How to cut the canopy

My RV pal, Neal George, sent this along today. You know, I have no doubt at all that if Neal actually tried this, he'd probably end up doing a darn good job.

The quest for perfection

Yesterday I finished -- I think -- doing any more cutting of plexiglass or drilling of canopies. I finished the final cut on the aft window (I left a little more on than the plans suggest) to parallel the cutout in the top skin.

I sanded the edges, countersunk the holes which I drilled a few days ago.



It's been amazing, really, how many times the plexi has gone on and off the fuselage, but I've enjoyed it. However, if I read one more Web site that says the "gap between the forward and rear canopies was perfect," I'll scream.



Perfection, though I strive for it, does not come easy to me. In fact, it doesn't come at all. My gap on the passenger side is about 1/8" since I accidentally sanded the wrong edge when getting the aft window to fit over the brackets that hold the rollbar in place. From there it alternates between about 1/16" and slightly larger.

But you know what? I'm happy with how it looks and I'm happy with how it came out and I've grown comfortable in my later years with some of my imperfections.

Bob Miller's RV-8

Bob Miller, I believe, was one of our attendees at the RV BBQ in Oshkosh, so it was nice to see him get some props (no pun intended) in the Fargo Forum (a pretty decent newspaper, by the way), this morning.

He had followed all the directions and logged plenty of wrench time – five years and 2,826 hours, to be exact – to prepare the sporty single-engine airplane for flight.

Nevertheless, “There are so many horror stories about people taking off, and the engine’s never worked that hard, you just don’t know how it’s going to go,” he said.

Turns out it went just fine.

MN Wing newsletter is out

I'm thinking one of these days of selecting my All-Star team of RV and EAA-related monthly newsletters. There are, when you get right down to it, only a handful of them.

More often than not, when I was spending a lot of time browsing them for the RV Builder's Hotline, I'd go to a chapter's Web page and be greeted with "Come to the Father's Day Pancake Breakfast, June 11, 2000!" Seriously, EAAers, how can you let that happen?

Anyway, back to the subject, fine newsletters. Doug Weiler singlehandedly puts out one of the nicest newsletters as president of the Minnesota Wing of Van's Air Force.

Doug recalls his early Oshkosh trips, provides several first flight reports, Pete Howell -- who writes the greatest trip stories -- tells of his trip to Montana in his RV-9, and Pete also has details of an amateur-built headset.

You can find the newsletter here.

Hotline and moi

Life is spinning faster and faster and it's harder and harder to keep up. Ever felt that way? I'm starting a new gig at work within a month or so and it's taking more time away from other pursuits, and I'm racing to get the RV canopy done before the cold weather comes. Time is hard to find.

Earlier this year, I ended the RV Builder's Hotline as I'm trying to pare those things that might give me more time. Rob Riggen, bless his heart, created a bunch of new tools and took on more of a role, in order to keep it going.

But I have found that it still has required more time than I'm prepared to give it to have it be a fair representation of my work and interest in it, so I told Rob yesterday that I won't be able to support it with writing and browsing, at least on much of a regular basis.

If you'd like to help Rob in the endeavor, however, I'm sure he'd love to hear from you.

Just looking

This week I drilled the canopy on my RV-7A project to the rollbar and side frame. In the process of documenting it in my Kitlog Pro log, I discovered that I've just rolled passed the 1,750 hour mark. I guess that's a lot (I noticed my friend who runs the Dignity Web site was at 1,000 hours at this point) , but over 6 years, probably not unusual. That's actual building time. It's not "just looking" time.

I think I'm not alone on this undocumented part of building a homebuilt airplane. There's building time. And then there's "just looking" time, and I tend to think the latter amounts to more than the former.

Here's how it works: you spend a day (or an hour) as I did this week working on a particular component. Around 5 or 6 p.m., you cleanup, head inside, take a shower, and prepare the spend the evening with your family like "normal" people. Perhaps you watch a little TV.

When the commercial comes on, you go back to the garage -- or maybe you fumble around for some excuse, like taking the dog out -- and you look; just look, at what you did during the day.

Truth be told, I do this a lot. OK, I do it every night and sometimes I do it during the day, and always after I get up in the morning to let the dog out (no, he really has to go out!).

Ken Scott at Van's always says "touch your project every day" as a way to keep progress going. He should've said "or just look at it."

The canopy process, while intensely enjoyable (everything on this project is to me), has not been easy and without challenges. During one of my "just looking" forays last week, I decided to take a piece of scrap plexi and drill it with the cordless (hey, they were both just sitting on the workbench as I was walking past to let, umm, the dog out!).

Snap! It broke easily. I went back inside and watched the rest of the movie, but darned if I can remember what it was about. I was too concerned about what was to come. You can read all about it on the YGroup.

Suffice it to say, the challenge presented itself and -- after I "grew a pair," to quote my buddy, Darwin Barrie -- the challenge was met.

Captain's log: 8 hours of building time, 8 hours (so far) of "just looking" time.

I mean, there it is, sitting out there on the workbench. A finely drilled canopy, with countersunk holes. I even ran some sandpaper through them to reduce any chance of cracks. I did a pretty good job, for me anyway. It's worth looking at.

And it's not just the RV project. I have a hangar at South St. Paul's Fleming Field that, other than some wings and a new workbench, is empty. I stopped there four times this week. There really wasn't anything to do there, although I pretended the hangar needed sweeping out... again.

I just go there, sit, and look. It's a hangar. My hangar, sort of. Someday it'll have a plane inside it, I think. We'll get together early in the morning, crack the door to reveal a splendid dawn, fire it up, and go fly.

Or I'll just sit and look at it.

Van's Homecoming coverage

Doug has done his usual outstanding job on Van's Air Force, documenting everything that happened this weekend at Van's Homecoming. This time it was held at the Independence Airpark. I'm pretty sure in my next life I want to come back wealthy enough to live on an airpark. Guess I'll have to figure out a new line of work, though.

Anyway, here's Doug's pictures of the RV-12, which he got to fly (check that, in my next life, I'm coming back as Doug Reeves), here's video of his landing, and here's his account of the Friday BBQ.

Doug told me in an e-mail that he was spending the day at the Portland airport and wouldn't be home until 10 p.m. Way to take one for the team, Doug! And thanks for your hard work.

I also found this blog -- My Left Nut -- which had some images and accounts of the action this weekend.

I'm hoping EAA Chapter 292, which hosted the event, posts some pictures soon, too.

Too spooked to drill

It's 57 and rainy in Minnesota today so I fired up the Buddy Heater in the garage to see how hot I could get it. By late afternoon, it was up to 74, so I put the canopy back on the fuselage and lined it up with an idea that maybe -- maybe -- I would drill it. Working with the plexi these last few months, I've gotten a little more confident that maybe this idea was wrong that if I so much as look at it the wrong way, it'll crack.

I thought I was happy with the aft edge but I'm really not. It lines up fine on the pilot side, but I took a little too much off the passenger side and it's slightly forward of the line I drew in the middle of the rollbar. So I'm thinking a little more about this and what to do. But that's not my problem.

You know those builder sites that show a builder drilling some scrap plexi and noting that, try as they might, they couldn't get it to crack? I had no such "problem." And now I'm way too spooked to drill this thing.

Using an Avery plexiglass bit in the cordless drill, I put a little pressure on this scrap piece -- not a lot but I'll bet it's not much more than I'd put on pushing in the side of the canopy as I drill it.

This first time, I drilled at a normally speed, and just before the bit broke through, snap! The piece flew about 4 inches.



Here you can see that it broke just as it was about to break through.



Next, I didn't put any pressure on it, but drilled at the same speed. As you can see -- hopefully -- cracks developed:



I experimented a little more, not with putting less stress on the plexi, but slowing down the drill speed. I got it down to where it was turning very slowly, and while it took a long time to drill through it, it didn't snap this time, even when I put on a fair amount of pressure.

Obviously, there'll be no canopy drilling today. And if I can get the garage up to 90 degrees sometime this week (supposed to get hot again), I'll run these tests again.

But, boy, am I scared to death now.

Therapy

I've written in the past about our RV projects and the persona they take on as our "children." In the last month, I've noticed another role that they -- well, at least mine -- have assumed.

My goal for this year was to get the canopy "done," to have everything come together so that when the prairie heat of July and August arrived, I'd be ready to make the big cut. I really wanted to have the cut made before Oshkosh.

And, sure enough, it was. The canopy frame, which I started in the cold of February, had a canopy on it -- sort of -- by July. On July 8, I made the large cut, cleaned up the edges and put it on the airplane. I took the usual pictures, marvelled at how far ahead of schedule I was, and left it to sit... and sit... and sit. So much for the schedule.

But, truth be told, getting the RV BBQ organized pretty much demands full-time attention in the three weeks leading up to Oshkosh. Then there's the week of Oshkosh itself. Then there's the week after Oshkosh, a return to work, and a usually listless Bob trying to get reinvigorated in life when there's not the sound of someone's radial engine capturing my attention and lighting my fire.


And this year, on August 1, we lost the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. I was at work that night, almost ready to leave, when I saw the first images. I worked most of the night on the Web site, handled a few interview requests from the BBC and CBC early the next morning, and was gone by 8 a.m. That's a 22-hour day. Not much room for building.

A day later, my youngest son was hurt, apparently, when he, his brother, and their roommate were mugged while walking home from dinner. Now, I'm guessing there was a little more than random violence involved here, but at 9 p.m., my oldest son called to tell me that he'd taken Patrick, my youngest, to the emergency room in St. Paul.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because he can't remember anything of the last year," he said.

Let me just point out here that it's amazing how irrelevant things that you thought seconds before were important become when you get these sorts of phone calls.

When we arrived at the hospital, we found a tragic version of "Ten Second Tom" from "50 First Dates." Patrick could remember no more than, perhaps, the last 40 seconds, only a few more than your average guppy.

Every 40 seconds, approximately, we'd have the same conversation.

"Why I am I here?"

"You were mugged?"

"By who?"

"Four guys"

"How come I still have my wallet."

"They weren't interested in your wallet."

And this would go on, until finally he got into a room at about midnight and CNN was on, showing non-stop photos of the bridge collapse. Patrick is an EMT and was on call at his "house" to respond to the bridge if there were more victims. But he wasn't needed so when his shift was over, he left and went home, had dinner, and got himself mugged.

But, of course, he didn't know any of that so when he saw the bridge collapse, he'd get up and want to get to the bridge, sure that his crew was there.

"I've got to get there," he'd say every 40 seconds.

"You were there," I'd say.

"What am I doing here?"

It was a couple of days before his memory came back, but not before Mom and Dad spent hours answering questions and then, when we left to get some sleep, picking up the phone every 40 seconds to hear a crying son, frustrated because he couldn't remember anything. I'd talk him down, and he'd hang up to get some sleep. Then call again a minute later, not knowing he'd just called.

It's amazing, really, how marvelous the brain is. It determines what data needs to be dumped when, figures out how far back it should dump, and then -- when the coast is clear -- brings its systems (if you're lucky) back on in stages. Fascinating, really.

Anyway add all this together, a 22-hour day, the post-Oshkosh letdown, a son getting the garbage kicked out of him, the general absence of routine, and you have an RV builder without focus. Even after things had calmed down and I'd gotten some sleep, I found it hard to pay attention to much of anything. Even driving the car felt strange to me.

And then, last week, I dragged myself out to the garage, dusted off the canopy, cleaned up the workbench and rolled up my sleeves, only to be shocked by the note on my instructions that the last time I'd touched the project, was exactly one month ago.

My project was kind to me. It didn't make me feel guilty for abandoning her for the glitz of Oshkosh or the duties of a father with a kid in the hospital. It seemed to know that I'd be back, and when I did return, she'd be ready.

I rolled out the plans, made up a couple of workbenches and picked up where I left off. Only I didn't do it for minutes; I did it for hours. After weeks without focus, my project gave me a good slap upside the head, and I was able to shake the cobwebs of life and refocus my own brain again, which in this case happened to be building an airplane.

An EAA technical counselor at EAA Chapter 54 in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, Bill Schanks, always refers to flying as "therapy." I picked that up, too, referring to the time I spend with my RV "therapy." I think it's one of the reasons I'm in no particular hurry to finish. I like spending time building. I like being around something that's patient, and knows that no matter what else goes on, I'll be back, embracing the sameness and consistency of a part of my life for the last six years.

It's comfy, it's home, it's like an old shoe, or returning home from college for the first time to find out your mom hasn't changed your room, and the old dog still is excited to see you.

It's therapy. And before it becomes your airplane, it's your therapist.

And there's no co-pay.

Racing winter

Now that Oshkosh is over, the heat is on to beat the cold. All year, I've wanted to get all the canopy work on my RV-7A done while it is still warm enough to cut and shape it without significant danger of ruining it. I made the "big cut" before Oshkosh but haven't done anything since. Of course, there was this matter of a bridge falling down that caused me to divert my attention to other pursuits. And last Thursday night, my youngest son was mugged as he walked home from dinner by 4 guys (he was with my other son and their roommate) and he lost all of his memory back to April and his brain was data-dumping all but the last 20 seconds (think of "10-second Tom" in "50 First Dates."). It was very scary. He'd see the bridge collapse video in the hospital and get shocked each time he'd see it. Being an EMT, he kept trying to leave to be with his crew at the bridge site (we had to tell him it happened several days ago every 2 minutes). Anyway, very frightening but fortunately he's out of the hospital now and seems to have his memory back.

So last night, when the temperature hit 94 during the day, I eschewed the "National Night Out" block party on my street and trimmed the sides of the canopy to fit. The dimensions, as near as I can tell, came out fine.



As usual, though, I have some questions:

Fitting the side of the canopy through the "ears" at the forward end of side rails, it seems to fit fine, thanks to some hole-elongation techniques I learned on the Dignity Web site.

But there is now a very slight gap as it curves in toward the center...



I'm thinking that if take a sliver out of the very corner (right after it passes through the "ears"), I can eliminate that gap. But I'm not sure. I can also push lightly down with my finger and remove it, so I'm also thinking when I put the "clips" on, it will suffice. What say you?

In looking at the sides, the canopy wants to bow out. Is this normal? A strip of duct tape won't hold it against the sides for more than a few minutes and it takes less pressure to hug it tight to the side as you go front to rear, but it requires a pretty good force around the ears to keep it tight. Is that normal? Does this present a stress problem when I drill here?

Here's a shot looking from the front back to the "ears" on the side. Sorry about the blurriness.




And here's the side looking toward the front...




All advice cheerfully considered.

How to survive an in-flight fire

These sorts of stories scare me; especially as I get closer to beginning the wiring on my RV. Good job by this gentleman getting down safetly. Here's the whole story.

This one's for Tom

This weekend, in the RV Builder's Hotline, I'll be writing about Tony Kirk's project to finish the RV project of Thomas Walsh, who was killed in an accident in January.

Jerry Hansen of Trio Avionics gave me a card Tony was handing out at Oshkosh and this evening I called Tony and talked to him. You can listen to the "podcast".

Bob Collins 3 · Tony Kirk discusses his effort to complete a project for a friend killed in January

(If the SoundCloud embed doesn't work, just go here.

I've made note on a couple of forums tonight that we'll donate $1,000 from the RV Builder's BBQ to the cause. I hope you'll consider doing your part.

The picture above, by the way, is Tony riveting and Joni, Tom Walsh's widow, bucking. It was taken in April. "We were using the sentimental rivets I flew during the missing man flight. It's detailed in an update I made to the 'About Me' page today," Tony said..

In-flight images of the 35-ship formation at Oshkosh

Allan Pomeroy gave me a heads-up today that Dan Checkoway has posted in-flight pictures of the 35-ship formation at Oshkosh.

Find it here.

Also, following up on a notation I made earlier this week, I was under the impression Hotline would have the in-flight video available this week. I haven't had a chance to talk to Rob Riggen directly but it wasn't available this week; perhaps next.

Oshkosh Diary - Multi-tasking

Every now and again at Oshkosh -- and it's usually about this time in the week -- I see or hear something that causes me to note, "I didn't expect that. Sure enough, right on schedule... an Oshkosh moment.

I walked into the showers in the campground today and immediately came face to face with a, um, naked old man toweling off. This caused the panic button in my brain to engage, thus interrupting the reflex cycle, keeping me from verbalizing my thoughts so that nobody actually heard the screaming that I heard in my head that said, "Wow...I didn't need to see that."

Now keep in mind, I come from the "eye's front, soldier!" school of etiquette in these situations, but as I was heading for the shower, I noticed another man -- this one with a short haircut, wearing dogtags, and, umm, naked, look at the old man I didn't need to see, and say... "it's Doug, right?"

"Huh?" the old man said.

"It's Doug, right?" he repeated.

"Why yes, Doug (I didn't catch the last name)."

"Do you remember, me?" he asked.

Now, let me just say that among the things a naked man should never say to another naked man, is "do you remember me?" First,it conjurs up images of two dogs meeting in the park and, second, well, you know.

"You look familiar," he said, which almost caused me to burst out laughing as I headed for cover.

"Do you remember when you (unintelligible verb) my Piper Cub in Lansing, Michigan?" he said.

"Why, sure I do," the old man said and as I showered I overheard the conversation, which sounded like a lot of other conversations in Oshkosh during AirVenture, but which I've never heard in the showers of Oshkosh before. (I pause here only to note that most of the conversations in the showers of Oshkosh start with, "Man, these showers are really creepy.") They were talking about how to do this or that to get this or that problem in a Piper Cub solved and they were discussing various idiosyncracies of the Piper Cub, without once stopping -- apparently -- to consider that maybe two naked men standing in the middle of a freakin' shower in Oshkosh talking about some type-specific aviation situation was, itself, a tad idiosyncratic.

And then the third man showed up.

Now, if you go into the vendor hangars at Oshkosh, you'll notice that a number of exhibitors have no one stopping to talk to them. As soon as someone does, however, a crowd soon develops.

This phenomenon -- or as someone might suggest... this "crime against nature" -- was now taking place in the showers of the campground, for apparently this third guy -- have I mentioned he was naked, too? -- was also a Piper Cub afficionado and wanted to get in on this discussion, ostensibly to learn the wisdom the naked old-timer was imparting.

Upon showering, I returned to the area -- double-checking that my towel was firmly secured around myself -- grabbed my clothes and headed for another part of the building -- stopping only long enough to note that three naked men, all facing each other in close proxmity, were in animated conversation about valve covers and leaky gaskets.

It was then and there I vowed to myself that I will never -- ever -- fly in a Piper Cub.

THE CIRCUS LEAVES TOWN

It rained most of yesterday evening, though the heavy storms that materialized never seemed to hit us, and a few things in the tent got a little soggy, but nothing we haven't experienced before, and nothing that caused any panic. The big tent we used for the RV BBQ on Wednesday evening was still in place as I returned from dinner last night, but one tent and one old, beat up truck that appeared to be home to someone, was now under it, as they sought shelter.

They were still there this morning -- sleeping, )they were up talking until about 3 a.m. I know that because even the rain, and thunder, and the air horns from every yahoo trucker who drives by during AirVenture, couldn't drown their voices as I tried to sleep) when the crew from Karl's Events came to take the "big top" down.
They said they'd come back later and as I peered into the truck to see who was in it, I saw the largest person I think I've ever seen. He looked like that guy you see in movies. He usually drives a motorcycle, has tattoos everywhere, has a shaved head, and looks like he'd kill you if it weren't for the fact -- it usually turns out -- that he's a big old softy with a fondness for ballet and fine arts.

I was pretty sure, though, that this guy was on the run from the law and ducked into Camp Scholler because it's the perfect place to hide. And there he was, under my tent, probably passed out after a night of heavy drinking; a tradition he started after the first time he'd spent a day robbing banks and killing puny men whose only crime was to ask him to move his motorycle and truck from underneath a tent.

So I did what any self-respecting man with a zest for life and desire to see tomorrow did. I wrote a note and duct-taped it to the shoes he'd left outside his truck asking him to move, and I left.

When he came back later, he was awake, and having accepted the idea that this would be my last day to live, I made peace with my God and went over to introduce myself. And just like in the movies, he turned out to be a nice guy from Oregon who had, in fact, been camping nearby and came to the RV BBQ (I invited all "neighbors" to come as our guests) and he just wanted to thank me for the hospitality, noting that the RV builders he met seemed like pretty nice people "for RV builders."

Supressing all other thoughts, I thanked him, offered him whatever beer was left over, while supressing the instinctive desire not to add "if you just let me live."

The fine arts never came up, however.

AN EASY CHOICE

I was going to head down into the AirVenture grounds -- I hadn't really been there since Monday when I covered the Cirrus news conference -- to poke around a little and maybe take in a fiberglass workshop, when Glenn Brasch called to see if I wanted to join him, his son, Michael; and Roger Everson. As they are the heart and soul of AirVenture as far as I'm concerned, I jumped at the chance to head to a drive-in near Lake Winnebago -- you know, waitresses on roller skates, '50s music, and the whole thing.



So there we sat, in the back of Glenn's pick-up, eating and sipping our root-beer floats, as plane after plane flew overhead on short final for the runway at Oshkosh.

There are times I feel guilty for having such a good life.

FALCON FLIGHT




Among my few disappointments this week was not seeing the 35-ship formation of RVs that flew over Oshkosh several times. You can find the names of the RVers here ( http://tinyurl.com/ytwunj ). Opening the AirVenture newspaper today, however, there was a terrific picture of the formation front and center on the gallery page.

I don't "get" formation flying, myself, because it's nothing a pilot like me should ever get close to, but I do know it well enough to know that flying wingtip to wingtip with another person requires more than knowing how to fly wingtip to wingtip with another person. It requires, it seems to me, some serious guts.

Lacking a plane, knowledge, and -- oh yeah -- guts, it's just not something to which I aspire, but it's not hard to appreciate, especially after I talk to fighter-jocks around here and I tell them that I'm building an RV airplane and they always -- always -- remark about these guys who fly formation at Oshkosh. If you've got the respect of fighter jocks for your ability to fly precision formation, man, there isn't much more to accomplish on Planet RV.

By the way, there are pictures all over the Internet of this. RV Builder's Hotline, Rob Riggen told me earlier this week, has some video of what the formation looked like from the cockpit of one RV.

FOUR MAKES A NICE TRIO

The story goes -- although I'm taking some liberties with this -- that when God created the words "gentleman" and "courteous," he created Jerry Hansen, Chuck Busch, Paul Ross, and Sid Tolchin to help explain to the universe what the words mean.

The four, of Trio Avionics, invited me to dinner last evening. We stopped for happy hour at the house they're using this week on the shore of Lake Winnebago. To our left a C-5 (C-5A?) Galaxy C-17 Globemaster was performing at the airshow, occasionally roaring by (below the tree line, of course) near us. To our right, seaplanes were landing at the AirVenture seaplane base. Ahead of us was a gorgeous lake, said to be miles and miles in length, and I believe it.

Then we headed to Kodiak Jack's steakhouse. The wait -- it's one of the more popular restaurants here -- was an hour and half, so we waited in the bar, and chatted about all the things people chat about. Put simply -- and, I'm sorry to say, far less eloquently than they deserve -- they are some of the nicest and warmest people I've met at an event that seems to have no shortage of nice and warm people.

I first met them at the '06 BBQ, the one where a downpour began about the same time the BBQ did. We were staring face-to-face with disaster, and disaster didn't appear to be ready to blink. As we tried to keep things from falling apart before they could start, the Trio folks showed up and offered nothing but support and patience and encouragement, when it would have been just as easy to roll your eyes and wonder who the guys from Hooterville were that thought they could put on a BBQ.

Sid, who for 40 years was a Navy flight surgeon, and Jerry, who was in the Army yet is still allowed to associate with the Navy guys, both took the opportunity to offer encouragement for my bout with Meniere's Disease. Keep in mind a year ago at this time, I was sitting here at the world's greatest aviation event, trying to reconcile it with the very real possibility that my flying days were over.

"It'll go away," Sid said. Words that I've remembered every day since. And he was right.

We sat and chatted for an hour-and-a-half, though to me it seemed like just a few minutes. I won't tell you all the fascinating stuff I learned because I didn't ask their permission, but their backgrounds are incredibly fascinating. They were all Cozy builders -- that's how they met each other.

I learned Sid led a Navy expedition to the South Pole, and even parachuted out of a plane at the South Pole. "What was that like?" I asked, exhausting my quota of stupid questions fairly early in the evening. "Cold," he said.

Paul has restored two Swifts, Chuck served on Trident submarines. Jerry is from Nebraska originally and says he never lost the "gee whiz" part of aviation. And this was a particularly interesting part of a splendid evening.

I asked how each got into aviation. Sid was 11 years old in Pennsylvania, where he delivered newspapers and he won a contest in which the winning prize was a ride in an airplane. When Chuck talked about this recurring dream in which he -- and I'm probably telling this wrong -- would run and fly...up over his house and neighborhood -- Jerry said, "I have the same dream." "So do I," said Sid.

Those words "gee whiz" are at the heart of aviation, and for me, at the heart of the frustration at my complete inability to explain to non-pilots what AirVenture is like. I had wanted this week to take a stab at it for my day job but finally gave up this morning for two reasons: (1) I can't objectively or fairly assess an event in which I'm so obviously involved but (2) I can't find the words to explain this. There is no way to explain the magnitude of this event in context of aviation. You can, perhaps, bite off a small morsel of it, but you can never adequately describe the dinner. Never.

Sure we try, Google search AirVenture and see for yourself. But, trust me, even those of us who at least think we can make words do tricks are pikers at this. And yet, what's fascinating about it is there were already two words available: "gee whiz."

Anyway, it was a wonderful evening spent with fine individuals for whom I have a new appreciation and affection. I can't wait to see them again, next year.

RV vs.T-6

I'm sure I'm telling this incorrectly, too, but Jerry (I'm pretty sure it was Jerry) told me about an incident here in which a T-6 was holding short of the runway before getting permission to taxi across it to get somewhere else. This was at the departure end of the runway. Having permission to taxi across it, the pilot instead turned and took off on the runway, into the path of the landing airplanes, including an RV-4, the pilot of which was quick-thinking enough to coax it back into the air, eluding the warbird (I think it was a T-6 but can't recall).

If that was your RV-4, I'd love to chat with you. I'm going to guess that, at least at that moment, the two words of prominence were not "gee whiz."

BRING IN DA NOISE

I will probably leave in the morning, and by Sunday I should be in full Oshkosh withdrawal, when -- if history is any guide -- I'm sitting on my beloved bench (http://stirringsfromtheemptynest.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html), and realizing the cacophony of silence. No helicopter flying nonstop around the "pattern" of the campground, giving their first helicopter rides to --usually -- wide-eyed kids and family. No outboard-motor sound of the Goodyear blimp (did you know it doesn't fly in the rain because the weight of the raindrops would bring it down?). No crescendo of a fighter jet as it makes its low pass and then bombards you with the noise of the afterburners as it turns out over Lake Winnebago. No putt-putt noise from scooters going up and down Camp Scholler... now occupied by two (usually a young man and a young woman who didn't know each other a few days ago). No sound of the schoolbus as it drops another load of weary campers from the flight line after a day of trying to do the impossible -- take it all in. No slam of the Porta John door in the middle of the night. No rustling from the plastic tarp you put up to keep rain from coming in your tent, no nauseating hum of a generator from blocks away, and worst of all -- no voice of a someone you used to know as someone who builds airplanes but you now think of as family -- inviting you to sit down and visit for awhile.

In the next few days -- again if history is any guide at all -- there will be threads on most of the various bulletin boards. Some old-timer will talk about the old days, about how EAA is too commercial, or has lost touch with the average builder, or costs too much, or whatever whine of the moment happens to motivate one to waste precious time on such things.

Trust me. They're wrong. They're not intentionally wrong. They're not ignorantly wrong. They're just wrong.

Everything that aviation is, is still here, from the "gee whiz" of an 11 year old paperboy in Pennsylvania getting his first ride in an airplane, to the delight of a man from France camping in his car for a week in the middle of a field in eastern Wisconsin(ask Dana Overall), delighted that new rules -- LSA-like rules -- there are restoring the dream old rules took away. From waitresses on roller skates bringing root-beer floats to a bunch of aviators in the back of a pick-up truck, to the one-week love affairs of early teenagers, in the shade of a tree in the shade of a wing of a Ford TriMotor flying overhead. From the twinking eyes of an 85 year old war veteran, too old to fly, barely able to walk, but momentarily transformed when a B-17 passes overhead, to a 21 year old kid.

I haven't left the place yet... and I already miss it.

Where reality and fantasy meet

There's a sameness to AirVenture that is quite often comforting. Most of the vendors are in the same place each year, we certainly see the same people, for the most part the airshow is the same, and if there's been any upgrade to Porta-Potty technology, it hasn't reached Eastern Wisconsin.

Here it is Thursday and I still haven't spent any just me walking around looking time here, and Thursday is the day I head to the laundromat (free wiFi) to both clean my laundry and take a giant step foward to improve the aroma of the tent after two days of occasional downpours. And this evening, the great folks at Trio Avionics have invited me to the home they're renting on Lake Winnebago for happy hour, so there won't be time to do any today either.

But that's OK (unless, of course, I really needed to buy an engine and a bunch of avionics I can't afford this week), because the show comes to you here. While we were "breaking down" the BBQ site this morning (more on that later), the F-22 Raptors arrived. They usually put on a show doing what they do, one over the runway, and another over Camp Scholler (the campground). Unfortunately it was low scud weather-wise, so they could only do flybys, but that was OK as one came out over my tent.

Right around then, coincidentally, standing under the "big top," (the tent we had for the BBQ) was Scott Fechtig, who works for the Navy and told me about the software that makes these jets (and the F-18s) do the things they do.

I told him my nephew is an F-18 driver and asked if what he was telling me that the software means that he has as much input into what his jet does as I have here, right now, with my laptop, in the Oshkosh Maytag Coin-Op laundry? No, he said, but the "pilot only gets one vote in the decisions," he said.

I took my campmate, Warren Starkebaum, down to his plane... wayyyy down in the South 40, past the end of the runway. Some big government jet (actually it was a little government jet making a big noise) was taking off, as a Cessna 172 was landing adjacent on the taxiway. I wondered about the wake turbulence of the jet.

I headed to the laundromat when two screaming jets (which I couldn't see at the time) passed low over my car as I drove on the road near the departure end of the runway. A minute later they filled my windshield -- two MIGs. Where else would you see that?

A minute later a screaming aerobatic biplane zipped by. I didn't even have to look (although, of course, I did), knowing it was Sean D. Tucker, my favorite airshow performer, going out for morning practice.

I often wonder why there aren't more rear-enders on the streets of Oshkosh, what with everyone looking up while they drive.

Well, then, let's talk about the BBQ. First, I don't have many pictures -- I have almost no pictures (and the ones I have aren't very good) -- as there's very little time for taking them. But everyone has said they'll send me CDs of theirs (hint) and I'll put them on the slideshow on the BBQ site when done.

I won't be able to tell you all of the people I talked to, but I remember every conversation, and most of them couldn't last long enough, as I was usually trying to get something done.

It was a pleasure to meet James Clark of the Palmetto EAA chapter in South Carolina. He's another one of my RV heroes and recently was with a gaggle that flew to Yellowstone. He asked me if I was interested in freelance writing work, and of course those are the magic words -- as long as the subject is aviation -- and he said, "I want you to meet someone." But I was on my way to important duty -- I was bringing the required cooler of beer to the cooks, and I never got back to him.

So there go, kids. When faced with living a dream (maybe) or delivering a cooler of beer, drop the beer.

After the BBQ, I talked to Paul Merems quite a bit about canopy fitting tips and realized that getting your canopy just right on an RV is a matter of dumb luck. Usually after Oshkosh, I'm anxious to race home and work on the plane. Not this year.

The BBQ went great and we got lots of good comments. There were a couple of things that kept me up. We pitched a lot of food and I realized that while we came up with an ingenius idea of distributing the buns for whatever folks were eating -- thus limiting them to one on the first pass through the chow line (that kept the line moving and the lines small), I neglected to tell everyone that they could make a second, or third, or fourth pass through.

I also forgot to mention a couple of sponsors on my way-too-long speech -- which shouldn't have been too long since it was the same one I gave last year -- including Harmon Lange of LangAir, nor did I get a chance to talk to him, which is a shame since he was on my list.

Others can talk about the BBQ per se, but, as usual, I'd rather talk about wayward thoughts it creates. And here's mine today: politics stinks.

We don't realize how infected our lives are with politics, and I'm not here to argue that politics -- the good of the country and the people and all that -- isn't deep and important. It is. But it destroys us, bit by bit. We choose who to talk to, who to like, who to care about, based on politics, and that's not what families, including a family of 300 million, should do.

I talked to 500 friends last night and we don't talk politics at the RV BBQ (and many other places) for a good reason. Everyone knows what politics does.

These BBQs, for a lot of people, I think, are magical. In that tent last night, we no doubt had Republicans, Democrats and a few Socialists, we had electrical engineers, airline pilots, Air Force test pilots, the lead flight director of the space shuttle program, the guy who makes the software for fighter jets, an unusually high number of cops and ex-cops, news editors, professional photographers, aircraft designers and on and on and on.

At one point in these BBQs, the first question used to be, "what model of RV are you building." I don't hear that that much anymore. Instead I hear, "how's your father doing, I heard he was ailing," or "how old are your kids now," or -- in my case -- "how's your vertigo."

Somewhere along the line, these issues dominated and, as you may know, these are the issues that families talk about when they're not talking politics.

Now broaden that a bit. Imagine if we could stop polarizing ourselves with politics, and focus on something non-political, until we got to relate to each other as "family"? How different would the relationship we have with each other in this country -- on a broader scale, I mean -- be?

I come to Oshkosh for one week out of the year. And for one week, I don't know who the real me is. Is the real me the guy standing on the back of pickup truck in a field in Wisconsin, pouring my heart out to 500 people, not giving a rip whether the Indians won their game with the Red Sox (they did, 1-0, suck on that, Boston!), or that I've got lots of unfinished projects at home that I've got to do? Or is the real me the one for 51 weeks out of the year who walks into a room and sucks the air out of it?

Don't get me wrong. I like both of these guys just fine. But it's something I'll have to noodle over the next time I'm folding laundry and watching MIGs and biplanes out the window.