Allegheny River Valley Flyin'

On Friday, 470DS was coming out of the 100-hr warranty service check, and I headed up to Winner Aviation at KYNG. While I was not impressed with the price for 100LL ($4.95/gal), I was impressed (again) with the service. Our DA40 was spotless! They washed all the bugs off and got the soot and grime off the bottom of 470DS! They had run the fuel down pretty far when testing the secondary static port that was installed to fix our KAP140 AutoPilot porpoising, so Dad called them up and asked for 15 gallons to be added. Well, I arrived, ready to fly, and I looked at the fuel situation, and just didn't feel too comfortable with only partial fuel on board. The nice thing about the G1000 is the great fuel reporting and instrumentation, but it's only as good as the last person who reset the gas gauge. When I powered up, the fuel gauge said "17gals", and I only had 15 put on. Hmmmm...not quite enough for 1.2hours, plus 30 minute reserves, and certainly not enough for enjoying the sunshine on this beautiful clear day. I decided to head east to KFKL (see the photo taken above on final for runway 4) to top off the tanks. They took 27.6 gals, so I was glad that I made the journey - there's no confidence like exactly knowing your fuel situation, and knowing that it's good!

There wasn't alot going on at FKL on the ramp, but the ramp worker came out promptly and fueled me up. I wandered inside and noted a POOL TABLE in the pilot's lounge! Sweet. Plus, this wasn't your ordinary FBO. The quiet exterior belied the busy internal atmosphere of a full service FBO and US Airways terminal, and Italian restaurant (Primo Barone's), which I'll have to try. The IFR Pilot didn't have an awesome meal there, but maybe he should've had the calzone. That's what I'll get when I go:) After I fueled up, I took off and headed south down the Allegheny River. In my college days (I sound like an old fogey talking like this:)), I spent many many days hiking, biking, camping, and generally exploring the woods and creeks and bluffs of the Allegheny River Valley between Emlenton and Franklin. It is a truly special, beautiful place, and this was my first time to see it from the air!
This is a photo of an old abandoned railroad bridge across the Allegheny, near Sandy Creek. This was a favorite place of mine to visit when the weather was nice and I needed a good excuse to skip class. This bridge is about 50-60ft above the river level, and is a pretty fun place to hang out for an afternoon. Also, hiking the riverbed back up Sandy Creek is pretty fun - There are a couple of other smaller bridges and a tunnel! There are quite a few empty tunnels along the Allegheny River, and some of them are over a mile long....a very fun alternative to Numerical Methods 224 with Dr. Cheng. Can anyone say "Runge-Kutta Method"?

Here is a view south, looking towards the plateau that the Grove City College Outing Club Cabin sits upon. There's a really sweet biking/hiking trail the runs along this ridgeline, and then dives towards the river. Primitive camping spots dot the riverbanks of the Allegheny - it's a wonderful place to spend a summer weekend. As I flew towards the area where I knew that the Cabin was, I kept looking at landmarks, and looking and looking, and finally I saw a small roof, peeking through the trees. It was a lot harder to see from the air than I thought. Here is the GCCOC Cabin, built in 1938, an old hunting lodge which afforded me many hours of escape from Campus, building fires, shooting potato guns, camping, hiking, chopping firewood, and generally having a wonderful time in God's creation.Here are two views of the small river village of Kennerdell, PA, down at where the mouth of Scrubgrass Creek empties into the Allegheny. There is a great view of the town from the bluffs on the western side of the river, especially at night. I spent many a night there with friends, listening to the stillness of the air, looking at the stars, and seeing the twinkling lights across the river. Now, I'm cruising 1000ft above the bluffs at 130mph with an even better view!

No blog entry would be complete without a little powerplant action. Kendall - do you like? Here's the Scrubgrass Power Station, which was the de-facto ASME club field trip in college. They take high-sulfur Bitumous "waste" coal here, pulverize it, and feed a fluidized bed box boiler to generate about 85MW of electricity.

After flying over my old haunts along the Allegheny River, I headed over to see what the Alma Mater looked like with leaves on the trees. I didn't realize it at the time, but I flew over just about 30 minutes prior to the 2007 Baccalaureate Service for graduation at Grove City College. There were umpteen hundred chairs set up on the QUAD! Where are those snipers? The sacrilige! I was verbally chastized by the Dean of Men once for cutting a corner across the sacred QUAD on my mountain bike. Now, they just let any old person walk across it? Well, that has done it for me....no donations this year, no matter how many pleading letters and glossy brochures I get in the mail! I circled a few times to let the parents know what they were missing, to give them something interesting to look at, and to see that I was burning 7.5gal/hr of BP's finest 100LL @ $3.95/gal instead of pouring it into GCC's coffers. I'm not bitter. Honest.