Rumours of my quitting are greatly exaggerated....

It's been a long few years, no need to post once in a while pics of slow progress, so here's some catching up.


We've been working on beautiful, crisp fall days




and sometimes late into the night.




And winter days. I miss the rustic feel of my old hangar, but it's REALLY nice to have a weather tight hangar and HEAT!!!!





The focus has been on getting OspRey ready for paint, going over every seam and layup, looking for blobs of Polybrush or fabric peeling up.




Dan Older of Old Aire Seaplanes on Lake Whatcom will be doing the painting, and he's a perfectionist, like me. Dan is very popular in the aviation community up here, and OspRey is patiently waiting her turn.




And the hangar door got some needed maintenance.




Turns out my Ameri-King AK-451 was the subject of an emergency AD a few years ago. We were hoping it would pass the test and still be operable but no-go. Not even dropping it onto the concrete hangar floor was enough to set it off. *groan*....




When I cut the notch for the flap pushrod I was new to metal working, the manual said make it .75"-1.0", so I made it 1". After looking at other SeaReys I realized how disproportionate the 1" gap looked, ordered new pylon side covers, and cut it to .75". Much better.




I have also made the acquaintance of a gypsy metalworker named TJ, who travels the west coast only accepting jobs that interest him. We met one night at the hangar, OspRey and him talked and she cooed at him. End result, TJ is going to help me redo the panel and a couple other things.

 


Here's an example of his work. This is the old pylon side cover, with a crimp at the end I did to make it sit tight against the aft pylon tube. 




TJ gave me a demo of his mad skills that night








Niiiiiccceeeee......


We're also working on the nose area, first step was to remove the old, weak plywood battery support that was already showing signs of cracking. We're going to put in a bulkhead for the battery like on the new hulls, and move the ELT to the nose area to get it away from  the heater, and shift weight forward.




Part of the mods requires removing the carpet from from the dash. Heat gun, scraper, and patience.













Lastly, is this my future?

Remember when....

I've been doing a lot of cleanup in the shop the last week, no sense posting photos of me pushing a broom around. The paint booth won't be ready until mid-June, so I've been going over things that I've always meant to get back to improving or finishing or making better, mixing them in with the things that have to be done to get her flying this year, and trying to come up with a plan. We're getting there....


A special moment yesterday. Leaving for Osaka our flight plan followed the coastline north up to Pt. Arena before turning westbound. In the foreground is Dillion Beach, where I had my first solo in a red and yellow Wills Wing Super Lancer hang glider named Betsy in 1987, in the distance is Bodega Bay, where I waited tables at night for 10 years while I chased the dream. Never in my wildest fantasies did I ever think I'd see it all from a brand new 787 at FL380.
 

 

Ending and beginning

Made my final landing in the 77 last week. I told the Captain that if I bounced it I was going to go around, I was only semi-joking. I started my airline career in August 1996 as an ATR First Officer in Newark, I was on the 77 for 8 years, and I don't know what I'll miss more: flying out of Newark and getting to interact with the NY TRACON controllers, or flying the 77. But I'm coming back to the Bay Area where I grew up dreaming of being a pilot, and you can go home again.

2 days later I was in training. This is the BASIC trainer for the 78, a long way from the days of plywood mockups we used to start out in. 

I'm an analog guy in a digital world. Upper left computer is displaying today's computer based training (CBT) module, bottom left is the Aircraft Operating Manual on our company issued iPad, bottom right is my computer that I'm taking notes on. I really miss getting to mark up a paper manual. 

Delayed again, but.....

Bachelor pad sold, new house bought, year going well. What could happen?

I grew up in Alameda, CA, and read "Fate is the Hunter" for the first time when I was a kid.  In the mid-80s I learned to fly hang gliders at Dillon Beach, moved on to fixed wing aircraft, and built my time in Santa Rosa and Petaluma. Like Ernie Gann, I started my flying career at Newark Airport and for the last 17 years I've been based there, dodging Fate and learning about flying, and myself.

Recently, my company announced that they were opening a 787 base in San Francisco. When the results came out I was holding a position, and will leave soon for training. I'm going to miss the challenges of flying out of Newark, but after 12 years of commuting from Seattle the 6 hour flight each way has suddenly gotten old this last year.

25 years after my second "first solo"*, I'm coming home...

*Pilots always remember their first solo, the first time they flew an airplane without an instructor. While I solo'd a Piper Tomahawk in October 1989, I consider that my true "first solo" was my first lesson in a hang glider, when I flew a Super Lancer named Betsy by myself. Thanks, Everett.

little here, a little there... and an EVA.

Had a bit of time home and managed a few more things.

(December 2012 note: after spending time assembling the Batterman tailwheel system, I decided to go back to the stock garage door spring retract system. I was getting away from the philosophy of KISS (Keep It Simple and Standard) for my first build, and it was pointed out that is something went wrong when I was on the road, would I have the tools and expertise to fix it? Or would I feel more comfortable having Renee FedEx me new parts for PA? So while Eric had designed an elegant system, I decided to trade the parts with another, more experienced builder. Sometimes "good enough: is enough.)

With the help of some friends we set up the Batterman tailwheel retract modification. We spent a lazy day rigging, debating, undoing and redoing it. But at the end of the day when I hooked up the battery the damn thing worked on the first try.

It's not final, I want to tweak it a little but it's a big load off my mind.


With help from my minions I rearranged the hangar and tucked the wings away until next summer, when I hope to cover them, and brought the hull up front to begin prepping it for installation of the frame.

Corrosion is the airplane's enemy, so I took the tail apart and sprayed the boom tube with zinc chromate for another layer of anticorrosion.

I also took the fuel tank home, screwed the brass fittings in with some Loctite 592, and after a few days to set I put 5 gallons of gas into it for a leak check. I'll let it sit while I'm on this trip.

****note******
Adding the reinforcing rails was another one of those times where I should not have believed everything I read on the web. DO NOT add them, they're in the way of the hull/frame mate and also totally unnecessary. I've left this entry in the blog for history, and to warn others not to repeat my mistakes.

I've been perusing another builder's blog, he suggested adding some bracing to the side of the hull where the cockpit is. Sounded good to me.

Something kept niggling at the back of my head while I was doing the glassing. The next day I went "D'oh!!!!" The railing for the canopies sits on the top and extends down into the hull Sure enough, when I measured it I found I had put the brace too high up. 

The rest of the day was spent carefully using a chisel, motor tool, and sand paper to cut a notch for the railing out. No big deal, but while I was doing it I was terrified of slipping and going through the hull. Luckily I didn't. One hull repair was enough.

A fine gent named Terry Dunn works for a NASA contractor at the Johnson Space Center, and like me is a contributing writer for Fly RC magazine. He mentioned that if I was ever in Houston I should give him a call, so after my recurrent landing currency sim last week Fly RC editor Thayer Syme, his family and myself descended on Terry.

Thayer was a student of mine when I was a starving CFI back in the early '90s, and with his background he was one of those students I didn't teach so much as guide. (He loves to recollect about the times I used to fall alseep while he was doing landings.) Before going to JSC Thayer met me at the training center of the airline I work for, and it was one of those times I was able to close a circle as I showed him, his wife Ann, and young Gryffin around.

As it happened, the techs were testing the new 787 sim and we were allowed to peek in.

One of them looked back and saw Gryffin. They suddenly decided they needed to take a break from testing and the next thing I knew....

 

That's a long way from our Cessna 152, Thayer. 

Father and son. 

Of course, that was just a warmup for the next day. Terry was kind enough to take us on a tour of his workplace at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab where the astronauts train for EVAs (spacewalks) on the ISS. Yes, that's a full sized replica of the ISS inside a huge pool.

Regretfully, the full motion sims were long gone, but we were able to get to see the mockups facility where the astronauts trained.

Damn, that's small...

Inside the Shuttle mockup trainer. (image above)

I don't think the 787 was as impressive.:-)

Mom and Dad flying, Gryffin in the flight engineer seat.

Of course I'm going to sit in the left seat (and dream.). One time I was not going to be modest.

The last MCC used for the Shuttle. 

Lest we forget.