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

Wednesday, July 10: Fly-Away to Wall, Tech Session, and more Maintenance Inspections. Fly-Away to Wall, South Dakota: Wall is famous for the Drug Store that gives out free ice water and advertises all over the world. Wall is actually a very small, tourist town, but does have a nice little airport (3500 feet) within walking distance of town. The airport only has limited parking space, so fortunately, we kind of unofficially visited the town in shifts. The first group left around 9:00am, and we were probably the last shift to visit wall for dinner. More Maintenance Inspections: Ron Judy did two more maintenance inspections this morning, including inspecting my own N422HJ. I have to admit, it was with both anticipation and trepidation that I delived my plane to the legendary Ron Judy for his critical appraisal. All I can say is that I am so glad I did it. Ron had a great checklist of inspection items that we went through in about 2.5 hours. We found some good things and a few things that need to be addressed, but nothing of a critical nature. Plus I also learned alot just watching Ron work for a few hours. If they do these inspection clinics again next year, I would strongly recommend it to anyone. Tech Session: I really enjoyed the tech session this year. Judy Sorton discussed minimum equipment lists briefly, then turned it over to Ron Judy, who brought along several parts samples to demonstrate different forms and types of corrosion. He also suggested that Scott Sepper and all the other Florida pilots just move to Arizona and get it over with! Ron also discussed some examples of issues uncovered during the inspection clinic and presented a detailed checklist for diagnosing gear problems. I videotaped the entire tech session, I'll discuss with Ron Judy and Gary Rankin if there's a way we can make this available to members who couldn't be there. But, the very best moment of the tech session, was when Ron Judy stated (referring to the planes he had inspected) "the best plane I looked at was Paula's." Today was a good day. :-) Most graceful maneuver witnessed at the airport today: Not wanting Ron Judy to see how dirty her wheel wells were, Paula had her head in the main window well doing a little pre-inspection cleaning this morning. She try to crawl out too quickly to watch a couple Navions depart and collided with her front step. The front step was later inspected and found to still be in servicable condition. (if you want to know the drag profile of the front step, you can measure it on my forehead).