In the morning I woke and prepared the plane for a couple of rides. First, I gave a ride to Michael Joyce, a prospective builder from South Dakota (who builds replicas of the "Lost In Space Robot", in case anyone was looking for one). Michael had been an airforce pilot in B-52's and B-1's, so he's had a bit of experience :-). We took off and headed south to get out of the area, and I let Michael fly the plane. We demonstrated slow flight and stalls (turning too), flew around a bit, and then came back in. I parked the plane at the end of the taxiway near homebuilt camping to keep it out of the way and not have to taxi on the grass TOO much.
After eating some breakfast (on Michael! - yay, free food!), I went back to the plane and readied it for the next ride, which was for Yair Gil, the first Israeli builder (as far as I know) who has made TREMENDOUS progress in 8 months - his airframe is almost done. I had tried to give him a ride at Sun & Fun, but the timing didn't work out. This time, it did. Riding in the back would be Dave Barr and his wife, Toni, who are prospective builders. We loaded up and headed out, trailed by a Pulsar who's pilot apparently couldn't tell the difference between a heading of 150 degrees and 250 degrees, nor could tell the difference between the words "before" and "after". The controllers here have a LOT of patience, believe me. We headed south and I let Yair fly around a bit, and demonstrated slow flight and stalls (sound familiar?). Dave was filming from the back seat, so there may be some digital footage later on. We did some steep turns and then came back in.
The landing was uneventful, except for a Lancair that cut us off in between Ripon and Fisk (people with money think they can do anything :-) ), and a woman who was apparently trying to land at OSH, claimed to have the NOTAM, but neither had the faintest clue as to what she should be doing, nor where she was. As I said, the controllers here are saints - she still has only one defecation orifice - they just vectored here southwest in a friendly manner.
After landing, Yair was extremely generous in his donation to the gas fund, and in fact (although he may not know it) will be funding the COZY builders web pages for the next 6 months. Way too much! I gave Dave a chance to sit in the front seat (he's a big guy), and we talked a bit about some simple, non-structural changes that can easily be made to accommodate larger folks.
Later, I walked into town to buy that towel that I needed, and took a shower mid-day. The showers were empty, and if felt great! I then ran into John Vermeylen (he of MY left seat checkout prior to my first flight) and his girlfriend Donna (also a pilot). They had flown in with their COZY MKIV the day before. I wandered through the fly-market looking for magneto gears, but couldn't find any, and then talked to Lightspeed again and became convinced that the flywheel pickup would probably be more than sufficient, and cheaper (although a bit more work).
I ate dinner at the CSA (Central States Association) weenie roast at the explorer post with all the other
cool canard folks, and we yakked about airplanes till after dark, then I spent
some quiet time talking to Curt Smith back at the planes before hitting the sack.
Curt's alright - he's one of the few Democrats among the generally conservative
airplane folks :-).
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