Goodbye 2023 and hello 2024! Let’s recap our flying for 2023. I ended the year filling out the last page in my third logbook with 1288 hours of flying time since I got my license back in 1989. The RV-9A ended the year with 1143 hours on the Hobbs meter. I put a total of 98.9 hours on it this year, so I almost managed to hit the triple digits. A bit better than last year, but only by a couple of hours. I did 94 flights, so my average is right about at 1 hour per flight. I flew a total of 471 hours in logbook #3 over the span of 4.5 years. That ended up being about 8.7 hours per month.
I bought 563 gallons of fuel at an average price per gallon of $5.77, which was just a bit lower than last year. My hourly fuel cost was $33.60. The highest price I paid for gas was $7.50/gallon and the cheapest was $4.95/gallon. It is amazing to me how different the price of fuel can be at each airport. The highest price was at Nogales, AZ and I just took 10 gallons. The cheapest fuel was in Wisconsin on our way back from Oshkosh. Lots of airports in the Midwest states have good fuel prices during Airventure. Here in the San Diego area, there are just a couple of airports that consistently have decent fuel prices, so I will often fill up any time I’m nearby. The difference in gas prices at airports can be well over a dollar a gallon. Most airports only have one fuel supplier, so there isn’t any incentive to cut prices.
We flew into 6 new airports. I did a flight out to the Mojave area during my Easter break from school and flew up to California City and Trona. The trip out to Nogales, AZ was for my daughter to visit the Customs and Immigration office at the border for her Global Entry card interview. The interview wait times in California were out almost a year. Appointments in Arizona were readily available, so we flew out there to get it done. On the way back from Oshkosh, we fueled up in Lamar, CO and Mid-Valley Airpark, NM and spent the night in Tucumcari, NM.
I did a number of Young Eagles events this last year and flew 11 kids. This was at EAA Chapter 14 three times, and once out at Borrego Springs. It is always fun to get kids excited about flying and get them a certificate and logbook. EAA Headquarters sent me a Young Eagles ball cap for hitting the 10 kids flown mark. I will be doing more of this in 2024. I also took one of my wife’s former high school engineering students up a couple of times. He is working on an Aviation degree at Miramar College and is taking some flight lessons.
My goal this year is to finally get my Instrument rating. One of the local CFII’s here is building an RV-10 and we have agreed to barter our time so I can help him on his airplane build, and he can give me Instrument lessons. I just need to equip my panel with some IFR instruments. I also want to knock off my Commercial rating.
On the maintenance side, after getting my A&P certificate, I’ve been quite busy. I’ve done some work on an RV-4 (oil change, brake rebuild), RV-7A (instrument panel changes), Bonanza (oil quick drain), Baron (starter) and RV-10 (fuel tank leak). I’ve got more stuff lined up in 2024. Once Van’s Aircraft can get past their bankruptcy reorganization I hope to be back working on Terry’s RV-14A project. He got caught up in the issue with defective Laser Cut Parts in his Quick Build fuselage that was ordered. We might be doing a slow build on the wing kit instead of doing the Quick Build option.
We only did one camping trip this year to Escalante, UT to see the Annular Solar Eclipse, but I’m hoping now that my schooling is done we can do more trips in 2024. I’ve already got several destinations in mind for next summer (Idaho, Washington, Montana, North Dakota). The next full Solar Eclipse will be in Texas, so weather depending I may head over to see that, and then maybe to Sun-n-Fun in Florida? Life is short, so I need to keep working on my bucket list.
Have a wonderful 2024 everyone!
Flying Over The Hills 