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Those were built in my home town, Alexandria MN. All handmade. The fuselages, and final assembly was at the airport factory and the wing works was in town. They had a room in the factory full of women sewing the fabric on the control surfaces. The wings were spruce and I have several billets of near quartersawn Sitka from the plant. A guy gave them to me and wants me to make an archtop for him using them. The Viking had mojo up the wazoo.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Thanks for that Terrence. It was over 25 years ago, so I'm going on memory. I do remember the fabric covering. His first plane was a 2 seater Taylorcraft with a wooden prop. I can still remember him propping it by hand. That was back in the 60s.

All I wanted was a shooting board that Todd made for me a couple years ago.... and now I'm dreaming of flying in his plane.

THAT is one sweet looking ride!

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P A U L B U R N E R
Burner Guitars

Awesome to see so many aviation types. My first flight in a Citabria taught me that cold was not a good breakfast before aerobatics - I didn't lose it but got a little green on about the 3rd hammerhead.

Most of my flying in the AF as a flight test engineer in F-4s and later in C130s. Also did some work in T38, C141, and AWACS.

Didn't (couldn't) take a camera with me very often but managed to photograph myself over the Mojave desert out of Edwards AFB in an F4D around 1984.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I'd know you anywhere!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

That video was out of Fox, not too many miles west. I was out of there a few years when I was working on a project at EAFB. I remember well the long walk from the office out to the very tip of the spur where my plane was. Had to use leather soled shoes....rubber started melting. Holy cow, it gets hot out there in the middle of nowhere with no shade.

re: not taking a camera
Yeah, they were sticklers for that. LOL. It became a problem for us because camera phones became popular just around when I was out there, and we had a heck of a time finding cameras without phones. I think it finally got resolved somehow....I guess it must be by now since you can't really buy a camera without a phone anymore. You certainly do see some strange things in that area, though.

Mine is two slabs of MDF, a strip on top for a stop, and a strip on the bottom for a bench hook. I didn't even bother with the angled wedges. Also, I need the full width when I'm shooting electric guitar bodies and other thicker pieces.

I used MDF because I found that lots of plywood has enough variability in thickness that it can toss off the 90 degree angle. MDF seems to be a little better.

Mine is two slabs of MDF, a strip on top for a stop, and a strip on the bottom for a bench hook. I didn't even bother with the angled wedges. Also, I need the full width when I'm shooting electric guitar bodies and other thicker pieces.

I used MDF because I found that lots of plywood has enough variability in thickness that it can toss off the 90 degree angle...and did on my first shooting board. MDF seems to be a little better.

Small world, isn't it? It was an interesting place to work at an interesting time. I was at Edwards from '84 to'99. Saw and got to do a lot of cool stuff. Sure did get tired of the wind though.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Great pics and vids guys! Nice to see so many pilots on here too. I'll throw a quick vid out of my own. I was out for a night flight with a fellow pilot and I filmed as we did some night circuits at CYPQ (Peterborough). In the vid we're landing on 27. There's a displaced threshold as the runway was recently extended to the east and they hadn't officially opened it yet. We're up in a C172.



Rob

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Rob Flindall
Flindall Guitars
http://www.flindallguitars.com
https://www.facebook.com/FlindallGuitars

Had to include this - 1978 on the San Blas Islands off Panama. Couldn't cross the range to the pacific coast as per flight plan due to being socked in and made an emergency landing to bum enough gas to make it to Panama CIty 4 days later. That's me in the blue Martin shirt next our 1946 Cessna 140. We circumnavigated the Caribbean in 2 months by island hopping from Florida to Trinidad and following the coast back to Texas. Oh to be young and foolish again
Tim