From the Maplewoods workshop: Steve's RV7 project: SOLO!!!

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, December 11, 2012

SOLO!!!

Doug turned 16 on November 28th. The weather cleared two days later, and he soloed. A link to his pre solo flight with Dorothy Schick, his CFI is here:

http://youtu.be/Yg16iQ8GeCo

He made three solo takeoffs and three "butterfly" landings; so soft and quiet that you couldn't hear the tires chirp on the runway. Unfortunately, the in flight cam failed, so we don't have the solo on video, just the pre-solo flight. You can tell how good he is from the short video clip. He hasn't even gotten his driver's license yet. But Doug can fly...