Official Luthiers Forum!

Are you getting my PMs, my emails, my web contact form submissions, and even a phone call?

As Jim Rome would say - have I been "Blocked"???

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

202 views so far - but no response from Todd. Must be buried in sawdust somewhere.

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

Blocked! Blocked! Blocked!
Get a new phone or get a new forum.

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sweat the small stuff.

flyings not anything like that here !
a couple years ago i took an introductory "lesson"...the pilot had to get clearance from the contollers for literally every move we made, and we were constantly scanning the skies for traffic- at literally any given time there are probably 20-40 planes within 10 miles. ORD, MDW, Paulwaukee, Dupage, Schaumburg are a few of the local airports...it didn't seem like fun at all, just highly regulated tedium, and the experience turned me off so much i never went through with my plan to get a license

What are you flying there, Todd?

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Yeah, same question.

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

the youtube headline says its an Austrian made Diamond DA-40.....i also had a ride in a Diamond once

I've flown a DA-40 and she's a beautiful aircraft. It just wants to fly! I have my private licence. I recall the first time I flew it, it literally lept off the runway. It was a great treat to fly versus the Cessna's and the Piper I usually fly. Great vid Todd - thanks for sharing!

Rob

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

I enjoyed the video Todd, thanks! You make it look easy!!

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Cool....the constant speed prop means it has a IO-360 (180 hp). So that thing scoots along then. Fun fun.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Diamond's nice, but I prefer my rides a little more old school.

You guys are killing me!!! I lost my medical 15 years ago... BPV.

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Jim Womack

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. "
Will Rogers

Great stuff guys! I'm a huge aviation buff. Got my private in 1967 but now I just grab a ride when I can and dream. I certainly recognize the Citabria cockpit. The J3 in the picture rented for $7/hr in 1967! I loved it. Also flew a Citabria quite a bit. It was $10.

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

I sold my last airplane about two years ago....a Piper Warrior. I almost bought an RV6 instead of it but my knees rode on the dash and it wasn't at all comfortable to sit in. I bought that Piper from a guy in Fullerton, CA and flew up to Spokane, WA...adventure. Had a Cessna 310 about 20 years ago....and got 500 hours of twin time in it. I flew that all over the southwestern U.S. ...building time with other guys paying for the gas. I was a CFI, CFII, MEI in those days and did ATP instruction but I haven't instructed in ten years. Someday maybe I'll tell you why never to fly KAL.

I flew every kind of ultralight and instructed in those too.

I almost got a job flying aerial tours of Glacier Bay and delivering mail around Juneau, AK but I botched the check-ride. Having prepared thoroughly down in Los Angeles in the same airplane for dead stick landings with a friend that previously worked for LAB flying service in Juneau....I came up short of the runway because there were four guys in the airplane and we sank faster. I was nervous and didn't think it through. It's funny how one single stupid little thing can change the course of your life. That was one of them. I'd probably have gotten that job and moved my family to Alaska.

I did spend a week of flying up there...had to go around due a bull moose on the runway in Haines. Saw my first and only bear. Saw Glacier Bay and Skagway from the air. Saw Gull Island with it's western shore covered in walruses. Flew for almost two hours up and down the Tracy Arm (fiord) trying to find a Kodaik life boat after a float plane halfway sank because it hit some chip ice when landing...and broke one of the pontoons...which filled with water. National Geographic had hired LAB Flying Service to get them out there to photograph the tidewater glaciers of Tracy Arm as they calved. The plane (a Lake) was hanging upside down in the water at the end of the Arm. I was up in the air flying a Piper Dakota up and down this fiord as the owner of the company was steering the barge that was on the away to get the airplane through icebergs that congested the Arm. The Kodiak raft was deployed at the time of the accident and saved the pilot and photographers life. The owner was more interested in spotting that raft than whether or not I was going to crash into either of the rock walls I was turning within. You had to actually deploy flaps, apply full power and do a steep turn to safely change directions in that fiord...a maneuver I had practiced with my friend...but not in a Dakota. It's a relatively visceral existence in Juneau when you're a kid from Los Angeles.

I miss it. Mostly I miss IFR. It's like a video game with your butt on the line....and then you pop out below the clouds and your airport is right there. That never gets old.

Anyway...look at me...jabbering on...flying stories...sorry.

Flying is a passion...pure adventure. Thanks for the videos, Todd...John.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

More pilots on here than I had thought. Here is a picture of my last plane, 1966 M20c, that I sold a couple years back.

Like everyone else there are a ton of flying stories that could be told... Used to fly 4-5 days a week between students and skydivers. But with the terrible economy we have now, the students are few and far between. Been over 6 months since I did any flying. Not complaining, but sure do miss it.

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That's one of the things I regret I couldn't learn from my dad before he died. He was a late WW2 era Navy pilot and instructor. Then he went on to fly transport from the west coast to the Philippines (before I was born) . I have several of his flight logs. He even got to saddle up a P-51 a couple of times - in the day that is, not a restoration - full military battle ready....that must have been a blast!
-C

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Freeborn Guitars
and home of BeauGuard©

Quote:

That's one of the things I regret I couldn't learn from my dad before he died. He was a late WW2 era Navy pilot and instructor.

my pops (still alive) flew for the RCAF in the '50s and '60s, also as a military instructor, then commercially...he never encouraged me to fly, nor did he ever fly privately!
i think most of his time in the military was logged in Harvards and F-86 Sabres

I haven't flown in years. Sold most of my gear, including my beloved Bose X headsets. I don't generally enjoy flying from place to place. I just like having fun, doing some mountain flying, buzz down a river, do some aerobatics, etc. The Hartford, CT area is really just not very friendly to stuff like that, plus I can't really rent anything fun and it's WAY too expensive, anyhow. I think I used to rent Citabrias for $75 wet. 7KCABs were maybe $85. Champs were like $55 or $60. When I really needed to go a little faster, I think I could rent an Arrow for $120.

re: RV-6
I flew a couple of those. They're cramped. The RV-7 is a bit roomier. We were building an RV-7 for a while, sold that kit and switched to a Bearhawk. Then we moved to the east coast and sold it all off. No point in building anything out here. The time and money required is just more than we're willing to dedicate to it, but I still wouldn't mind going out every now and then just to have some fun.

If I were going to build/buy a plane for myself, it would probably be an RV-3 or a Pitts. RV-3 is more practical and a lot of fun, but I definitely wouldn't kick a Pitts out of bed!

My dad had a lot of different planes over the years. My favorite was a Bellanca Viking with what I seem to recall was a 300 Lycoming. Fast, fun and maneuverable.

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.