Yesterday afternoon, once it cleared up I flew down to Oceanside to do an EAA Technical Counselor visit with an RV-9A builder. Dave "Hog" Klages was going to fly down with me, and his friend Frank Vandecor (I don't know if that's spelled correctly, sorry Frank if not) also tagged along. From what Dave told me, Frank goes way back as a military pilot, and he is quite the formation pilot. Word around the campfire is that he taught Gary Sobek formation skills...and Gary's now the one teaching everybody. It was an honor to fly close with these guys. We bopped down to OKB and did an overhead arrival. I didn't manage to get any photos (my bad!).
Anyway, today was a repeat performance of yesterday's weather. Again it really put a crimp in my plans. I was supposed to be up at Van Nuys at 8:30am, but I didn't get up there until after noon. Here's a shot of what it looked like around 10am. Still 3 miles in haze, partially obscured, 900 overcast. Yes, I do have a current instrument rating, but there are just some times when you don't feel like the risk is worth it...and flying formation in IFR is an oxymoron of sorts. Formation is much more fun, so it's worth the wait until it clears up.
I hung out at the hangar all morning and did a "wind dance," because I knew as soon as the wind picked up it would clear this crap out in a hurry. Tom Prokop stopped by, then Brad and Van. We talked RVs for a while. Tom is going to be building an RV-8A (he currently flies "Redtail," his RV-6). When Tom sells his RV-6, don't blink...that thing isn't gonna be on the market for long. Brad has a flying souped-up RV-4, and he's still tweaking and making it faster (the thing is incredibly fast already). Van shares a hangar with Brad a couple of doors down from me, and he's building an RV-4. He flies an old Cessna and does glider towing. They were checking out Linas' fuselage-in-progress and of course they had to poke fun at how all the holes were drilled perfectly, no strapping required to get the skins to fit, etc. Yep, building an airframe has definitely gotten easier. I put up with their little comments about the shake-n-bake kits, because these guys have a real wealth of knowledge. I'm lucky to have all these folks around.
Sure enough, around 11:30 the wind blew through and huge holes started forming in the scud layer, which lifted quickly. By the time I decided to leave for Van Nuys it was almost clear. Dave came along today as well. We swung over to Corona for a quick fuel stop, and by the time we got out of there it was plenty clear. Here's a shot of Hog as he pulled up on my right wing.
I need a new camera. My duct tape special isn't really cutting it. For some up-close shots of crap I'm working on in the hangar, it has done the trick (Adobe Photoshop to the rescue...), but the in flight photos really pale by comparison. This photo hardly captures how pretty Dave's RV-8 is in person. He just shined it up yesterday with RejeX, and the thing looks amazing. Oh, well. One of these days I'll get a new camera. Buy fuel or buy a camera? Hm...
I mentioned I had to be at Van Nuys this morning...kind of a long story, but it was for a video shoot. There's gonna be a TV production coming out soon, and hopefully it'll be available for the general public to see. I'm still not perfectly clear on the exact details, but I believe it's a story about Walter Tondu and how he's going through the process of building his own plane (an RV-7A). I'm pretty sure they had already shot footage of Walter's project, and also of Dave Richardson's project. I think they wanted to show a builder in the early stages, Walter's project in the late stage, and mine in the completed stage.
Anyway, when we got to Van Nuys the camera crew went right to it. They had been waiting since 8:30 to get started (my bad...can't help the weather). They broke out all sorts of cool video equipment.
We proceeded to deck 14D out with lipstick cameras in the cockpit, audio mics, etc. I swear we spent an hour or more just getting set up. Two of the crew were trying to find places in the cockpit where they could put their suction cup mounts, clamp mounts, etc. I was pretty protective -- no, you can't put a big suction cup on my instrument panel. The last thing I want are permanent "scars" on nice painted stuff just to get some footage. I was cooperative but conservative. Word to the wise...if you ever think you'll want to do any real video stuff from your plane, do what Dave Richardson says he's gonna do, which is to put nutplates at various locations on the roll bar, in the fuselage, etc. I think that's the way to go if you intend on mounting stuff like this. Anyway, we settled on a couple of lipstick cam mounting points, and the audio tech dialed in a mic taped inside the passenger headset (also consider adding an extra audio out from your intercom...). I gotta say, gaffer tape kicks ass. The stuff sticks great and leaves no residue and doesn't harm paint, even when sitting in the summer sun for hours. Where to get some gaffer tape... From what I recently read while looking for an online source for this tape, when shooting Star Wars, Carrie Fisher's breasts were taped up with gaffer tape to "control them" in some action scenes. If it's good enough for (young) Carrie Fisher's breasts, it's good enough for 14D.
The idea behind today's flight was that Walter was getting his first ride in a completed RV. Walter flew with me, and the photo ship was a Christen Eagle piloted by the show's host, James McCaughley. In briefing the flight with James, he mentioned that he has the same powerplant as I do, the 200hp IO-360. Despite that, he said that I would probably have to power way back for him, though. With all those draggy struts and flying wires and stuff, that Eagle isn't much of a speed demon, despite what you think.
That was confirmed on takeoff, when I had to pull back to 18"/2400 in the climbout to allow him to keep up. Hog was flying his RV-8 in the 2 slot, and he obviously had no trouble keeping up, but we were giving the Eagle a run for his money. I don't have any problem pulling the power back, but it's odd climbing out with the throttle lever about 2/3 back. In cruise, I was pulling about 14"/2300 to give the Eagle sufficient maneuverability around us. We were burning less than 6 gallons per hour in "cruise." I love this RV -- slippery and efficient as hell. I'm not knocking the Eagle...that thing is gorgeous and definitely has its mission. It probably puts the RV to shame in every aspect aerobatic-wise.
On that note, we did some really interesting video shooting. Dave Richardson flew in the front seat of the Eagle (it's piloted from the rear) and shot air-to-air video. James really made Dave work, though, because one of the things he did was a barrel roll around us. He started off my right wing, pulled up and over me inverted, and then kept the barrel roll going all the way around. We had a ton of sympathy for Dave, who spent the entirety of this maneuver looking through a viewfinder...TWICE. I would have ralphed all over the cockpit of that Eagle if I had to shoot video through a 3G barrel roll, twice no less.
Anyway, it was a pretty amazing day. On the ground I caught a glimpse of the footage from one of the lipstick cameras between our legs (looking up and back at us), and it looked pretty neat. Hopefully all the footage came out well, and hopefully this show will air at some point.
Back at the hangar, John Hughes dropped by, so I rolled the couch out front (it's cool having that thing on casters). We babbled for a while about RVs and stuff, sitting and watching planes on final, waiting for Todd to come back from northern CA.
Later, I was sitting at the desk reading email, and I had to pinch myself. Did I really just do all that cool stuff this afternoon? Tell you what, I can't complain. This is the life for me. To top it off I'm sitting here at my desk, and this is the view from my "office." Life sucks, seriously. All I know is that it probably won't always be this good, so I'm enjoying this point of view while I can.
As I was leaving the airport, I wondered why I wasn't going flying some more. The weather was perfect at that point. It had really cleared up, the air was cooling down, and the wind was dying. Perfect time to get some more dusk flying in. Jen's working, so why not go up again? Well, I'm pretty tired, and I gotta spend some time with my feet on the ground.
I didn't get nearly enough photos to capture the essence of the day effectively, but it was pretty incredible. How many people get to wake up in the morning, head to the airport, hang out with other builders, shoot the shit about RVs, fly formation, take an RV builder up for his first RV ride, shoot air-to-air video for a TV show, and just generally enjoy the crap out of a plane you built? I know many of the people who read this site are fortunate enough to fall into this category of lifestyle, and many are still building. Just keep doing what you're doing. A little bit every chance you get. Whatever pace you've set for yourself, just keep at it. It is infinitely worth your hard work and then some.
I forgot to mention...this morning, a guy from a neighboring hangar row pulled up in front of my hangar on his golf cart as I was preflighting. I think this guy flies a Cessna or something. "Pretty much got that thing together?" he asked. Um, yeah, dude. He asked if I was going flying, and when I told him I was waiting for it to clear his response was, "I just file and go." Well goody two-shoes. Neat. Have fun flying alone in your doggy ass spam can. You have no idea what you're missing.