Does building or restoring an airplane make you smarter? For the sake of the argument lets consider “smarter” as a tangible enhancement in problem-solving skills. After building my RV-8 I pondered this very subjective question. Part of me felt like the almost 5 years of daily construction have translated into better logic and reasoning skills,…

RV-10 In Progress A good friend of mine, Bob Leffler, is nearing completion of his beautiful RV-10. I have seen this airplane materialize over the years and it is really going to be a nice ship. As he is starting to get into the firewall forward parts of the build  he asked for some assistance…

Balancing Flying with Family editorial If you are a family man or woman, you need to balance your flying activities with your home-life. Certainly every situation is different so many of these points won’t apply. If your whole family is into flying, you are probably in the best possible position and the envy of many…

Naming Contrary Mary How did my RV-8 come to be called ‘Contrary Mary’? Early in the construction of my RV-8 I needed to decide on a paint scheme. I wanted something that would pop, the traditional white base with some kind of accent strip(s) wasn’t going to cut it. Lots of RV-8 has pseudo-military paint schemes so…

This is my first episode, not sure why I called it #0, just seemed appropriate.  I am totally new to producing a podcast, but I listen to them all the time. To be fair, this won’t really be a podcast in the traditional sense. The audiocast will simply be an audio version of posts that…

Building your own airplane? This question rarely gets asked, most pilots (or even layman) go right for the jugular, “How long did it take? Was it hard? How many years? How much did it cost?”. They skip right over the more important question – “What is it like to build an airplane?”