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ANNOUNCEMENTS
September 13, 2010
Good news, fellow aviators! Mark Gray was released from the hospital today after a successful cardiac catheterization. His heart checks out as a-ok and he's been told that he may have some gastric issues.
September 12, 2010
Last Friday, Mark Gray was taken from his office via ambulance to the ER at Crittenton Hospital due to chest/arm pain. He was later admitted. He is currently undergoing testing to determine the cause including a heart catheterization scheduled for Monday. I will add more information here as it becomes available.
September 11, 2010
You may have noticed that several of the links on the weather sites page haven't been working lately. It turns out the server was being revamped and its address changed. I've updated them all and they should be working. Please let me know if you find any that aren't. -Ken
August 22, 2010 - Flying for Food
Good news and more good news! The airport at Harsen's Island has reopened. In addition, a restaurant named the Schoolhouse Grill is now open and located only 0.9 miles from the airport. Ron Catenac and Grey Lane dropped in there recently and had two positive reports. First, they say the food is excellent, plentiful, and very reasonably priced. Secondly, they discovered that the restaurant will provide 'shuttle' service (an employee's car) to and from the field. Just give 'em a call when you arrive! (810) 748-9551 (It has also been recently confirmed that the Krzysiak House polish restaurant in Bay City provides pickup and dropoff service to the airport.)
August 16, 2010 - The Search for Oil
When Pennzoil stopped making its popular two-stroke formula of oil for two-stroke engines, many of us in the ultralight and lights sport community were in a quandary about what oil to switch to and what would be required to do so. There are many, many myths about oil asserted as truth so I was understandably skeptical. However, I found an official list of approved fluids published by Rotax. In it, the AeroShell Oil Sport PLUS 2 is listed as approved. According to Shell's website, "AeroShell Oil Sport PLUS 2 is the first oil specifically developed for light, very light and ultralight 2-stroke engines such as the ROTAX ® air and water-cooled series engines, as well as premix and separate oil injection systems."
Both I and my hangar mate, Mark Gray, have switched and are very pleased with the performance. For those of you wondering, we did NOT drain any existing oil from our injection systems. The new oil is perfectly compatible with what you've been using. To be sure of this, we did our own "mythbusters" experiment and set up several bottles with various mixtures of oil brands. Not to our surprise, none of these blends turned into gunk as so many "experts" claimed would happen.
After an afternoon spent shopping on the Web, I found this oil available for about $75 per case of 12 quarts, shipping included, at this address: http://oilstore.stores.yahoo.net/index.html.
As a footnote, the same Rotax document that listed the Aeroshell oil as approved for use in their line of two-stroke engines, ALSO listed avgas as an approved fuel source and there was NO disclaimer about changing plugs more often. Those of us that have been around since the early days find those unsurprising. After all, in those days we all used regular, leaded gas and had no issues with spark plugs.
-contributed by Ken Fackler
May 30, 2010
Ken Fackler passed a major milestone today. While flying to Frankenmuth his Hobbs meter rolled through 500 hrs. Now, that 500 hrs is on his most recent engine, a Rotax 503 with dual carbs, dual ignition, and oil injection. Since launching the bird in September of 2002, he has accumulated 635 hrs, an average of 80+ hrs per season.
May 20, 2010
The MULA fly-in at Chesaning on May 29 has been cancelled.
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