Another great ride.

I caught a ride with a pilot at our air park who is a retired United pilot with 22,000 hours logged. His choice of ride is the Beech Texan-34 which was a trainer in the 40's or 50's. So it is aerobatic worthy! What a ride!


We were out east over the Cascade foothills doing steep turns and some "whifferdills". I have pulled rolls and loops in other planes and have not felt queasy but the T-34 was just right for making one sick. As you can see it is tandem seating and it feels squirrelier in the back seat. We got pummelled on the low pass fly-by (at 185 mph) by the winds that were gusting 20 to 25 knots. Here's a more complete 2 minute video. You'll want to let click "play", then "pause" to let it load, then "play".

Of course the pass was authorized by someone on the ground with a radio(...hmmm...I wonder who?) but it was much enjoyed by Jack Lenhardt, owner of said air park. It took a while for my stomach to recover, but I did not get sick, just nauseous. After our flight pilot Ron confessed that even though he had all those hours under his belt he could still go down just like anybody else. Keep vigilant in flight!



Another interesting encounter this week happened on the day before the T-34 ride. I was pre-flighting in preparation to take my brother, Tim, flying and a man and his wife sauntered up to me in our hangar and asked how I liked driving my MINI Cooper (which was parked under the wing of our Cessna) all the while explaining that they owned one as well. The man was Jerry VanGrunsven, the brother of Richard who invented the RV airplanes, one of which we are building.

Of course I recognized him and proceeded to confirm that he was the brother Van who lives at a local air park. There had been an article written about him in the Portland Tribune (Portland Life section B, Tues., July 17, 2007, "Aloft Living") which I found on-line. A gentleman left a comment to the article stating that general aviation pilots cause global warming by flying their aircraft. I responded to him stating how fuel efficient it is flying a small plane versus flying commercial or driving because of the performance of the aircrafts. Jerry had read both comments on-line and wondered who it was that argued pro aviation since I had posted anonymously. He suddenly put it together in our conversation and thanked me profusely for the positive words supporting general aviation. All the while looking past me with craning neck at our RV-10 project. I invited him in for a look and he explained how he helped Richard build his own personal RV-10 and all he got for it was the key to the plane he carries with him in his pocket. The only thing missing to the whole encounter was my husband who would have stood proudly by our project knowing that Jerry is also a true builder at heart.