Flying and building on the farm

I haven’t had time to do any daily updates on the airplane this week. Mainly for two reasons.

One – We’ve only worked in small 2-3 hour blocks of time each day.
Two – We’ve been so busy day and night that I haven’t been able to do any blog posts.

So here is our progress from Thursday of last week through Thursday of this week, with some personal stuff (Carter made Chief in the Civil Air Patrol!) thrown in.

This week marked the first real week of work on the airplane since we returned from Robby’s place in Grantsboro. Oh we’ve worked a few hours here or there, but this was a week of wake up, do whatever HAD to be done, wake Spork up, then go work on the airplane. Even though we’ve only averaged 3-4 hours per day of actual hands on work, we’ve had a lot of other time spent on other airplane tasks such as deciding which avionics to install and even determining our paint scheme. We’ve also been picking up needed supplies and tools that we’ll need shortly.

We started off our week with a trip (finally!) to Manteo to see Robby, Jenny, and their SuperSTOL. We also found that a Just Aircraft Highlander was also still there in the back of the hanger so we crawled all over it as well. We spent most of the day there and took nearly 400 pictures of the two airplanes. These are pictures that we’ll use to supplement the build manual. There is nothing quite as good as having a good picture of the thing you are trying to do.

As they say, one pic is worth a thousand “place AN5-27 bolts into 5/16″ holes as per diagram A…”

Armed with our new pics, we came home in time to get Spork ready for the 2018 Freedom Balloon Festival in Fuquay-Varina starting Friday. Spork had finally landed his first Civil Air Patrol event staff position, Admin. None of us knew what Admin was but it was staff so we didn’t really care. We’d learned that when CAP is interviewing for staff positions they look first and foremost at your experience. Much like in the real world, it is hard to get experience when you can’t land that first job.

I dropped Spork off with camping gear and money around 11am on Friday after some last minute supply runs and bid him farewell. Sunday morning we popped in to attend ourselves (a first for us), and to of course see how he was doing.

Tired, blistered (feet), unbathed, overworked, and happy. That is how we found him.

He really liked staff and had lots of funny stories to tell, including how he convinced a cadet that he had a prosthetic leg. Like I said, funny.

Since we were there so early we were able to get in the front part of the line for balloon rides. We were maybe 15-20 people back from first. SWMBO was excited to ride a balloon. I signed the forms and paid the money. It is a tethered balloon ride, yawn, whatever. At least I can check it off my bucket list.

After the girls got out, The Princess and I climbed in. The pilot started his ascent and I started asking a few questions to make conversation. As we got up about 50-75 feet I noticed a bit of a breeze picking up. The balloon started heading back down and I heard the pilot say “Flex you knees, flex your knees.” I looked at our descent rate which was slightly above “sedate”, checked The Princess to make sure she’d flexed her knees, and in just 30 seconds total flight time from takeoff to landing we were back on the ground having crash landed.

Crashed hot air balloon. Check.

Once we retrieved Spork from the Balloon Festival at the end of it on Saturday night, we went to work on the airplane on Sunday. There was some adjusting and fitting to be done on the drip guard for the door.

Just getting the height correct and drilling the holes and it was in place. At least temporarily. It has to come back off for covering of the airplane.

The guys have a multi-week project ongoing in the shop that requires, apparently, every flat surface in the shop plus all of the saw horses. So a trip to Lowes was in order to acquire new saw horses. Spork and I spent a good bit of time getting these saw horses setup, lined up, etc so that we could remove the front stand and cut and install the firewall. With the saw horses in place we had full access and I made it as far as drilling the first hole when I realized there were six holes in the frame, and I only need four. Which four? After some queries (Hello, Robby?) it was determined that I needed the engine in hand to assure I was drilling the correct holes. Sigh. So we took the saw horses back out and reinstalled the stand.

While we were getting the sawhorses figured out, I started looking for the boot cowl. There are three pieces of fiberglass on the plane. The upper cowling around the engine, the lower cowling which is its mate, and then the boot cowl, which ties the upper cowling into the windshield. I needed the boot cowl to shape the firewall. Except I didn’t see a boot cowl. We looked high. We looked low. We grumbled and cursed, but no boot cowl. Finally I figured I must have never received it from the factory, but let me look through my pics to see if I see it anywhere.

The grey thing leaning against the wall. Yep, that is it. In a pic taken just before this one, the other two pieces of cowling were sitting just beside the boot cowl. In this pic, the boot cowl is sitting there lonely, like some idiot left it behind. Thankfully Rick is my personal sherpa for getting all the things I left at Robby’s. I think this will be the third or fourth trip to pick up items left behind. Mystery solved, we moved onto our next project.

The factory built my wings. They loaded them on mounts made of square tube steel for shipment. The plan was to cut up the mounts and turn them into rotating stands so we could flip and flop the wings around while covering them. We had to run out to the metal store to get a few bits of steel I didn’t have on hand but after a sold hour of cutting and welding we had four stands like you see. But first, while the wings were off the stands we needed to add the doublers. We just needed to find them.

We looked high. We looked low (noting a trend, are we?). We called Robby. They were nowhere to be found! Again! Just as I was trying to figure out how we were going to make them from scratch, I found them taped to one of the wings on the inside. Oh yeah, I remember Robby saying he was taping something to the wing since we’d need them later. Sigh.

With doublers in hand, we started prepping them and the wings. These seemed like a simple project. Eight doublers, etched with scotch brite, drilled and reamed, then bolt in place and rivet with some HySol to make them permanent. No bid deal. Well a couple of hours later we had four of the eight done. Little jobs can certainly take a while. Yikes! Tomorrow we’ll work on the other four.

In the middle of all this weeks work, we had a celebration at our CAP squadron because we had some cadets who were getting the Billy Mitchell award. This is the big one, where a cadet passes from commissioned officer to officer, from Chief to Lieutenant. I though at this promotion Spork still had another promotion to go before testing for his Mitchell award. Not so I was informed, the pressure is on to get this next test done. Colleges look very favorably on cadets who achieve at least their Mitchell award. Plus being a Chief is a big deal in its own right. It is the senior NCO position and carries some responsibility of its own. So Spork is a chief, and is now officially studying for his Mitchell award, while building an airplane.

With Chief rank hanging heavy on his collar, airplane parts hither and yon, avionics nearly ordered, paint equipment purchased, stands in place to begin covering the fuselage and the wings, there was only one thing left to do. Pick the colors for the airplane.

I pulled out the color sheet and invited the girls to weigh in on colors. There were a lot of zebra stripe and flames suggestions, all of which were shot down by the boys as not possible. Finally we settled on colors that would match our theme and our mascot (Hobbes from Calvin and Hobbes). Cessna orange and an off white color were chosen.

When I was in the maintenance hanger this week I noticed this airplane sitting there. The orange stripe looks a lot like the orange we picked. Our plane will be mostly orange with white accents and a white belly. It will also have some decaling that Spork will tell about in his post. I’m pretty happy with what we came up with so far and I’m excited to see it become reality.

If you are smart, the first step of building any long project, say, an airplane, is to organize your workspace so that you know where everything is. Fortunately, my dad and I are not smart people. Therefore, our workspace mostly consists of amazingly useful tools haphazardly shoved into safe places that won’t be opened until 2021. On top of that, numerous doors are being painted next door. However, we always seem to have an abundance of music, rivets and cursing.

After my dad and I set up, we had to wait for school to end. Scool is pontlees! Then, at long last, we were finally able to work on the the plane again. Now, you might be asking your self, “what is it like to build a plane? Should I build one?” The first week of building a plane without Mr. Rob consisted of walking across our yard and into (through the door of) the workshop, working for fifteen minutes, not knowing how to do something, looking at the manual, entering deep thought, looking at the airplane we are building, quiet muttering, looking at pictures of other airplanes, talking to one’s self, looking at the airplane, talking to the ceiling, looking at Google searches, babbling, asking Siri if she knows anything about airplanes, incoherent ravings, asking the ceiling if it knows anything about airplanes, hallucination, finally calling Mr. Rob and asking if he knows any thing about airplanes, inwardly smacking yourself for not asking Mr. Rob sooner, thanking Mr. Rob for the help, thinking about how knowledgable Mr. Rob is, working fifteen more minutes on the part, feeling proud about how much you accomplished and lastly going home. In other words, building an airplane is a fun activity that I would highly suggest.

In all seriousness, Mr. Rob has been a huge help even after we left his place. he has let my dad and I crawl all over his airplane so we could gather photographs of various airplane parts and encouraged phone calls if my dad and I have any questions.

Recently, a major airplane question was solved. As many of you know, the airplane is going to be called the Transmograflyer. However, the family was having trouble coming up with a paint scheme that stayed true to Calvin and Hobbes. The current plan is to paint roughly the bottom of the airplane off white and the top of the airplane the same color as the lighter orange that this airplane below is sporting.

This, of course, symbolizes Hobbes’ personal style without making a slow airplane look like a tiger. To add to the name of the airplane, we are going to include a little red arrow that is pointing towards the words STOL. Next to the words STOL, are going to be other cool airplanes (i.e. UFO).

As seen above, the transmogrifier has an arrow that can be turned to transmogrify something into different things. The arrow on the airplane symbolizes the arrow on the box. Therefor, the airplane will have the ability to transmogrify into different things but is currently a SuperSTOL. If all goes according to plan, the Transmogriflyer should look fantastic.

Today was a good work day, after we decided not to go to Manteo to see Robby and Jenny because of weather. Lots of accomplishment and not much frustration.

Step one when we got back from the airport was to have Spork take the old metal brake and toss it in the scrap metal bin. Once that was done, it was time to start on the new shop cart.

Spork had an interesting comment about this cart. His instructions were, “Go put that cart together.” No here is where your tools are. Here is a work space. This is how it is assembled. Nothing. Just get it done. He said that not long ago he’d have had all kinds of questions and not been sure he could assemble it. Now it was just, “Meh, ok. I’m building an airplane, a cart is easy.” Basically he is self-aware of how his skill set and his confidence are both growing. Why do we do crazy projects like build an airplane? This is why.

Here we see the cable, bent so it runs true. This is a terrible picture of the cable, but it is a good picture of my toes, so I have that going for me. I’ve bent the cable itself so it jogs out to the right, then bends back to line up with the handle. Now that it is in, I could install the whole thing in about an hour. It only took two days. Sigh.

With the trim cable installed, I moved onto the door. Step one was to file, and then sand the Hysol (the grey stuff between the silver bars). The high spots on the Hysol need to be sanded down or they will poke through the fabric and make ugly bumpy spots. I went all around the airplane filing and sanding down high spots, something I’ll probably do a few more times before covering. There always seems to be one more spot I missed.

I got these cheesy little clamps at Harbour Freight for 99 cents. They are my new favorite thing. Just enough force to hold something like this, but not enough to bend it like big clamps do. I drilled out the hinge for the door, both sides. I still need to drill the drip guard but I want to look at it a bit longer before I do. Just to make sure I like where it is.

I talked to Miguel about how to put a few brakes in the door for strength. It isn’t like we are going to go that fast in this airplane but it could still flutter in flight and I didn’t want that. Miguel gave me the idea of putting an X pattern with very slight bends, going from corner to corner. He said it would add lots of strength and barely change the panel at all. Once it came time to do some bending he was nowhere close so I closed my eyes and did the bends myself. They came out perfect! Now the door has a slight convex shape, standing a little proud off of the fuselage. I think it will look perfect. It also doesn’t flex anymore so it looks good and it is strong.

Everything is finished except for drilling the clecoing the drip guard. And making the locking handle. But the door opens and closes and truly makes the baggage area usable. Otherwise you’d have to climb over the seats to gain access.

When we were in Granstboro the tool I wished for the most was my belt sander. Robby has one, but it isn’t the same as a 3HP Baldor knife makers belt sander.

One thing I really wanted to have done was to put the seat slide rails on the barrel spinner and polish them up. They were a bear to get sliding correctly, always binding and sticking. I spent about 5 minutes with the barrel polisher and a scotch brite belt and went from what you see on the left to what you see on the right. I actually need to work on my barrel polisher. If I had it complete, I could get these things to a mirror finish. But for now I polished both of them and reinstalled them in the seats.

Time spent today, 7 hours.

Yesterday, after home school year end testing we were able to sneak in a few hours of work on the airplane. Step one was to get back onto the trim cable installation. While the major pieces were in place, we had not adjusted the handle to run true, which required a bit of bending. I wanted to wait till Miguel was here because he has so much experience using a metal brake that I figured he’d do a better job.

I decided that even though it added a touch of weight, I wanted the handle to have a rubber coating on it so I used Plastidip to coat just the top of it where your hand would rub. That was of course after using the belt sander to round over the rough cut piece and smooth it out. The Plastidip had gotten really thick but Dustin had some naptha which he thinned it out with. Even thinned it didn’t go on like I’d have preferred but it was good enough for what we were doing.

Spork setup our old metal brake in the shop, which entailed screwing it down to the bench. Nothing too complicated.

We had a small piece of 1/4″ aluminum to bend, and a wide piece of .040 aluminum to bend for our baggage door. Once Miguel was able to stop by, we got the handle bent, more with a hammer than with the brake. A test piece of .040 revealed that our super cheap old brake just wasn’t going to bend anything thicker than paper. With that realization, Spork and I took off to Harbour Freight to purchase a larger brake. About 1.5 hours later, we returned with this and a few other goodies like a new battery charger and a new shop cart, which will likely be our covering supply cart.

This brake is floor mounted instead of bench mounted, which is great because we don’t have much bench space. It also has a 36″ throat instead of 30″ like our old one. But best of all, it is an actual brake and works properly, vs the cobbled together thing we were using. It has adjustments in all the needed places and a built in clamping system vs. the gaggle of hand clamps we used on the old one. Setup on the old one took minutes for every single operation vs seconds on this one. Once we had it setup like we wanted out of the box, it took Miguel less time to make this rain guard (top of picture, the metal piece that is bent).

Than it did to setup for one single bend on the old brake. I’ve already forgotten how I got along without this brake. Now we can make parts for the airplane, which is great if you mess one up. Some blank sheet aluminum and the old part for a template, and a new piece is made in no time. Takes the pressure off when you are working with something and you can quickly remake it vs. having to reorder a part from the factory.

On our next work day, Spork will take the old brake off the bench and toss it in the scrap metal bin. We will then find a place for the new brake to reside semi-permanently. We’ll finish the trim cable install, which only needs a few bends of the cable and cleaning up of the trim handle from Miguel’s apprentice marks, and then we’ll move onto working on this door and drip guard. All the pieces are in place, we just need to do the final fit up, break sharp edges, maybe make a door handle/lock, and drill out the holes for the hinge. Everything will be clecoed in place because it all has to come off for fabric covering.

With the trim handle finished, and the door hopefully finished, we can move onto the firewall.

Time spent this afternoon, 3 hours.

After a successful event at Cox field in Apex, NC the previous weekend, NC-143, the Johnston County Composite squadron, conducted a field trip to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy center near Washington, DC. This was a squadron sponsored field trip and open to all members of JNX composite squadron.

Three senior members, Lts. Gwen Nesbitt and Dan Moore, along with Lt. Col. Bill Ryan of Middle East Region each drove a vehicle transporting cadets and baggage on the five hour trip from Johnston County to our overnight stop in Stafford, VA. We had in tow 13 cadets of all ages and ranks. We departed at 2pm on Friday May 11th, returning Saturday May 12th at 8pm making this an easy overnight trip.

The plan was to drive North as close to DC as we could get on Friday afternoon, grab dinner, and then overnight as a group. After a pizza dinner at CiCi’s pizza, we retired to our overnight accommodations.

A first for most of the people on the trip, we stayed at an AirBnB in Stafford, VA as our overnight stop. We found a house that had an entire finished basement with a large family room, a kitchen, two bedrooms and a private bath. The females had their own private bedroom, the senior member men had a bedroom to themselves, and the male cadets all shared the family room. It was an affordable and comfortable arrangement for a trip like this and one we would use again.

As luck would have it, the owner of the house worked for the FAA and came down and gave a short presentation on what Air Traffic Control is and some of the magic that happens behind the scenes. An added bonus on this educational trip.

The next morning, well rested and ready to go, we stopped for breakfast and then headed to the Udvar-Hazy center. The center, only 1 hour away opened at 10am making for a stress free morning. The Udvar-Hazy center has free admission but does charge for parking. However I learned at checkout that because we were a field trip, they did not charge us for parking, a nice bonus.

This is the view when you enter the center.

The SR-71 is the centerpiece of the front section, and the Space Shuttle is the centerpiece in the back. However the entire place is filled with three floors of things to look at and acres of history.

We stayed together as a group for a short time, then turned the cadets loose to explore on their own in small groups, checking in every few hours at the SR-71. This allowed everyone the freedom to concentrate on the areas they were most interested in.

Before everyone scattered, we walked upon a museum docent talking about the B-29 displayed in front of us, the Enola Gay.

As the docent was speaking word was passed back through the cadets that this was the airplane that had dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. I overheard one of the cadets say, “A plane like this dropped an atomic bomb?”

I leaned over and said, “No. Not a plane like this. THIS plane dropped the atomic bomb. Not one ‘like it.’You are standing in the Smithsonian. All the planes you see hanging in here are the actual planes that set the world record,  flew for the first time, flew around the world, etc. Everything here is unique.” The cadets got wide eyed for a second, looking around in wonder. It was a great moment of discovery.

After this brief exchange, we turned the cadets loose to explore whatever parts of the facility they wanted to see.

Sections like the commercial aviation section with the Concord and Boeing 707.

The World War II aircraft section with Corsairs, P-40s, P-47s, P-38s, and German aircraft I’d never seen or heard of.

The Space Exploration section with rockets, satellites, and even the Space Shuttle Discovery.

I overheard one cadet remarking “…how the scorch marks on the shuttle were from SPACE! They didn’t clean up the shuttle after its last flight.” Everything on it was authentic and they were quite impressive.

Or the modern aviation section with aircraft such as the CH-46 below, F-14s, Sabre jets, Mig 21s, etc.

While the cadets all enjoyed the entire center, the highlight of the trip for them was the simulators.

When I first walked in the door, the cadets were abuzz about the simulators they’d seen. I was a bit disappointed that with all the real history hanging in front of them, they wanted to play a video game however once I saw the simulators myself, I could see the appeal. These simulators were basically a jet dogfighting game hooked up to a hydraulic motion simulator. Yawn, I’ve seen that before. But these simulators had a neat trick.

These simulators rotated 360 degrees around the long axis. And the rotation was directly linked to the aircraft you were piloting on screen. That meant when your video game jet went upside down, so did you. I don’t know how much money we spent as a group hanging from the straps but I’m sure we more than paid what would have been our admission tickets had this place charged. I say we because your author also went for a ride, spending my share of time upside down. It was quite fun. Whenever they surplus these things out, we need to put in for one for NC wing.

From left to right, Cadet Kyle Scott, Lt. Col. Bill Ryan from MER, Cadet David Sperling, Cadet Isabelle Grimm, Lt. Dan Moore, Cadet William Nesbitt, Cadet Lyndsey Oetjen, Cadet Preston Elrod, Cadet Carter Moore, Cadet Scott O’Neal, Cadet Rile Goshorn, Cadet Alex Nesbitt, Cadet Tyler Elrod, Cadet Cole Contos, and Carter Contos. Not pictured, as with most moms, was Lt. Gwen Nesbitt who was behind the camera.

We had an enjoyable trip home, caravanning as a group. It was not at difficult trip to conduct and is one any squadron, especially those anywhere close to I-95, should be able to conduct for minimal costs. For NC-143, the cost was one overnight accommodation and fuel making this a very cost friendly trip to take with cadets. I think we’ll do this again next year.

Yesterday we began our real work on the airplane. Not that the first two weeks  at Robby’s weren’t real, the definitely were. I mean the real work, at home, unsupervised.

Spork and I finally have begun our serious work on trying to get something done each day, or at least most days of the week. We started with a half day of work on Sunday, after feeding and rigging the kids new toy.

A guy offered me an even trade for something I desperately wanted out of my way and off the farm. The kids are super excited.

But back to the other expensive hobby, airplanes. And we began our new works schedule with the trim cable. We originally didn’t think we’d install the trim cable, instead opting for a trim servo on an autopilot, but it turns out the TruTrak autopilot doesn’t use a trim servo, instead controlling the push rod directly. That meant we were back to plan A of installing the factory trim cable and control.

On one of our short work days we’d had prior, we’d installed the trim mount plate on the elevator (which involved taking the fabric off, sigh). We’d also temporarily run the cable from the tail to the cockpit. We started at noon and worked till five pm. 80% of that time we spent trying to figure out one piece of hardware or running to Lowes to pick up tie straps to hold the cable. But more about that later.

Spork drilled out the tabs to the correct size, and I installed the four rivets required to hold the plate in place. Luckily I had a good picture of how the plate installed from when we were at Robby’s place back in March.

What I didn’t know, and couldn’t see in this pic, or the pic in the manual, was what was the piece of hardware that attaches to the cable you see at the bottom of the trim lever. Obviously something holds that cable securely but it wasn’t noted in the build manual. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find it in the manual on another page maybe, going and getting the build manual CD and trying to look at it on the shop computer. No go, no Open Office on that computer. So I tried on the farm store computer. No Open Office on that one. “Google: How to I view a Microsoft Word document on a Mac?”

Turns out Pages, a Mac product will do what I need. But that isn’t installed, so start the download. Once it finishes, hit install. Nope, don’t have permission. Ugh. Log out, log in as me (after a few password failures) and finally install Pages. Pull up the correct file, scroll to the picture of the installation of the trim system. Figure out how to blow up the picture, and…it…is…blurry. Argh!!!

I can’t find a picture of the hardware required and it is not in the build manual. I’m working on Plan C when I finally break down and text Robby the following picture and a question.

“What hardware do I use to mount the cable to the trim tab?”

5 minutes later I’m on the phone with Robby and he describes the hardware to me. He knew what it was instantly. He also says he’ll send me some pics of his install so I can see what I’m doing. He is super knowledgeable and super helpful, as always. In hindsight, I wish I’d asked him first, but I try to be self sufficient as much as possible. That is the only way to learn.

Before his photos had even shown up, Spork, armed with a brief description of what we were looking for, had already produced the missing hardware.

With hardware in hand, we made rapid progress on the trim system. We cut the sheath and cable to length, temporarily routed the cable through the fuselage, secured the cable at both ends, and mounted the trim lever itself.

The next step is to take the trim lever off and bend it for clearance as it is in Robby’s install.

We’ll also bend the cable itself so it runs true, just like Robby did. None of these steps are in the build manual, something that continues to frustrate. It makes perfect sense to make these modifications, but when it is your first build you don’t know what is acceptable and what is not, you don’t just start bending things to make them fit. Can I bend a control cable like this? Is there a certain degree of bend that is ok, more weakens the metal? No idea. But with good pictures of a proper install, like I have above, now I know exactly what to do and it is easy.

I probably have 6 hours in this install. If I had to do it again at this point, I’d have it done in 20 minutes. Such is the way of airplane building.

On Cinco de Mayo, NC-143, the Johnston County Composite Squadron, and NC-301, The Apex Cadet Squadron got together for a party. This wasn’t a celebration of an unlikely victory over the French. It was instead an educational party sponsored by Trader Joes of Cary, and hosted by EAA Chapter 1114 at Cox Airfield just off Hwy 64 in Apex.

Trader Joes and Chapter 1114 had gotten together to discuss expanding on a Build-A-Plane program that Trader Joes already had underway.

Lt. Dan Moore of JNX squadron is a member of EAA 1114. When he heard there was an event upcoming at the field and that there were concerns about not having enough volunteers, he offered that the Civil Air Patrol could assist. With several former CAP members on the board at EAA 1114, the idea was readily accepted.

Lt. Stange, the wing recruitment officer, was already committed elsewhere so it was up to JNX and Apex squadrons to work together to pull off a first time event. Neither squadron personnel had worked together previously, and leadership from both squadrons had never put on an event like this for CAP. However everyone stepped up and on the day of the event, we had 18 CAP members on hand, both cadets and senior members.

Primary duties for CAP was setup, recruiting, traffic control, vehicle parking, aircraft marshaling, aircraft security, and clean up. We arrived just before 8am and stayed till approximately 2pm.

This event was a private event, held at a private airfield. The intention was to bring in kids who were interested in aviation and conduct an EAA ground school, while also introducing them to different aspects of aviation.

For the kids who completed the ground school, they received a certificate for a free airplane ride, courtesy of EAA. They also received free access to Sporty’s Learn to Fly course($199 value, free access to over 300 museums, free Academy of Model Aeronautics membership, free electronic copy of EAA’s award winning Sport Aviation magazine, reimbursement after passing the FAA’s written test ($165 value), and several other significant benefits including access to flight scholarships. These classes were offered to the CAP cadets as well, although most were too busy to attend this time.

Safety being paramount, the day started with a safety and logistics briefing conducted by both CAP and EAA personnel. This was a chance to both discuss duty assignments and for the squadron personnel to actually meet for the first time.

Fortunately EAA had already done a tremendous job arranging logistics, including full color maps of the entire facility with all critical areas marked and labeled.

With briefings over, we went to work setting up.

The EAA members were very pleased to have CAP cadets to assist and I received many requests for “a couple of cadets” during the morning. Cadets and senior members were always ready and willing to jump into any role.

With setup complete, cadets were positioned along the facility for their roles. Most were on traffic duty but several were also on the flight line assisting aircraft owners with parking.

CAP filled many roles during the day, including being the official greeter for the event, welcoming the guests and handing out needed materials to get them through the day.

CAP, as thanks for the role we played, was given the prime spot of the event for recruitment. Lt Beth Hausner, Squadron Commander of Apex cadet squadron manned the booth for the event, assisted by Lt. Carrie Henningsen also of Apex. We definitely had some future CAP cadets and senior members stop by.

The highlight of the day was the arrival of the Bandit Flight Team. The Bandits are a local formation flight team who puts on flyovers and airshows all up and down the East Coast. They are also members of EAA chapter 1114. CAPs job was to marshal the Bandits into the parking spots, and then provide security for the planes while they were on the ground.

The Bandits did several passes over the field and then landed one by one, giving a bit of an airshow in the process.

Once the Bandits were on the ground, the cadets were able to be 1/2 on duty and 1/2 off. This allowed cadets to eat and see the event, including taking the ground school if they chose. Half way through, the teams switched so everyone had an equal opportunity.

Cadets were also able to interact with Bobby Cox, a living legend in aviation, and the namesake of Cox Airfield.

Unfortunately, not everyone could be rounded up for the impromptu group picture with the Bandit Flight Team prior to departure. However many thanks to the following personnel for their hard work during this event.

JNX Squadron

Cadets Cole Contos, Jacob Byrum, Jacob McHatton, Carter Moore, William Nesbit, Alex Nesbit, Lyndsey Oetjen, and Kyle Scott
Senior members Dan Moore, David Morris, and Jason Nesbit

Apex Squadron

Jacob Morris, Tucker Murphy, Jaedon Wilkinson, and KR Ross.
Senior members Beth Hausner and Carrie Henningsen

Why take a Saturday and drag kids all over the place, volunteering and working for free? Because there is no quiet quite so enjoyable as the quiet of a sleeping car ride home. Giving back to the community. Teaching kids how to be leaders. Those are just perks.

Today Spork and I finally were able to get back to the airplane. This is the last week of school and he is trying to get everything done so we can go to work on the airplane. Spork and I are both sick, from two unrelated colds, so I thought that we’d not get anything done today but around lunch time the Mrs. said he was ok to work if he had his work done. Yeah!

Spork and I headed over about 1:30 and went to work on various projects. We started with pulling out all the tail feathers and reinstalling them onto the airframe. Flying wires were put back in place, hardware was (mostly) located and after a while we have everything installed, including the elevators. We didn’t install the rudder because we don’t need to and it interferes with the rear stand.

With the tail feathers installed, we set about figuring out the trim system. It is obvious that listening to Robby vs. reading the instructions is going to an issue at each step. Even the smallest things take a while to figure out when going by the instructions. A simple note to run the trim cable out of the access hole by the elevator bell crank took me 15 minutes of trying to figure out exactly where that is. There isn’t an access hole yet, there isn’t even a picture of where it would be. I had some pics of other SuperSTOLs that I could reference, but they were buried in my picture folder on Amazon so that took a while.

While I was searching and grumbling, Spork started sorting the hardware that I’d ordered in as extra. That took some conversation and some time, but it saves a ton of time later when we can locate everything when we need it.

We got to stopping point on the trim cable so I worked on the baggage door. I’d already started cutting out the piece I needed when I was at Robby’s place so I hunted down my air nibbler and finished cutting out our new door from what was previously the turtle deck. The turtle deck will be lexan instead so this piece of aluminum was extra.

Once the piece was roughed out, I marked everything and put it on the belt sander to smooth and straighten my lines.

I also located the piece of piano hinge I’d purchased at Sun N Fun for just this project. I marked and cut the piano hinge, then safety wired in the hinge pin. Then I drilled out the hinge and clecoed it in place on the fuselage, leaving it loose for final fit up on the door itself.

With the door roughed out and ready to drill, I left it clamped so I could look at it with fresh eyes before drilling anything else. I may put a small break down the middle of it to give it some stiffness. It is not like this is a speed demon of an airplane but I could see the door having some flutter in flight. When Miguel gets back I can get him to brake it and give it a center rib for stiffness.

Total time 2.5 hours.

This past week we found out that Spork didn’t get selected for Civil Air Patrol encampment staff. Originally we’d thought he’d be on staff and I’d fly up and fly cadets all week. When we learned he didn’t get selected, that meant that our entire week the last week of June can  now dedicated to the airplane build. If I can spend less time figuring out what to do, and more time doing, we should make real progress on the plane this summer.

I’ve never been one for camping. Why fight bugs and sit on the ground when there is a…MOTEL….RIGHT….THERE! I have money, let’s go.

But parking your airplane, hopping out onto fresh cut grass, unloading all your camping gear, and then meeting your neighbors while planes fly overhead is a whole new adventure. One that previously I’d been vaguely aware of, but had no real experience prior to our almost camping at Oshkosh last year. This time we’d be on the field and able to experience real camping at a real airshow!

The day of our arrival at Sun N Fun was the first night airshow. I’d read some articles in different airplane magazines about the night airshows when they were first introduced a few years back. Basically they were (insert radio announcer voice) The Greatest Airplane Show in History!

Uh huh. I’m kinda burned out on airshows themselves. They are neat but after a short while all the flips and loops kinda all look the same. The Blue Angels/Thunderbirds/Snow Birds/Viper Demo Team are really awesome, but after you’ve seen them a few times they end up being really just loud. You get jaded. But this night airshow thing was supposed to be cool. I kinda felt like maybe it was more of the same, but the latest new thing and that was all that was really good about it but we’d see.

Last year at Sun N Fun, we were staying offsite. When the day airshow ended, I asked Spork if he wanted to stay for the night airshow. Immediate answer, “Nope.” No interest. We went back to the Air BnB and read a book instead.

But this time, we were onsite with nowhere else to be so we’d be seeing our first night airshow. As the sun started going down, we’d already had dinner, and I’d already had a celebratory small glass of whiskey.

As we sat down in our chairs to await the airshow, the nice breeze that had been blowing started mixing with the lack of sunshine to make things a bit cold. As I started to get chilled I realized I had a warm blanket on the bed right behind me and we’d smartly faced the opening of the tent towards airshow center. I suggested we get in the tent and watch the airshow from there. What followed was the best airshow experience I’ve ever had. We couldn’t hear what the announcer was saying. We didn’t have the airplanes buzzing directly overhead, nor right in front of us. We were 90 degrees off of the display. However, I had a full belly, a glass of adult beverage, my now 6 foot tall son beside me, and a warm blanket over me. I was viewing the airshow through the frame of my tent, which blocked out most of the wind but allowed everything else, sight, sound, smell, to penetrate.

Let me see if I can describe what a night airshow is. I’m not sure who has blackmail pictures of the FAA folks who allowed this, but they must be mighty impressive pictures. So we take an airplane, say a Beech 18. 

We place some LED lights on the airplane that flash and chance colors, putting on a nice little light display. Kinda like a flying Christmas tree. That really isn’t a big deal, airplanes already have lights. And LEDs are safe, which is important because this airplane is filled with 100 octane aviation fuel. But wait, there is more.

Then we take sparklers and attach them to the wings, which is flight leave a trail of sparks. Now I don’t mean sparklers like this. 

I mean sparkers, like this. 

So an airplane, already lit up by lights, full of fuel, is now trailing 100 foot plus long ribbons of fire. Oh, and it is doing aerobatics. But that would just be boring. What we need are roman candles, shooting off of the sides of the airplane because trails of fire isn’t enough, lets launch fiery projectiles as well, while we are upside down.

I don’t know what alcohol was involved in the conversation when some airshow pilots thought this up, and I have NO CLUE how they got the FAA to approve it, but snuggled in bed watching this airshow I was in awe.

However, prior to this part of the night airshow, we had another memorable event. Remember that Navy crew that did a bit of drawing the sky?

As the show got started there was still some daylight left. The first airplane starts his show, and as you would expect uses smoke to accentuate the loops and rolls he is doing. We are directly downwind. As the smoke drifts our way, my boy says, out of the blue, “That is a terrible penis!”

I immediately realized what he was referencing, and how appropriate and hilarious the comment was. Not all heroes wear capes. 

The next day, our neighbor Ken, in his beautiful Beech Bonanza, told us he had scored a ride with the AeroShell flight team. He is a Honda dealer and Honda sponsors the flight team. He was kind enough to share some of the video from his ride. This isn’t just some random video, this is the guy parked next to us going out and doing all this stuff.

Don’t let my text in the video fool you. Ken was EXCITED to go do aerobatics. Me, not so much. But I was excited to hear all about it.

Our neighbors on the other side were a group of pilots who flew for the airlines. We plopped down in their area and started talking, making friends. Turns out one of the guys was part of the interview team for their airline.

“Well sir, my boy here is an aspiring airline pilot. Any interview stories, tips, worst interview experiences, etc. you could share?”

45 minutes later we had a master class in how to interview for the airlines. Aerobatic rides on one side, career tips on the other. Airshows with fire and sparks. None of this is really even part of the regular airshow. You only get it when you camp. Our plan is to go next year and do it again. We had a large time camping at Sun N Fun.

 

Once we arrived at our parking spot, as directed by no other than our very own CAP cadets and EAA volunteers, we set about setting up our camp site. When I camped at Fon Du Lac, WI with Daniel last year for Oskosh, he corrected me when I said we were camping. Pointing at the soft bedding, the steaks cooked perfectly, the generator running quietly keeping our portable freezer and food cold, he explained that we were “glamping” instead of camping. I’d never heard of glamping, but I’ve come to understand that I was being mocked. Since Daniel has spent his time in the sandbox with the Army, I deferred to his judgement.

But I was not ashamed! Instead I took glamping as my own and vowed to improve upon it even. Why are we sleeping in sleeping bags when they make blow up mattresses? Don’t we own a tent around here? Is it big enough? Maybe we need a bigger one? A screened in porch maybe?

In the end I decided most of my gear was already glamping worthy. I only needed to replace my old blow up mattress, which couldn’t be patched any longer. Fortunately Amazon sold one designed for grandma to come and stay the weekend. It was 21″ tall and a queen size. It needed sheets and blankets. Any maybe a duvet cover. I’m not sure what a duvet cover is, or what it covers, but we probably needed it.

So I’m setting up all my glamping gear with Spork’s help. I really haven’t said hello to neighbors, looked around, etc. I have the generator out and running, cooling down our food for the week (we’ve been flying all day) and charging my cell phone which had died on the trip down. As I’m bent over setting up a chair or something, I hear the unmistakable sound of radial engines behind me. I pop up, turn around, and am greeted by the sight of a red ball of a sunset, not quite turning the sky pink yet but getting pretty close. Splitting the big red ball is a wing that is attached to a Boeing B17, the airplane that my father flew 52 missions on during WWII. The airplane is coming straight at me and at this point I realize that we are just off the end of the active runway meaning the airplanes are coming over our heads just a few hundred feet off the ground. It looked like this.

It is an epic sight. Of course my phone is plugged in and I cannot get it unplugged and turned on before the plane has roared just overhead and is landing. Fortunately my awesome neighbor Ken later catches a shot to give an idea of what we saw.

This was day one, hour one of Sun N Fun. This was going to be awesome.