Fun with formations

There's zero chance I'm ever going to do formation flying in the RV-7A, partly because the videos I see posted reveal a much more capable pilot than I am. Here's one posted in the last week.

Under the Wire 2012 from Lowwpass on Vimeo.

The disappointing customer service of Artex

I've opined on various spots over the years that American business would be a lot better off if it stopped blaming its problems on everything but themselves, and got back into the game of customer service. Sure, we all shop for things based on price, but nothing can keep a customer from coming back like crappy customer service.

Ladies and gentlemen: I give you Artex.

I bought a 406 ELT from Aircraft Spruce (oh yeah, I also give you Aircraft Spruce) several years ago, and then didn't install it in the plane project until a year or so ago, after its warranty had expired.

I decided to put the antenna outside the aircraft rather than hide it behind the rollbar because (a) I actually like the look of antenna arrays (I think it's from being in the radio business and (b) Aircraft Spruce's catalog item insisted the antenna would withstand a 200 knot breeze.

While still in my Phase I, without any gear leg fairings or wheel pants, my antenna snapped off. As you may know, it's impossible to go 200 knots in this condition. In fact, with my fixed pitch prop, it's impossible to go 130 knots. But there it was, a stub sitting where my antenna used to be.

A new antenna, Aircraft Spruce told me, would be $226, so I took the advice of people on Van's Air Force and contacted both companies to see if they have any shame about selling a substandard piece of equipment, and any interest in customer service.

Apparently, not.

"Scott," who identified himself as a manager at Artex, called me right away after receiving my letter and story and he couldn't have been nicer. "That shouldn't have happened," he said. "We'll send you a new one tomorrow." He said the model I had was an old one and there had been an improvement and a revision. I got the sense that the company realized they were selling units that didn't confirm the performance claims.

And that was the last I heard from Scott. No antenna ever showed up and this week I called for the third time and left a voicemail message, and for a third time, the call was not returned.

It's a most curious situation, indeed.

As for Aircraft Spruce, they asked for the antenna back for evaluation. I sent it back, and that was the last I heard from Aircraft Spruce.

In the meantime, my RV-7A is sitting on the ground with a hole in the top skin. It's not going flying without a functioning ELT; it can't.

In the end, I'll have to spring for a $226 antenna, to replace the one that couldn't survive 30 hours of flight time. I should probably move the antenna to behind the rollbar, but, frankly, I don't want to rewire the plane at this point, I question the performance of an antenna in that position and, besides, I want the products I buy to perform as advertised. I want manufacturers and resellers to value the amount of money I've spent (not only on this, but on all the other stuff I've purchased for this plane) enough -- I want them to value their customers enough -- to make me satisfied. I'll spend more money with a company like that.

Or, you companies can just bitch about how the world is against you and your business is declining through no fault of your own.

The 60-year homebuilt project

Just when I was starting to think my 11-year project was something special, along comes the story about Ed Kusmirek of Renton, Washington.

He's built a replica of the Dormoy Bathtub:

In the 1950s, he bought the authentic engine he needed for $40, caked in red Oklahoma dirt. Dismantling and restoring that was the beginning.

In the last seven years, he made the airframe himself, using many repurposed bits and pieces. The wheels came from a dirt bike. The tension wires inside the wings are spokes from a bicycle.

"The Wright brothers used a lot of bicycle parts," Kusmirek said. "I figured there's no reason I couldn't take advantage."

Showing off the finished airplane parked in an open hangar at Enumclaw Airport in Enumclaw, Wash., Kusmirek pointed to other unusual parts.

The story is in the Los Angeles Times.

The RV-1 project

A beautiful video just released:



I met Ernie Butcher, featured in the film, at Oshkosh this year. He camped next to us. He introduced himself and told me I was an inspiration to him. That was humbling, to say the least, because he sure did a lot with it.

Yet another Oshkosh video

Up here in Flyover Country, we're getting ready for the approaching winter. We're raking leaves, canning some preserves, changing the belt on the snowblower, and -- of course -- laying up a stock of good Oshkosh videos.

Here's one more:

OS 2012 v1 from SoCalRVator on Vimeo.

Dear pilots: stop being stupid!

Capturing Oshkosh

Every year, it seems, there's one home-made video that captures what Oshkosh means to people.

Here is that video for 2012:

HogVenture

One of the highlights for me at Oshkosh this year was seeing my friend, Bernie Ockuly, and introducing him to my wife, Carolie, and having her get a close up look at Bernie's famouse RV-7.

And here it is in action, flown by Bernie's son, Chase, at HogVenture 2012 in Illinois. That's right, people, actually footage of an RV-7A on grass.

A visit to bluff country

I'd always heard about Rushford's little airport in the southeast corner of Minnesota, and have wanted to visit there. But up until recently, I didn't have an airplane with which to do it. Now, of course, I do so it was next up on the list of places to visit (after Madeline Island) while continuing to make adjustments to N614EF (I'm installing and bonding leg fairings at the moment).

So yesterday, MPR colleague Elizabeth Stawicki and I headed out in search of the little airport that sits on the top of a bluff. This is bluff country, where the small cities sit down in the canyon. From the air, it's not hard at all to see why a flash flood five years ago last month killed about a dozen (if I recall correctly) in the cities below.

The good news came right off the bat. Requesting flight following, Minneapolis Departure reported they could, indeed, see my Mode C transmission, and the transponder was reporting the correct altitude. That's quite a relief as the trip to Madeline Island, you may recall, featured an inoperative Mode C. The Garmin 327 automatically switches to ALT on a runway roll, but I've taken to manually recycling it during the runup to see if that changes things, and perhaps it did.

The down side, so far, is that I don't have -- and don't want -- a VOR receiver since VOR stations are being phased out and I navigate by charts and GPS. In many locations, you transmit to Flight Service on a particular frequency and listen back on a VOR frequency. That's antiquated. So I couldn't use the frequencies Departure gave me to open my flight plan and they said they couldn't do it, even though they have in the past. Whatever, we did without the flight plan since we were in communication with ATC via flight following anyway, with the exception of a 10 mile patch north of Rochester where Minneapolis Center -- at least on the frequency we were given -- can't pick us up and we can't hear them.

Eventually we got some scratchy and intermittent communication which was not understandable, but I indicated we couldn't receive and we'd try again in a few minutes.

A few minutes later, Center called us asking us how we were reading. Good service, right there.

There was no traffic to report but it's always nice knowing someone's keeping an eye out for us. Center cut us loose about 12 miles north of Rushford when they lost radar contact but, no matter, there was no traffic out yesterday and the runway was ahead of us.

An upwind entry and a pattern approach put us on Runway 16 with a slight left crosswind, but the RV-7A doesn't care too much about crosswinds and we landed fine and taxied back up to the little prefab house that constitutes the terminal.

And what a great spot it is. There's a spacious living room...

... and den...

But the big payoff was the fully stocked kitchen.

There was plenty of frozen burgers and buns in the freezer if we wanted to use the grills -- we didn't -- but there was also ice cream in there and tons of root beer for making root beer floats. Just leave the 50 cents in the can. Want to drive into town? The keys to the courtesy car are on top of the fridge.

But the day was gorgeous, why drive anywhere, what with a beautiful view, a huge deck, the ear-splitting quiet, and a root beer float to consume while watching tons of hummingbirds show off their crosswind technique?

Nearby, there's a farm. Soybeans are planted right up to the runway.

And best of all: Avgas is "only" $5.25 a gallon -- certainly the cheapest I've seen around lately. So we filled up.

Rushford is home base, by the way, for Steve Russell, who flies his powered parachute around these parts and provides some of the gorgeous videos, which I occasionally feature on the day job -- writing NewsCut for Minnesota Public Radio.



Elizabeth bought me a Rushford Aviation T-shirt -- $20, just put it in the can with the rest of the honor money -- which I'll wear with great affection for a great spot.

I'll be back.

Flying in

Now that I'm flying, I'm going to have to find more places to fly to. I see there's a poker run coming up in a week or so; I may do that.

I may also have to look up Cherry Grove, Minnesota, based on this video that was posted today.

Cherry Grove Fly in Minnesota from Kit Carson on Vimeo.

My week doing an aviation talk show at AirVenture

Huzzah! The hard-working folks at EAA Radio (not run by EAA) have now made all of the interviews during Oshkosh 2012 available on the archive page. It's a good portrayal of just how magnificent this resource is for fans of AirVenture (or at least fans of flying).

Here are the ones that I was involved with. I'd forgotten how much goes into hosting a one-hour interview show (with multiple guests). I enjoyed doing the show because it was fun getting back to doing talk radio again. Also, I like talking about PEOPLE and I think aviation has great people stories to tell. I think I did OK. Just look at this list!

A talk show is hard work. In the end, it has to sound like a conversation and, at least the way I do it, an informal one at that. That's why at my campsite every night, you'd find me working on the next day's hour.

Click to listen (mp3).

ME
Sometimes guests don't show up (it happened to me twice, once involving an RVer) but here are two segments I filled on with Mike Morgan. (Part I | Part II)

Brandi and Brian Unrein
What a fun interview this was. This young couple from the Atlanta area built and flew an RV-10 before becoming old people like, well, you know. They flew it into Oshkosh this year.

Chad Jensen
Chad, a former and future RV-7 builder, is now the manager of communities for the EAA. I knew him when. The EAA wasn't real thrilled to learn I'd be hosting a show this year, but I let Chad know ahead of time that I wasn't about to sandbag him with questions over this Board of Directors proxy controversy -- which I still don't quite understand. If I had, I'm pretty sure Chad would've been ready for it, anyway.

Alex and Alejandro Cuellar, Mike Rettig, and Paul Merems
This was a very inspiring interview about the effort by Van's Air Force members (and others) to make Alex Cuellar's wish to attend Oshkosh come true despite the medical challenges he faces. In the end, he and his dad were ushered into Oshkosh, treated like royalty (the Oshkosh version) and all of those who made it happen made the rest of us proud. It's a great interview.


Chip Yates
This guy was awesome and, as I told him, really had the "high beams" on. He set a record just before Oshkosh for hitting 200 mph in homebuilt airplane, just before the batteries fried. This is must-listening.

Don Hull
Don, from Alabama, is an RV builder who is flying his Cessna for now, and volunteering with Pilots n Paws, a neat effort whereby pilots help rescue dogs who certainly are in need of rescue.


Gary Bipes
Gary is from Hector, MN and I interviewed him on the final Sunday of AirVenture. He's a fascinating man -- a former combat photographer, worked for the CIA, was in the ag-spraying business. I wrote about him for my day job, too. (Part I | Part II)


Jack Beck and Marmy Clason
I've known this wonderful couple since I wrote this article in 2008. They started building their RV9 at, perhaps, the worst possible time in the opinion of some rational people. But maybe rational people don't know everything.

John Zimmerman
John is a VP of Sporty's and came in to talk about using iPads in the cockpit. I've got to get an iPad.

Lane Wallace
I'm honored to call Lane a friend. She's a great aviation writer and explorer. We talked mostly about her book, more so than aviation stories. Perhaps that disappoints a lot of aviation people but the world is deeper than that. We didn't get into it on the radio, but we had a fabulous conversation about parenthood after the show.

Lauran Paine Jr.
Likewise, Lauran Paine is one of my heroes. He's a writer who describes himself as "about as complicated as a fencepost." He's a Vietnam combat pilot, former airline pilot, and RV-8 builder too. When EAA Radio asked if I was interested in doing a talk show this year, the first person I thought about was Lauran. I was not disappointed. (Part I | Part II)

Lyn Freeman and Katrina Bradshaw
I think educators are really missing out on exciting their students by not bringing aviation into the classroom more. So do Lyn and Katrina who are with Build A Plane and are trying to link up airplanes and schools.

Bob Kelley and friends
Bob, of Indiana, helped organize a program to teach kids how to build an airplane. And the Eagle's Nest group did in completing -- and flying to Oshkosh -- an RV-12. He and a couple of the kids tell their story.


Paul Dye
Paul found the RV-1, the original RV, and helped organize the effort to get it back to flying status, have it tour the country, put it back in the hands of Van himself, and then have it flown to Oshkosh, where it was presented to the EAA. Paul is also with NASA and was the longest-serving flight director in shuttle history. He's also from Minnesota, which really tops pretty much the list of everything else he's accomplished.

Rick Gray
If there's a champion homebuilt project crowned at Oshkosh, it's pretty much a given that Rick Gray built it. Now he's a judge and he walked us through how homebuilders can do a better job of homebuilding. We also chatted about his RV-10 accident last fall, from which he is lucky to be alive.

Scott and Casey Stewart
If you're a fan of Van's Air Force, you probably recognize Scott as "DakotaHawk." This discussion involves how fathers and sons build airplanes and are bonded by aviation. Two fine people. It was a pleasure to finally meet both in person.

Mark Giron
What a fabulous and smart person Mark is. He's an official with the Federal Aviation Administration and he's also an RV-6 flyer. On the evening of this interview, he was to host a "safety rally" in the homebuilt camping area of Oshkosh. Only a few of us showed up, however, so here's your chance to hear what you missed, people.

Chris Briers
I admit, I didn't know much about the P750-XSTOL, which is a New Zealand plane used in many rescue and relief efforts. But I enjoyed meeting Chris and the test pilot, who is from South Africa and has an amazing resume.

Frank Johnson
Frank is a woodworker who got started making wooden props by finding a guy who was about to shut down a business. He said, "teach me," and the guy did. And now he teaches us all about wooden props.

George Richards
Building an airplane takes a fair amount of pluck, you know, and so does flying it into Oshkosh. George is a builder of a Falco. In New Zealand. That in itself isn’t unusual at all. He wanted to fly it into Oshkosh. New Zealand… you probably know… is nowhere near Wisconsin. The story of meeting his dream is inspirational.

Alan White
Alan is the builder of a Dyke Delta, a space-ship looking design that’s celebrating 50 years today and for about 39 of those years, Alan White was building one. He flew it into Oshkosh for the first time back in 2010.

John McGiness
John also has a dream. He's the developer of Synergy. His idea is half fighter jet, half futuristic airplane, all family.

Marisela Solesbee
Marisela stopped at the station to talk about her work. She makes quilts for returning injured soldiers of war. I overheard her conversation and found it fascinating (I wrote about it here) and was honored to be able to interview her.

After the accident

A man was involved in an aircraft accident more than a year ago. It claimed the life of his son. Since then, he's tried to figure out what went wrong and make sure other pilots fly safer. He's told his story to the Air Safety Institute which has produced an important video.

Typical of AOPA, however, it hasn't made the video embeddable, to spread the word better.

So set aside a half hour and go here.

Flying with my sons - Chapter I

When I first decided to build an airplane 11 years ago, the intention was that I could use it to visit my kids away at college at some godforsaken land. They were young at the time and I just figured that how it would go. It didn't go that way; both stayed in the Twin Cities.

But now that it's done, I'm already seeing an entirely new role for the plane to play -- keeping them in touch and spending more time with them than I otherwise would. A plane makes a mighty nice flying carpet.

My son, Sean, hasn't flown with me since he was a junior in high school, when we had a nice trip to Sleepy Eye for a class project. The flight ended back at Flying Cloud when I messed up an instruction to make left traffic, turned left instead, and approached the departure end of the runway.

But after last week's homecoming, I invited Sean to fly with me up to Madeline Island in Lake Superior, which is a wonderful place, has a little strip, a short walk to the ferry, which takes you over to Bayfield and its many shops.

I calculated the trip would take a little over an hour and it was an hour and 20 minutes (gotta get those leg fairings on). We took the ferry to Bayfield, found a place to eat, played a game of pool and generally relaxed as the storm clouds we knew would roll in, rolled in.

As we ate we talked about flying and Sean said he'd like to fly someday, even though some of his medicines are on the FAA disqualification list. But, I told him, there's always light sport and EAA and AOPA are pushing hard to eliminate the Third Class Medical.

So now I have to find out whether it's possible that a CFI could use my plane to provide flight training. It'd be great to have him work toward at least being able to fly, even if he couldn't fly PIC right now. Either that or I need to get started on the RV-12.

By the way as we were walking from the airport to town, the police showed up. "Did you just land about 20 minutes ago? Are you 614EF?" the officer asked.

"Yeah, what's wrong?" I said.

"The FAA is looking for you, apparently you forgot to check in," he said.

I knew instantly what the problem was. We were receiving flight following from south Saint Paul and somewhat into Wisconsin, he instructed us to another frequency. I thought he had terminated radar service and so we just flew on without checking in. Dumb move. I don't know what the fallout from this will be. We'll see. But we were safe, heading for some good times, and I didn't much care.

On the way back to the airport, I thumbed a ride and a nice couple picked us up and delivered us to the airplane and checked the weather for us on their iPhone. We knew we were in for it a bit.

We stayed in the small terminal building while the rain let up and then made a run for it. There were thunderstorms in our path so we picked open sky between a pair and got the plane washed. A second line near Hayward, Wisconsin still faced us but I knew they'd be there since my flight briefing predicted they'd be.

So we watched some neat rainfall and had a double rainbow off our left wing. I had to go far to the east around a storm, and then punched through some rain showers into the good weather on the south side of the weather front, which was barely moving.

We were home free for a cruise back to the Minneapolis St. Paul area, where we saw a few hot air balloons over the St. Croix River. We touched down in Saint Paul and then checked the weather radar to calculate where and what we'd just been through. I was happy we didn't do anything stupid, and happier still that my son and I had a grand time.

The plane performed magnificently; the only problem seems to be that the transponder isn't reporting altitude or at least the recipients aren't receiving it. The Garmin 327 is showing the correct pressure altitude on its display; I don't know why ATC isn't receiving it, but another plane that was reporting while we were receiving flight following also reported that he "could see them on the box but no altitude." Hmmmm....

But those are things to be worked on another day. This was a day that the plane itself was secondary to what you can do with one.

"Thanks for taking me with you," he said as he headed for the car to head back to his home. "Next time I'll bring my good camera."

There's going to be a next time! Yes! Now I need a place to fly to that's as cool as Madeline Island.

Will sell eggs to fly

I had chickens as a kid and sold eggs to have some walking-around money. It never occurred to me that it would've been a good way to fly.

This kid is smarter than I was.

Images from the homecoming

Following up on last weekend's return of N614EF to the South Saint Paul nest, Mike Hilger -- who was good enough to fly down to Airlake Airport to escort me back (he also did that neat flyby in son, Patrick's, video -- sends along these images.

Pulling the plane out of Stein and Jed's hangar at Airlake. And, yeah, she got an especially thorough preflight.

Ready to go. I'm going to miss Airlake. The people there are incredibly friendly. I won't miss the 30+ mile drive each way, however.

Mike's plane. He just upgraded the panel. Oh, the things you can do when you work for SteinAir, eh?

The crew who greeted the plane at Fleming Field (KSGS). My son, Sean, is hiding.

Carolie gets the first ride, of course.