Karmy Flying Adventures

It’s that time again, part of every summer for the last 15 years… The Arlington Airshow has become part of our family’s summer tradition. We go for the entire 5 days, camp with our friends and talk airplanes 24hrs a day!

This was the first year I flew the Kitfox up to the show and when I got there I was invited by John and Debra to park my plane in the factory vendor booth. That was nice of them, and make it nice and convenient to have the plane closer to the campgrounds. I talked with many potential customers and was able to show off the plane as a “builder” completed version.

Ranger Creek is a nice airstrip run by the State of Washington aviation department. It’s located in the Cascade Mountains near Mt Rainier. The approach is interesting as you overfly the field headed east into a box canyon, turn around and drop down low over the river which goes right by the airstrip. It’s important to watch your speed as there are downdrafts and winds in the canyon if the weather is anything but calm. Best to arrive early in the morning for the smoothest visit!

There’s just something fun about landing on the beach and playing in the sand when you’re a kid! Coaplis WA is a unique place where the runway is on the beach and you can simply land and jump out of your plane onto the sand.

Who would have thought that Washington has an official state run airport located on a stretch of the washington beach? The place is called Copalis Airport and is located about 10 miles north of Ocean Shores. You simply overfly the beach, look for people and animals, then swing around and land on the beach. Pretty neat way to get to the coast and walk the beach.

Next up is a quick maintenance task to do a dynamic balance on the prop. There is this neat little device called the DynaVibe which allows you to do a very good dynamic balance on your prop / engine combo. You mount an accelerometer on the engine, a photo-cell and tape on a prop blade, then run the engine at cruise RPM to determine how much out of balance it is. Then you add some weight to the spot it tells you to, and run again. This will tell you how much you moved the numbers and in what direction so you can adjust the weights to correct the balance condition. You lather / rinse / repeat this cycle until you get the prop balanced.

I started out at .35 IPS (Inches per second) that means that the engine was moving 1/3 of an inch every second, glad I have rubber engine mounts. When all was said and done, it was at 0.01 IPS! That’s basically none. It’s amazing that it really makes a difference. The plane is so smooth now. I had to add 0.24 oz to one side of the spinner back plate to balance it.