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Hmmm . . . where to begin, been so busy catching up with all the other stuff I have been ignoring to get to this point . . . preachin' to the choir here . . . . ummmmmmm -

""WHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPIIIEEEIEIEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!""

(he said, most understatedly)

I got to fly my airplane (a slight pause to reflect on that phrase: "my airplane" ----- *sigh*) for the first time Saturday afternoon. Could not fly it before, as it was out of annual. I bought it after we had done all the inspecting, but before reassembly and squawks. We have been working thru a few unairworthy items and finishing some of the routine stuff on weekends and some days off. Nothing major, a corroded stud for #2 exhaust, no nut to be found, was the worst of it and took some finessing to get out to avoid pulling the cylinder to have the machine shop do it (been tempted to name it "Studley"). Broken pitot line at wing root. New tires & tubes to replace the cracked and square. Strut and shimmy damper service. Fuel sending unit seals and hose pieces for the crossover. And. And. This airplane has been sitting for the past four years, except for 1.75 hrs and one annual (funny, that #2 nut missing was written up then . . . ). So I for one wanted to be sure of not being rushed and miss something, and decided to be impatiently patient for however long it took. Saturday was the payoff. With Gary along to be safe and legal (me still student and rusty at that), we put 1.5 hrs on it, first just orbiting close to the field, then puttering around in the local area to the south with lots of landing options (waved at Eagle's Nest - didja see us? ). No real bad habits we could tell in the afternoon bumps, engine ran smooth. The radio was the only hiccup, having an intermittent bad reception problem fixed by pushing on one side (loose/corroded antenna wire connections, I found, and will have to take it out to correct for sure). Came back in to Arlington for a low pass down the runway at first, a T&G, and a full stop landing. When we left, we had a steady +10 kts of direct crosswind, with gusts above that. (Did I mention "student" and "rusty" already? ) It had died down some by the time we returned, but only some, so Gary suggested the low pass to get the feel of the control inputs to track the runway. Thus not only a first flight in 80Q, but also the most crosswind I have ever worked with - at very (embarassingly) close to year since performing any takeoffs or landings. (Gary has big brass . . . ones, but he still walks normally )

I'm psyched now! But I recently found out my instructor has moved on to a Falcon 20. DoH! At least "which plane is available" is no longer a factor.



Choir practice over.

Feels great dosn't it??? Nothing beats having your own bird on hand and flying whenever you like. Congratulations!!!!!!

For not flying for a year, Konrad did really well. I never felt the urge to grab the yoke to save my hide.

He really did a bunch of work on the plane to get it to where it is now. What a fun thing to do. Go flying in your very own plane. Nice.

And after the flight, two very nicely done crosswind (90 degrees 13kts) landings were the icing on the cake. Good job, Konrad.

Congratulations, Konrad! Would you care to bounce on up here to Oregon to give me some lessons in our new bird??

Whooooooppeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Feels good, huh? Flying your own plane around the sky instead of someone else's is just about the best legal rush you'll ever have. Congraulations Konrad!

I would need to a least get signed off for cross-country, first! I am only about 4 hrs post solo (a full year ago, now).

I did find Gary's suggestion of the low pass very instructive, feeling out the needed control inputs without the "distraction" of actually landing. And, I did have a little stick time with Gary in 61U, but not TO&L of course. (I'm sure both of us would rather the first ground loop be Gary's )

And I am not as rusty as you get doing nothing related to flying, I just have not been doing the "real thing." I have the X-plane(.com) flight sim, with a control yoke and rudder pedals (real-time performance calculations, not a look-up table of performance parameters, like MS FS). The sim can be harder to fly in some respects due to reduced feedback. And you can crank up the wind with abandon . However my CPU's are a little slower than the program would like and it gets a little behind if you crank up too much scenery or weather, and I have rarely used as much crosswind as we had on Sat. and been as sucessful. (Aside: I have "built" a C152 for X-plane if anybody wants a copy; no paint job yet and I need to refine the aerodynamic coefficients some, but it "flies" very close to the POH numbers. In fact some knowledgable second opinions would be nice.)

I also fly r/c models, which is completely different feedback forcing you to think more about what the plane is doing rather than see/feel it. Wind affects it more and it is slower to identify it and correct for on TO&L without standing somewhere along the centerline of the runway (not the best of ideas). I deliberately did not install enough engine on my heavy, draggy, no-flaps U-crash-Em to overpower it, so I have to fly it like a full scale plane, especially on TO&L. It does not instantly react to power changes, or play helicopter like a lot of r/c models you see.

So, I have had some kind of practice at it over the year. But still not the "real thing". I stopped because of the flight schools' maintenance attitude, but I like Hicks Field and wanted to continue with the same instructor (DoH!). Just one example: two 100 hr inspections over 4 months for one of the 152's and the nose gear strut loose in the mount was never addressed, ever after being pointed out 3 times by me & instructor. So what else were they blowing off, eh? I didn't want to find out (the hard way). Which brought me here last Jan. to lurk to investigate buying. Just took longer than I thought, trying to work it around/thru other projects and a temporary 3 month job re-assignment to the JSF program. But, finally !!

I will also take this opportunity to again thank Gary for his incredible assistance in this whole deal, start to finish, for someone he did not even know beforehand. I must also recognize the contribution of Royson and Lori for the club itself and these forums. The Porsche Club America has a motto that is just as applicable here: "It's not the cars(planes), it's the people!" It would have been a much more daunting task without the help and resources found here. Thank you ALL.

Konrad,
Congratulations on flying your very own airplane. Nothing like it is there?

Get that cross country endorsement or better yet your PPL.

Gary and I have been talking about meeting in Abilene for a lunch and a bull session. Maybe we can talk Dale into coming in too. If you could make it, well heck we would have a fly in, sort of.

KNOCK IT OUT, KONRAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me know when Abilene will be. I am in Canada this week but count me in.