Another fine mess you've got me into....
This is Dave. He be the one that got me into this mess. Well, it's hardly a mess. Hmmm.. Maybe financially it's a mess, but nonetheless I'm grateful to him for getting me interested in building planes.
This is me. It was the coolest shot I could find, even though the quality is a bit lame. It's quite a contrast to the picture of Dave! Hehehehe!
Before Dave moved, we used to fly together a lot. Little trips out, shooting approaches, a few cross countries to Chicago, and some punching holes in the sky for no real reason other than that it's a lot of fun. We used to rent new C-172's from Grosse Isle near Detroit, but it was getting quite expensive. This prompted us to look for a plane of our own. Dave had owned a Bonanza once, and they're nice planes, so I set out looking for one. There we're a few on the market at the time, and I went through them all and tried to come up with something worth having. After a while doing this, we decided to let the market refresh itself for a few months. It was during this time that this wonderful idea came up.
Dave suggested the RV-7. I'd never even heard of one. I wasn't so sure that we'd have the abilities and drive to do this. Nevertheless, I checked out Van's website, and was suitably impressed. We chatted about it over a few beers, and I ordered the tail kit.
I'd had my name down for a while around the Detroit Metro area for a hangar. There was a four year waiting list at the time, when I got a call from Jeffrey Meek at Black Eagle Aviation, asking if I would be interested in a new hangar at Willow Run YIP. I went down and checked it out, and signed up. This was a year prior to even starting the project. I couldn't turn this one down really. It was brand new, and I knew we'd need it eventually, so I bit the bullet.
We spent some time building a 12'x4' work table that was solid and level. It's really heavy, and isn't going anywhere! It's been nice to have such a big table. You can work on some pretty big stuff without it hanging off any of the sides. Underneath makes some pretty useful storage too for delicate skins for example.
We got some gorilla rack shelving for our power tools, and we ordered up the RV Builders kit from Avery. We also hung up a lot of fluorescent lights. Good lighting really helps out. These hangars a generally pretty dark. These really brightened the place up. What's more, they're only $5 a piece from Orange Hell (Home Depot).
We built a paint booth. This was our first attempt at a 'stressed skin' structure. We used flimsy wood for the frame. Boy was it flimsy too. By the time we'd gotten the plastic on it, it was pretty rigid. We enclosed all the sides, and also double lined the floor to protect the new epoxy on the hangar floor. We put a box fan outlet with electrostatic filter, and an electric heater inlet to warm the place up when it was cold outside.
Since we started the plane, as with everybody else I guess, the tool collection has grown dramatically. The baby drill press has been replaced with a pillar drill, there's a desk and a sofa, left over from when Dave moved away, and some carpet where we walk the most so our feet don't get too cold in winter.
We started meeting people around the hangars as time went by. Most notably, Mike Kraus, who was building an RV-4 at the time. He had it tough, no pre-drilled holes, or precut sheets... The list goes on. Anyone who builds a plane virtually from scratch gets my respect! Mike's -4 has since flown, and been painted. I think he has well over 100 hours on it now, with trips to Osh Kosh and Sun N Fun to boot. Mike has helped us considerably in our endeavour, for which we're thankful. His experience (and his bending machine!) have been a boon. Mike's now working on an RV-10, so he gets to see how easy we have it with a pre-punch kit!
This is Mike's plane on first engine start day. Mike's the one in the shorts!
Last summer I answered an ad on one of the discussion groups about hangar space wanted in the area, and subsequently met Cameron. He was in the process of building a slow build RV-9A, and was rapidly running out of room at home. He moved into the hangar, and I watched his plane rapidly take shape. Before long, he'd caught up with us doing the slow quickbuild (as I now call it). We painted the interiors of the planes (see fuselage page) at the same time, which was convenient. Him racing along and being ready for paint forced me to get to the same point. Cameron now has his own hangar, next door but one. We all have keys to each others hangars so we can nip in there and steal some parts, use some tools or steal some beer! It's a good crowd, we can bounce ideas of each other, and if the idea is stupid, you can guarantee that there'll be some joking around about it! Thanks guys!