An Aborted Ferry Flight

[Eric Page]

Some of you may remember a guy here on the forum named Nate who built a Kitfox that was powered with an AeroMomentum AM15 engine. That engine was eventually removed and the aircraft was sold. The buyer had a new engine and propeller drop-shipped to Nate for installation, after which the plane was ferried to the new owner in Colorado.

Fast forward to the current day. The new owner wanted the plane moved to Brunswick, Maine for installation of Clamar floats. Nate wasn't available for the mission so he referred the owner to Alex (@alexM), who accepted and asked me to tag along. Last Wednesday we met in Denver, took a United A319 to Montrose, CO and went to a hotel. The next day we drove to the owner's home northeast of Montrose and dug the Kitfox out from behind a beautiful Carbon Cub. I then drove the rental car back to Montrose while Alex flew down to pick me up.

Nate's Kitfox.jpg
Alex, pre-flighting our office for the next three days.

The plane is equipped with Shock Monster landing gear, 29" Alaskan Bushwheel tires, a Rotax 912iS with 3-blade Airmaster prop, and a Garmin G3X Touch. Covering is Oratex. Due to the landing gear, tires and lack of wing strut fairings, this is a slow airplane. We managed about 80mph IAS!

Our first leg was about three hours, from Montrose, CO to Rawlins, WY. Due to significant clouds along the way, we first headed northwest toward Grand Junction, then followed I-70 to Rifle, climbing (barely!) to just over 12,000' along the way. Approaching Rifle we dove to 7,500', under a cloud layer, then followed the CO Hwy 13 canyon north to Meeker, CO. From there the terrain flattens to a broad, high plain, where CO Hwy 13 changes to WY Hwy 789, which led us into Rawlins for fuel, a restroom break and hot chocolate.

Upon shutting down in Rawlins, we discovered that all of the tie-down rings in the apron were blocked by ice! This was a problem since the wind was gusting to about 35mph at the time. While Alex held the brakes, I was able to borrow a hammer and screwdriver from the FBO and chip out enough ice that we could tie down with the ratchet straps we had stolen from the owner's hangar for the purpose.

The second leg (about two hours) had us following I-80 and US-30 to Medicine Bow, where we picked up the BNSF rails across a long stretch of prairie to Wheatland, WY. A slight turn to the south took us across more open prairie, but BNSF led us right to Scottsbluff, NE for our first overnight stop. We saw three mile-and-a-half long coal trains along the way, and a couple of rail marshaling yards with more cars and locomotives than I've ever seen in one place. In one yard there was a string of 41 locomotives connected together!

Day two began with a two hour leg following US-26 over Oshkosh (Nebraska, not Wisconsin!), rejoining I-80 just west of North Platte and following it to our first fuel stop at a nice little airport in Gothenburg, NE. They have both a paved and a grass runway, just the way an airport should be! Our second leg (nearly three hours) was intended to take us mostly east, but we had to turn south near Kearney, NE due to IFR conditions farther east. It turned out to be a significant deviation, taking us southeast across miles of frigid farmland and shivering cattle to Emporia, KS for our second overnight stop.

I should pause here to explain that neither Alex nor I have very much experience with Rotax engines. On each leg the first day, after about an hour of flying, we had the Lane B light come on steady. On the second leg, the light was accompanied by an "ENGINE ECU" message on the G3X. Each time this happened, the condition would clear after shutdown and the lane would test normally on the next restart. For reasons that we weren't able to determine, the G3X in this plane (wired with a VP-X) cannot be shut off with the engine running so we weren't able to reboot it into diagnostic mode to look for active engine codes.

The weather deteriorated in Emporia overnight and we had IFR conditions until around noon. The forecasts for pretty much everywhere east of Kansas were IFR for the full extent of their TAFs, the Lane B issue was bugging us, there was a winter storm headed for the Midwest and significant snow forecast in the Northeast. Taking all of that and our looming work schedules into account, Alex made the tough decision to pull the plug. He found hangar space in Wichita, KS, which, once we extricated ourselves from a very friendly EAA chapter meeting in the Emporia terminal building, was about a 50 minute flight over beautiful rolling country populated with thousands of horses.

With the plane safely stored until the Lane B issue can be diagnosed and the weather improves, we got a Lyft (driven by a college English professor!) to Wichita's commercial airport. I got lucky on a couple of United flights through Denver and got home at around 11pm last night. Poor Alex is still in Wichita as I write this, as his American flight to DFW suffered a rolling weather delay that cost him his connection to Seattle. With better luck today, he'll be home this afternoon on a non-stop Alaska flight.

Alex's phone has a much better camera than mine and he took a lot more photos. Perhaps when he gets his feet under him at home, he can post a few pictures here to give a flavor of the beautiful and desolate terrain that we flew over. It was a really fun trip and I'd like to thank Alex for inviting me to go along. It was my first experience in a Kitfox and I was pleasantly impressed with the plane's performance and handling.

Both of us learned a few things that we plan to apply to our builds:

1. Careful control rigging is critical. Even a tiny bit of "heavy wing" can be very annoying on a long flight.
2. Some kind of rudder trim, either a tab or in-flight adjustable, is mandatory. Holding right rudder for three hours is not fun.
3. Installing brush seals along the horizontal stab slots is a very good idea if you plan to fly in cold weather. The back of your neck will thank you.
4. Large tundra tires should be inflated well above 8psi for landings on paved surfaces. Squishy tires are difficult on pavement and require high power settings to taxi.
5. If you have a Rotax iS engine, the standard kit for a cross country flight should include a BUDS dongle (yes, they're expensive; welcome to aviation!) and a small laptop.

Oh, and don't order fish tacos at a sketchy restaurant named Olé! in a land-locked state.