QT Thumbs Up

It was severe clear yesterday and little wind, perfect flying weather for a weekend jaunt with zero turbulence even over the hills.  We headed down to LA for the weekend, and I filed IFR and of course they route you out of the way of all the bay area inbound traffic.  I didn't mind because it was so smooth and beautiful at sunset, and I wanted time to test out the QT Halo.  Overall it works surprisingly well.  I tried both the little rubber insert and the foam one.  The foam one seems to block more noise.  The only issue I had was that after about an hour I felt like my ear canal needed a good itch.  That might be because it was baking on the ground at about 90 degrees and so I started out sweaty. Overall the headset seems to be a good value for the money, though as of right now I think I still prefer the Zulu.  Both kids kept the Zulu's on for the whole flight though, woohoo!  Dina is going to try out the Halo on the flight back and if she likes it I'll buy another one... if not I'll get another Zulu.

In other news I finally found a new house and I'll now be only 10 minutes from the airport... yeeehaw!  That sounds great to me especially after the drive to the airport yesterday... we got stuck in the holiday weekend rush driving around in the madness, fetching the kids and getting to the airport took almost as long as the flight itself.  Also I'm really loving IFR in this plane.  The G600 coupled to the auto pilot with GPSS makes it so freakin nice.  I just love this plane!  Next week she goes in for new tires and to get a few squawks from the ABS clinic sorted out.  I decided to take it to Maintenance Express in Livermore, which is the shop where the ABS clinic was held.  They're expensive at $95 an hour, but they seem really cool and knowledgeable, and more importantly they seem to work quickly and efficiently.  I've learned the hard way it's tough to judge the relative cost of a shop based on their hourly rate.  If they take twice as long to do things then their hourly rate doesn't mean much.  Here is my squawk list:

Tighten RT flap actuator bolt
Service airframe hinges
Left engine lifter/ cam inspection
Rig landing gear this includes all of the landing gear rigging
adjustment listed on the squawk sheet
Service Shimmy dampener with 5606
Hydraulic Fluid
replace nose gear steering yoke bushing
replace nose gear idler arm bushing
Replace aft nose gear attachment bearing
Replace all three tires, service wheel bearings, and balance wheelassembly
Nose Tire FCIII
2 Main Tires, Goodyear FC III

We'll see how it goes.