My Super is still in annual waiting for a fuel pump to get rebuilt. Apparently the shop that is rebuilding it went to Sun and Fun last week and didn't work on it. So I'm out for this weekend. I'll still stop by one of these weekends on my way to Little Falls.

If the weather cooperates, you are welcome to fly up with me, Kyle.

CB

 

[BCSharp]

Unfortunately I'm going to have to say its a firm no-go for me. In addition to the current WX uncertainties I've had a few items come up which need my attention this weekend. Hope everyone else can make it and the storms stay away!

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

[mgooderum]

I'm officially pulling the plug on getting to the fly-in - getting to KC tomorrow looks tricky - in KC is okay, DFW to KC looking not great. Weather in Minneapolis is decent most of the day but I don't have enough hours in the day to swing as far west as I likely need to and get back to Minneapolis before weather moves in and work schedule didn't let me get out today and weather wouldn't have let me get to where I would need to be tomorrow.

Now it's more of a question to if or how far I can get to Southern Minnesota on Saturday or Sunday.
-=-
Mark

 

[niechiro]

Thanks for your decision to stay safe. As for me, I haven't left Nebraska and parts of sw MN. are closing in. Will have to make a decision in the next couple of hours to go this evening. If not, I may not make it until Sunday at the latest. So will be watching the 7 pm. TAF's when they come out.

 

[mgooderum]

Sunday looks like promising flying weather farther north. Saturday looks iffy anywhere north of I-70. I don't mind a little rain but the system coming in will have convective activity, I'm not current and the Sierra is out of static/transponder check and not IFR legal itself (all on the hotlist to resolve next month). The question is how scattered and what ceilings will be.

Right now the strategy is fly and drive...but it's unclear if that will get me much past KC. I need an FBO with real car rental and there's not much past KC until you get to the I-80 line - Des Moines/Ames, Cedar Rapids, etc. Later in the week looks sketchy on return - another motivator. But even KC would trade 22 hours of driving for 7-9 hours of flying.

I'm learning in Texas almost everything that rolls through this time of year (even cold fronts) down here brings sub-1k AGL ceilings (200-500 and fog is not uncommon). The fall/early winter systems seem to bring more rain but are more scattered with higher ceilings.
-=-
Mark

 

[niechiro]

The forecast for Saturday has pretty well made it doubtful for very many to fly in. Now there is a forecast for patchy fog before 1 p.m. Not good. I polled some of our members and we will lose more people than gain if we move it to Sunday due to Easter. So, here is what is our only option. I know there are at least several pilots who are based at KANE. I am inviting anyone who can fly-in to do it safely. For those who can drive in, please do so. We will meet at the former Cirrus FBO on the Lynx south ramp. Look for us in what used to be the office. Meet there at 11:30 a.m. and we will leave for lunch at a restaurant at noon. Hope to see at least a few of you then.