lcottrell
Joined: 29 May 2006
Posts: 1494
Location: Jordan Valley, Or
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 Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 10:13 pm Post subject: ramblins |
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Things seem to be a bit slow on the list, so I thought that I would relate my flight today. If you saw the admittedly poor quality video that I posted to Google you can see that the area here is high Desert with a pretty spectacular Owyhee Canyon cutting through it. My primary purpose in life since my retirement is flying a Firestar and two Peregrine Falcons. Sometimes the Firestar plays a pretty important part in the other pursuit. What I am scouting for is Sage Grouse, and their primary predator is the Golden Eagle, so the best way to find them is about 25 feet above the ground. They loose their nerve and flush, there by revealing their presence.
I was actually hoping to get to Boise today to get a start on my SP lic, but the CFI already had another guy lined up, and one coming in from Wyoming for tomorrow. Guess I will have to wait a while. So since it was such a great day, I gassed up and rolled her out. I wanted to do a little more scouting for places to fly the falcons. About the only thing left to hunt is Sage Grouse, and it takes so long to get anywhere here that the chance to cut down on the scouting time is welcome. Karen and I drove 103 miles across unknown Desert yesterday on some pretty poor "two track" roads looking for birds and saw nothing while managing to burn the whole day. There is a route along the Owyhee canyon that I have tried twice to cover and run out of time. Today I cut straight across country in the plane and found that it was a bust as well. It used to be a good wintering area for the Grouse, but it was burned this year (69000 acres). I didn't know how far the burn extended so this was a chance to actually get it surveyed while having fun too. The roads were a mess with the warm weather and the Bureau of Land Management driving it every day going in there to replant after the burn. By spring it will be a nice grass land that holds no game. :-/
I cut across the River and went up a side canyon that I like, called Bogus Basin. Found that the little camera that I was carrying had dead batteries, so settled down to some terrain flying going up a little frozen creek to see where it went. It headed up with two really nice ponds that were thawed and full of Ducks. I might not be able to use it this year, but next year it will be a great place to hunt the birds. If it gets cold enough I still may be able to access it this year. My fuel had about reached half way so I followed a road that I thought lead to Rome, (all roads go there don't they?) That is a little community on Hwy 95 where it crosses the Owyhee River. It would be a short cut to me going to Bogus Basin. At Rome there is a large amount of Pheasants, and I think that I can get permission to fly them occasionally. I checked the fields and found at least 30 or more rooster Pheasants.
After that I headed for home, going up the Hwy. I wonder what the drivers thought of me flying about 75 feet above the road and matching their speed. Then buzzing the house just above the wires at about 80 plus and down on the runway. When I got back at the hanger I found that the back tank had seemed to draw almost all of the gas from it. ( They are teed together) I had more than 3 gals in the front tank and about 1.5 in the back tank.
I took the pickup tube out and blew it out, but could really find nothing wrong with it. Perhaps it is pinched. I have one of the filter pickups on the tubing, but it also has an alum. pickup tube that may well be too long. I will check that tomorrow. My flight was 1 hour and 35 minutes. I didn't have the rear curtains on and the temps were in the 20's. My feet did get a bit cold, my face was chilled a bit at first, but seemed to get used to it. A trip to the hot tub and a beer soon put me right again.
Larry, Oregon
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