Updates

It's been a long time since my last posting, and I have still been flying about 2 hrs/month. Usually with family. I flew the family to Brenham for the Easter weekend to see family there. That was an experience. We had 5 people in the plane (two 7 year olds and a 12 year old fit in a decent sized seat for 2 adults). From now on though, I will have to factor another thing in when taking passengers. With passengers, I usually try to fly higher to get away from the turbulence. On the way back from Brenham, I flew at 9000ft to get a nice view of the sunset. Well my younger kids had sinus problems, and coming down from 9000 ft caused them some pain. So I'll have to watch out for that next time.

A funny thing happened on the way to Memphis...
A couple of months ago, a friend was wanting to go to Memphis, TN to look at a Long EZ he was thinking about buying. My friend had also just got his pilot's license a few months before, and wanted to have me along because of the long cross country planning experience I had in going to Orlando, FL. It was only a day notice though, and although I helped put together a good route to Memphis, it was rushed, and as not as polished as I would like. I would also be flying a new plane but it was a Cessna 172, which I was comfortable with.

We met at the airport, and prepared for our flight. We wanted to be thorough in our planning since this was a new plane, and a long trip, so we had a bit of a late start. We planned a fuel stop which was halfway between Houston and Memphis in Monroe LA.

We stopped in Monroe and found a place to have lunch, where we reviewed the rest of the route, and he called the person we were to meet in Memphis. It turns out the plane is being worked on and isn't flyable! Yes, we actually find out this important piece of information halfway to Memphis. So there really wasn't any point in continuing on and we headed back. It was ok with me because the flight was turning out to be a rather long one with the head winds we were getting, and I was just enjoying the flying experience I was getting out of the flight.

After the flight we debriefed and talked about our different approaches to flying. He is not as experienced with long cross country flights, but was very used to the radio work (because of doing a lot of flying in the Dallas-Ft Worth area) and did most of it. I enjoy cross country planning and have the trip to Florida under my belt. I can do the radio work, but am not at ease with it yet because I haven't had frequent need for it. I see that I need more experience in this area, so I will plan on using flight following whenever I can in the future. Overall it was a good flight, and I think a lot can be learned both ways when flying with another pilot.


$100 Hamburger
There was a week last month when weather was fantastic, so I was going to fly my wife to lunch at Brazoria County airport. There was a nice diner there. My son was having a bad day at school and came home with a stomach ache. I think it was more nerves about something going on at school though. After he got home he was feeling better. My wife probably should have stayed home and kept him in bed, but we had this nice $100 hamburger planned, the weather was great, and my son was doing better. So we all went. It was a very fun trip. And yes, we did tell him there would be no more of that and that he needs to stay in school. ;)

RV Grin
Also last month, there was an EAA meeting at the airport. I wanted to go because, thanks to a post I read on the flysomewhere blog, I have been reading about the RV kits from Van's Aircraft. These are some great planes! They can go about 200 mph, have aerobatic capabilities, are still good on cross countries with ranges of around 900 miles, and they can also fly over 22,000 ft. They leave the Cessnas I've been flying in the dust in every way. And yet it costs about as much as a 10 year old 172 to build. I was going to have to give this some serious thought!

As I thought about it, I also looked into the costs of buying a used plane. This is expensive, and you would have to fly a LOT to make even the cost of ownership worth it. Then I came around to the RVs again. I looked at those performance numbers, and the sleek looking planes. With the relatively low cost of building and lower cost of ownership (since you are qualified to be the mechanic for a plane you build), and the "sweetness" of these planes, I made the decision to build one.

I have a couple of projects at home to get done first, and I need to clean out the garage for room to build. And I need to choose a plane. I started off looking at the RV-7. The RV-10 was a 4 seater, but it wasn't as aerobatic as the others, and was very expensive. By the time I built one, my oldest child would be just a few years away from college, so a 4 seater would work. But there was no getting around that price. For most of the life of the plane, I would be flying one other passenger, and I figure if I need to fly more people, I can rent a larger plane.

The RV-7 is a good cross country, aerobatic, fast plane that could carry two people side by side. I thought this might be better than tandem because you would be able to actually see who you're flying with. But then I heard about the Rocket variants of the RV-4 (a tandem). There's the Harmon Rocket II, and also the F1 Rocket. These planes are even faster... 230-265 mph depending on variants and throttle setting. And they also have a larger fuel capacity so they retain their good cross country performance. I really liked the look of the F1 Rocket, and the tandem seating started to grow on me. The F1 Rocket is a pretty expensive kit though, but there is an F4 Rocket kit coming out which will look like the F1, but fly more like the "slower" RV-8, and cost as much. I found out that the F4 could later be upgraded to an F1. So for now... I am waiting to see more details on the F4 Rocket kit plane.

So I went to the EAA meeting, hoping to find some RV planes there to look at. There were 2 RV-8s there. There was Paul Dye's extremely impressive RV-8, and another one which was purchased from a builder. They were smaller than I pictured them, but still very sweet looking. I talked to the other EAA members and to the owner of the RV-8, gathering information. Then towards the end of the gathering, I was offered a ride in the RV-8!

He took his wife up first for a spin. The plane seemed to be off the ground after only 100' of runway. He stayed over the runway, building speed, and then suddenly shot up into the sky at a 45 degree angle. Wow! One of the other members asked me if I could handle that kind of flying. Absolutely, I told him. That looked fun. They came back later to do a 180-200 mph flyby over the airfield, went around again, and then landed.

It was a bit cramped to get into, but once in, it felt good. He taxi'd to the runway, and soon we were off. The surrounding landmarks wizzed past much quicker than from a 172. This plane felt fast. He did a couple of banks, and I could feel the Gs. Then I started getting this big grin on my face. This is the "RV Grin" I've heard about when reading about other peoples' RVs. This is so freakin awesome! Not being able to see me in the tandem seating arrangement, he asked me how I was doing. Was my stomach handling it ok? I told him I was doing great. He asked if I was up for some aerobatics. I told him aerobatics was one of the reasons I wanted to build one of these planes, so "Please do!!"

He did a barrel roll. It was so smooth, and I was amazed at how I was pinned to my seat the whole time. Then he did another roll, where I was not pinned to my seat. It all felt good. Then he let me take the stick. It was really touchy, and I liked flying with a stick. I did a few steep turns to get the feel of it. Then I asked if I could do a roll. He said go ahead. Usually in a flight simulator, with a slower plane, the nose will start to drop after your inverted, so you'll have to push forward. I tried this after turning over, and things were not going well, so I asked him to take it back. He said I was doing -2 Gs inverted. It's very touchy. So then he told me to lightly hold the stick while he did the maneuver, and watch the speed and artificial horizon instruments while he did one. Keep the nose just above the horizon, and no need to push forward while rolling. I tried again, and it was much better that time.

Fuel was running low, so he had me fly back to the airport. From the back seat I found I could maintain the heading and altitude he gave me. The plane was definitely moving with a purpose, in contrast with the 172. While in straight and level flight, I tried to imagine how a cross country flight would be. It was easy and fun to fly. It still had the bumps from turbulence you feel in other small planes, but they are lighter and come and go much quicker. I wonder how some of my less enthusiastic passengers might feel in a plane like this. He took the controls as we entered the pattern and landed the plane. If I wasn't convinced before I needed to build one of these planes, I certainly am now.

Over the summer, I plan on going over to TeamRocket (which happens to be in TX) to learn all about the F1 Rocket. I should be ready to order by the fall if the F4 kit is ready.