Day 35 - Shakedown and Sand Dunes

Tony Cacciarelli • Jul 19, 2020

Muskegon and

Hoffmaster State Park - July 19, 2019

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Whole again

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Hoffmaster State Park

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Shakedown flight

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Time for a stair workout

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Original Instagram Post

No more airplane shenanigans. The A5 maintenance is [mostly] complete! There's one last service bulletin that came out just yesterday to replace a bolt. The part was ordered today, will be delivered tomorrow and installed. Meantime, I was able to get up and do a shake-down flight. I had to wait for the winds to die down a bit - they were 12-18 knots almost directly perpendicular to the runway, which was above the crosswind component limit for the A5. By 7pm they were well under the limit, though, so I did a short tour of the Lake Michigan shoreline. I'd walked around #hoffmasterstatepark earlier and was able to get a shot of the terrain from the air. It's a cool environment where the forest helps hold the sand dunes in place.

Once the final fix is done on the A5 tomorrow I may head up toward Traverse City or Mackinac, depending on the weather. I've been in Muskegon for three days, going on four, and I'm ready for a change of scenery. [nothing personal, Muskegon]

I'm hoping to get at least a day at Mackinac Island and maybe land at Harbor Springs, where we used to fly into back in the day. One way or another, I head to Oshkosh, WI for #OSH19 on Tuesday.

😀👍🏼

In addition to the sightseeing and shakedown flight, I accomplished one other important bit of business - laundry.

When I was packing for this trip a lot of what I chose were clothes I could wash in the sink at a hotel. They were lightweight and fast-drying fabrics, so I didn't have to worry about packing up wet clothes in the morning. But, I did have a few t-shirts and a pair of jeans that needed proper washing and drying. I'd been able to take advantage of laundry when staying with friends up to this point, so this was the first time I'd had to go to a laundromat.

I'd also thought about driving over to Ionia, MI and see if I could take a glider flight. Ionia is where I took glider flight lessons back when I was 14. I got as far as soloing and getting my student license before other things in life pulled me away.

I called Benz Aviation, the same flight school from all those years ago to schedule a flight. Turned out the rental glider was down for maintenance (a lot of that going around lately), so I had to scrap that idea.

Instead, I splurged on a fancy dinner at Hearthstone Bistro. I didn't sit at the bar for this one, but the restaurant wasn't crowded so I felt OK about taking up a table by myself.

While I knew in advance I was going to be in Muskegon for a few days while the A5 was in maintenance, it was the longest I'd been in one place since I started, so I was definitely getting antsy to get going again. I did get my daily flight in, even if it was just a short loop around the coastline. 35 days and counting.