Mark Riley's Velocity Build

2012-01-08T11:10:00.001-05:00

The plane was featured in the Completions section of the February issue of Kitplanes magazine.

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It also turned up on the home page of Grand Rapids Technologies, makers of the terrific EFIS screens I used in my plane. Check out the picture at www.grtavionics.com.

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Low Pass Photo Shoot

2011-12-04T08:01:00.007-05:00

I wanted to get some nice in flight shots of the plane. Nancy did such a great job taking pictures of my departure from Smoketown after the paint touch up, that I asked her to get some shots of a few low passes at my home airport, Chester County. As you will see, they turned out pretty well.

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Here is a quick close up video of the taxi out to the runway. It gives you a good idea of the look and sound of a Velocity on the ground.

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Up and away, ready to circle for the first pass. It will have to be low to get a good exposure,since the approach end of the runway is back lit at this time of day.

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Video of the takeoff

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Here I come. I'm aiming to pass along the runway at about 20 feet and 100 knots.

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Perfect set up, and now comes the money shot.....

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The shots from the pass turn out great. Brett Ferrell is putting together an all Velocity calendar and chose this bottom shot for August. The calendar looks great and a "must have" for those of us into Velocities.
Check out the calendar on his blog - www.velocityxl.com.

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I even get one shot that looks like an air to air. Now this is what today was all about. She looks great. Check out the way the stripes now continue through the gear door. That's what was added on that last visit to the paint shop at Lancaster Aero. Nice job guys.

I think this is the one that gets framed at home!

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Video of the low pass. For a higher resolution version, search N929X on Youtube.
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This is a video of my taxi in and a quick 360 spin for the camera. It shows the great ground handling of the Velocity. You can literally turn on a dime in the runup area to check for traffic.

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The photo shoot was a success and I taxi back to the hangar. Thanks to my wife, Nancy, for her great camera work and to my daughter, Katie, for her video work.

The resolution of the videos on the blog isn't great, but HD versions of these and all the other videos of N929X are available on Youtube. Just search the N number.

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Flight from Snowmageddon

2011-11-01T20:33:00.002-04:00

I wanted to take the family to visit my brother Mike's family in Connecticut before the Fall foliage faded. The forecast for this past weekend was for sun on Friday and Sunday with a chance of 3 inches of snow on Saturday. We decided to head up for a visit and were wheels up on Friday at 4:00 in bright sun.

Katie and Sean are great travelers and were excited to visit their cousins - and to skip the usual 5-6 hour drive.

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Here's a quick video of our takeoff from Chester County airport in Pennsylvania.

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It was a little hazy, but nice and smooth on the way North. There was still plenty of color in the leaves.
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Quick in flight video Northbound
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It was only about 45 minutes before Hartford came into view with our destination, Robertson (4B8) right before it. Gotta love traveling at these speeds.
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The sun was getting low on the horizon as we turned to enter the pattern. Very nice.
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Final approach to Robertson
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On the ground at Robertson- Mike and his girls are waiting for us.

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Saturday it started snowing and just didn't stop. We got two feet of snow overnight, lost power, phone and cell service. That was a pain, but the airport FBO had assured me that they would plow if it snowed.

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On Sunday morning Mike drove me out to the airport to check on the plane. It became obvious that the area had been completely devastated by the early storm. The trees still had their leaves and the snow load was too much for them. There were hundreds of trees down in the road and power lines down everywhere. The road was an obstacle course. In fact, the entire state was mostly shut down in a state of emergency.

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The airport is deserted, and no one has plowed anything. We clear off the plane in hopes that it will be dry when the runway is cleared later. We run into someone at a large hangar who tells us that a corporate jet has to get out Monday morning and that the runway will be plowed for it somehow.

That means one more night at Mike's with the generator and fireplace to keep us going, then we'll try to get out behind the jet.

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If you have to rough it in a snow emergency, the best way to do it is with very nice friends in a very nice house. Mike and Stacey are great hosts and the kids see the situation as a big adventure. Snowman building and snowball fights for them, wine and conversation for us. Not too bad.

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...and of course a visit to the neighbor's llama farm. Go figure.
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By Monday morning, things have gotten harder. There will be no power for at least a week. People's generators are running out of gas. There is no local gas to be had as all the gas stations are closed. We drive for an hour to Hartford, then wait in line for 2 more hours to buy gas- not much fun.
We then go back to the airport. YES! The jet is gone and there is a clear runway we can now push the plane to. Just enough time to get it in the air and home before sunset.

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Back on our way back home. It is very hazy, but still plenty of visibility as we skirt the New York airspace at 4,500 and 190 knots.

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One hour later and our home airport is in sight. Sean and Katie are happy and looking forward to showers, heat and TV. (probably not in that order)
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Touch up Done and Back Home

2011-10-11T20:08:00.003-04:00

Taxiing to the run up area

Lift off!

Nose gear going up mid field

Passing Dutchland Aviation, which gave me much help in the build

Perfect shot by Nancy- Too bad the gear isn't all the way up

End of the runway, time for a pull up.


2,000 fpm up and I'm GONE

Lancaster Aero called this morning to tell me that the touch up work was done. Since rain is supposed to move into the area and stay for 3 or 4 days, I asked my wife to drive me out to Smoketown so I could move the plane back to our hangar at Chester County.

We got there and found that Dave had done an excellent job of touching up the paint. It looked great.

Nancy had brought the camera with a telephoto lens so I asked her to get some shots of the departure. Unfortunately, the gear didn't fully retract before I passed her, so the new paint on the gear doors isn't visible.

I made the quick flight home, tucked her away in the hangar and headed back to work. The paint is now officially 100% done. These pictures worked out so well that I think I'll ask Nancy to come out to the airport on the weekend for some low pass photo ops.

More to come.

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Back to Smoketown for Touch Up

2011-10-06T19:55:00.001-04:00

I dropped my daughter at school, then headed to the airport to take the plane to Smoketown for touch up paint. It is absolutely perfect flying weather - 59 degrees, sunny and still. I pulled it out into the sun and it looked so nice, I had to take a picture. Time to hop in and get going - I need to get to work.

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It was a beautiful flight with clear skies, unlimited visibility and smooth air. I touched down right on the numbers and made the first turn off only 1,500 feet down the runway. Here she is back at the paint shop.

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Look at that gorgeous sky. I can't wait to get the plane back to take some trips in these nice Fall conditions.

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Dave and Eric ready to do the finishing touches.

More to come next week.
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Final Paint Touch Up

2011-10-05T20:45:00.001-04:00

This has been the worst stretch of flying weather in memory here in Pennsylvania. We've had two months of nearly constant clouds and rain. I managed to get in only a couple of very brief flights after work.

Starting today, we are forecast to have an entire week of severe clear weather. Even better, the paint shop finally has time to fit me in to do the touch up of the final details that were missed when the plane was painted. The stripes don't continue through the gear doors at this point and it looks strange in the air. There was also a minor sag or bubble here and there that will be touched up.

I'm dropping it off early tomorrow before going in to work tomorrow at Lancaster Aero Refinishers at Smoketown, S37, my old airport. Not having flown much for a long time, I started thinking it might be a good idea to shoot some landings today before landing at a 2,400 foot strip.
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My son, Sean, and I went over to the airport right after dinner and took a joy ride followed by some landings. It turns out I can still fly. I always feel better after getting in the air and now am not worried about tomorrow.

Here is my copilot/navigator, all ready to go. Check out the cool Honda Jet cap from Oshkosh.

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Sean helps with the post- flight wipe down and we put the plane away for the night.
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This was also cool. I just turned 50 and got this great hand made Velocity card from my daughter.

More pictures of the finished paint early next week!

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Post Oshkosh Maintenance

2011-09-01T19:40:00.002-04:00

Last winter I noticed that the center of my nose gear tire was getting scuffed. It turned out that my gear leg extended a bit too far past the nut and would scrape it during landings. I called the factory and was told to file the aft side of the gear leg until I got 1/4 inch clearance to the tire. I did that and the scraping stopped. I decided to replace the tire anyway, as much for looks as anything else. I bought the tire, but put off doing the work until recently when a little pre- Oshkosh incident brought it back to my attention.

I went out to the airport the day before Oshkosh to do a little pattern work. I took off, remained in the pattern and came in to do a touch and go. Since I was staying in the pattern, I left the gear down.

When the nose gear contacted the runway after touchdown, the airplane shuddered violently and noisily. I knew from descriptions I'd heard that this must be the dreaded nose gear shimmy. I applied full power, lifted the nose and went around.

I came back around and slowed as much as I could on final. I landed on the mains and then balanced braking and increasing amounts of back pressure on the stick to keep the nose wheel off the ground as long as possible. When it finally came down, I got a bad shimmy again, but slowed quickly to the point where it just stopped.

I taxied back to the hangar and felt the side force on the gear. It felt a little light, but not much. I tightened the nut on the nose gear until the nose gear was pretty stiff and took about 20 pounds of force on the back of the wheel to turn. This involved tightening the nut only about a quarter turn.

I taxied back out and did another pattern, this time putting the gear up and extending it again mid-field. The shimmy was completely gone.

In retrospect, I think the incident had a combination of causes. First, I likely let the nut get a bit loose. Second, I was probably a bit out of practice and let the nose gear come down less gently than usual. Third, I landed without retracting the gear in flight.

Normally, I will get a quick smell of rubber when I retract the gear from the nose wheel spinning against the safety guides in the nose. Gyroscopic precession can make the wheel turn slightly as it spins down. The guides straighten it out as it is retracted. I'll bet the nose wheel was slightly turned when I touched down, causing the shimmy.

Now the tire was scuffed on the sidewalls too. I decided to finally put on that new tire I'd had sitting in my hangar. I tried and tried to get the axle out but could only get it part way out before it would jam. If you click on the above picture, you'll see that I got it part way out and then buggered up the slot in the axle.

I found out from the factory that it is not uncommon to have the mild steel axle bend ever so slightly so that it can't be turned out. The fix is to cut out the old one with an air body saw and replace it with a new axle. I ordered a new axle and nut and went flying while waiting for them.

As I was taxiing, I noticed a clicking or grinding noise from the nose gear. The shimmy had been the final straw for the nose wheel bearings, so I decided to replace them as well, since a new set was only $29.

I decided I'd post a few pictures of the nose gear rehab for the benefit of anyone who has yet to do it.

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First step, I got the wheel removed and down to my work shop. You can see the wear from the gear leg on the tire.

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Here is a shot of the new bearings, new axle and new lock nut. The tool at the upper left is a ratcheting allen wrench- very handy for taking the wheel apart. The lower left is a valve stem tool.

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Here's a close up of the valve stem tool. It's best to remove the valve stem before disassembling the wheel.

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Using the air body saw to cut the axle between the spacer and the fork. This actually took only about 10 minutes. I used a clamp to squeeze the tire out of the way.
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Next step, take the wheel apart, pull out the innertube and install them on the new tire. Make sure the valve stem goes next to the red dot painted on the tire which marks the light spot on the tire.
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I couldn't help myself. While it was disassembled, I polished and buffed the fork to a nice shine and polished the wheel. Compare this shot with the first picture in this post for the before and after. Also, note the new bearing sitting on the tire, freshly packed with grease and ready to install.

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Here it is, all rebuilt and ready to reinstall. Now you can see the red dot for the light spot.
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I had been using a huge Channel Lock pliers to install and tighten the nose gear nut. An internet search turned up this 1 15/16 combination wrench for only $18. It worked great.

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You may recall from my Oshkosh post that Carlos from GRT Avionics had pointed out that the display on my TruTrak autopilot was failing. I sent it back to them and they fixed it in 48 hours at no charge. I was impressed. I got it back just in time to get everything reinstalled at once.

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I got out to the hangar to find that Hurricane Irene had blown a tree over at the airport and knocked out power to the airport. No lights, no opening the hangar door. I lined up some flashlights and got it installed any way.

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Reinstalling the autopilot in the dark was even more fun. I got it done and the only thing left to do is inflate the nose tire. Again, no power, so the inflator won't work tonite.

I'll fill the tire and test fly this Friday so that we are good to go for Ocean City for the holiday weekend.
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If you are at the New Jersey shore on Saturday, keep an eye out for a Velocity cruising down the beach!

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Back From Airventure 2011

2011-07-30T09:29:00.011-04:00

I had planned to spend Wednesday through Friday at Oshkosh. However, the forecast for Wednesday was terrible and my friend Mark had to be back by Friday at the latest. We decided to leave Tuesday.

The briefing we got on Monday night was not encouraging - IFR, marginal VFR and rain along the Pennsylvania part of our route. (This turned out to be kind of a theme this year) We decided to try any way and call again from the airport at 7:00 a.m.

When we called from the airport, it was more of the same, but looked better if we could get 50 miles West and clear in Michigan and Wisconsin. We looked up and saw a blue patch I was sure would work to get over the low mist and clouds. Mark went so far as to call it clear VFR. We headed down to the already packed plane to launch.

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My copilot and traveling companion this year will be my friend and law partner, Mark Mattioli. He competes in aerobatics in his Christen Eagle. I am trying to convince him that some great planes have no tailwheel and may even have the prop on the back.
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Looking back over the strake, you can see the mess we are leaving behind. The view ahead is fine and above the clouds it is smooth and clear. Off to Oshkosh!
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Mark tries his hand at flying the plane for a while and concedes that it might not be so bad, considering the lack of a tail wheel.

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Here comes Lake Erie. We have decided to fly in a direct line across both lakes. At 200 knots, we won't be over either for long and I feel more comfortable with it after the flight to the Bahamas.

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Eastern shore of the lake

Cloud shadow on the lake

Mid-crossing

Looking back to the East

Here are some views of the Lake Erie crossing.

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Patchwork of fields and clear skies in Michigan

All alone in Bay City

Fueling up

Historic pilot's lounge

FBO in former brick schoolhouse

We make our fuel stop in Saginaw, Michigan at James Clements (Bay City). It is absolutely deserted. We check out the FBO, located in a former brick schoolhouse, then head out. Next step is to cross Lake Michigan, then join the Oshkosh arrival procedure at Ripon.
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Shore of Lake Michigan just out of Bay City

Over Lake Michigan, we cut the corner on another lake, now only about 30 miles from Ripon. Still going pretty fast, so time to drop down to 2,300 feet and 135 knots, then listen for the arrival ATIS and tune in to the Fisk controllers.

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Following the RR tracks for Fisk

Base to final for Runway 9

Final for 9 - Oshkosh here we come

Over the highway and a new view of my usual drive into the show

Here are some shots of the final approach to runway 9. I was happy to get it because it is the simplest one. You don't find out until about 2 minutes before touchdown which runway you will get. I was offered the 18 or 9 approaches and picked this one. It consists of following railroad tracks until you turn right for final to the runway. The 18 approach is the opposite, kind of a tight spiral over the runway in the middle of the show.
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On the ground

We made a perfect touchdown and started looking for the Velocity display with our sign in the window for the flagmen.

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Made it! Duane Swing meets us at the end of the taxiway and helps us through the fence to the display. We get her tied down next to John Youngblood's beautiful plane and head out to lunch. The weather is perfect.

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View to North

View to South

View towards Conoco-Phillips Square

Here are some views of the show from the Canon tower on the field. Lots of planes, lots of people. I'm a happy guy.
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The grand daddy of cool canards - the Beech Starship. The show this year includes a salute to Burt Rutan, so all of his designs are here, along with about a million Long EZ's.

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The only flying B29, "Fifi".

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After the show, we check into our (very warm) rooms at the UW Oshkosh dorms, out for Mexican and then to Kelly's, a corner bar outside our dorm. As always, I'm joined by my friends the Keighans, who flew in today in their Lancair IV.

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Mark and I start out early with breakfast at the dorms and on to the EAA Museum at 8 a.m. I know my son would like the Lego models of all the Rutan designs.
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As we make our way into the show, it is still raining. It rained for most of the day, so I spent a lot of time in the big exhibit buildings. There were lots of cool new gadgets to be had.

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Carlos from Grand Rapids Technologies was kind enough to stop by the plane and fine tune some settings on my beloved EFIS. He was obviously appalled by the minimal use I am making of the nearly endless list of features on the unit.

I told him I have been happy with "direct to" navigation and keeping the track line on the course line. I reminded him that it had always been my intent to grow into the unit after I had been flying a while and promised to make more use of the unit's capabilities.

Thanks again Carlos!

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The Velocity Cookout is always Wednesday at 6:00 and is a must do. It is a great chance to meet up with other builders and owners. It is open to anyone interested in Velocities and would be a great opportunity for prospective builders to get info as well. The weather let up for us and the event was very well attended.
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The highly efficient registration and badgeing team, Elizabeth and Linda.

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Our cooks, Jerry and Andy, ready to swing into action.
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Andy Millin caught checking out his wife, Theresa.
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Duane Swing sitting dangerously close to the "Brat Machine" (Ken Baker) while it is in operation.

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Andy strikes a heroic barbeque pose as Carlos looks on in admiration.

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Brett, Darryl and Norah.
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Ken leads an "Eagle One".

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The entire campground was muddy from the constant rain. Here is scenic 10th and Elm, home of the Velocity cookout each year.

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John Youngblood and I, the owners of the two nicest Velocities at the display, as ranked by John Abraham. (Curse that Youngblood's plush interior!)

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Thursday morning at 7:00 and, surprise, more rain.

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At least the plane is still there and relatively dry inside. People are still out walking around in the rain.

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While I was in the AOPA booth, Harrison Ford came in to give an interview. I was about 10 feet away. He spoke about general aviation and about making Cowboys and Aliens. He brought his DeHavilland Beaver and his Jet Ranger to the filming site in Wyoming. He would give rides to the film locations.

He sheepishly admitted that some poor production assistant would have to go out to the middle of nowhere and hold a pole with a flag on it to wait for him to land. He thanked moviegoers for supporting his airplane habit.

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I was at the Velocity display when an Alabama ANG F16 made a bad landing, went off the runway and collapsed it's nose gear, then plowed through the dirt. There's a report I'd hate to make - crashed in front of thousands at Oshkosh. Poor guy.

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Quite a few people who have followed this blog actually stopped by to say hello. It was fun.

This is Andrew, who just returned from a tour in Iraq and was following the blog over there. He brought Isaac with him. Hi guys!
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On the way out of the show on Thursday, we stopped by Scott's beautiful Lancair IV.

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Friday morning and it's time to go home. We arrive at the show at 6:30 a.m. We head to weather brief and learn that there is a severe band of thunderstorms across our path of travel. Our only way around is to go way to the southwest and then skirt the storms to the south. It just figures that the weather is now perfect at Oshkosh.
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One last look at the plane at the booth as we approach. John's plane has already departed.

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Mark flight planned while I cleaned, packed and preflighted, then we pulled her up to the taxiway access.
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We hold at the gate while a flight of Mustangs taxis by only feet away. Cool.
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View back down taxiway toward tower

Tower view over the strake at midfield

Almost there, we hold for traffic pulling onto taxiway

We taxi down to the end of 36 for takeoff. At the end, we line up next to another plane on the runway, we're cleared for takeoff and off we go. Immediately after takeoff, we do a 180, maintain 150 degrees, 500 feet above the ground until out of the airspace, then turn on course for our first waypoint. It was kind of busy, so no pictures of this part.

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Here's a quick in-flight video.

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Although the weather at Oshkosh was great, this is what we head into.

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Mark is happy to be heading home

Mark gets weather from his new gadget

On our way home at last.

Luckily for me, Mark had purchased a Garmin 510 handheld and activated its XM weather feature at the show. We figure that between that, Flightwatch and a few stops, we can pick our way home today.

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The Scharfenbergs

Dave taxis down for a photo op

Dave pulls up for a picture

Great side by side shot- note his top loader door

Severe weather starts to surround us so we put down in Galesburg, Illinois. It turns out we will be able to move on within an hour and a half after the tail end of the front passes.

In a happy coincidence, Dave Sharfenburg's family happen to base their Lindy award winning Velocity there and they were at the airport to leave for a trip to Colorado. Dave taxied his plane over for some pictures after taking a look in my plane, then took off.

Here is a video of Dave's takeoff.
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Eastbound between layers at 3,500

The ceiling goes down. Time to find an airport

Tied down moments later in Muncie, Indiana

We take off again shortly thereafter and proceed eastbound. We make it a couple hundred miles between layers before the visibility goes down and we make a landing at Muncie, Indiana for lunch and another weather briefing.

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Big cell to our North. This lit up the XM weather display in red.

Skirting the end of the front in eastern Ohio.

Between tops and just clearing the haze at 9,500

We climb to 9,500 on course for home. We have 440 nautical miles to go and the system extends just to our north for most of the way with tops to 50,000 feet. We pick our way between the clouds at 200 to 235 knots for an hour and 45 minutes. The miles slip behind us amazingly quickly at these speeds.

Soon we are in Western Pennsylvania with home showing on the far side of the map. We have flight following the whole way, so the flight shows up on Flightaware.com. We are finally confident we will make it all the way.

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Made it! Home at the hangar.

Made it! I drop Mark at his car then head back to unpack and put the plane away. It performed wonderfully, but I have to admit that I'm glad to get out of it. It was hot and humid once we made our descent and I almost understand why pilots install air conditioning.

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Back home and I add my third Oshkosh showplane cup to my office shelf. I had a great time, saw lots of friends, got to show off my airplane and did a lot of flying.

Each challenge makes me a better pilot. This last flight convinced me to activate the XM weather feature on my plane and to learn to use it

Mark was a great copilot and really helped out. Thanks guy!

See you at the show next year.

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Oshkosh 2011

2011-07-16T19:58:00.006-04:00

As always, getting to Oshkosh means being flexible. I am swamped at work and scheduled to start a jury trial the Monday after the show. I decided to go from Wednesday to Saturday and to work weekends in the meantime to get ready.

Since that means no extra days for the water parks in the Dells, I'm waiting until next year to bring the kids. I really want them to love it. I'll also try to reserve two of the air conditioned dorm rooms for next year.

One of my partners at work is an aerobatic competitor with a Christen Eagle. He offered to ride along and share the room. He's a great guy and I look forward to rubbing elbows with the aerobatic types.

At Velocity's request, N929X will be on display at their booth this year.
I am going to fly direct from my home airport in Pennsylvania to Bay City Airport (3CM) in Saginaw, Michigan. We'll fuel up, then hop over the lake for Oshkosh. It seems a lot less daunting after those hundreds of miles over the Atlantic to the Bahamas.

I could fly non-stop, but would get to Oshkosh with only 12 gallons remaining. That's a no go for the kind of organized chaos one can encounter getting into the show.

The whole trip flight plans out to 3 hours 11 minutes. With my OCD dawn launch, that should get us into the show around 10:00 on Wednesday morning.

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Here's the paint scheme. It will be at the Velocity display in the North 40 Exhibitor area, Space 661. Look for the big blue Velocity banner.

If you've been following the blog, stop by and say hello. It recently passed 19,000 views and I've received many kind comments from folks all over the world. I'd love to meet some fellow builders, pilots and Velocity fans.

I hope to see lots of old friends and make some new ones. For those of you attending the Velocity Cookout, see you Wednesday night! Otherwise, see you at the Velocity booth.
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I went out to the hangar to clean up the plane and line up gear for the Oshkosh trip - tool kit, tie down kit, cover, oil, life preservers, etc. I'm getting wound up already.

Have a great Airventure 2011. Next post will be after the show.
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Ocean City with the New Prop

2011-07-09T20:01:00.002-04:00

The prop is back from Aerocomposites. The leading edge guard has been replaced and all the blades repainted. The whole thing looks brand new.

I decided to take the family to Ocean City for a day at the beach. The weather was perfect and the 22 minute flight was a lot easier to take than the usual 2 1/2 hour drive.

We left at 11:30 and were standing by the plane with tie downs hooked up and everything unloaded at 12:05. Not bad.

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It looks a lot better in finish paint than it did in the green primer on our last visit.

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Everybody packs up and heads to the terminal. The red biplane in the background goes up and down the beach all day giving rides.

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A quick change into my bathing suit, out the front of the terminal and off to the beach - only a 3 block walk.

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Not bad. We took off at 11:30 and are walking onto the beach before 12:30.

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I think I like flying to the beach more than being on the beach, but the kids have a great time building castles and riding the waves. By 5:00, they are worn out and we walk back to the airport, to go home for dinner.

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Here is a short video of the takeoff from Ocean City.

This is the reason you want a constant speed propeller on your Velocity. Four people, half fuel, baggage and only a 2,975 foot runway with a crosswind on a humid 85 degree day.

As you will see, we only used around half of it to get off. My technique has improved since last time. Taxi into position, hold the brakes, full throttle until you hear the prop governor catch up, then let her go. Steer with rudder, not brakes, hold forward stick to keep the elevator neutral until rotation speed is reached, then .... off you go with a little back pressure.

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Over the Delaware river and only 20 minutes home. We thread between Philadelphia and Wilmington, then point the nose at Chester County and home.

That's Philadelphia with Center City at the top of the river in the top photo and looking back at Delaware in the bottom photo.
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...and it's pretty easy with all the info from the 4 screens.

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Back at the hangar at 6:00 and home in time for dinner. This is exactly the sort of mission I have always wanted to be able to do. A one hour round trip makes a day trip to the ocean fast, easy and fun.

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Oshkosh Memories in the Hangar

2011-06-11T17:53:00.003-04:00

Here's a blast from the past! My first Aeroshell cow poster from 1997. When I moved to my new hangar last year, a lot of stuff ended up in boxes on shelves. Since the plane will be down for a few weeks for the prop repair, I decided to go out to the new hangar to organize, clean up and make it a little more homey.

My former hangar at Smoketown was new and gorgeous with lights, outlets and a great runway view. Unfortunately, the runway it viewed was only 2,400 feet long and uphill. That made it too short to use when loaded up with the family, so I moved over to Chester County, where I have an old hangar with no view of the much more comfortable 5,600 foot runway. I can take off here at max gross even on the hottest day with no worries. It's also only 12 minutes from home.

The only snag has been that it's old, dark and dirty. I am in the process of fixing that by cleaning, organizing, putting in some lights, etc. I got a big boost on all fronts when I found my cache of Oshkosh posters. They really brought back some great memories and I decided to put them up in order on the wall of the new hangar. It got me reflecting on all my trips to Oshkosh.

A Wall Full of Oshkosh Posters

I first went to Airventure in 1992 with my Dad. It was one of our few trips together and we had a great time. I've only missed one time since then and my life is very different now.

I remember the 1997 visit. It was my last trip with my wife before the birth of our first child, Katie, who is now a teenager. Our first plane, a standard RG, was under construction and we had the added fun of the Oshkosh treasure hunt, looking for avionics, hard to find hardware, leather for seats and the million other odds and ends needed for the plane. My backpack weighed about 40 pounds at the end of each day.

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I remember meeting our friends, Scott and Glema Keighan, in the line at the Velocity dinner the following year, when Katie was an infant and Glema was expecting their first child. We've been friends ever since.

In 2000, we flew our completed plane into Oshkosh for the first time. A lineman stopped us on a taxiway and we opened the doors to cool off. When he signaled for us to continue to taxi, I couldn't get the plane to move at first, then felt a bump and lurch as we started to move forward. The lineman signaled for us to stop and ran up to the plane. He handed me my scuffed up 35 mm (film!) camera and shouted "I think it's all done!". Turns out my wife had put it in the strake cutout in the door and dropped it on the pavement when the door opened.

Andy Millin still remembers meeting us and hearing me tell that story at that year's Velocity dinner. We sold our first plane that year with the intention of building the newly announced XL. Andy had just purchased his kit that year, and has now just finished it and will fly in the next few months. We never thought it would be 10 years before we finished our next kit, our XL.

I finally "finished" our XL last year and managed to fly it into Oshkosh in green and grey primer. It looked absolutely terrible, but I made it - flew into Oshkosh in my own plane again.

Every trip to Oshkosh is like a touchstone, a kind of milepost in my life. I see my flying friends, visit my favorite restaurants, bother the guys at the Velocity display and try to soak up every minute, knowing that those few days will go by in an instant.

As I go through my Oshkosh routine, I reflect on the changes in my life. I'm a middle aged father now, about to turn 50. Dad is no longer with us, and my beautiful girlfriend is now my beautiful wife. We have two great kids and plan to bring them with us for the first time this year.

It will mean a lot to me to share this place, this experience, with them at last. I hope it can become a family tradition we can share as they grow up.

To my friends, I look forward to seeing you again in a few weeks! To those following the blog, I hope you will stop by and say hello.

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An Expensive Ding

2011-06-03T17:07:00.002-04:00

We've had an incredible string of bad weather here this Spring with almost constant rain since we got back from the Bahamas. We finally got a nice stretch of sunny, if windy days, and I washed the plane in anticipation of starting the summer flying season. It looks great all cleaned up.

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Ding and crack on aft side

Fine crack on forward side

Of course, in my world, it always seems I have to work a little extra for each step. An inspection before my next flight shows that a crack has propagated from a stone ding in the leading edge guard on one of the blades. It is hair fine, but it is there.

I am sorely tempted to ignore it, since the guard is not structural and is not delaminated from the blade at all. However, I have learned the hard way not to ignore anything out of the ordinary. I called the manufacturer, Aerocomposites, in Connecticut. They referred me to the company that does their repairs and overhauls, American Propeller Service, in California. Predictably, I am told that the guard will need to be replaced as it could delaminate and depart at any time.

!*!!##**!!! (or words to that effect)

I am kind of ticked off. The supposedly invulnerable leading edge guard obviously isn't. I will have to pay a local prop shop $1,000 to dismantle and reassemble the prop, shipping to and from California ( for the prop made only 2 hours drive from here in Pennsylvania) and at least $1,000 to have the guard replaced, the blades refinished, painted and balanced.

I am told that this is unusual and just bad luck. Most of these are holding up well, even on pushers. I'll buy that this time.

The good news is that I'll have a new looking prop for the unveiling of the paint job at Oshkosh. The bad news is that I'm out quite a bit of cash to maintain a year old propeller.

Once again, I go back to those words of wisdom from Duane Swing at Velocity - " Don't hate it, fix it!"

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I took off work today and removed the prop. Having done it multiple times, I can do it myself in about 40 minutes. It doesn't weigh much, but it is a little nerve wracking trying to get the last few bolts removed while holding the prop with oil soaked hands and trying not to drop it when if finally comes loose.

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There was no way the prop was going into my Infiniti. Incredibly, the prop sort of fits in my wife's Prius, which I usually refer to as her Clown Car because of its size.

I dropped it off for disassembly and shipment to California. With any luck, it's supposed to be back in 3 weeks all shiny and new looking. By then, it will be time to take a few tune up trips and head to Oshkosh.

I hope some of the folks following the blog will be able to stop by, say hello and check out the finish paint and revised interior in person.

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The Bahamas Trip

2011-04-25T21:02:00.005-04:00

Since I built my first Velocity in the 90's, I had dreamed of flying my Velocity to the Bahamas and visiting remote Out Islands. Andy Millin and his wife Theresa were also interested in going, so we rented a house on Eleuthera for the third week in April. This is a gorgeous, remote island with tremendous beaches and almost no development, especially on the south end where we would stay. It is 110 miles long, but only 2 miles wide, and has a single road down the middle.

I spent weeks researching, obtaining a customs sticker, EAPIS account, and checking U.S. Customs procedures. We packed carefully, and ended up with 90 pounds of bags, full fuel, and 4 passengers, which put us just short of max gross weight. I packed the plane the day before our departure and we were ready to go. Here is a quick look at some of the highlights of the trip.
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It is still cold up here, so we dress in warm layers for the start of the trip on Friday morning for our departure from Pennsylvania.

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Taxiing for takeoff. Katie and Sean are ready to go.

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Two hours later on final approach for our fuel stop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

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It's amazing - nice and warm, with palm trees. We take off the layers and walk to a local shop for a quick lunch.

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Departure starts with a climbing turn to the South on our heading for Sebastian and a visit to Velocity.

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We climb to 9,500 to stay above the clouds and cruise south on autopilot at 200 knots true.
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Our weather starts to get dicey as we cross into Florida. We descend through a hole in the clouds and are gradually forced lower and lower into the haze. As we approach Daytona Beach International, I radio Daytona Approach with a request to transit their airspace at 2,000 feet along the beach. He can't give me that, but offers 1,500 feet along I-95 just West of the airport where, unfortunately, the ceiling is even lower.

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That's Daytona Beach International and Daytona Speedway from 1,500 feet and 1mile. This is getting a little too exciting.

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Five more minutes and we are in rain. I decide that this exceeds my personal minimums and we do a 180 to put down at the nearest airport. We call New Smyrna Beach approach and line up for final.

We make a nice landing, tie up and get a cab to a local Holiday Inn to spend the night and wait out the weather. I'm frustrated. We are 88 miles/ half an hour from Sebastian.

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Not too bad. We end up with a great deal on an ocean view suite at a beachfront hotel. The kids immediately change and go swimming in the ocean. After that, we go out for dinner and get to bed early.
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Saturday morning brings a 300 foot ceiling and haze that even these guys won't fly in. Weather brief says it will come up in a couple hours. It is marginal VFR to the South . We head over to the airport and start South.
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At last, final for Runway 22, Sebastian, home of Velocity.

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We taxi up to the Velocity hangar and find Andy waiting. I show him the plane and we get the obligatory Eagle One shot.

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We visit with Duane and Bonnie Swing and they graciously offer to let us hangar the plane overnight before we leave for Palm Beach. Time for hotel check in and dinner with Andy.

lunch at Woody's Barbeque

A visit to Vero Beach

Dinner at Captain Hiram's

I got a lot of grief from the family for not letting them bring this home. Weight! Airplane!

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Sunday morning. There is a stalled front between us and the Bahamas. We decide to join Andy and Theresa for the night in Palm Beach, then leave from there Monday morning. Andy drives down to pick up his wife from her flight into Palm Beach. We meet some guys on the ramp who are flying a 152 50 miles West to Okeechobee to a good breakfast place. We decide to try it. ( We passed them about half way there)

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Palm Beach International is by far the biggest, busiest airport I have ever flown into. I honestly think we were the only piston aircraft on the ramp. We pulled up to Galaxy Aviation and paid almost $8 per gallon for a fill up. On the plus side, we got free cookies, a ride to the Marriott and a half price room rate.

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We are only a short walk from City Center in Palm Beach, a beautiful pedestrian mall. We check out the stores and have a great dinner. I'm still worried about the day delay getting to the Bahamas but glad we got to see this place.

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Monday morning at 7:00. The forecast is good and it's finally time to head for the islands. It is 275 miles over the Atlantic. Since I'm going to drop off my family, then come back for Andy and Theresa, that means 4.5 hours in the air and nearly 1000 miles over the ocean for me. Oh boy.

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Progressive taxi among the jets

I should be able to get off in 10,000 feet

Out over the ocean and climb through a hole in the clouds

Shots of the departure from Palm Beach.

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Lots and lots of ocean.

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Finally, we start passing over islands and the colors are spectacular. The pictures don't do them justice, but click on them to get an idea.

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There it is! Eleuthera!

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Over the island - airport is tan area by bay

Circling the beach to tell them we're here for pick up

Final for MYER / Rock Sound

Shots of the approach and landing to Rock Sound Airport, Eleuthera. I clear customs with the family, put them in the rental van and jump back in the plane to head back for Andy and Theresa.

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I make it back to Palm Beach in less than 90 minutes, clear customs and load up Andy and Theresa.

Preflight checklist among the jets, then...

... back we come on our way into the Bahamas.

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A quick video glimpse of the flight over.

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Here is the view from the deck of our house. Check it out on the web by searching "Point o'vue Eleuthera". It is unbelievable. This was totally worth it. There are only 5 houses on a 2 1/2 mile bay. We have the whole beach to ourselves.
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Our house from the beach.
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I got up before the others on Tuesday for a sunrise walk. Wow. The sand really is pink here. Everywhere I look is gorgeous. There isn't another soul in sight. There are no sounds other than the breeze and the waves. There are no human noises here at all. I never saw another light plane all week.
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Sean and Katie in Winding Bay

The water is crystal clear and bathtub warm. The kids head out into the bay to try kayaking.
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Barbie's Restaurant

Andy and Theresa

My cracked conch platter

For dinner, we go to Sammies in the "town" of Rock Sound. The next day we go to another little place called Barbies. Andy gets the seafood plate and I try cracked conch. This little place is typical of what we found in the town.

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The Queen's Highway Southbound

We decide to drive one hour to the very southern tip of the island, to Lighthouse Beach. This consistently makes the list of top ten beaches in the world. We've got to see that.

There is only one highway on Eleuthera. This gives you some idea of how deserted and undeveloped the place is. It is freaky driving on the left.

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The guide book said that we should follow the track off the end of the highway. This is ridiculously rough and narrow, with the van bottoming out and bushes scraping both sides. Theresa laughed the whole way. I don't know what we would have done if another car came the other way.

The "Road" to Lighthouse Beach

.....then we got to the end and it was all worth it. The left side is the Atlantic and the right side is the Caribbean. You can stand with one foot in each. There is a cliff with a lighthouse, crystal water and NO people on the Atlantic beach. We can see another island off in the distance. Amazing.

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More beach shots. I took hundreds.

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Lots of cool sea caves.
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The Riley clan with one foot in each ocean. Check the pink sand and the waves coming together from left and right.
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An osprey with his breakfast. This fish is nearly a foot long, to give you scale. Click to see it.

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We stop for some roadside grub on the way home. That's a fresh conch salad being prepared.

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Andy and I head out to the airport to commit some aviation. Ron Horton, the very cool airport manager takes us to the top of the tower, then we head out and circle the house.

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Time to head home on Saturday. Here is the base to final turn for 10R in Palm Beach. Galaxy Aviation and Customs are at the top right at the end.

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We pull up to customs next to a Piaggio Avanti with the same paint colors. Nice.

The Piaggio crew and a Citation X crew both came over to check out the plane. It is a real show stopper in the new paint. I have to give credit again to expert painter Dave Wild at Lancaster Aero in Smoketown and to Eric, for his finish work.

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Katie and Sean are great travelers.

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We make great time, averaging 200knots or better, but the weather up north is terrible. We set down in Savannah, Georgia for lunch and a weather check. We climb to 9,500 and cruise over the clouds, then stop for a weather check in Myrtle Beach.

205 knots!

We are told that there is a huge level 5 cell approaching our destination. We decide to get as far north as we can, then check weather again. We pick our way along the coast dodging weather, then set down in Salisbury, Maryland with the huge cell in sight. Weather brief says there will be a gap along our route of flight at 7:00. We decide to give it a try. At worst, we'll do a 180 for one more night at a hotel in Salisbury.
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We launch and do 205 knots through the gap to cover the last 100 miles home. Not bad - 100 miles in 25 minutes.

Made it! On the ground 30 minutes later


The gang climbs out at the hangar.

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It was a great trip - a life long dream realized. I got a lot of experience and had a real adventure. It wasn't really relaxing for me due to the amount of flying, planning and generally expanding my skill envelope - more of an adventure vacation. This was exactly what I'd daydreamed about during those years in the hangar covered with dust or epoxy. You really can do it, and it really is great to have a long effort like this come to fruition.

Now I need to get my IFR rating, which would have made the trip much easier and faster. As planned, all the capabilities are already built into the plane and I can have fun growing into them.

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Shakedown Cruise to Connecticut

2011-04-09T20:00:00.001-04:00

I decided to try again on the trip to visit my brother,Mike, in Connecticut today. The conditions were marginal here, but sunny and clear up there. The briefer told me I'd be fine if I stayed below 3,000 feet until New York so I decided to give it a go.

This is a 5 hour drive and I had it flight planned for exactly a one hour flight. I'm excited to see how this works. Nancy and the kids dropped me off and took pictures of the departure.

Here I go off to the departure end of 11 at Chester County.

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Nancy used the telephoto and got some nice shots of the departure. Wheels up at 11:30.

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Crossing the Hudson River and staying just outside the New York airspace. Cruising at 5,500 feet at 190 knots indicated.

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On the ground at 4B8, Robertson Airport, at 12:30 - exactly one hour stop to stop. Very cool!

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Robertson is a nice airport - very New England.

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It is really striking what a change one hour in a Velocity can make. There are still piles of snow up here!

Flying from cold Pennsylvania to the Bahamas next week is really going to be strange.

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Mike picks me up in a really sweet (borrowed) ride and we head back to his house for a visit with his family. This really beats 5 hours in traffic.

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The whole area around Canton is like one big New England post card. Spring hasn't really sprung here yet though.

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After a few hours, Mike gives me a ride back to the airport for a 4:30 departure and walks out to check out the plane.

I ask my wife to pick me up at the airport at 5:30. Here goes.

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Here is the view as I head South. The visibility is poor and the ride is very bumpy.

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Well, after tightening my belt as tight as I can and bracing my left hand on the overhead, I've still banged my head into the ceiling three times. I pull back the power a bit and continue at 180 knots.

As the ceiling comes down, I call the ATIS at Chester County. No wonder, the ceiling is reported at 2,600 with haze. I descend further and approach in bumps at 150 knots at 2,000 feet, then see the airport. I can see my wife's car in the lot below-better make this a decent landing.
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Touchdown at Chester county at 5:33. Only a few minutes slower on the way home.
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A couple nice shots of the plane taxiing in. These are worth clicking on for a good look at the new paint.

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A quick wave to the kids as I pass the terminal, then time to put the plane away. It was a nice trip. Two or three hundred mile daytrips are now routine. Wow.

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Practice, practice, practice...

2011-04-04T20:29:00.002-04:00

I've been trying to get a lot of flying in before our big Bahamas trip, but the weather isn't really working with me. I had to scrub my trip to Connecticut yesterday. The weather brief at 8:30 got as far as 20 knot crosswinds at my destination and an airmet for turbulence along the way before I decided that I'd fly another day. Sure enough, the winds howled all day, despite the sunshine - very frustrating.

Today was another very blustery day, with two days of rain to follow. As we were eating dinner, I kept looking out at the trees. It doesn't look that windy......

So my daughter Katie and I headed out to the airport to circle the house and do some pattern work.

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It was getting toward the end of the daylight, so we pulled the plane right out and preflighted.

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Katie all belted in and ready to go.

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Taxiing for takeoff on Runway 11 Chester County. Nice lighting, but a direct crosswind. More practice I guess. It's not like I'll have my choice of runways in the Bahamas.

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Here's a short video of the takeoff. Why Katie shot it vertically is a mystery to me. You can still get a sense of the sound and feel of the takeoff. It doesn't take long from applying power until you can hear the wheel noise stop, then the whine of the gear coming up.

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Here's a shot taken by my wife from the back deck as we approach over the willow tree. Yes, the telephoto lens might have been a good option. Oh well, I didn't say so......

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....and over the house then back toward the airport.

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Back at the airport. Not a lot of time, but I'll snag any chance for a flight. It was fun taking my daughter up and she really enjoyed it.

Now it's time to go home and do her homework. It's nice that flying has finally become something I can do on a whim, even if I don't have a lot of time. The plane is just sitting there waiting for me.
Good stuff!

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Painted and Back Home

2011-03-28T20:24:00.001-04:00

The plane is finally reassembled and home from the paint shop. I took off work today and was out at the paint shop by 7:30. I was out there working all day Saturday and Sunday until 9:00 putting things back together. As of Sunday morning, the only thing left to assemble was the ailerons. I'd painted them late Saturday and they were ready to go. I installed them and pulled it out of the paint shop. Here she is at 8:30.

Next stop, across to the other side of Smoketown airport to see my trusted A&P, Dennis Glick. I want to do the post-paint weight and balance.change the oil, fix a dripping sump drain, soft left brake pedal and cycled the gear on jacks. It's quite a list to accomplish today, especially given that I want to fly it home when we're done.

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Dennis and Jared in his shop - Dutchland Aviation at Smoketown airport. Dennis has been an invaluable resource to me on both my Velocity projects. I literally trust him with my life. If you have an aircraft within a reasonable distance from Southeastern Pennsylvania, I could not recommend him or his mechanics more highly. We got the rental scales in before 9:00 and the weight and balance done within an hour. The gear was cycled and emergency gear extension drop tested.

I ran the engine to heat up the oil, then Dennis coached me through the oil changing process. We then test ran the engine again with the cowling off to check for leaks. None were found and I reinstalled the cowling. Now I was ready to go.

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It was 3:00 by the time everything was done and I pulled her out of the hangar. Time to head to the fuel pumps, then back my hangar at Chester County Airport. The good news - it finally cleared up and stopped raining today. The bad news - the wind sock is standing straight out and flapping like crazy. There is a quartering headwind here and home at 18 knots, gusting to 20. Not exactly what I'd hoped for on my first time in the plane since December. Oh well, time to pull up my socks and "Git 'R Done".

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Made it! After getting airborne, I quickly decided to just get the plane home and put off any flight testing or practice until tomorrow night. I was bouncing around so hard that my headset flew off. It was really rough. I had to wrestle with the gusts all the way to the runway, but managed to make a nice landing. It's nice to get back in the air and to reassure myself that I can still handle challenging conditions.
Time to call the wife and kids to see the plane and to give me a ride to pick up my car.

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I finally get to show them what all the work was for. If you click on the picture, you'll get an idea of just how windy it was.

Sean seems reassured by the more finished look of the plane and can't wait for a ride.

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The new roof liner looks much better. It's more finished and gives me more headroom. The improved upright seating position was also a big improvement.

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Here are a few nice shots on the ramp at Chester County.

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The kids help me untie the plane and I taxi down to the hangar.

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Back in my hangar safe, sound and a whole lot better looking. I am tired, dirty and thankful to finally have the plane finished. It's ready for our big trip to the Bahamas and no more funny looks about the green/grey paint job.

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Final Reassembly

2011-03-26T19:47:00.001-04:00

The clear coat is done and I am officially done with the painting process. Now I have to put everything back together. Counting the fasteners, there are several hundred pieces. The good news is that this will hopefully be the very last time.

Before I can reinstall the control surfaces, they have to be mass balanced again. The painted surface is almost all behind the center of balance, so the balance point shifts aft after paint. The fix is to hang them by the hinges, add some weights where they won't show and glass over them.

In the above pictures you can see the fun I had until 10:00 on Wednesday night. The paint shop owner, Lou, was kind enough to let me come in after work and lock up on my way out.

I used safety wire to suspend the ailerons from the painting scaffold. I then added strips of stick on wheel weights from the auto tire center to make the lower surface balance level.

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Here I am balancing the elevators. You hang them upside down and the bottom (now on top) should be level. I took some extra triangular lead weights, used a hack saw to keep slicing portions off and added them to the outboard side of the center of the torque tube bolted right to the existing weight. Nice and level.

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Here is a shot of the additional weight on the torque tube to balance the elevator.

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This is a shot of the stick on weights added to the leading edge of the aileron on the inboard side. They get covered with a single ply of bid then painted white.

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I got the canard back on. This is all but impossible by yourself. Luckily, Smoketown airport always has some other builders around on the weekends and two Rotorway guys, Glen and John, helped me lift it into place. Then there were a load of electronics, servos, connections and controls to hook up.

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It just looks FAST in the new paint. You'll notice I got the gear doors, hub caps and upper cowling on .

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Nose gear doors and canard cover on. There are maybe 24 washers in the gear door mounts and the nose was parked over a drainage grate in the paint shop with no room to move it. Thank goodness for my trusty magnetic pick up.

A great builders tip for putting washers in tight spaces - fold a piece of masking tape in half so that the ends just catch the washer. It gives you a handle to slide the washer into place, then pulls off.

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It's almost 6:00 on Saturday evening. I forgot my watch, but notice the sun going down through the window. As usual, this is taking about double the time I'd estimated. My wife refers to this as "airport time".

I still have to mount the ailerons, reinstall the seats, silicone the sparrow strainer and various covers in place and do some general clean up. I'll come back tomorrow night to finish up.

The plan is then to take off work on Monday so that I can do an oil change, weight and balance, then get back in the air.

In flight shots of the completed and painted plane should be up by Monday night. Wish me luck!

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Color At Last!

2011-03-18T19:27:00.001-04:00

I got a call from the painter yesterday telling me that all the colors were on the plane and did I want to see it? I went out this morning at 7:00 just as he was pulling the last of the tape and plastic off. Here is a shot of it as I first saw it.

This was a moment I had waited on for years. You plan and draw a scheme, choose colors, change and revise until you finally come down to what you hope will be exactly what you want. No matter how much work you put into the plane, the paint layer is all anyone will ever see. Nothing else can personalize it like a paint scheme. Also, painting an aircraft is obscenely expensive, so you'd better be sure you are happy with the colors and scheme before it goes on.

I was sure about the scheme, but worried about the color. I wanted a metallic look, but couldn't use it because it would block the antennas hidden in the winglets. Dave from Lancaster Aero worked with me to formulate a custom color using pearl instead of metal flake. It looked great on small test panels, but I could only hope it would work on the plane.

As you can see above it turned out great. Dave did a terrific job laying out a very difficult paint scheme with 4 colors, drop shadows and base coat clear coat - a very high degree of difficulty.

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I really like the way the pearl in the gold gives almost a fade effect on the curve of the cowling. When viewed in person, the stripes seem to float about an inch above the plane.

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I love the way the winglets turned out too. As for the finish, check out the reflection of the N numbers on the bottom surface of the wing. Remember, this is only the base color, before clear coat.

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Dave said that the pearl colors would really light up and show their true look when the plane was viewed outdoors in the sun ..... so I helped him unmask the wheels and roll her outside. He was right. I like it even better in the sun. Wow!

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I really think I got the cool corporate jet look I was trying for. The colors are exciting, but still classy.

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Here are a few more shots. I warned earlier that I would post too many.

The guys were starting to wet sand when I left. Next week it gets clear coat and a new roof liner and should be finished on Friday. On Saturday, I'm going out early to mass balance the control surfaces again, put everything back together and, hopefully, fly her back home.

After that, the plan is to fly, fly and fly some more to get ready for our trip to the Bahamas.

The final pictures should be up by next weekend.

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Seat Hinge Upgrades

2011-03-12T20:49:00.001-05:00

Since it appears that I may actually be flying again in a week or two, I found a few hours today to replace my standard seat hardware with the new adjustable upgrade models from Velocity. My seats were always too reclined.

Even more importantly, the 10-28 screws called for in the manual are not strong enough. I sheared them in my last plane, then sheared them on my way to the show at Oshkosh this last year.

Even if you don't go for the upgraded adjustable seat hinges, make sure you change out the screws for stainless 1/4 - 20 screws or your seat will fail unless you are very petite, which I am not.

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I got the seats apart. Here you see the old hinges laying on the table and the new upgrade ready to install.

I was thrilled to find that this is an exact hole for hole retrofit. I reassembled them with 10-28 screws to be sure. I then drilled and tapped them for nice button head stainless 1/4-20 screws from McMaster Carr, which were recommended by Andy Millin.

They are good looking little bits of hardware. I ordered them on line at 4:00 for regular ground shipping and they were waiting for me at home the next afternoon. Those guys are efficient.

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Here is a close up to show the old hardware on the left three and the new, heavier screw on the right. You will notice that the left screws are just about to shear (again). They were a joy to get out.

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The polish to a shiny finish has been done by everyone at this point. I decided to try something different. My Infiniti has aluminum interior trim with a matte "Washi" finish, which is supposed to resemble rice paper. I like it and decided to try to recreate it.

First, I rounded all of the edges and corners of the hinges for a more finished look. Then I used progressively finer sandpaper on a finish sander. Finally, I used Scotchbrite pads on the finish sander to recreate the matte look.

Here is a shot of the Infiniti trim I was trying to replicate:

....and here is a shot of the installed hinge assembly. It is hard to capture the finish in a photo, but I came pretty close and am happy with the finished product. It looks understated, yet custom. More overkill, but we are only doing this to our own standards as builders.

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Here is the finished product. Again, I'm happy with the result, but there is one more important test.

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Nancy tries out her seat and likes the new, more upright angle much better. They are officially ready to reinstall in the plane.

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Last step before color

2011-03-12T10:57:00.000-05:00

The layout is almost done, except for the numbers and winglet stripes. I stopped out today to drop off Velocity logo masks for the winglets and to pick out an additional color for the number back shadows. Davey, the painter, felt that black backshadows against black numbers wouldn't look right, so I went with a metallic graphite.

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The canard looks great.

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... so does the spinner. Way better than green.

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The control surfaces, gear doors and all the little parts like vortilons, sparrow strainers and the like are all painted. There are a lot of them.

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Well, here is the progress so far. I really like the paint scheme and am very anxious to see some color on the plane other than masking tape. I'm told that will be at the end of the week. We'll see.

We are leaving on April 16 for a trip to the Bahamas for a week. I want to get the plane back and fly it a lot before we go. I want it to be a flawless trip.

In April it will be 5 years since I got the kit.It will be almost a year to the day since the unfortunate accident postponed my paint job. Stay tuned for some colorful pictures of ....can it finally be... the final, finished Velocity of my dreams.

Shortly following that, look for more pictures with palm trees and Caribbean blue as a background as we take the family flying adventure vacation I've daydreamed about for the past 10 years. I've got my Customs sticker ready to put on, a new EAPIS account and a house on the beach rented. It won't seem real until I'm on final for Rock Sound Airport in Eleuthera!

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The Lay out

2011-03-01T15:47:00.001-05:00

More progress. I got a call from the painter, Davey, at Lancaster Aero today. He wanted to make sure I was happy with the layout before taping off the plane and painting. Since he couldn't proceed until I checked it, Nancy and I went out to look it over.

His initial concern was that the overall scheme was not visible to someone standing on the ground, which would interrupt the flow of the design. I could appreciate his concern, and since it was cramped in the hangar with several other planes, he suggested we roll it out into the sun on the ramp.

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Once we got it out in the sun and were able to step back a bit, everyone agreed that the scheme was fine as is. I thought it looked great and I was finally able to start to visualize the finish paint. I think it will be stunning. The white paint is very white, which I really liked. It made me glad that I decided to do the propeller in match paint as it now looks very dingy and beaten up in its cream white with nicks.

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Here are Davey and Eric, who have been hard at work on the plane these past weeks. I think this may be Davey's masterpiece. If he's willing, I might ask him to sign it before clear coating it.

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Nancy and I with the almost finished family plane.

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A couple more shots of the plane. The next set of pictures should be the final paint job. In the meantime, I'll fit the new adjustable seat mechanisms to my seats and post the process. I highly recommend upgrading to them.

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No More Green!

2011-02-26T15:07:00.000-05:00

Dave from the paint shop called to tell me that the primer and the white base were being shot Thursday and Friday. I couldn't get out of work, but headed out this morning (Saturday) with my camera.

Wow! What a difference. You've got to click on the above photo to appreciate the quality of the work. Remember, this is just the base coat - it is dry, but shines like this even before the clear coat.

As you will see from the following pictures, it really turned out well. As promised, I'm going to probably post too many pictures, but for those building, you will appreciate the details of the final steps.

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Here's a shot from the fuselage out toward the pilot side winglet. How's this for straight, wave free and shiny? Check out that reflection.

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Copilot side view.

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Nose view

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Aft view

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Cowling and doors

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Close up of upper cowling
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Close up of NACA ducts

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Pilot side wing.
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There are the expected minor flaws to touch up, but Dave did an incredible job. I have honestly never seen a better paint job on any Velocity.

Next week's pictures should be even better. It's the week for layout, numbers and stripes. The following week everything gets wet sanded and clear coated. After that, I have to reassemble the plane, do a new weight and balance and fly her home.

Wish me luck and stand by for pictures of the next step.

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Paint Prep Continues

2011-02-07T21:06:00.000-05:00

Well, I stopped out at the paint shop and the prep work continues, but things are still a couple weeks away from the first coat of white primer. Other planes continue to march through the shop while the endless sanding progresses. In the background above is the RV that was bare metal when I first posted on my trip to the paint shop. It's paint work is flawless, which gives me hope.

My plane is smoother and straighter (and dirtier and dustier) on each visit. I think it will still be a month before I fly it out.

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As I said earlier, I am using the downtime in the paint shop to upgrade some things I was never really satisfied with. The roof liner was flexed sheets of Kydex upholstered with Calypso. The good news was that it hid all the imperfections in the ceiling. The bad news was that I lost some valuable head room which, at 6' 2", I really need.

My interior guy is going to reupholster it with 1/8 inch Ensolite foam and Calypso glued right to the ceiling. This required removal of the old liner and filling and sanding of all the imperfections which had been hidden. That meant 4 hours eating dust while kneeling inside my plastic draped fuselage.

It turned out well and is ready for the new upholstery. I headed home after lunch and spent another fun 8 hours tiling the kitchen.

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I thought I'd post one "action shot". Here is Dave, the painter, doing some fill work on the wing/strake junction.

More to come, hopefully featuring colors other than Kermit green.

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Paint Shop update

2011-01-21T08:05:00.000-05:00

I stopped out at the paint shop to check on the progress. Things are moving along, but it will still be 4 or 5 weeks before I am back in the air. Here you can see that the plane has reverted back to the dusty, multi-colored half finished look of last winter. The winglets, which I have revised several times are getting touched up here.

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Even the areas where I couldn't see any flaw were revised after the paint shop found low spots and other imperfections. The entire plane has been guide coated, spot filled and resanded.

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The doors in particular needed some finesse work. The leading edge stuck out ever so slightly, but enough to feel, past the fuselage. They are now perfectly flush. You can see the black guide coat in this shot.

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The infamous grey swoosh stripe is now blended in and ready to disappear into final paint.

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She looks dirty, but much smoother.
Since she is going to be out of service most of February, I decided to use the time to make some other upgrades and improvements.

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One of the upgrades is to refinish the prop. The Aerocomposites prop has performed well, but the grit on the runway at Sebastian really seemed to eat up the paint. I contacted the manufacturer for the paint specs and am going to have the paint shop refinish it.

If you enlarge the picture and look halfway between the sticker and the stripes near the metal strip, you will notice my repair of a large nick caused when a screw departed through the prop. I love that this sort of damage is easily filled. Once I have matching paint, any future repairs will be invisible.

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The other upgrades will be to the interior. I got these terrific adjustable seat mechanisms from Velocity and can't wait to put them in. Of course, I'll first spend some time in the shop easing the edges and buffing them to a mirror shine.

I'm also going to redo the headliner. I had used upholstered 1/8 inch Kydex plastic sheets flexed and screwed to the roof. It looked good, but I lost significant headroom in the middle over the pilot's seat where I need it most. I am going to replace it with upholstered 1/8 inch Ensolite glued to the overhead.

I'll follow up with more updates.

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Final Paint at Last (???)

2010-12-29T19:21:00.001-05:00

Well, after 8 months of various misadventures, the end of the year is finally here and so is my latest slot on the schedule at Lancaster Aero at Smoketown Airport. I loaded up a Santa sized sack of tools in the plane and flew over to drop off my plane for final paint. I'm hoping that the third time is a charm.

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They pulled out the 1977 Piper Archer that had just been refinished to put my plane in the shop. Click on the picture and check it out- it looks brand new and gorgeous. The blue and gold are very similar to the colors in my scheme. I'm getting excited, but several hours of grueling disassembly await.

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The good news is that I can now assemble and disassemble my plane very quickly, having done it so many times. I really hope that this is the last time.

Here it is all disassembled, with the small parts in labeled Ziploc bags and larger parts on shelves. I went over the plane in detail with the painter, Dave. It will be sanded down and reblocked before painting to catch all of the minor imperfections that didn't show up until it had shiny primer.

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The shop is no stranger to experimentals. Look behind my plane and you'll notice a newly completed RV awaiting paint. The "Honeybee" RV painted by Dave actually took the award at Oshkosh for best finish a couple years ago.

Given everything that has gone wrong over the past few months, I was actually on pins and needles today. I kept thinking something would go wrong on the flight, that a jet would taxi over me or some other ridiculous event would set me back again. Surprisingly, everything went well and the plane is tucked away in the paint shop with people actually working on it. This could actually be the finish line at long last.

I'll likely sneakout for progress checks and will try to post photos of the work in process. When it is finished in a few weeks, I will absolutely post (way too many) pictures.

Stay tuned and wish me luck.

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Christmas Rides for Family

2010-12-19T16:21:00.012-05:00

Ready for passengers

My younger brother and his family came down from Connecticut for an early Christmas get together this weekend. Our kids love getting together with his and my wife and I also have loads of fun with Mike and Stacey, but we have always hated the 5 to 6 hour drive to their house. They also have access to an incredible lake front vacation house on Sebago lake in Maine, but that is almost double the driving time, and I doubt I'd be sane by the time we arrived with the kids spinning out of control in the back seat.

Now we can fly up to an airport only 10 minutes from his house in 55 minutes. I could shuttle his whole family up to Maine in one trip after dropping mine off. However, Mike and especially Stacey, were nervous about the whole experimental plane thing. I was surprised on Saturday when Mike said he would go up for rides if I brought the plane back the next day. Stacey said she'd come look at it, and possibly go up.

I drove the hour plus from our Mom's house back home on Saturday night. On Sunday morning I flew back so I could take them up for rides and let our kids play together. The flight was less than 15 minutes.
You really do get used to the incredible time savings, but appreciate it every trip.

It was cold and hazy (again), but calm and smooth. In other words, a nice day to give rides. Although, the primer paint job is not especially confidence inspiring, the panel and interior are.

The panel all powered up

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Mike had listened to me talking about the plane for years, but had never seen it. He and Stacey checked it out and sat in it to get the feel of it. Stacey surprised me and announced that she would go up!

Mike and Stacey check out the front office

Stacey tries the pilot seat & checks out the glass panels

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Mike and I went up first.

Departing Runway 5, Doylestown

Halfway down the runway, gear going up

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We did some orbits around Mom's house while the kids looked up and waved.

Circling Mom's neighborhood

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Callie gets ready for a ride with Mom

Next up, Mike's daughter, Callie, went for a ride with Mom. She had a great time looking out the window and really enjoyed it.

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After that , my sister's teenage son, Quinn went up for a ride with me and we did a little more aggressive maneuvering. He really liked it. Then, the whole family came out to check out the plane and see us off.

Stacey, Carol and the twins, Katie, Kenzie, Callie and Mom

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I loaded up Katie and Sean and 15 minutes later, we were in the pattern at our home airport. They enjoyed the flight and appreciated skipping the long drive down the turnpike.

We put the plane away and headed home.

Katie and Sean lock up the hangar

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It was nice to finally show the plane to the family. I thought about holding out until the plane was painted, but that will be another fun unveiling. As usual, the plane drew a crowd at Doylestown airport. After each landing, other pilots came out to check out the plane. It performed flawlessly and I had a great day of flying. I am still surprised at how well the cabin heat works. I was actually too warm flying West into the sun on the way home.

The next flight will be one week from tomorrow when I fly it back to Lancaster Aero Refinishers for its final paint job. This had better actually happen this time.

I'll post progress pictures throughout the final painting process.

In the meantime, below are a video of the take off and wing rock to the family on departure for home with the kids, and below that the takeoff with Mike. With half fuel, 440 pounds of large Irish brothers in the front seats and 32 degrees I was getting a 2,000 feet per minute climb at 110 knots. Not too shabby. I love that Aerocomposite prop.

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Back Home from DC

2010-12-16T12:45:00.000-05:00

As of Wednesday, it was time to pick up my plane and bring it home. I got stuck in court on Wednesday so I made arrangements to head down early Thursday in the rental car to pick it up and fly home.

The Wednesday night weather briefing revealed a problem. Pennsylvania would be clear until late afternoon, but snow storms with icing and IFR conditions would be moving into the Gaithersburg area in the late morning. I decided I could still make it if I got out of there early enough.

I started the 3 hour drive at 6:00 a.m. Once the sun came up, it looked encouragingly clear until I got further south. As you can see in the picture, by the time I got into the D.C. area, it was gloomy and the ceilings were coming down quickly.

Due to beltway traffic jams, I didn't get to Gaithersburg until 9:30. I got a ride to the airport and we pulled my plane out of the toasty heated hangar my hosts had been kind enough to keep the plane in overnight. (Thanks again Bruce!) I called 800-WXBRIEF to get the weather and to file my SFRA flight plan. I was told that the snow storm was only moments away and that nearby Dulles was already IFR with icing and moderate turbulence reported around Gaithersburg, but still clear only a few miles to the North.

I preflighted the plane and strapped in. I called Potomac approach to activate my flight plan and received a frequency and transponder code. I quickly taxied to the departure end of runway 14 and did my run up. As I did so, the snow quickly started to fall. I could see that it was clear just past the airport and took off. Within 1 or 2 minutes I was in the clear with 20 miles of visibility. I kept the speed down to 130 knots for the first 10 minutes of uncomfortable turbulence. I called Potomac approach, which confirmed that they were receiving my transponder signal and cleared me on course. Just about the time I got their call that I was clearing the SFRA and should squawk VFR, the turbulence abated.

I picked up the speed to 165 knots, climbed to 5,500 and proceeded on course for home. I pulled into the airport 35 minutes after taking off and put the plane away. As you will see from the pictures, it was not a great day for flying. That's the sun trying to peek through above the prop in the bottom picture.

One more successful trip. I really look forward to that new paint. Only 2 more weeks.

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First Trip into the Dreaded SFRA

2010-12-11T16:27:00.006-05:00

Velocity wanted to show a company in the D.C. area a Velocity XL with a glass panel. Rather than fly one all the way up from Sebastian, Florida, they asked me if I would fly mine down from Pennsylvania and drop it off for a few days so the prospective customer could look it over. It's only 100 miles from me and Velocity has gone above and beyond to help me out (and generally put up with me) through two airplane projects. I was more than happy to help out.

The only thing that gave me pause was that the airport in question was Gaithersburg, Maryland, which is located in the D.C. Special Flight Rules Area. This is the one where you keep seeing hapless pilots on the evening news after they have been intercepted by Blackhawk helicopters and forced down, to face fines and loss of licenses. In other words, it's no place to fool around if you don't know what you're doing.

I had taken the required course, which I reviewed again. I went over the procedures with several flight instructors (thanks guys!). Then I filed my SFRA flight plan for 15:30 Zulu through the Wooly gate into the SFRA direct Gaithersburg.

Saturday morning was only about 20 degrees, but sunny and calm. Not too bad. I don't have any sort of preheat system installed, so I swiped the wife's heated lap throw and put it inside the bottom of the cowling with a wool blanket on top of the cowling a few hours before I left.
My friend Peter offered to go with me just for the fun of it.

Click on any picture for a larger view.

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Departing 29 Chester County

We did the preflight and loaded up the plane. It started right up and we let it idle until we got to 100 degrees on oil temps and 200 for the CHT's. We taxied up for takeoff right on time for our planned 10:10 departure to make it to the gate in time to activate our 10:30 flight plan. As you can see, it was cold, hazy and still.

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The ride was nice and smooth above the haze and well below the cloud layer. This was the first time I had flown in really cold temperatures and I had never tried the heater. We were both bundled up just in case, but it turned out that the heater kept the cabin plenty warm - surprisingly so, in fact.

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Peter settled down to taking pictures. I engaged the autopilot and altitude hold and watched as our waypoint at Carrol County Airport approached. When we got a few miles out, I called Potomac Approach to activate our flight plan. We were given a discrete transponder code, then cleared direct into Gaithersburg. We were only 15 minutes into our flight!

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It actually seemed colder in Maryland. There was a light dusting of snow on the ground.

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We made great time and, even though I was holding the speed down a little to make sure I gave the controller plenty of time to tell me if I was going astray, we were still doing 175-185 knots indicated.

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As we got within a few miles of Gaithersburg, we were given permission to switch over to their CTAF frequency and continue squawking our SFRA ident code. We sequenced into the pattern and the above is a shot of the airport right after we turned final.

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On short final, Peter took this great shot of a flight of two RV's waiting in the hold short area. They took off as a flight right after we landed. It looked pretty good.

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...and we're here, in suburban Washington, D.C. only 35 minutes after leaving home in Pennsylvania. This drive takes HOURS. Actually, I'm not looking forward to the drive home in the rental car. Peter is amazed at how fast we got down here. I'm happy with what turned out to be a very easy experience coming into the restricted area. Overpreparation is the key. Next time I won't even stress about doing it.

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We taxi past an L39 that has just flown in for the day. Very cool. If I ever win the lottery.......
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I tuck the Blackberry under the headset for the obligatory call to Nancy to let her know we're down safe and sound. Then a call to our host to lead us to our hangar. He pulls through the gate in his car and we follow him right back to their hangar. Nice.
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We shut down and unpack the plane prior to putting it away in our host's hangar. This was a nice flight which expanded my envelope on several fronts. I'm a happy camper.

Here is a link to the track on Flightaware:

Click here for flight track

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Our host, Bruce. Thanks for the hangar and for the ride.
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It was only a 35 minute flight down, but it's a 3 hour drive home through heavy traffic in D.C., Baltimore and Pennsylvania. This is a graphic demonstration on how much nicer it is to travel in your Velocity than in the family car.

In a couple of days, its another drive and short flight back to bring the plane home. The following week it gets flown over to the paint shop to finally put the primer stage behind me. It's supposed to be done by the end of January. I then plan to fly, fly and fly some more. We are renting a house in the Bahamas with some friends over the kids' Spring break for our first international flight. We hope to do that a lot, which is why the design incorporates 12 inch N numbers.

More to come....
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Glitches and Updates

2010-11-15T20:03:00.001-05:00

We had great weather here this past weekend, so I decided to go out flying on Saturday. I had a gear unsafe light which still wouldn't go out after fixing the main gear linkage. I tracked it down to the gear up microswitch in the nose. The arm of the switch had been bent down to make it activate the switch, but apparently was just barely closing when the gear went up. I apparently changed things just enough when I disassembled and reassembled the gear doors for my aborted paint shop appointment that it didn't cut it any more. I decided the best fix was to take everything apart and put in both a new microswitch and a new mounting bracket. That fixed it - and used up most of the time I'd blocked out for flying.

I tested it a few times on jacks then got in and taxied out to the run up area. I did my run up and went through my checklist. Since reading about accidents caused by a departing door, I have added an item. Previously, I'd check to make sure my door ajar light was not illuminated as my last item. I added physically reaching out and checking both door handles.

Sure enough, I checked the passenger door handle- fine, then my door handle, and it pulled right back to the open position. I tried again to lock it, but no go. If that vibrated open in flight, it could be very bad. I recommend this check to everyone.

I taxied back to the hangar to check it out. It latched and locked fine from outside every time. If I sat inside and closed it, it didn't lock. What the heck? Time to take off the interior trim panel and find out what was going on.

What I found reiterated a lesson I have learned the hard way in the past. Don't ignore ANYTHING new or unusual on the plane. I had noticed way back at Oshkosh that my pilot side door handle was leaving a very faint arc on my awful green primer from opening and closing while the passenger side door was not. I was vaguely concerned about this marring my final paint when it finally got painted, but was not concerned as I considered it a cosmetic issue.

Close inspection of the interior surface of the door revealed the cause of both issues. If you've been following my blog or the reflector, you'll know that the doors are very hard to close until they are broken in. This means really cranking on the door handle to get it closed at first. As I ran it through it's range, I could see that the interior skin flexed slightly. The foam between the inner and outer skin under the mounting plate bonded to the interior was crushed. This allowed play in the handle, which in turn allowed the stop block to slip past the lock arm and allowed the end of the handle to scrape the exterior paint.

The fix was to cut a channel in the inner skin next to the mounting bracket, dig out the foam and replace it with flox, then cover the surface of the filled channel with a small 2 bid layup. Problem solved.

Believe it or not, I wasn't even annoyed. It is actually very satisfying to realize that you know your aircraft well enough to diagnose problems and that you have developed the skills to fix them - for no cost other than your time. As the builder, you will know your plane like no factory aircraft owner or purchaser of an already flying kitplane ever will. It is a complex machine, like any airplane. It will always need maintenance and adjustment. The advantage is that I can do it myself.

After fixing it, it was time for some flying. The day was still sunny and warm (for Pennsylvania in November) . There was a pretty good crosswind, so I decided to do some pattern work for practice. Everyone else had exactly the same idea as it turned out. I ended up with as many as 5 other aircraft in the pattern. It was quite a mix too, including a Starduster, a motorglider, a big corporate helicopter, a Cessna and a Falcon jet. Good practice and a lot of fun seeing the big executive jet up close.

I forgot to take pictures, but will try to add some later.

Finally, I've had people commenting that they want to get in touch, but don't know how to reach me, so I've added a contact link at the top of the blog. Just click on it to send an email and I'll get back to you.

That's it for now.

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More Delay

2010-10-24T08:52:00.000-04:00


Kerry and Mike stop by for a visit

Well, if anyone has been checking in to see the new paint job, don't hold your breath. I stopped by the paint shop to check on progress and....you guessed it, the plane hadn't been touched. After a heart to heart with the guy who will actually (would, may, might?) do the painting, it was clear that there was no way he had enough time to do a decent job on mine until the end of the year.

I extracted another commitment, for whatever it's worth, that my plane would be painted starting in the last week of December. I cautioned them that I would go completely ballistic if I was put off again at that point and I am getting quotes from other shops just in case. I hope to be able to report that the wait was worth it and to be able to show off pictures of the beautiful paint job. Otherwise, I'll have to do what I need to do to get my money back and go with another shop.

In the meantime, the weather is perfect for flying. It took a lot longer to put everything back together than it did to take it apart. I also had some issues to fix, including a failed Aux battery from Grand Rapids. I replaced the battery and the system works fine again.

I moved the plane back to my new hangar a few weeks ago. Yesterday, Kerry Fritz asked me to go flying with him. I took off to meet him at his airport. After I retracted the gear, I had a red "Gear Unsafe" light. I cycled the gear again, but no luck. I triple checked that I had two "Down and Locked" lights and landed.

I took out the vanity panel, put the plane on jacks and cycled the gear. Sure enough, the mains would not go up. Kerry stopped by in the Long EZ and my friend Mike came by as well. We found that the locking arm on the main gear linkage was binding. I filed it back a bit and it worked again, BUT the red light still came on. Turns out that the microswitch on the nose gear up side needed to be replaced.

Now, I'm moving on to fixing my seats. The screws that are called for in the kit plans are not structural screws. If you are on the larger side (I'm 6' 2'' and 220) you will shear them at some point and end up flying your trip back home with a box holding up your seat back. The factory recommends replacing them with Grade 8 1/4 -20 bolts. In addition to this upgrade, I'm going to change the seatback angle to make them more upright. This is a tricky trade off between reach distance to the controls, headroom, stress on the seat, looks and comfort. I noodled around with spacers until I found the angle I like and now need to remove the seats. Of course, the screws are bent and won't turn out. I'll have to drill them out with cobalt drill bits and screw extractors. More fun.

That being said, all of the above are details. I have a flying Velocity at last. I don't really mind tinkering with it and each little change makes it better. I love Duane Swing's comment to me when I was frustrated. He told me "Don't hate it, fix it!" I've made that my mantra in these situations.
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Here are some pictures of the fix to the linkage. Note the removed area below the notch on the right.

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I have been checking out rental properties in the Bahamas and am starting to plan a trip there on the kids' Spring break. Now that's something to look forward to. It helps this time of the year, when things are lean, to think about a nice trip.

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Fingers Crossed at the Paint Shop

2010-10-02T20:01:00.009-04:00

Here is the layout for my final paint scheme. I went through about a million iterations before deciding on this one. It is a three color, base coat/clear coat with pearl colors and drop shadows.

I think it will be even nicer than the green and grey I've been flying since June. Like everything else, the paint work has presented unexpected challenges.

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It seems nothing is going to go easily in my home stretch on the plane. After some serious disagreements with the paint shop early in the summer, we agreed to reschedule the final paint work to commence on October 4. I came in and approved test panels with the custom paint, which was gorgeous. I called on Thursday (as in 3 days ago) to confirm that I could fly the plane in on Saturday morning at 8:00 so that the owner could let me into the paint shop, where I would take it apart to have them ready to dive in on Monday the 4th.

I got up early, loaded the plane with tools and landed just before 8:00. Nobody home. I parked and waited at the office for two hours. No joy. I called my wife to pick me up and then saw that the owner had arrived. OK, I decided, no big deal. I'll just go over and get this done.

I walked over only to be informed that the shop was booked and that my plane couldn't be done until late December. ???????

I was a little put off.

After some spirited discussion, the owner agreed to accommodate me by putting my plane in a currently vacant hangar so that the prep work could get started. I was promised the plane back by mid to late November.

I'm really not thrilled by this deal, but on the other hand, I really don't want to lose faith in someone who did a great job and really helped me out on a prior paint job. I actually believe that, if they ever actually do the work, this shop will turn out a peerless show quality paint job.

Lemons to lemonade time again. I will help out by disassembling the plane for prep work and paint. I'll follow the progress closely (very) and help out wherever I can. I taxied the plane over to the vacant hangar and spent the day taking things apart, hopefully for the last time.

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I took off the nose gear doors after making alignment marks and a diagram of where I'd put washers to make everything fit. Hopefully it will go back together more easily.

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The rudder and cowling are off. If you look at the bottom of the winglets, you'll see that I cut them apart again and re-glassed them to trail in perfectly with the shimmed out rudders. I put a book shelf under the engine before removing the canard. One little bump on the nose when the canard is off and it will tip back on the prop and spoil your whole day.

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I've got all of the control surfaces, gear doors, sparrow strainer, etc removed and stacked neatly on a table. The cowlings are off and set aside. All of the small parts like the wing bolt access covers, canard counterweight covers, vortilons and the like are bagged, labeled and boxed. The parts for everything I removed are in marked ziploc bags and boxed.

The only thing I didn't do was remove the "temporary" vinyl N numbers. That's in quotes because these things are really stuck on. There has to be a tip or trick to get them off- heat, solvent, something. I am really glad I incorporated 12" N numbers in our paint scheme. I don't really like them, but am thankful we didn't go with the idea some had suggested of just putting the big numbers on in vinyl when we went to the Bahamas and removing them when we got back. That would have been pretty hard. I'll ask the paint shop guys and go out there this week and remove them with the recommended procedure to help move things along.

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Well, here she is with the canard back on, all the control surfaces and gear doors off. I've put 100 pounds of lead shot in the nose to safeguard against an accidental tip back onto the prop, but these guys have done fill and primer work on her already and know how to move her around.

After all that has happened, I am not really confident in how long the paint work will take (as in it might be a long process). However, I'm trying to keep an open mind, one more chance, fresh start, etc, etc. After all, this shop did a great job on my first plane and has a first rate painter.

I'll be posting progress pictures as the work goes along and we'll find out together.

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Visit to the Ferrells in Cape May

2010-09-06T12:37:00.032-04:00

Brett and Elizabeth Ferrell are staying down at the shore in Cape May, NJ for their annual Labor day week get away and invited us to fly down to visit. The original plan was for them to fly in but that was derailed by the untimely passage of the hurricane. We took the plane down on Sunday morning and had so much fun we stayed over before heading back Monday morning.

Here's a brief version of our fun trip.

First, departure end of the runway and we are wheels up at 9:15, then bank East and head for Cape May. It should only be about 30 minutes again replacing hours of holiday traffic with a fast, fun hop in the Velocity.

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Katie and Sean relaxed in the back, taking pictures and checking out the view. Waypoint at KEVY and 14 minutes to go.

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We headed down the Delaware into the bay, then Cape May came into view. The bottom photo is from 6 miles out as we let down for landing. You can see the actual cape and the ocean beyond.

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Here we are on final for 28 in Cape May. It's an old WWII base with long runways. It's only about 5 miles from the beach and boardwalk and I really like the long runways.

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Tim Walsh flew his top loader FG up to meet us at the airport. He has some nice, big Dynon Skyview displays he just installed and this was his first long cross country with them. They looked great.

We ended up arriving at exactly the same time. He was calling out his progress through the pattern and we couldn't see him until he was flaring over the runway. We ended up pulling into the tie downs within a minute of each other as you can see from the top photo taken by Nancy as we taxied up.

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We checked out both planes and even got in an "Eagle One" for good measure.

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There is a great museum right on the field that happened to be having a special exhibit that day with a B-17, B-24 and Mustang. We decided to check it out. Then Tim headed home in his Velocity and we went off for our day at the beach.

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We headed from the airport back to the Ferrell's cool beach digs. It was the top floor of the building directly across from the beach. Here is Nancy checking out the great view from the balcony and our hosts down in front.

I didn't think to take any pictures from the house of the beach, but you'll get the idea. Then we headed across the street to the beach. The waves were still huge from the recent hurricane and were great for body surfing or Ferrell's favorite - "bobbing" out in the waves. A good time was definitely had by all.

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After a day on the beach, we left Nancy and the kids to relax back at Casa Ferrell while I took Brett and Elizabeth for a ride in the plane. It was absolutely gorgeous out. As we were holding short for takeoff, the B-17 landed right in front of us. They had a fun ride and were very complimentary. (I'm glad I didn't botch the landing)

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After buzzing the beach, we took a quick jaunt down to the actual cape, then headed back to the airport. Brett sat in back and captured the ride on video. Looks like he's having fun back there doesn't it?

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After ordering in some pizza, we took a stroll around the shopping district of Cape May. It is very pretty and interesting, filled with Victorian Bed and Breakfasts, shops and restaurants. Since it was a holiday weekend, it was jammed. I'd like to go back on an off weekend, but highly recommend it.

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Labor day morning and time to head home. After breakfast, Elizabeth took us to the airport and Brett stayed home to get a video. He asked us to make a low pass down the beach. Here is the view of their shore place from, well, just off shore. It is the brown beachfront house with the pointy roof two houses to the left of the intersection and just to the right of the big red and white house. If you enlarge the picture you can just see Brett on the top balcony.

Waggle the wings, pull up, bank right and off we go!

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Back home in less than a half an hour. I called Elizabeth and Brett to let them know we are down and she's not even back from the airport yet. I sent the family home and unpacked the plane.

This was another great weekend hop and just the sort of thing I'd always daydreamed about doing. Thanks again to the Ferrells and to Beth's parents for putting us up for the night.

Brett posted some videos of our low passes as seen from the balcony of their shore place. We went by several times at between 300-400 feet and 160 knots. The good news is that it looks fast. The bad news is that it's hard to videotape. Check it out on Youtube with the following link:
Video of fly by

You can also click on the next link for a video of the fly by taken by Brett from the back seat:

Back seat fly by

for a cool 10 minute video from the back seat of the plane. Watch us pass a Cessna while climbing at 1,000 plus fpm. Good stuff.

Thanks Brett!

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Finally, here is a kid's eye view of the taxi and takeoff taken from the back seat by Katie.

More adventures to come.....

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Smoketown Fly In 2010

2010-08-14T19:02:00.012-04:00

The Smoketown 2010 Fly In was today. I'd promised to have my Velocity on display, but the weather was bad all week, so I hadn't had time to bring it over from Chester County. The forecast was good for today, so I decided to just fly it over really early before the fly in began.

They wanted to have it parked by 7:00, so I left my airport at 6:30 and got there as things were being set up. I parked, then helped get some other display aircraft into place.

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There she is, all settled in with a Champ, RV, Waco and a Sonex. Time to start walking around to check out the other planes.

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By about 9:00 the planes were just pouring in. It was clear, cool and comfortable for the first time I can remember all summer. What luck to get this weather on the day of the fly in.

At any given moment, there were 4 or 5 planes in the pattern and in no time at all the parking area was full. I wouldn't be surprised if there were over 200 planes. It was fun walking up and down the rows, checking out the planes, seeing old friends and finding out where everyone flew in from.

I ran into several people I'd met at Oshkosh, other attorneys, my CFI who soloed me and more.

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My wife, Nancy, brought Katie and Sean out to see the planes, have a burger and, of course, to give Dad a ride home. It was funny to see my very modern Velocity juxtaposed against the WWII tableau set up behind it.

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Here's a new one. Someone actually sketched my plane, grey primer nose and all.

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My friend Kerry Fritz flew his beautiful Long EZ, Race 99, into Smoketown. He is a repeat Airventure cup racer as you can see, but is running out of space on his plane for the stickers.

Here he is headed out after breakfast. We are making plans to fly together soon.

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We were even graced by the Grand Champion from Oshkosh. How do you top that?

It was a great day, with perfect weather, lots of planes and pilots getting together to enjoy what we all love to do. Smoketown was the perfect venue. As I've said before, this place is the kind of airport, and more importantly, the kind of community, that is hard to find.

I flew in today with an airplane load full of copier paper boxes from work to pack up my hangar to move to Chester County. It's closer, longer and more convenient, but I felt sad about the idea of giving up my hangar at Smoketown. My friends there keep reminding me that it's only 5 minutes away from the new airport and I'm sure we'll still be flying together. The folks there have been very good to me through the construction of two airplanes over the last 14 years and I'll miss being one of the Smoketown airport bums.

I'm going to do a few more repairs/improvements, then move the plane to the new hangar by the end of the month. I'm going to try to get a few more good trips in before paint in October.

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Our First Family Trip

2010-08-08T07:33:00.009-04:00

We finally had our first family trip in the Velocity. This one really demonstrated the advantages of having your own plane.

Our normal visit to the ocean in the summer means a trip to Ocean City, NJ. This is a 2 1/2 hour drive in traffic and is no fun at all. The choice is 5 hours of driving in one day for a day trip or an overnight stay. However, the flight plan puts it at a half hour each way.

I decide to make this as easy as possible for the kids. I really want them to start seeing the airplane as a real positive instead of the way they've been seeing it for the past 4 years, which is as the reason Dad is never around. They have been very understanding. Nancy has been unbelievably understanding of my obsession with building the plane. Now it's time to start paying them back.

I went out to the airport, fueled, pre-flighted and loaded the plane. I had it all ready for boarding when they got there at 9:30.

Yes, I had to resist my normal urge for the "Oh dark thirty" departure. I want this to be pleasant and don't really want to be sitting on the beach at 7 a.m.

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On the ground in Ocean City with all of our beach gear. Man, I won't miss that green paint. It was a fast and easy flight over and a pretty good landing too.

The GRT screens made it easy to thread between the Philadelphia, Wilmington and other airspace on the way.

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Everyone divides up the load and off we go to the beach. One note, Ocean City is only 2,500 feet long and there is always a crosswind. Don't try it until you get some practice.

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On the beach in Ocean City by 10:00. It's sunny, 82 with a nice breeze. Of course, everyone else in the world appears to have heard it was going to be a nice day too.

Above is a shot north up the beach. The big buildings at the end on the right are Atlantic City casinos. The airport is about 30 blocks north and 5 blocks west. It is simple to land, tie down and walk over to the 24th street beach, but we wanted to spend time down at our relative's beach.

I highly recommend Ocean City for a fly in day trip.

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It's almost dinner time so we all pile into Steve and Maria's SUV for a quick ride to the airport. It's still almost 2 hours before sunset and we have plenty of time to get home. The plan is to have dinner at the restaurant at Chester County Airport, then 15 minutes home and get the kids ready for bed.

Steve and Maria hadn't seen the plane since it was upside down in our garage. They were surprised to see it now as a "real airplane" and thought it looked sportier than the other factory planes parked around us. They enjoyed checking out the plane and the airport.

Above are Steve and my wife, Nancy, standing by the plane while Vincent tries the copilot seat. In the other shot, Maria and the kids check out a Nan Chang parked beside us.

They watch us start up, then go to the end of the parking area to wave as we take off and turn to the West. It was a nice visit. Thanks Steve and Maria!

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We left Ocean City at 6:45 and made it back to Chester County Airport by 7:15 - Our 2 1/2 hour drive in traffic was reduced to an easy 30 minute flight. A day trip to the ocean is now no problem.

The kids now see the possibilities for weekend adventure destinations. They also enjoyed the flight itself, which is great.

Time to start planning some cool weekend getaways in the plane.

More to come....

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Oshkosh Adventure 2010

2010-07-31T19:47:00.039-04:00

I said in the last post that there was no way I could make Oshkosh this year because neither I nor the plane were quite ready. I made arrangements to fly along in a friend's RV8, but he had to cancel out the Thursday before the show due to business commitments.

I decided to guts it up and try to make it. I took Friday off to work on the plane. I figured I had 3 days left to fix, test and fly to get ready.

I decided to blog the trip to try to give some sense to what it was like. Here goes....

I fixed the winglets, sorted the autopilot and throttle issues with the help of my great A&P Dennis Glick (Thanks Dennis!)

By Sunday, I had made several cross country flights, including that trip to Ocean City. Everything was working well and I had gotten comfortable in the plane.

I decided to launch Monday at dawn. I packed and fueled the plane. Then I learned that Oshkosh was flooded out and closed. I went to work Monday and continuously monitored the web site for conditions at Oshkosh.

Finally, it announced in the afternoon that it would be open to new arrivals starting Tuesday morning. I decided to leave at dawn Tuesday. That left me flight planning in the home office for the new weather forecast as depicted above, then trying to sleep.

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Now this is an early start. The moon is still out, but the sun will be rising by the time I finish my preflight and taxi to the runway. I want to be wheels up at dawn.

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The day grows brighter as I fly away from the rising sun. I look back to see the sun silhouetted behind my right winglet. Below me, fog flows like a river through the mountain passes. Gorgeous.

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Humming along at 8,500 feet at 190 knots. The autopilot is working well and I'm a happy camper. Oshkosh here I come.

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Time for a quick fuel stop in Goshen, Indiana. Nice folks.

Now, on to Oshkosh. Less than an hour to go!

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I made it! Parked at row 358 right next to the flight line. What a prime spot. I can sit next to my pilot side door in the shade and watch the airshow. Countless friends and curious pilots stop by to talk. It was really nice.

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As usual, I'm joined by my old flying buddy Scott, with his wife Glema and son, Alex. Scott landed his Lancair IV within 30 minutes of my arrival and we were parked only 50 yards apart.

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Lunch at the chicken tent, then the obligatory group Eagle One pose with Andy and Brett.

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It was great having the plane at airshow center. No more lugging the literature and chair - just pop them into the plane.

On the bus over from the dorm, an Aussie pilot noticed my Velocity logo and asked if the green plane on the flight line was mine. He said he'd sat near it during the previous day's show and had chuckled about how people criticized what they thought was a hideous final paint scheme.

As fellow builders told me when I was trying to decide whether to fly to OSH in primer, "Builders will get it, and for those who don't get it, who cares?" Still, I look forward to final paint.

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Brett and Andy check out the cockpit. It's a lot of fun to finally show your plane to all of your airplane nut buddies.

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Elizabeth camps out under the wing while we poke around in the cockpit.

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For many in the Velocity contingent, the day started with food and gourmet coffee with the Millins. That was some fine pound cake guys. Thanks for contributing to my forward CG issues.

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The Velocity cookout was well attended and was a lot of fun.

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I made several treks to the Millin camp site, home of the Velocity dinner. Here Teresa shows off the Andy Millin Eagle One bobble head doll that is sweeping the nation. She obviously loves this gag.

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The ground was too soft for the fuel trucks so you had to go to hard surface staging areas to meet the fuel truck. No problem. I asked the guy on the scooter and before you knew it, 6 volunteers had appeared to quickly push the plane 50 feet to the hard surface and back. Nice Oshkosh flavor with the Trimotor taxiing past. in the top picture, you can see Dave Bertram had the same idea.

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Velocity people are a great community, always sharing ideas, innovations, help and tips. Here two friends improve my rudder handling by shortening the return springs. Thanks guys- I owe you one.

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Andy and Darryl check out the plane. Andy looks happy in a Velocity doesn't he?

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Darryl and Norah Kufalk with their beautiful new paint job. Nice work and thanks for showing me all the cool innovations you added. Love the quick release seat mounts!

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This is it, time to head home. I taxi down to the departure end of 36 and wait for my turn. The top picture is the view back 18 toward show center. The bottom picture is the controller on the temporary "tower". He calls "Green Cozy, position and hold on the left side of the runway next to the RV".

I pull out, get the clearance to go and I'm off! Accelerate, lift off, gear up, rock the wings to the show and depart to the right, then head 150 degrees to clear the airspace.

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As I skirted Chicago, the weather got kind of iffy. I ended up cruising through light rain at 8,500. Above is a shot of the Chicago skyline from the edge of the O'Hare airspace. Then I had to descend to get under weather around Toledo. After my stop in Goshen, Indiana for fuel, I had to climb over more weather.

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I got a chance to use the great performance of the Velocity to get over and around weather on the way home. Over Indiana and western Pennsylvania I climbed to 11,000 feet to get over the clouds. As forecast, it opened up again about 100 miles before home so that I could do a gradual let down and approach.

It was gorgeous flying above the clouds. One highlight was when I came upon a Cessna 182 on the same flight path. I literally passed him like he was standing still. Eat my dust, Spam can!

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Here is a screen shot of the GRT. Yup, that's 208 knots over the ground!

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1:15 and safely back at the hangar at Chester County. All told it was about 750 nm in 4 hours with a fuel stop included.

How was it? It was a great trip. I got to finally take a long trip solo and explore the performance the Velocity has to offer. I got to catch up with old friends and make some new ones. It was satisfying to finally fly into the show in my second Velocity. It seems crazy that it was 10 years to the day since I'd done it with my first plane. A lot has changed since then.

The trip has given me a comfort level with the plane that I didn't have before. Really, after flying into Oshkosh, a typical trip sounds pretty straight forward. Two more months before she goes in for final paint, then no more Hulk, Green Hornet, Green Machine, etc.

I put a quick clip from the flight home below just to give a feel for tooling along in your Velocity at 250 mph.

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This video is from about 10,000 feet over Indiana on the way home on Friday.

More trips to come......

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A Great First Day of Flying

2010-07-12T18:44:00.019-04:00

It's been a real heat wave here, with temperatures over 100 degrees every day. I've been doing touchups and repairs in my metal sauna/hangar all week watching the few brave souls flying struggle to get off at our 2200 foot runway with density altitudes in the thousands.

I've decided to base the plane at KMQS, Chester County airport, which has over twice the runway and is only 12 minutes from my house. This was tough as I really love Smoketown and have been here for years. It's the kind of airport community that is tough to find these days- great people.

I don't know exactly how much runway I'll need to take off, especially in this heat and I'm nervous about getting out. Add to that the fact that this is going to be my first solo flight in a Velocity in 10 years.

Any way, I convinced my wife to drive me out to the airport at 7:00 yesterday morning while it was still relatively cool.

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Well, here goes. I taxi down to the end of the runway. Stand on the brakes, full power, 2700 rpm and......

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Wow! I'm off in 1/3 of the runway. This thing really accelerates.

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Back for a low pass at Smoketown, rock the wings to Nancy and Sean, then off to Chester County.

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My Lancair buddy Scott flew his family down for the day for a visit and some fun flying together. We realized that we had never flown in each other's planes when we built our first Velocities.

Here I introduce him to Sean's "My Daddy's airplane is faster than your Daddy's airplane" shirt.
Next, it's off to the airport.

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Scott and I flew for a few hours and then at about 8:00, it's time for them to head home. I got a bunch of great tips and techniques from Scott. He got a queasy stomach. I'll only get better from here, Scott.

Here Sean checks out the Lancair IV cockpit.

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We decide to follow them North a bit and get some air to air pictures. Here Scott taxis up to join me in the run up area prior to takeoff.

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Scott pulls up on the left for pictures, then heads North as we turn back for home.

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Great shots of our plane in flight. Thanks Glema!

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Sean manages to spot our house as we head back to the airport.

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"Chester County Traffic, Velocity 929X is downwind for 29 Chester County"

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The view on the taxi back from landing to the hangar. It's 8:30 and the best part of the day with that great golden light. You can't beat taxiing with both doors open and the breeze blowing through.

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Here she is tucked back in her new hangar for the night. What a fun day of flying.

I'm still not sure about making Oshkosh. I shimmed the right rudder out to get rid of an incipient flutter, then tested the plane up to 210 knots indicated today. However, this fix caused an uneven rate of flow from the tanks which I have to fix. I still have to program and set up more GRT functions. I'll see how much I can get done and take it day by day.

In the meantime, I'm finally starting to get to enjoy my airplane. I might take a day trip to the beach next weekend. It's 2-3 traffic filled hours to drive there and 22 minutes to fly to the airport in Ocean City, only a quick walk from the beach.

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N929X Returns Home

2010-06-29T20:10:00.009-04:00

I have finally been able to fly my own plane at my own airport as I've been dreaming of doing for so long- and it was GREAT! Here is how it went.

Velocity Chief Pilot John Abraham called midweek last week to advise that the plane was working well and all the hours were flown off. I couldn't afford to take the time off from work to go down to Sebastian and fly back with him, so we decided he would fly it up to Pennsylvania Saturday morning, give me some dual and fly home Sunday after lunch.

The very idea of being able to fly up the entire coast from Florida to Pennsylvania before lunch takes some getting used to. (and I can't wait to get used to it)

I watched John's progress on FlightAware.com. As you will see from this screen shot, he averaged better than 190 knots despite winds and bad bumps. Impressive.

When the ETA got to 30 minutes, I drove over to the airport, walked out to the runway and started looking to the South into the haze, trying to spot the plane.

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.....then there it was. It looks different than the other traffic and you can tell the sound of a Velocity from other aircraft.

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It looks good. I direct John over to transient parking and run over to say hello.

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I'm thrilled that my plane is back, but it's really hot, John's had a long flight and it's lunch time, so we tie her down and head back to the house for lunch. I keep looking back as we walk away- I finally have a working airplane! It looks cool and drew curious pilots within minutes.

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Back to the airport to get some dual before dinner. I really enjoyed this. The plane pushes me back in the seat on the first takeoff, we rotate and seem to climb like a fighter plane. This is what I've been dreaming of and is a real contrast to the months practicing here in an Arrow. We fly around just getting comfortable with the handling and avionics then shoot some landings. I manage not to terrify John and actually do pretty well. Time to button her up for the night, then a little more work tomorrow.

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Saturday night and it's finally time to take a deep breath and relax. I can fly, do simple navigation with the GRT's and make a respectable landing holding off the nose gear and everything.

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Sunday morning and off to the airport early. I need to land a lot shorter if I'm going to put it into my 2,200 foot home field.

John uses Google Earth to measure the distance between two taxiway turn offs which are 1,800 feet apart. I need to land after the first and come to a complete stop before the second. We've only got 2 hours to get this down and get over to Smoketown, then get him to the airport in Philadelphia.

I made it a few times and missed it a few times. I need more practice and we are out of time. We decide to swap seats and see if John can do it.

Of course, John was able to put her down and stop in less than half the runway, probably about 1,100 feet. I can't do that at this point.

Here she is safely back in my hangar at Smoketown at last. The blue tape all over the plane marks the little fixes I need to do before flying again, such as reinforcing the NACA inlets, fairing in the rudder/wing junction and getting rid of the popsicle stick spacers, etc. Then, I'll fly it over to Chester County and spend a few days practicing short landings before bringing it back solo.

I'm currently in a situation with the paint shop about trying to get the paint work done. I'm trying not to get put off too far due to missing my slot due to the damage and trip to Sebastian for repairs. It could get painted as soon as next week or as far away as January. You can guess which I'm pushing for. If they can't or won't take me in, I'll look for another shop, but I'd prefer not to as this one does really nice work.

Oshkosh looks hopeless at this point. I just don't have enough time to get comfortable enough for an 800 mile solo trip yet. I'll probably just go commercial. I'm going to shoot for the big canard fly in at Rough River as her unveiling, hopefully in final paint.

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Here is a quick video of John's initial landing at Chester County.

More to come next week. Either paint or flying - we'll see.

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