Flying and building on the farm

I was introduced to flying by my father, who was a ball/tail gunner on B-17s during World War II.

I grew up building models and listening to the few stories that he told of his time in the 15th Air Force of the USAAF. Like any kid, the fighters of WWII held my fascination, especially the P-51 and P-38, which flew escort for my father on many of his 52 missions.

And the F4U Corsair, because it was the most fun to build as a model and was the star of my favorite show growing up, Black Sheep Squadron.

But the B-17 was my absolute favorite because it was my dad’s plane. We lost my father to cancer in 2003, just before my son was born. He has grown up with stories of Granddad but never had the chance to meet him or hear his stories for himself.

My son and I attended Sun N Fun for the first time in 2017 via car as we were without a plane. While we enjoyed ourselves, I learned that to truly enjoy the airshow, we needed to return by airplane and camp under the wing. The following year, with our new (to us) airplane under our bottoms, we headed Southbound to KLAL for opening day of Sun N Fun 2018. This was my first major airshow fly in, and I had a co-pilot with pretty limited experience flying, having only flown with me a few times before and at 13 years old certainly no formal pilot training.

Headed Southbound, we began descending into KLAL, talking to approach on the way in who informed us that the airport opening was delayed, and that we could expect a longer than anticipated hold. This wasn’t great news, as I didn’t purchase an airplane with a relief tube. But luckily I was nervous enough about flying into an airshow that I didn’t have time to worry about needing to use the facility.

About 20 minutes later, approach called to let us know that the airport had opened a bit earlier than expected, and departures were starting to leave.

“N12345, traffic at 1 o’clock, heading Eastbound, climbing”

“N12345, traffic 11 o’clock, heading Northeast bound, level, same altitude”

“N12345, traffic, uhhmmm. 345, there is traffic pouring off of KLAL, I can’t advise you. Keep your head on a swivel. Good luck and squawk VFR.”

Gulp

I’ve never heard anything like that before from ATC. He sounded like he was wishing me luck on my climb up the stairs to the gallows.

I had the boy’s head swiveling, while I flew the airplane, looked at ADS-B, looked at traffic coming off KLAL, and followed the NOTAM to hold over lake Parker. I flew past the lake at well above holding altitude and circled back to enter just as you would on a 45 degree entry to downwind. There was a bit of jockeying between aircraft but we quickly established ourselves in the visual hold, on speed and on altitude. As we passed over the power plant and over ATC for the first lap, I heard the call I’d been hoping for.

“T tail over the plant, turn left and keep holding. Follow the edge of the lake.”

Phew! We were in the hold and established. Now to settle down for our 45 minute hold till the airport opens. We had the NOTAM on our laps, and we basically had to just keep an eye out for someone dropping in on us. Then once the airport opened, we could just follow someone in like one of the lemmings we were, land without crashing (and being on YouTube) and then decompress. We weren’t there, but we were close.

As I made the circle around, I kept talking to my son, calling traffic to each other, and wondering how long it would actually be. We had enough fuel for an hour of circling, with reserves. Maybe a bit more at this reduced speed. There is the power plant, here comes the call to keep circling. it is only lap #2 and I’m starting to get the hang of this.

T tail at the power plant. Rock your wings!”

Huh? What did I do? I gave the wings a good rock.

“T tail, you are number 1 for the arrival. The airport just opened. Proceed Westbound and follow the procedure.” Then the controller started machine gunning instructions off to aircraft following us, making us the leader of a gaggle of inbound aircraft.

What?! I’m not prepared for this. And I don’t want to be number 1. I want to follow someone. Preferably someone who will bounce the landing and keep all the eyes on them and off of me.

We continued straight ahead following the procedure in the NOTAM, made our turn to head to the tower, and switched over frequency to be able to talk to them. Tower frequency was dead silent. No calls, no traffic. And nobody to follow.

Finally as I was about 1/2 mile from the field, I got the call.

“T tail, turn downwind!”

What? I didn’t get the winds. When I checked ATIS earlier, all it said was that the airport was closed. There was no weather info. The airport opened so quickly, I didn’t have time to check it once we entered the hold. Oh no!

I’m not supposed to talk to the controllers, the radio is for one way conversation only in this instance, but what else can you do in this situation?

“T tail doesn’t have the winds. Right or left?”

“Right turn T tail. Right turn. Enter the downwind.”

I snapped the plane over to a 30 degree descending right turn, which elicited a positive response from ATC. Since you are not talking back to them to acknowledge their instructions, the only way they can tell if you are going to do what they want is to see the reaction from your plane. A positive and clear move seemed like the appropriate response and after feeling like an idiot for not knowing the winds, it was nice to hear ATC’s response.

“Good turn T tail, keep it coming.”

I continued the downwind, which was closer in, and lower than I’d ever done before, when ATC said,

“T tail, left turn back to the runway. Overfly the green dot, land on the orange dot. Overfly the green dot, put it on the orange.”

I snapped the plane around to the left in a curving approach, kind of like Corsairs did in WWII landing on carriers, sailed over the green dot and miracle of miracles, plopped it down just past the orange dot.

“Good job T tail. Welcome to Sun N Fun.”

ATC was instantly busy handling the flood of aircraft behind me as we taxied down the runway/taxiway and followed marshaling to our parking spot.

I felt greatly relieved and very excited. We’d been the first ones into the airport (that time), we’d flown into our first major airshow, we’d gotten to fly like a fighter for just a bit, and we hadn’t crashed or really done anything wrong. We were now safely on the ground, successful and ready to enjoy the airshow with thousands of our new closest friends for the week.

I owe my aviation career to my father, who’d not only kindled the interest with his stories of missions during WWII, but had supported me through all of my training and experience. Now here I was with his grandson he never met, giving the gift of aviation to another generation. A gift that he gave to me so many years before. As I was having these thoughts, I was busy setting up our tent, air mattress, cook stove, freezer, generator, after dinner libations, and all the other requirements of a proper glamping site.

I missed him, as I always do, as I looked at my boy helping right along set things up. Lost in my thoughts, I suddenly heard an unmistakable sound coming from behind me. Radial engines.

I looked up, really for the first time since arriving, and realized our parking spot was almost on the centerline of the runway. I spun around to see what warbird was approaching and saw a majestic sight.

A single B-17, my father’s airplane, was on short final. The sun was setting and at that point was a red ball in the sky, taking the sky itself to that perfect red and pink hue with it. The left wing, just outboard of the #1 engine, was splitting the sunset in half. I stood there, slack jawed, for several seconds before I thought to grab my phone and take a picture. But realizing by the time I’d get my phone, unlock it, and frame the shot, the image would be gone. Instead I simply stood and watched as the B-17 sailed majestically overhead and touched down just past us on the centerline.

I’ve had lots of beautiful aviation experiences, but at that moment, with my son on the ground, and my dad sailing overhead, I think I hit aviation nirvana.

When I last posted our progress, I said that painting had started. Moving from building, to covering, and then to painting was a series of major milestones. As usual, I was nervous to start a new process but the primer proved to be a very forgiving process. In fact I discovered on just about the last day of primer that I was using the wrong ratio to catalize the primer, using 3:1:1 instead of 4:1:1. Despite the fact that primer shows EVERY mistake that you made, and even the ones that you didn’t, I found it to be pretty easy.

Because Spork is eternally working on school and has barely been available to help, the schedule has been to wake, kiss the wife good bye, trudge to the shop, turn on the kerosene heater, build a fire in the wood stove, nurse the fire in the wood stove, turn off the kerosene heater, turn on the fans that move the warm air into the airplane shop, and then finally go to work. Sanding, cleaning, washing, wiping, cleaning, then finally move the pieces back into the paint booth and spray some primer. Once that is complete, walk away and have the rest of my day. All in, I was probably spending about 2 hours on each day that I worked, with only 2-3 days per week spent on the airplane. It has been a slow process.

But on March 6th, a magical thing happened.

The paint starts to go bad after it is opened, so I didn’t open any of the paint cans till it was time to start painting. That means they’ve been sitting on my shelf for six months, unopened and unseen. I didn’t realize how white everything in the shop was with all the primer everywhere. It is like I’d gotten used to living in Minnesota in winter. Then suddenly this orange appeared and was blinding.

But before we could do much painting, I had to get the fuselage prepped for paint. That meant taping and papering everything that wasn’t going to be orange.

The orange paint was, um, blinding. I couldn’t decide if it was because everything else was stark white, or because it was really that bright. Fortunately I’d done a test panel prior so Spork and I took it outside on a sunny day. The color definitely toned down in the sun. We are good to go!

With the paint on we pulled off the bottom paper and tape. This was our first opportunity to see the two color fuselage. It was, um, stark. In fact, it was more like this than I’d care to admit.

But we only had 1/2 of the paint on the plane. The bottom isn’t actually white like the primer because we picked our colors from here.

By “from here, we mean Hobbes himself.

So with more color to add, we taped up the orange part of the fuselage and exposed the white underbelly. Then it was time for paint.

When I first started painting, I scared myself because I just misted the paint onto the piece. A thousand little dots of paint appeared, all independent and all definitely not smooth. I thought maybe my gun was not going to work. Wrong tip? Wrong pressure? Then I sprayed some more and found that the paint, once there is enough, blends together into one smooth surface. Ahh, relief.

So with the orange behind me, and white the only thing between me and beginning some assembly, I decided that I had this painting thing down pat. Just put plenty on so it blends and runs aren’t really that big of a deal, and lets hurry up and get this done. That is when I decided that I didn’t want to move my lights and I’d paint by using the Force, in the dark. I shot the bottom color as a final coat, nice and thick so it would all blend well. When I looked the next morning, I had runs. Not just a couple. I had runs EVERYWHERE!

I’m now on version 5.0 of painting the final coat of white paint. Each version consists of sanding out runs till they are gone. Then cleaning up all the sanding dust. Then wiping down the fuselage multiple times to get every last spec. Then inspecting again to make sure I didn’t miss anything. The finally applying that last coat of paint. Then looking in the wet paint and realizing the runs are still there. Then cursing. Wait one day. Wash rinse repeat.

Oh, and I also tried painting in flip flops on one warm winter day. I now have orange feet. Not a good look.

Since I’m at the final coat, again. I figured I’d get to work on assembling the main gear so once the fuselage rolls out of the paint booth, I can install the gear and get this airplane on the ground for the first time in its life.

There was some question as to how to orient the brakes on the wheel hub. You have to drill out the backing plate to align it with the axle flange. The instructions say to “mount the brake caliper at the front of the wheel.” That’s great, but I have two calipers on my setup. And they aren’t 180 degrees apart so I can’t just align one front and one back. So do they cheat towards the top of the axle, or the bottom. After much reading and looking at pictures, I gave up and called Robby. After two hours of not hearing back from him, I lost my patience and decided that I wanted them on the top of the axle. 15 minutes after I drilled the plate, Robby called and verified that I was installing them correctly. Phew!

Today we’ll do another round of sanding and painting. Hopefully this time those darn runs will disappear. If that is the case, there is one more main gear to assemble with Spork, then we’ll install the gear and the tail wheel and the fuselage will come of the stands for the last time!

“Make sure that you glue this down or it will not look right when you paint.”

“Cut that straight, or it won’t look right when you paint.”

“Don’t spill glue or you’ll see it when you paint.”

Yeah, yeah. I could hear Robby’s voice in my head these past months. I tried to make sure that I followed his example and his instructions. And I got pretty good at it. The tapes were all attached properly. I ironed down the edges to make sure they were flat. Well, lots of times I did. And overall the covering job looked pretty good. I’d even had some much more experienced builders look over my work and they said that it did indeed look pretty good.

Then I grabbed the paint gun that is apparently a mystical device of unspeakable power. It can reveal, with merely the faintest wisp of paint, every…single…mistake…you ever made.

The first pass, on the first tail feather, in the first two seconds, revealed mistakes from stem to stern. I know that tape was attached. Why is it sticking up. Didn’t I seal that edge? When did that thread stick up? I know I trimmed it clean.

After applying primer to two pieces, I went back and prepped all the other pieces with a newly calibrated eye. It took at least a full day to go over everything again, with lots of regluing, ironing, and fussy micro work. But the results were much better when the next application of primer was laid down.

As of today, we are several days into painting. We’ve been heating the barn as much as we can, bringing it up to about 70 degrees, which allows us to cure the paint properly and use the reducer that we have on hand. Most pieces have about 4 coats of primer, and all but the flaps have been sanded.

At this point, the idea is to give a light sanding to all the finished pieces and then set them aside. The flaps and the few remaining pieces that need another coat will get some sanding and another two coats of primer. Once those are done, the fuselage and the wings will be moved into the paint booth, one at a time. Those will take a good bit of time because they are so much bigger, and require taping off of protected areas. But once they are done, we’ll start spraying color onto the plane and finally reveal what this plane is going to look like.

So far, I’ve enjoyed painting the plane. The work had been enjoyable and the paint booth and paint gun are working as advertised. I hope the rest of the painting process is as enjoyable.

When I was growing up, we used to get tractor trailer loads on square bale hay in each summer. Unloading hay out of a pig trailer (they hauled the hay down in pig trailers, and carried pigs back) and then into a barn loft, during the heat of the summer, was a decidedly unpleasant task. But one of the things that kept us going through the process was the eternal search for that one bale of hay.

Pouring sweat, “Have you seen it yet?”

“Nope”

Sticking your face out the small hole in the trailer for a quick breath of clean air, “Is this the bale we’re looking for that I’m standing on?”

“Nah, it is still under here somewhere.”

The bale, the one we always looked for, was the LAST bale. I don’t know why it was funny, but it kept us going during the process. And we always celebrated whoever was the person who grabbed the last bale and unloaded it off the trailer. We’d be drenched in sweat, coughing and hacking from breathing all the hay in a confined space, and covered in hay, but it would be all smiles when that bale came out.

Well, I found the piece of the airplane we’ve been looking for.

We finally started working on the last wing flap. By this point, I should know what I’m doing. Covering an entire airplane gives you an opportunity to learn all the skills needed, except rib stitching, which I’m happy to forgo with this project. Unfortunately we had a few issues holding us back.

First, we ran out of material. Now I don’t mean we came up slightly short. I mean we didn’t have close to enough material to cover these flaps. Did we do something wrong in the build? Did we get shorted on the original material? I don’t know. Probably the former. So I reached out to Billy Payne to order more material, which he promptly sent over to me.

When the material arrived, Spork and I got right to work on it, only to discover we weren’t smart enough to figure out how to use it. The material was 15′ long, and 6′ wide. Our flaps are 8′ 3″ long and they require about 3′ 3″ of width. I have to be missing something.

After talking to Billy (it will fit, you are just looking at it wrong) and then talking to Robby (you aren’t crazy, he probably thinks you have a Highlander which has a smaller flap) and then talking to Billy, (you aren’t crazy, I thought you had a Highlander), we figured out what to do. Billy said to just lay a 2″ strip of finish tape down on the top leading edge. Then pull the fabric to butt up to the tape, filling the gap. Once everything is taped, finished, and painted, it won’t be visible. And with a large leading edge finish tape providing the needed overlap for safety, it will never come off or fail so a good result.

It took some extra time to lay down the tapes and then match up the material so it butted up, but didn’t overlap. But with that done, the flaps could be covered and looked good.

I’m at the point of covering where it is fun to cover. I’m comfortable with the process, and more importantly comfortable covering up my mistakes.

As I said, no rib stitching on this project. The fabric rivets were a bit intimidating at first. Now I’m thankful for how easy they are to put in vs. stitching. Score one for the SuperSTOL.

Here I am pulling the last rivets. I’m sure we’ll have to put another rivet somewhere on the plane, but I don’t know where it is at this point. All the interior pieces have been test fitted and everything else is paint, assembly, fiberglass, or rigging at this point. Thank you Spork for getting a pic for the last official rivet pulls on this airplane.

With progress on the last flap, I took a day that Spork was in school and took a ride to Grantsboro. When I talked to Robby, he told me that he was selling his place in Grantsboro because he and Jenny were building a house at the Outer Banks. I knew this because when I took my demo ride (way back in the beginning of this) with Robby in his SuperSTOL, we flew over a piece of land that was to be his new home some day. Seems some day had arrived.

But with Grantsboro on the chopping block, I had a problem. In my never ending quest to stupidly always leave something at Robby’s place, I’d left all the seat cushions behind in his hanger. So with a relatively free day, I took the ride to Robby’s, 2 hours away, to pick up my cushions.

This is where this whole project started. Robby’s hanger in Grantsboro is where I took the airplane after I picked it up from the factory. It is where Spork and I spent two weeks getting the first items checked off on the build under Robby’s supervision.  It is also where Spork and I lived in an Alaska style cabin, with no insulation, while it snowed in Greenville. 

There are fond memories of this place.

With my (hopefully) last parts retrieved from Robby’s we finally have everything we need to complete the build.

I was really happy that Myla decided to stop in the shop and help with the build at this moment. She’d helped a little bit in the past, but with this final part being worked on, I was thankful for her company and assistance as I wrapped this last piece.

The flap, as it sits right now, needs the leading and trailing edge tapes applied. That shouldn’t take long. An hour or so.

Then I have to finish two custom inspection rings and attach them to the fuselage. They are already cut out. They just need some TLC to dress up the rough edges. Then a quick scuff and some glue and tape and they are good to go.

Then it is time to paint! I’m terrified and excited all at the same time. I hope it is something I can do a good job on. Paint is what everyone sees, and it covers up, but also reveals, your mistakes. I won’t know which one will be more prevalent until I start laying it down. Hopefully it hides more than it reveals. I think we did a good job on the covering work we did, but you never know what it will look like till you see the final product. I’m looking forward to getting started.

I keep walking into the shop and looking at the fuselage thinking, “What do I need to do to this today?”

The answer keeps surprising me.

Nothing.

We’ve spent the last few work days working on control surfaces and tail feathers. Spork has started, and finished, the left horizontal stabilizer. He tells me it is either good enough to last forever, or it will work for less than 40 hours, he’s not sure. So either it will fail on my during Phase 1 testing (when I’m the only one flying) or it will never fail (when he’s flying.)

Nice

One of the first things that I worked on, after finishing the fuselage, was redoing the rudder. We’d originally covered the rudder at Robby’s but once I hung it this time, I noted that the anti-chafe tapes on the plane were 1″, and the rudder was 2″. Of course, we’d covered it on its own back in March, and we’d then followed someone else’s instruction working on the fuselage meaning we’d used different tapes on different places.

It looked weird.

Spork had the idea to just strip off the tapes and redo them. That took about 2 minutes. I’d already spent 15 minutes puzzling over what to do so it was a very good solution.

With the tapes stripped off, I was able to retape them with 1″ in short order and then do the 2″ edge tapes and finish the rudder. It was put aside in the growing pile of completed parts.

Another off plan fix we needed to do was to cover the holes for the rudder cables on the back of the fuselage. I’d stupidly opened up holes for the cables in the wrong places when I was covering the fuselage so patches needed to be added. Then I decided that I’d dress up the patches a bit with a Cub style opening and cover. I could have used leather, but I had another material in mind.

I had a role of firehose from the fire department in the shop. A bit of hacking and arts and crafts, and I had a nice little piece made for each side.  I used a torch to sear the edges and lock the threads together just like when you cut a rope.

Unlike the leather pieces usually used, I used a piece of fabric to cover the firehose. The firehose gives wear abrasion and rigidity, the fabric gives better adhesion to the base fabric and will take paint much better. I think these will look good and wear very well. They maybe added an ounce to the airplane so maybe Robby won’t give me too hard of a time.

This was a fun little project. It isn’t in the build spec or probably even a great idea, but it was a nice little customization that I added because I wanted to.

Spork covered 100% of this stabilizer with zero assistance. It looks perfect!

We’ve moved onto covering the elevator with the trim tab (the most complicated control surface) and the other horizontal stabilizer. When those are done, we have some ailerons to finish tape, and two flaps that are being covered from scratch. Once those are done, the paint booth is the next stop!

I’ve been nervous to start the painting as everything you do there is visible and I’m not really a painter, but now as we get closer I’m getting excited to start. Because once pieces are painted, they are assembled and rigged. Basically, we are getting close to attaching pieces (wings, firewall, landing gear) for the last time. That will be a big deal. I’m ready to have the fuselage on its own wheels and off the stand and sawhorse.

We’ve had about four or five days of work since the last update. Most of them have been with Spork studying for his Billy Mitchell test with Civil Air Patrol or trying to catch up on school work while I work on the plane.

I’m pleased to say that he did in fact pass his very last Mitchell test and Chief Senior Master Sergeant Moore (Super Chief!) is now 2nd. Lieutenant Moore, making him an officer in CAP. For those wondering, I’m 1st Lt. Moore, so he is catching me.

There is 2.5 years of work to get to this point and getting your Mitchell in CAP is the equivalent of an Eagle Scout for those familiar with the Boy Scouts of America. He’ll be getting his official promotion on December 11th during our end of year change of command ceremony so he’ll get it when all the brass is present. Should be fun.

But back to the airplane project.

Everyone asks, how is the project coming? The old quip of 90% complete, 90% to go is making more and more sense. When we started back working, we were “nearly ready for paint”. Only the anti-chafe tapes on the fuselage, one small fuselage panel to add, and then some tail feathers to cover, and then it is time for painting. Maybe a day or two of work?

Four or five days later, I think we still have four or five days to go. The tapes are progressing and Spork has one of the tail feathers nearly covered. But it is slow going.

We had the overall covering done on the fuselage, but we didn’t have any of the anti-chafe tapes installed. These are the ones that cover anywhere that tubing it touching the fabric. They are also wherever there is a seam between two pieces of fabric, reinforcing the seam. On the bottom of the fuselage you can see the fat green stripe running from the front of the plane to the back. This is where the piece of fabric on the side overlaps the piece on the bottom. That overlap is glued well and is very strong, but then adding a tape over it, with it’s pinked edges, makes for an overlap that is stronger than the material itself. 

Before I could add the tape along the bottom, I had to install the last major panel of fabric. I’d left this panel off until now because it allowed me free access under the rudder panels and the kick pan. This let me continue to run wires, fuel lines, etc until the very last minute without having to remove anything. But with a final tidying up, the panel was glued in place.

Now it was onto taping and patching areas of wear or weakness. Fabric is very forgiving and anything that tears or rips doesn’t really cause much problem in flight. It can be fixed on the ground relatively easily and inexpensively. The problem is, it messes up the paint job you worked so hard on. So great care is taken to keep the fabric whole and protected. It isn’t a safety thing as you’d expect. It is a lazy thing. I don’t want to have to patch it, and I don’t want to have to match the paint a year from now. 

With this care in mind, I took some extra time to patch this area around the forward gear attach point. There was a lot going on in this area. Four panels (sides, bottom, and front) were coming together with seams running every which way. Then this big hole is right in a seam so the gear can get bolted on. After studying on it for a bit I went with the bigger is better method and pulled out a paint can for a circle template. With everything glued up I shrunk out the few wrinkles and everything flattened out and pulled taught. This went from a worrisome area to probably the strongest piece of fabric on the airplane. 

I’ve had this cover panel on and off so many times at this point I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to how many times. Thank God I decided to drill out the metal tabs and ditch the course thread screws. I replaced them with rivnuts and machine screws which work much nicer. I didn’t realize at the time I’d be reinforcing this panel and mounting the VOR antennae to it but it ended up working nicely and it sure makes taking the panel on and off to fit all these tapes much easier. 

I couldn’t post an update without showing off my new favorite glass. I’m not sure if this is referencing this airplane I’m slaving away on or me. Probably both although the SuperSTOL is probably low speed, lots of drag. Of course this is referencing the “High Speed, Low Drag” saying for the fast movers of the world. For the rest of us, it is medium speed, low drag at best. 

This particular glass full was a present from a dear friend, the Goddess of Boo-Boos. I don’t know the test proof of this particular batch of egg nog, but if I filtered it and poured it into the fuel tank on the plane, I’m pretty sure it would fly. 

In case you are wondering, there isn’t any left. So don’t ask. 

Over the past two months, I’ve been working off and on on our avionics panel. I have everything pretty much mocked up and connected with only some config issues, cleaning up wiring, etc left to do. Everything either blinks, bonks, or chimes at this point. I just need to add circuit breakers, cut the actual panel instead of the mockup, etc. But during this time we’ve done exactly diddly to the airplane. We stopped when Hurricane Florence came ashore and just never really recovered. Spork had started school and the airplane fell to the back burner. But that all changed Sunday the 18th. Spork and I got up and fed like normal, but rather than rushing off to game night, chores, etc, we wandered back into the shop and actually went to work. It was kinda weird being back in there after two months. Where are my tools. What were we doing last? What is our next step.

Fortunately I knew our next step. We needed to get the wings back into the airplane shop and out of the car shop because for two months we couldn’t work on any vehicles.

We had to clean out the paint booth, open up all the doors, CAREFULLY carry the wings from this shop over to the airplane shop, and set everything back up. Once the wings were safely tucked away, we went back to the airplane itself.

Spork got started on covering one of the tail feathers while I went about doing a final shrink on the fabric already in place and then installing the anti-chafe tapes. There was a lot of head scratching and trying to remember what we were doing but eventually we got back into the groove and made some progress. We already have more days on the schedule so hopefully we’ll be back moving forward again through the winter.

Since we don’t seem to be building any airplanes lately (that is soon to change) I thought I’d use this space to keep something else of mine I thought I’d lost.

Some years ago, back when I had zero kids and much more free time, I collected all my favorite quotes and put them on Facebook. Then sometime later, Facebook made one of it’s never ending series of changes and my quotes disappeared.

Today, while bumbling through Facebook looking for something completely different, I stumbled upon my list of quotes. I have no idea when or if they will disappear again, but since I HATE Facebook I’d rather have my quotes here anyway.

So without further ado, here are some of my favorite quotes, starting off with my very most favorite one right on top. This was said to me when I was 17 years old. I stood 6’5″ tall and weighed 210 pounds. I was bowing up to my father, who stood 5’7″ tall. In a fit of rage and stupidity, I told him that he couldn’t make me do something he wanted me to do. He, VERY calmly, looked me square in the eye and said:

“You’re right, I can’t ‘make you do it.’ But I can make you wish you had. ”
— My father

I’m still quivering when I think about that day. I’m not sure why he didn’t just go ahead and kill me then. It’s not like he didn’t already have a couple of sons. Fortunately I’m still around.

Now for the rest of my favorite quotes.

A man can get discouraged many times, but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.” – John Burroughs

If your business depends on you, you don’t have a business. You have a job – and you are working for a lunatic.
– Michael E. Gerber

The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.
William Lyon Phelps

Do not hurry, do not rest.
– Goethe

I spent 50% of my money on alcohol, women, and gambling. The rest I just wasted. – W.C. Fields

Talking about our problems is our greatest addiction. Break your habit. Talk about your joys. – Unknown

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to ones courage. – Anais Nin

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its life thinking it is stupid. – Albert Einstein

Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due. – Will Rogers

An ordinary man can surround himself with two thousand books and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy.
Augustine Birrell

The price for being a sheep is boredom, the price for being a wolf is loneliness, choose one or the other with great care.

“What is your host’s purpose for the party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they’d have sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.” P.J. O’Rourke

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” Mark Twain

History never looks like history when you are living through it.
John W. Gardner

I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm.
Calvin Coolidge

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.
Louis D. Brandeis

Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.
John Quincy Adams

There are no extraordinary men… just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with.
William Halsey

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Mark Twain

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Action is the foundational key to all success.
Pablo Picasso

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
Bill Cosby

“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed at some indefinite time in the future.” General George S. Patton

“Show me a man who cannot bother to do the little things, and I’ll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do the big things.”
— Lawrence Bell, Bell Aircraft

“Be the man they’ll claim you were at your funeral.” me

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
— Robert A. Heinlein

“Aviation is not unsafe, but like the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness or neglect. C.R. Smith”

“The world is not interested in the storms you encounter but whether you bring in the ship.”
— Raul Armesto

“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort….”
— Herm Albright

“”Hope” is not a strategy.”
— Larry Barbour, President North State Bank

“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”
— Theodore Hesburgh

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
— Groucho Marx

“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans … are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit.”
— Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential)

“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
— Abraham Lincoln

After 8 days on the ground working on behalf of a national non-profit emergency services group running one of their Points of Distribution sites in Wilmington, NC, I was ready for some air time. Lucky for me, one of the final air missions of Hurricane Florence was on the books for the following day and they were in need of a mission pilot (MP), with the mission observer (MO) and airborne photographer (AP) slots already filled. I was excited to get an air mission as this meant I’d have both ground and air missions in the books for one event. Had I taken that staff job they offered me, I’d have had the hat trick. But flying was what I really wanted to do so off to the airport I went.

I’d never flown an AP mission before, nor had I taken the AP class to be a photographer, something my mentor in this organization had pointedly reminded me of upon my arrival at the airport. It is not required for the pilot to also be an AP, but suggested. So after promising I’d take his AP class at some unspecified time in the future, we proceeded to get ready for the mission. This consisted mainly of looking at the weather and wondering when it would get better. At 200 overcast and 1 mile visibility, things were not looking promising for what is a VFR mission. The weather was forecast to improve by mid-morning, up to marginal VFR. I thought that would be fine as we really didn’t need much in the way of ceilings since our mission is a low and slow one anyway, and the visibility was forecast to be much better as soon as the morning fog burned off.

Our MO, with whom I’d never flown or even met, expressed some hesitation about “scud running” and I took his comments seriously. I don’t like people who are part of my crew to feel uncomfortable with what we are doing so I took a moment to pull him aside and quietly ask him what specifically made him uncomfortable. After a bit of conversation, he discovered that I was a current and qualified instrument pilot. I discovered from our conversation that maybe I should have actually given him a bit of info about myself before I asked him to put his life in my hands. With the knowledge that we’d simply climb above any issues, call ATC, and get a pop up clearance to get home, he felt much better about the mission.

The weather didn’t really cooperate and our 10am weather window became noon. Mission base was getting antsy as the customer actually wanted us over target at high tide, about 9:45am. If we waited too long, the entire mission would be scrubbed and I’d not get my chance to log an air mission to compliment my ground mission. Normally I’m a very conservative flier, but I have to admit that I was ready to go just to get this mission underway. Knowing I was abnormally ready to go (a different form of get-home-itis but just as bad) I made sure to involve the full crew in the decision to stay or go. We decided that the weather was better over our target than where we were so we’d launch IFR and then we’d cancel enroute as we got to the reported better weather. The weather was forecast to improve at our base so when we returned, we’d be returning to VFR conditions. With solid outs in case of an emergency we were all comfortable with our plan, and our flight release officer concurred. We were a go.

Preflight having long since been completed, we hopped in and taxied out. Run up, clearance, and departure were in quick and well practiced succession. Even though some of us had never flown together before, our organizations required crew training paid off as we each knew our roles. We popped into the clouds at 1000 feet, and out at 2000 feet. Just a thin layer at this point and much improved over what we’d had all morning. ATC wanted bases and tops reports from us and we were happy to oblige, updating the weather forecast with our better than called for reality. Finally into the sunshine we settled in for the trip down to the target area, with only one instance of popping back into the clouds to mar the otherwise blue sky trip towards Wilmington.

Arriving at our first target, the undercast was breaking up as forecast, and we notified ATC of our intentions, cancelled IFR, and asked to stay with them VFR for an extra set of eyes. Up to this point I had been the aircraft commander. My MO, via talking to mission base on our proprietary radios, was routinely relaying information and was therefore sometimes the one taking control via his messages. Now that we were over the target, control of the mission transferred to the back seater who was holding the camera. It was an interesting transfer of control back and forth, requiring clear and concise communication amongst the crew, which sounds easy but isn’t in actual practice. When I’m on Com 1 talking to ATC, Com 2 is on 121.5 (Guard! Or Chewbacca noises at random intervals) the MO is on Com 3 (yes we have three COMs) back to mission base, and a disembodied voice is in my head from the backseat giving directions via the intercom, communications can get a bit hectic. Add in the fact that I liberally use the pilot isolate button on the G1000 panel so I could clearly hear ATC, and then sometimes forgot to turn it off so that my intercom conversations were a solo act, and you have a situation where communications can get missed.

As we descended into the target at about 1000 feet msl, avoiding clouds and towers, and looking not only at the target but surrounding areas for damage and washed out roads and dams (we saw both) we switched over to our back seat driver.

“Give me 20 degrees left”

“20 left, Roger”

“Keep the turn coming left. Keep coming. Stop turn. Pick up the wing to give me a shot.”

“Make the next pass a bit wider than the last one. 1/2 mile wider, same track.”

“Ok, give me a slip so I can get a clear shot.”

At every target we had towers that were at least tall enough to be interesting and usually we had some higher than our altitude and within a few miles of our location. When you are making loops around a target, always looking back towards the target, it is easy to miss the 2000’ tower that is the other direction from where you are looking. I tasked the MO to keep a constant eye on any tower we identified as a possible conflict and to annoy me by constantly updating me on its location regardless of whether I wanted him to or not. That sounds silly, but you’d be surprised how people will withhold information just because it seems like you might be busy. “Keep talking till I’m annoyed with you, then talk some more”, is an oddly effective order.

The flying was fun. More enjoyable than I thought it would be. It was the normal turns around a point we all learned as private pilots, with random slips in the middle of the turn, and random 270 degree turns thrown in to reverse the angle for a different shot. All the while trying to hold airspeed and altitude to FAA test standards. Why to test standards? Many reasons but first, two other qualified people are in the cockpit with you and being off altitude or airspeed will come up in the debrief. All I want to hear in the debrief is, “Nice job.” Plus we all know the pilot’s prayer, “Please God, don’t let me screw this up.”

We worked our first two targets and then proceeded about 50 miles to our third and last target, a power plant surrounded by lots of water.

It looked to be in good shape with no dam breaks or washed out roads on the immediate site. There was a washed out dam just a mile away but there was already heavy equipment onsite repairing the blow out. Things looked pretty benign so we proceeded with our mission. Again we verbally switched command to the back seat and I flew dutifully as directed.

“Make this next pass a bit closer. The last was too far away.”

“Keep the turn coming. Further. Stop turn!”

“For this next pass, make the pass straight, then make a turn over those (exhaust) stacks then make a left turn.”

As I proceeded to fly as directed, I took us right over the short stacks right on airspeed and altitude. I was feeling pretty good about myself and really enjoying the flying. We were almost three hours into the mission and we had about two more passes and we’d be done then head home. Assuming I didn’t bounce the landing, I could add a challenging but successful air mission to my logbook. I was feeling good.

Suddenly the plane slammed upwards and the right wing shot up in the air putting us into about a 25-30 degree bank. The nose pitched up as well, maybe 10 degrees up. It felt like the biggest summer thermal I’d ever ridden, probably about +2.5 Gs. I exclaimed the famous last words most pilots say. “Oh S…” I didn’t enter any control corrections as I didn’t know why we were heading upwards and I’ve yet to hear of an airplane crashing earthward by going up. No sense in adding additional airframe stress by trying to fight whatever it was.

We were heading upwards and the plane was banked and pitched but not banking further, a relatively stable situation. I had time to look around, look back inside and quickly scan the instruments, and then look around outside again. Then as suddenly as we’d entered the thermal, we were out of it. I leveled the plane and came back down to altitude, only then realizing what had happened.

The power plant, despite all the water, was quite functional. The bank of short exhaust stacks we’d used as a visual reference point were happily pumping out heated, and very clear, air. This heated air was shooting as a hot stream straight up to my unsuspecting airplane roughly 1000 feet above, giving us a free ride up to a new altitude.

Now back in the smooth air away from the plant, I mentioned, with some black humor to the crew, that we would not be taking that particular route around this plant again. Everyone agreed and we made a few more passes, with a wary eye on towers and now exhaust stacks. My right seater, a sail plane pilot told stories of how back in the day they used to ride thermals over power plants to get free lift. But since 9/11 that it was most decidedly frowned upon. I reflected that riding that thermal would be a good source of lift, and if I’d done it on purpose it wouldn’t have even been that big of a deal. But coming on a completely calm day, out of the blue, it wasn’t something I’d want to repeat.

We returned uneventfully to base and I did manage to get us on the ground with a squeaker. We chalked the mission up as a success, each departing for our normal lives but eager for another mission on another day.