It has been almost a year since I updated this blog. For most of that time I was living and working in Ecuador. Now I’m back and my airplane and I are ready for more adventures and if all goes well we will be leaving for Burning Man tomorrow morning. The airport opens Sunday morning at 6:00 and the gate to the festival opens at 10:00 AM. My goal is to arrive on Sunday mid-morning and unless there are problems with Niner-Zero or the weather I should have no difficulty making it there Sunday.

I have spent the past month working on the airplane and all is ready. Unlike last year I am only flying to Burning Man and returning so my load is a bit lighter. Last year I was out for a month and spent the two weeks before Burning Man visiting friends in California. This year I will be flying directly to Black Rock City and have given myself three full days to make the trip, two should be sufficient but this way I won’t have to push myself too hard.

Here you can see that she is all packed and ready to go. The charts for the first leg are on the instrument panel cover opened to the proper sections. I use a moving map GPS with the same charts loaded into them but I still keep track on the paper charts as backup. Without the charts, if the GPS fails I could become lost almost immediately. But I mark my position on the charts every few minutes and keep a visual check with landmarks on the ground and if need be I can navigate by this method alone. The orange object under the top of the plexiglass windshield is a SPOT tracker and will send my location up to a satellite every 10 minutes. If you want to see where I am, this link should work:

Flying Low and Slow in N90HS

So, this is my seat and with my pack strapped into the other seat my airplane becomes a single seater. After I had everything stowed I climbed in and it felt just like last year. Snug and cozy. Everything in its place. I plan to head out to the airport this evening to make sure all is ready and to stow a few small items and then get a good night’s sleep. Hopefully by tomorrow evening I’ll be somewhere in New Mexico or Colorado. Hopefully someplace with internet so I can post an update.