The Mission:

I am building an airplane. I really can't tell you how weird it sounds to me to hear those words in my head as I type. I am keeping this blog as an adjunct to my written log, which is required to comply with FAA requirements for Experimental Aircraft construction. My son Doug is my partner in this project. There are two goals: to build the best, safest, and yes, COOLEST, airplane we can, and to allow Doug to acquire some truly awesome experiences, not to mention building skills. Thanks for viewing.



How to use this blog

The most current post is displayed on this opening page. To access the older posts, click on the "Blog Archive" on the right hand side. The drop down menu is arranged by the month and lists the posts, by title and by date posted, in reverse chronological order.

I will arrange the hypertext links to other websites I find interesting better some day, but they are at the bottom.

If you navigate to my first post, there is a link to my luthiery pages. I miss working with wood. Aluminum is nice, but it's boring. Give me a highly figured maple any day!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Summertime

We have done a little traveling this summer, which is good, but that means less time in the hangar, which is bad.  During a trip up to Seattle, we stopped at Boeing Field, which has an absolutely wonderful museum and collection of significant aircraft.  It turns out we were two days too early for the airshow this summer (who knew?), but we did get up close to the Blue Angels, parked behind the cyclone fence.  We were able to walk through the Concorde and the Air Force One from the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon era.



Slightly faster than an RV7


Air Force One and Concorde

Doug was given an RV12 rudder by the local EAA chapter to assemble "for fun".  I have some concern that I may have to spring for the rest of the kit when he is done!

riveting the RV12 rudder spar



We also traveled to San Diego.  At Gillespie Field, Doug and I spent time in their Redbird full motion simulator, set up to simulate a Cessna 172.  Very realistic, right up until Doug decided to do a carrier landing in San Diego harbor.  Nailed it!!

On short final for the deck of a carrier in San Diego harbor
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1 comment:

  1. AliAugust 27, 2011 at 11:31 AM

    This whole undertaking is extremely impressive. It has been fun watching this project unfold. If only there were more hours in the day and sleep was not necessary!

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