Catching Up After a Long Dry Spell

Man, this year is just flying by. Wish I could say the same for my project. I have been overtaken by events over the past several months, and the result is that not much has been done on the build. It started with the decision to get my tailwheel endorsement, followed by attending the Sport Air Electrical workshop earlier this month, and then I got the hankering to do a bit more flying for a while. SO I also checked out in the club C-182 and C-172s. Then work got in the way - you know, that pesky thing that allows you to embark in this crazy activity known as "flying." Unfortunately in my line of work October means huge deadlines for software releases that have been worked on for months, so one has to do what one has to do to get to the finish line.

Then I had a couple more revelations that have served to get in the way of actively working on the project. The first was an opportunity through the company I work for to take part in a weight loss program called Slim-genics. For far too long I had let my weight get the better of me, adn now it is slowly taking its toll on my ever-aging body. So I took a huge plunge and dove in head first and I am now about 4 weeks into this program and have lost almost 30 pounds. The ability to continue holding a medical certificate and continue to have the privilege of flying where ever I want to is a very strong motivator for me to get and stay healthy from now until the end of my days. Unfortunately this also required a time commitment to do all the things that are necessary to change bad habits and get back to a healthy life style. SO other things must suffer a bit while I take care of the truly important stuff. ONly other thing I will say about the program is that IT WORKS! I had to go buy a new smaller belt today and new clothes are not too far behind. Looking forward to "getting smaller" in the window. (reference the movie Apollo 13 for the pun!)

Then I decided to take the opportunity to fly my very first EAA young eagle this weekend. His name was Logan and his Dad's name was Mike. IT turned out to be a bit if challenge to make this happen, since we had two snow packed systems roll through the Denver area last week, and unfortunately this set the stage for a heavy Frost on Saturday morning. I was out at KAPA at 0600 in 17 degree temps to provide enough time to preheat and preflight the airplane and reposition up to KFTG where the YE rally was taking place. The sun finally warmed things up enough for me to depart in a C-172 at about 1000, and I was able to catch one of the last flights with Logan and his Dad before it eas time to turn around and head back to home base. That ride was a lot of fun. I thoroughly enjoy introducing aviation to the young peopel in hopes of lighting a spark in some of them that may someday result in them pursuing the same dream as I.

Then, as if that was not enough, I also decided that it was time to dust off an old project I had started a few years ago when I had a hankering to put together a miniature christmas village, complete with christamas trains and and little holiday scenes being played out by miniature people in a different place and time. I first caught this bug after discovering a system provided by the Woodland Scenics company, which specializes in products to create such displays. They have everything from specialized plaster products to fake trees and rocks, etc., and they have a series of how to videos that take you through the process step by step.

I became acquainted with all this when I helped my oldest son with a High School class project that involved creating a midieval scene from the Roman empire that involved a castle dn draw brige and such. That is when I got the idea for the christmas village. I made it as far as getting the train track laid out adn a basic idea for the village that I wanted. I stopped working on it after a lot of detail work on the tunnel was completed, with a bit more left to do. It has sat in a corner of my basement gathering dust ever since, so I figured it was high time to try to get this project moved along for this upcoming holiday season, so I am now neck deep in that effort.

Needless to say, this does not leave much room for working on the plane. I will say that the Sport Air Electrical class was just awesome. Fellow RV-8 builder Scott Larsen also attended. In that class we learned how to attach a variety of different crimp connectors, including a BNC connector to some RG58 antenna coax. Then we also got to wire up and solder an actual Phone and Mike jack for a PPG intercomm system, and the acid test was whether you could plug in a headset to the actual intercom unit and hear yourself speak over the microphone. Mine worked just fine. The final project was one that emulated an on/off nav light circuit and an adjustable interior cockpit light circuit. Again, mine worked as expected. I cannot say enough how valuable all of these Sport Air classes are for learning basic skills tht can be applied to the airplane project. The class was taught by Dick Keohler, whos is also one of the folks that presents a variety of electrical how to hints in the EAA Hints for Homebuilders series of instructional videos. Dick is a great guy and a great instructor.

Then there is all the current events that have unfolded within the EAA organization over the past several weeks. Recently appointed leader Rod Hightower resigned and President and CEO of EAA, sighting family relocation concerns as the reason. There are a lot of long-time EAA members that are not happy at all with this transition, adn it seems the root concerns are centered on EAA losing its focal point on Homebuilding, Experiementation, and Innovation, to a much more all-inclusive aviation audience adn community.

Dick Koehler also told us some stories about the massive re-org that took place at EAA after Hightower took office, adn some of shady things that occured behind the scenes that seems to have negatively impacted a lot of really good people. I was very saddened to hear some of these things, as my experience with all things EAA up to this point has been largely positive. The most disturbing thing that Dick told us was that the traveling Sport Air classes that I was attending may very well be the last ones to be offered at satellite locations forever more. EAA is sighting financial issues as the reason and apparently was moving toward a philosophy to conduct the classes at Oshkosh about once per quarter, instead of traveling to a variety of different locations throughout the country. This was truly disheartening to hear.

These are truly trying times for EAA as it struggles to determine it's niche in the rest of the aviation world in this present day environment. Now that a new leader is being sought, I hope that the integrity of the namesake for the Experimental Association will be preserved as we move forward in the vast world of all things aviation.

So, enough for now. Hopefully the remainder of the year will be a bit more serene, and a little less hectic. And then, true to my past experience thus far, I will probably find the time to start working on the plane again just about the time there are sub-zero temperatures in the garage. That just seems to the be the way of things for me and this project. The wings will get done - - eventually.