Big News!

Well in my last post I discussed building new wings.  I still have plans to build new wings however it will have to be put on hold for about a year.  Yesterday I got great news.  For those who don’t know I work as a helicopter flight test engineer (Civilian Aero Engineer) for NAVAIR which is short for the Naval Air Systems Command.  We do all the flight test for naval aviation.  Well it turns out that a very select group of us Federal Government Engineers have an opportunity to apply for the United States Naval Test Pilot School http://www.navair.navy.mil/USNTPS/.  Yup same school that John Glenn and every Naval Astronaut Attended.  Since I started work out of college 4.5 years ago I have always dreamed of going to TPS.  Yesterday I found out that I was selected to attend as a member of Class 136 Fixed Wing Flying Qualities and Performance course.  This is huge news but also a life changer.  I will get to fly tons of cool airplanes such as T-38’s, T-6 Texan II, F-18’s maybe a Mig 15 and a number of other different aircraft.  I will have to devote my life for 10 months starting in February to school. It will be a lot of work but also very rewarding.

Unfortunately I will have no time to work on the plane the way I have in the past 3 years.  It looks as though I will have enough time to do the Wolf cowl mod but not the wings.  This is just cause I should be able to finish it before school starts in February.  Once school starts there will be no more working on the plane.  #1 mission for 10 months will be school. I know this is sad news for those who follow my blog but this is a once in a life time opportunity and there is no way I would pass it up.  I think less then 100 civilian engineers in the world have had the opportunity to attend it will be sweet and I also look forward to building new wings next winter.

New Wings!!!

Well since this was the last contest of the season and seeing that my wings are really showing their age I decided that my winter project would be to build new wings.  I have spoken with both Raven and Wolf aircraft about kits and Wolf isn’t ready yet with their kit but they owe me a call back on timing.  I have always leaned toward Raven and they have working examples of folks already building.  I have heard from others that the kit is excellent quality.  So we will see what wolf comes back with and I will make a decision then.  I plan to make this decision in the next couple of weeks.

Flying the Farmville, VA Contest

This last weekend I flew in the 2008 Mason Dixon Clash at Farmville, VA.  The weather was crappy on Friday and since I had planned on showing up on friday morning before the brief I couldn’t make it.  They ended up cancelling the contest for friday.  And continued it for Saturday.  Saturday morning I got in the plane and cruised over to KFVX in 42 minutes.  That is 174 SMPH or 15 SMPG which is awesome for a Pitts.  I did have some tail wind about 12 knots.  When i got there Intermediate was about to start.  I got registered and Tech as quick as I could.  I was the last to fly in Intermediate with 7 pilots.  I flew the known to a 79% and to 1st place but because I was late to the Brief they docked me 50 points which put me at 77% and 3rd place.  If I had known better I could have protested the 50 point peneltey but but I didn’t so I just sucked it up and continued.  Later in the day we flew our freestyles and I flew that to a 4th place finish at 77%.   On Sunday we flew the Unknown which had 3 cross box maneuvers which all had to be done correctly to end up going to correct direction on the x-axis I did 2 of them correctly but the 3rd I turned the wrong way on a 270 deg turn and zero’d the last three figures.  This put me at last in the unknown and 6th out of 7 overall…Oh well.