Well the weather cleared up and I contacted my flight advisor to see if he was available. He said I could make the first flight on my own with just a ground person on the radio to help in case I had trouble but he was available. It is nice to have someone fly on the wing to look things over and since we are both formation qualified we set up noon as the takeoff time. He is 20 miles away at another airport so we planned to meet over my airport. I took off a little late, just after 12 pm, Jim was just getting into the airport area and he quickly joined up. He looked me over and the elevator looks good for level flight as well as the ailerons, I do have a heavy right wing so I had a lot of left aileron trim in to hold wing level, I later learned that this is typical and 90% of the time it is the right wing.
After about 30 minutes Jim notice something on my belly which might be streaming oil so I landed and it was a squeaker!! On post flight inspection, I had no oil leaks but the belly had a rainbow sort of color almost like metal that has been really heated to a high degree. The streak went back to the transponder antenna which is plastic and it was not melted so I knew it was not heat related. One of the guys’ hanging around got down there and saw that it would wipe up. Not sure what it was but I flew again this time for an hour. Another good landing and no problems or leaks with the engine.
It was later that I realized I managed to have my first flight on a very unique date 12-12-12. A friend pointed out that 12+12+12=36 and we were both in the 36th Fighter Wing and I was once in the 36th Fighter Squadron. My number on my swim team in high school was also 36, weird I know. I also had planned a 12 noon takeoff which I missed but all very weird. I am super happy to have the first flight done, more tomorrow since the weather is going to remain good.
