Reid-Hillview
Users, please read (California) ...posted by Michael Coyle in the 'California' section
I'm sure more than one person on this forum is based at or has used
Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose (RHV). In case you aren't aware, RHV
is once again threatened with closure by the Santa Clara County Board of
Supervisors. An RV-6 owner friend of mine mentioned that the VAF forum
members might want to know what the story is. The executive summary is
that the county is facing a massive budget shortfall, and some local
officials believe that the answer is to sell off county assets,
including RHV.
Even if you aren't based at RHV, consider the impact this closure would
have. If the county manages to void its agreements with the FAA that
require it to keep the airport open in exchange for federal grants, it
would set a terrible precedent that would make it easier to close other
airports around the country. (The county counsel has stated in the past
that she believes this can be done.)
My reason for posting about this now is that we need your help. Local
organizations like CRAMP (www.cramp.org) and RHVAA are joining the fight
(with help from AOPA and others). Specifically, we need to support
candidates for Supervisor who believe that the airport is an
irreplaceable asset.
We're supporting Dave Cortese (www.cortese4supervisor.com) by hosting a
BBQ fundraiser for Dave Cortese on May 17th, starting at 5pm, at the
Amelia Reid Aviation Hangar at RHV. We are suggesting a minimum
contribution of $100, which when you think about it buys only 20 gallons
of 100LL for your airplane in most of CA.
If you can't make it to the BBQ but donate to the candidate anyway,
please mention that you are a pilot and that you support the candidate's
efforts to sustain Reid-Hillview. Alternately, we welcome donations to
the CRAMP-PAC (see http://cramp.org/cramp-pac/).
Please feel free to PM me if you want additional information. Or if you
feel this sort of post is objectionable. Thank you.
Advertiser's Corner
...sent in by the advertisers of this
site. New RV-12 Tool
Kit Being Offered By Avery Tools ...from the Averys, "We have a new tool
kit for the RV-12 builders, based on the recommended tool list from the
Van’s RV-12 builders manual. For the first 25 RV-12 Tool Kits we
sell you get a free VAF Hat & T-shirt
(need to know size of the shirt you want). There will be a donation
going to Make-A-Wish for each hat / shirt given away in this promotion,
courtesy of Avery Tools.
Bob & Judy, Ken & Mimi Avery"
1.800.OK.AVERY to order.
Thu May 8, 2008
1253z Wednesday
evening I finished the FARs section of the King IFR DVDs and
added a little table at the top of that section
showing how the IFR rating progress is....well....progressing.
AIMs next... There's hope for me yet <g>.
Updated the 'Travels to Date' map on Flash's page (www.N617AR.com).
I needed to add a trip line for a flight last year up to Petit Jean, AR.
I should have added a line down to Houston, because it
flew down down there once with Ironflight as PIC, but since I
wasn't in the plane I didn't count it. Paul can start his own map
of trips he's taken in my plane
.
Hope you have a great Thursday!!!
Update on Flash's Facelift
The OAT probe and remote compass are installed. Monk took
these pictures of the O2 doubler plate Tony made up to mount my bottle
where I can reach it. The bottle is now mounted (sorry for the
blurry pic). Work continues...
Newly installed O2 bottle mount...
Some more pics of the remote
compass install
(opens new window)
POTUS over Waco Thu-Sun (daughter getting married)...fair
warning.
Aircraft Spruce Sale (Georgia Location May 17th)...sent in by
Desiree in their Marketing Dept.
"We have an event coming up in our Georgia location which is our Aircraft
Spruce East Super Sale & Fly-In. The link on our website with the
information is:
www.aircraftspruce.com/eastcoastSupersale.php
Thank you,
Desiree" [ed. ...from their site: "There will be many vendors in attendance as
well as prize giveaways, discounted products and free
hotdogs and sodas!"]
Rene Felker's RV-10 POH ...Rene
sent this in and I put it in the POH section. You can use it as a
starting point for compiling your RV-10 POH.
Canoe: Mike in Kentucky
"Just wanted everyone to see I'm really building something also and just
not posting. Mike H came over this last Sunday and helped me
finish riveting the forward skins on the plane."
Safety Probable
Cause #57: Out Of Control
...from avweb's reprint of a June '07 IFR Refresher article
On the morning of Jan. 18, 2000, a King Air Model C-90, on a Part-91,
single-pilot, IFR flight from Columbus, Ohio, crashed into the guy wire
of a 460-foot AGL radio tower on approach to the Somerset-Pulaski
County--J.T. Wilson Field Airport (KSME) in south-central Kentucky. The
pilot and four passengers were killed in the subsequent crash. Somerset
weather at the time of the crash was IFR, but with good surface
visibility -- not what might be considered a challenge for the PIC who
had logged nearly 20,000 hours of flight time during his career. During
the post-crash investigation, discrepancies in the pilot's total flight
time logged were noticed, but were not significant enough to most likely
relate to the crash.
continue
Correction
Regarding the Date of the June 1st RV Fly-In at Bloomsburg:...this
from Jim Lewellyn, "Thank you very much for posting our RV fly-in at the
Bloomsburg airport (N13) on your main VAF page! The fly-in is a
two-day event beginning the morning
of Saturday, May 31st and ending the afternoon of Sunday, June 1st. The
fly-in dates listed on your main VAF page are incorrectly listed as May
31st, June 1st, and June 2nd. We would all love to see you (all)
at our fly-in! J Thank you."
Miscellaneous Forum
Server Update
I signed up for a 'total server maintenance' package with my ISP
yesterday. Nutshell it means that they will do all the patching
and virus protection required for the forums box from this point
forward. They have people in the building around the clock
watching the status of servers - mine is now in the list. If it
goes down at 3am, they will have a man on it before I even find out
there is a problem. What does it mean on your end? Nothing,
really. For me it's mostly peace of mind - that and an extra
$100/mo in expenses <grin>. The cost of progress... ;^)
Anywho, the goal is, of course, to keep the forums up and running and
helping RVators network whenever they want to.
Out and
About: Scott Flandermeyer Sporting Site Gear (v2.0) ...from Scott, "Another day on the job!"
Out and
About: Richard King of Norway Sporting v1.0 Site Gear "My name is Richard King and I'm (temporally) living in
Stavanger Norway (map).
I have a RV-4 (N3544X) back in Houston. I am also active in scale R/C
sailplanes and a member of the Albatross R/C sailplane club here in
Stavanger. We had a meet this weekend in Nome Norway in Telemark.
Thought you would be interested in some of our sailplanes. I got to fly
my friends 1/2 scale ASG-29. It has a wingspan of 9 meters (yes, that's
right around 29.5 feet) and weights 29 Kgs (x2.2= 64 Lbs). He also has
short wings with only 7.5 meters (around 24.5 Feet). It has a
functional water ballast system. I also flew another friends 1/2.5 (40%)
SHK sailplane (V-tail in the background of the picture). It has a
wingspan of 6.8 meters (just over 22 feet). Thermals were great and a
good time was had by all. At one point we had 8 sailplanes in one
thermal all fighting for lift and trying to keep from running into each
other. We all survived and all are home safe.
Richard King"
Wed May 7, 2008
1319z I spent
the majority of Tuesday sitting around the house sick - proof again that
children are essentially walking Petri dishes! Cough, sniffle....
Lots of rain around N.TX today...doubt many
will be flying. Hope you have a nice Wednesday!
The CFO Has Updated The RV White Pages(by Susie)
The RVWPs currently contain contact information for
(2,451) RV planes and projects in
(26) countries.
Pics of Central TX Airshow '08...courtesy Bruce Pauley (7A) "Here's some pics from the airshow this weekend in
Temple. I will be posting some good RV related video's in the next
couple of days. I hope everyone enjoys the pics."
One thing I really like about these
free Picasa Web Albums is
that you can maximize your screen, click 'Slideshow' and get
very large versions of the images. I like to click the 'pause'
icon
and just use my right/left arrow keys to navigate.
More RV-12 Construction Photos...courtesy Jim Cone
"After a couple of days having to work late, I finally got back to the
plane. I worked on the flaperons. Here is the link to the latest
pictures 5-6-08. Sharp eyed viewers will notice that I made a
mistake on the pivot brackets in the last set of pictures. I did not
make them the correct width. Fortunately I caught my error when I
started to back drill them to the spar. They were cut to the correct
width and drilled to the spar. I am up to 120 hours in the last picture.
I should finish the flaperons in a couple of days."
VAF Family Welcome To
The VAF Forums: David
Poucand (France), Jim Tatlock (Australia Victoria)
Milestones
Painted! Alf Olav Frog / Norway
"Just wanted to shear another
big moment with you folks: Today we picked up my -7 from the paintshop
and hauled it to the airport for final assembly We also put the HS
on today and one of my six (!) man building team had a RV-grin putting
it on! (Me too!) By tomorrow evening we'll hopefully have the rest
of the tailfeathers on! Then wings, then.... the last zilloin
tasks.... Isn't RV-building GREAT??!! :-)))"
Tue May 06, 2008
0857z I met
Randy (my A&P) over at his hangar Monday morning so we could start
working on some temporary IFR equipment work that needs doing.
I'm about to continue actual hood time and would like to have my 5-year old
IFR-loaded (but used as VFR) plane gone over with a critical eye.
I have 6.0 hrs simulated hood time in my logbook from years back
(pre-RV). At least it's a start <g>.
Randy's going to re-run some
of the static system to a higher standerd, install my oxygen bottle in
the way I've seen him do it on another airplane, help me trace out some
issues I'm having with some instruments and generally give the old girl
a gook look over. Locking down all the wires good and tight.
I'd been there about five minutes
and the wingtip was
already off - that's where the remote compass is going (a few hours
later it was mounted). I stayed and helped for an hour but had to
get back home after that.
Now for the real question you're probably asking yourself - why do I use an A&P on some of this stuff
when I can legally do it myself? Good question. My answer is
I look at an airplane parked on the ground and think "What's the best
angle to get a good picture?" Randy looks at the same airplane and
his first thought is, "What is wrong with that airplane?"
Fundamentally different mindsets. I've seen his work over the
years and spend time hanging out with him weekly. I trust him,
quite literally, with my life. Well worth a few hours of his
billable time in my opinion - and he ALWAYS finds stuff to adjust/fix.
Just the other day he rode his moped up as I was about to get in and fly
and said, "Hey, you got a loose screw backing out on this fairing."
I'd missed it...
Other items: Got the cap sighting pic from Wish from the other weekend out at the
Byron Nelson tournament.
Updated the article
with the pic. Also updated the RV
Hotel section with some new/corrected info. Still plowing
through the King DVDs on IFR and trying to inch through the 400+ emails in
Outlook I need to look at!
I have some updates that need installing on the forum server in the next
few days - getting a good backup tonight. You might see the box
down for a few minutes at a time over the next few days as it reboots.
Sorry in advance for any inconveniences.
Have a great Tuesday!
First Flight (5/5/08): Bob Condrey RV-10...info and pic
sent in by Bob and added to the RV-10 Registry
related:
The
RV-10 Forum
Winner: Larry Pardue!!!!
Susie got the donations all up to date earlier Monday on the office
computer (published live this coming Friday), so in the evening I went
to random.org and got it to generate
15 columns of integers between 1 and 1600. Then I closed my eyes
and wiggled the mouse a few times all around the screen and let
go....cursor was resting on #656 (a guy who hadn't donated in the
previous 12 months). Then I did it again and it came up the same.
Third time was a charm: Larry Pardue (VAF#709) sent in a donation
on 9/17/07.
Larry, the April donator
appreciation prize is a good one. A free SPOT satellite tracking
device courtesy Greg Wilkinson of
findmespot.com valued at $170.
Let me know where to ship it if you're interested. If you don't
want to sign up for the satellite service ($99/yr basic...$158/yr
basic+tracking), you can certainly sell the unit for whatever you can
get and I'll ship it to that person instead.
Thanks again to the many fine folks who send in a yearly donation
and to Greg for the unit to donate!
Advice from the Net…..What Can You Trust?...by Paul Dye
"I was chatting with an RV owner yesterday, someone who has a number of
airplanes and bought a nicely-built RV-8 that he just loves to fly, but
didn’t have time in his life to build. We were talking about tail wheel
mods and a few other things, and I suggested that he ask his questions
on the forums here at VAF to tap into the considerable knowledge base.
His response was interesting - he’s been here before, but his concern
about asking questions (or more generally, using information found here)
could be summed up as “who do you trust?” He pointed out that on many
topics and questions, if you read an entire thread, you will see
diametrically opposed advice and answers to the same question. So what
does a non-builder, or new builder do? Without the experience to
understand and interpret the results, they can be just as lost as they
were before they wandered in the door….."
continue
Buddy O' Mine Tony has an old O2 system he'd like to offer.
The plumbing fittings were already mounted in a portable box, so you
could take that apart if you wanted to mount in the RV. He wants
$300 and can be reached at 817.495.2579 if interested.
VAF Family Welcome To
The VAF Forums: Russel
McNeil (SC), Alan Cook (NV)
Milestones Guinness World Record: 35-ship at OSH Last Year...sent
to me by Gary Sobek
Mon May 5, 2008
1123z Milestone
kinda day in the Reeves household - I met
my lovely bride Susie on this day 25 years ago. I'd do it all
again in a heartbeat.
Friday I went out to just wipe the bugs
off Flash...and ended up doing (10)
touch-n-go's instead. The last (8) times I've been in the plane
I've had a passenger (Susie), and I'd sorta forgotten what it felt like
to fly solo. Got in the
groove around TnG #6. High approach, low, right hand, left hand, flaps
up/mid/down, simulated engine loss....got them all covered in this one
trip. Stiff xwind from the left gave big burbles off the hangars
for runway 35 and the opportunity to ride on the left wheel for a second
or three on each takeoff run. Good times (and I need the
practice).
My personal favorite part is that 'tingle' on the back of my neck when I have the field at
my 10 o'clock in a descending turn to a flare - like those old clips of
Corsairs coming aboard the carrier. The morning light, the long
shadows off the trees cast on a dark green carpet of farmland, pattern
all to myself....oh baby.
Later met
Jeremy Gruenke and Roger Ping from Arizona. They had just flown in
Jeremy's RV to GLO Custom for paint. One pretty panel, IMHO.
(pics)
Saturday Tate woke with a fever, so he didn't play soccer.
Your VansAirForce.net Comets lost the game (I found out later). Life.
Tater laid on the couch and I spent a few hours with Marthajane and John
King studying for my IFR test. Progress
made.
Sunday was all family time...and dealing with the head cold our daughter
gave me <g>. No flying. Hope you had a great weekend and a
really nice Monday.
(images of Jeremy Gruenke's RV)
First Flight: Zack Spivey's RV-8A
"The first flight of N912PS
was on April 21. We had the DAR inspection on Saturday April 19. Glenn
Barron flew the first flight. After the flight we spend some time fixing
a leaking fuel tank and other tweaking. Wayne Petrus, who is a co-owner
of the aircraft, flew the next 10 or so hours. I finished transition
training with Dave Austin on April 26. Yesterday, I got to fly her for
the first time."
more
New RV-12 Tool
Kit Being Offered By Avery Tools ...from the Averys, "We have a new tool
kit for the RV-12 builders, based on the recommended tool list from the
Van’s RV-12 builders manual. For the first 25 RV-12 Tool Kits we
sell you get a free VAF Hat & T-shirt
(need to know size of the shirt you want). There will be a donation
going to Make-A-Wish for each hat / shirt given away in this promotion,
courtesy of Avery Tools.
Bob & Judy, Ken & Mimi Avery"
1.800.OK.AVERY to order.
Trip Write-Up: Art, Architecture, and Beer?...from Pete
Howell
"What do all of these have in common? Milwaukee! Whoda thunk that
the home of Harley, Miller and the Brewers would have one of the
country's most beautiful art museums? Well, believe it! I am lucky
in that my teen age kids still like to hang out with me, and also like
to fly in the the RV. Megan (maker of J-pole antennae) is an art and
architecture buff and has long wanted to visit the Milwaukee Art Museum
and the Calatrava designed bridge and pavillion. Today was the day. We
planned the flight last night and departed KANE early."
Out and About: Rene Bubberman Over the Tulip Fields of Holland
"At this time of year Holland gives you a spectacular view from above:
the famous Tulip fields! I thought I wanted to share that with you.
Of course this can best be seen from an RV. Greetings from the
original country from the VanGrunsven family!"
RVators In The News: The Natchez Democrat
Clyde Hollier shows fellow pilot Robert Mims the control panel of
his homemade RV8 during the Concordia Parish Airport fly-in Saturday
afternoon.
VAF Family Welcome To
The VAF Forums: Stephen
Akhurst (Vancouver), Kyle Schroeder (Windthorst, TX), Bob Kibby (TX),
Brian Brede (Ohio), Warren Arter (MS)
Milestones
Wings Mounded: Tom Velvick
"Mounted the left and right wings to the fuselage this weekend.
Now have to get the fuselage and wings jigged so can drill the hole in
the rear spar attach bracket."
Wings On: Jeff Bloomquist (and good 'man cave' entry)
"My plan is to leave the wings on until the hassle of walking around
them outways the coolness factor. That may be awhile."
Safety Added a
Few More Links To The Top of the
Weather Page (USA)...make
sure to check out the 'National Convective WX Forecast Product' link at
the top (marked with 'New' graphic). Zoom in and change the roll
from 2 hours to 24 hours. Lot of data...
Spotlighted Thread Checklists
- Will That Be Paper …. or Glass?...by Paul Dye
"Checklists - there can be little doubt that operating an aircraft
is safer if you use them. I live my whole life with checklists - we
write procedures, test procedures, edit procedures, approve procedures -
in the space business, we don't even answer the PHONE without a
checklist! The paper procedures for an average Space Shuttle mission
takes up about 5 feet of bookshelf space - that's a lot of paper! Back
when the Shuttle was designed, paper was the only way to do it. But when
the Space Station came along, new technologies presented themselves, and
the fact that procedures change quite often on a new and experimental
vehicle (that is constantly changing) and the difficulty of bringing
more paper copies to Orbit prompted us to develop electronic checklist -
procedures that live in the computer system and can be changed by
uplinking new files from the ground. In actuality, they are nothing more
than Word, HTML, and PDF documents, many with hyperlinks to make
navigating the many nested and interconnected tasks easier - but it does
cut down on the paper!"
continue
May 2, 2008
1310z Yesterday
Susie and I flew our RV-6 down to Waco to attend a funeral - Susie's
sister-in-law's Mom.
Great lady. We had 30kt headwinds for the trip down and
tailwinds on the return (1.3hrs total). Since we go to Waco more
than occasionally, and the tower doesn't talk to a lot of RV traffic,
they seem to remember us. "Welcome back. Here again, huh?"
as I taxied in to the ramp. They must have remembered the takeoff
needs of the RV because they suggested a mid-field departure so we
wouldn't have to taxi down to the far end. They cleared us for the
bravo takeoff and added frequency change approved when the wheels were
five feet off the ground (they don't get a lot of traffic). Of course, POTUS is in town this weekend, so all bets are off (lots of
support vehicles). I had the SPOT device on and got a screen print
of the flight in the beta public share app (image below). The data
only lives in it for 24hrs during the beta phase, but you're welcome
to go look and see if it's still there.
We were back home before our son got out of school. Once again,
having a a fast airplane turns an all day,
driving-back-in-rush-hour-traffic effort into something much more
manageable. Thanks again Van.
Wishing you a happy, safe and RV-filled weekend!
First 'Real' Flight N916R 'Lucy'...as
seen by Greg Piney
"This morning I witnessed the first successful of Rick Jahns'
(916Romeo) RV-7, 'Lucy'. The only problems seem to be a heavy left wing
and a balky radio. At the controls was George Wheeler, our CFI and
long-time tailwheel pilot. He said it landed like a dream. I'm sure when
Rick sees this, he will give a further report as I had to head off to
work. Makes me want to finish my -8 tonight! (Can I get 1000 hours in
before morning?). 'Lucy' had a landing accident on her first
flight last year. She's better now."
Greg Piney
RV-8 2547
Empennage Done!
More RV-12 Construction Pictures Courtesy Jim Cone
"Here are some pictures of flaperon construction. I don't know what
I did, but I ended up posting the pictures and they did not come over
with the captions so I re-did them, but when I went to the public
albums, they were already there. Beats me what happened. I don't know
how to delete one of the albums so you get two for the money. Free, of
course. When you go to the album, click on public galery and look at the
other one that has the captions."
more
EAA Honoring 30,000th Homebuilt Milestone (eaa)
"The homebuilt movement is fast approaching a major milestone;
30,000 amateur-built aircraft certificated in the United States! And
what better place to celebrate that achievement than at the event
created by homebuilders more than a half-century ago, EAA AirVenture
Oshkosh."
April 'Callback' Online...if you haven't seen it yet ...a sample, "I had decided to perform some takeoffs
and landings. The weather was marginal VFR with an observed ceiling that
looked OK. There was mist in the air. Looking north, I could see the
mountains (about 5 miles) in mist. I was taking off to the south. I
could see some occasional flashes of blue sky, and the wind was from the
south. During climbout the mist became light rain and the visibility was
becoming worse. Then the wall of white came and made the airport behind
me disappear."
VAF Family Welcome To
The VAF Forums: William
Nelson (FL), Thomas Grant (FL)
Thu May 1, 2008
1158z Wednesday
evening Charlie Kearns (RV-8) invited me over to his house to hang out
with some of the chapter 168 gang. It was the monthly 'newsletter
folding' party. Charlie lives about six minutes from us, so at
about five 'til seven I headed over. It was nice. Mel and Ann Asberry were there, as were Don Christiansen, Marvin Brott and many more
of the usual suspects. Charlie's RV-8 project was in the garage,
so several folks stayed out there. I re-upped membership in the
168 chapter there at Charlie's. Since Don is a tech counselor and knows a LOT more about doing
things correctly
than I do, I asked if he would talk about something. Anything.
It's below...
I should have put this up on the site Wednesday, but 'Carrier'
was on PBS Tuesday night and
Tate helped read
the announcements at school early the next morning (can't miss that!).
I hope you have a nice Thursday.
Paul Story Is Selling His Almost Ready To
Fly RV-7A
Paul's wife has become sick and they are forced to sell their
project. Paul wrote up a very detailed description of what he has
to offer, as well as pictures, so if you are interested in a
TRULY
almost-ready-to-fly RV-7A please take a few moments to look over what he
has to offer. Even if you aren't interested, please read the page
for me. We are a community of friends first, and Paul is a friend.
Please keep him and his wife in your prayers.
We'll keep the graphic on this project (in green below) in the
current day's news until it sells.
click image for more
info
Words of Wisdom: Don Christiansen Discussing Proper Grounding
Technique ...words of wisdom from folks that know more than me
(which means pretty much everybody). I plan to find a place to
store the audio clips as I get a few more. This is the first of
(hopefully) many dozen. dr
(about
.wma - I used this format because it is 1/3 the file size as .mp3)
SPOT Update
I talked on the phone with the guy who created the device today.
Nice guy. The web app where you can share your tracking with
friends currently only stores 24hrs worth of data (because it's in
beta). In a week or so he promised 7 days worth of previous
returns, and in a month or so 30 days worth. Just FYI....
related:
FindMeSpot.com
Monthly Donation Prize for May Will Be Picked Over The Weekend
Talked with Greg at SPOT. They are giving away a SPOT unit
($149) for the May donator appreciation prize. The winner will
have to pay the additional money per month (about $8) for the tracking
feature if they want to use that (basic 911 service is free). Susie and I will pick a
winner over the weekend,
so if
you haven't donated in the past 12 months you still have a couple
days to get in the running on this one.
VAF Family Welcome To
The VAF Forums: David
Motley (TX), Jeffrey Stuart (TX), John Cobb (TN), Mike Quam (CO)
Miscellaneous OT:
R/C F-16 w/afterburner 'effect'...brought to my attention by
Danny King
Wed Apr 30, 2008
1229z Around 1050am Tuesday,
spur of the moment, Susie suggested we go fly. We decided on Gainesville for
lunch (actually in nearby Muenster). Have I told you lately how
blessed I am to have Susie in my life? It's about a 9min flight
Any Weekend RV Plans? ...have an event you want to
promote? Put it in the
.
.
Susie got the donations all up to date earlier Monday on the office
computer (published live this coming Friday), so in the evening I went
to 
