Enroute Monday, July 8 Tuesday, July 9 Wednesday, July 10 Thursday, July 11 Friday, July 12

Friday, July 12: Proficiency Race, Coctail Hour, Awards Dinner, and Bozeman, MT. This morning was the profiency race and tonight is the cocktail hour followed by the awards banquet. They promised to mail all my awards to me, so we decided to get while the getting was good, and head home this morning. Too bad we missed the awards banquest, though, now we'll have to wait for word from someother member on where the next convention is going to be held (smart money is on Caldwell, Idaho). We packed up and headed for the airport. I must say that all week we received excellent service from the FBO at Spearfish, Flightline Aviation Services. I would highly recommended dropping by Spearfish sometime. We'll miss that fine service (but not so much the pushing of the plane in the grass, multiple times a day!). Bozeman, MT - Navion Graveyard: Apparently Bozeman is the place where Navions go to die. We did one leg from Spearfish to Bozeman, and lost our engine driven fuel pump somewhere on the approach or landing. Kem Jones had landed early with a rough running engine but apparently it was a fouled plug and he left shortly before we got there. Another Navion was there with some problems starting, but those got straightened out eventually too. Which leaves my Navion as the only one still broken down! I know some of you may be asking, "Didn't she have an engine driven pump failure on approach to Bozeman just last September?" YES!! If my Navion has an achilles heal, it's the engine driven fuel pump. Being broken down on the road is sure frustrating when just about everyone you know who might have parts are all in Spearfish! I got Tom Deluca on the first call and he has a B model pump on the shelf, so it should be here in Bozeman by 8:30am tomorrow. Arlin's (the FBO at Bozeman) should be getting pretty good at installing fuel pumps on Navions, so hopefully we'll be on our way again before the weather is predicted to drop on Saturday evening. Even with this little annoyance it was still a great trip, can't wait until next year's convention! I promise I'll post the pictures of everyone's Navion this weekend!