More travel planning...

Fresh off of my amazing to trip to San Francisco to rub elbows with the Ferrari crowd and race head-to-head against a professional IndyCar driver came another interesting email which read something like this: "Hey Dave, can I count on you to be on deck for another product announcement trip in case I can't get away from work?"

"Well," I immediately thought, "that depends." I read further. The details were, in a word, intriguing:

Wanted to see if you'd be interested in a potential event for *Need for Speed Most Wanted*, hosted at the Porsche Driving School in Leipzig, Germany.

The event would take place on Sunday, Sept 30th. EA would take care of your travel to Germany and hotel of course, and the event would be a full day at the Porsche driving school, followed by hands on time with *Need for Speed Most Wanted*'s single and multiplayer modes before the game hits shelves on October 30th. Here's the breakdown of activities included.

    - Hands-on never-before-seen *Need for Speed Most Wanted* gameplay
    - Porsche driving school drive-along (ride the famed Porsche track driven by a professional race car driver)
    - Porsche off-road training (hands-on driving at the Porsche off-road course)

Not surprisingly, they had me at "Porsche." I replied back in the affirmative in whatever measure of time it is that falls between "second" and "instant," and that was before I even had a chance to Google the Porsche Driving School in Leipzig, the results of which are here. It looks like a lot of fun, although I'd be lying if I didn't say that I would prefer to do my own driving on the paved track too! And that's not to say that the off-road track doesn't look interesting; it just doesn't look fast. But hey, a chance to drive a Porsche? What's not to like??

I will spare you the suspense that I endured over the ensuing couple of days waiting to see if I would be going or not and come right out and say it: I'm going!

So, let the preparations begin. Step one was to find Leipzig on a map. Despite having been stationed in Germany for two years, I had never been to Leipzig. It turns out that there is a reason for that: the Berlin Wall blocked it off from western access a week after I was born and the wall was not knocked down until three years after I had returned from my two year tour of duty.

Step two was to address the issue of the language barrier. My German language skills have eroded to the point where all I can do is proclaim a situation of pecuniary embarrassment: "Ich habe kein geld." Oh, and I suppose I could ask for a beer in a pinch. There's no chance of re-learning the language to any kind of meaningful level at my age and with the short time available, so I decided to see if I could lean on 21st century technology. And you know what? I can! Look what you can get for $4.99 these days:



What could go wrong?

Seriously, though, isn't that amazing? There are two nice things about it beyond the unbelievably low price: it has the entire translation dictionary stored in onboard memory so there is no need to have internet access available to use it, and it will also allow me to type in text to be translated. The latter is pretty important because as you've seen in the video, the voice recognition can get confused. It will also be important for translating signs, menus, directions, etc. I will need another, non-language translation device to go with it, though. I'll have to get something to allow me to plug in my battery charger and translate foreign electricity to English electricity. Their wall plugs are of a different voltage and design over there.

That's not happening until the end of September, so progress continues on the airplane. When last we met, I had broken one of the the little gold pins off of the end of the trim wire bundle. I wasn't sure where to get a replacement, but that turned out to be easy. Kyle, drum stick whittler and bagpipe tuner for The Jackson Two, had also broken a pin off and had ordered replacements, some of which he had left over. Still heavily into the infatuation phase with his completed RV-12, I didn't even have to suggest that he fly up to Bolton with a pin and the specialty tool required to crimp it onto the wire.

The crimping was so simple as to be a non-event, and chock full of confidence I proceeded to install the pins in the big 37-pin connector that will attach to the main junction box. Interestingly, the wire bundle contains two white wires and the plans make no distinction between the two when it comes to pin location in the connector. Also interesting is that the music input wire bundle also contains two white wires, and it too goes into the 37-pin connector. While the plans don't seem to care which order each of the respective white wires go, they do care where which two holes are for the trim wires and which two are for the music wires.

I immediately put the music wires in the wrong holes.

That's bad, you see, because while it is easy to get those pins to snap into place, it is much harder to get them back out again.

Enough said about that.

Shamed, embarrassed, and disgusted, I quit for the night and we went over to the airport BBQ place and had dinner. I haven't been back to the hangar since.

Old Friends, New Friends

I'm sure there's some pithy, insightful quote that offers sage advice on the preservation of old, loyal friends when newer friends come along, but I'm not going to bother looking for it. I'm relatively sure that the underlying message would be to make sure not to cast aside the former friendship in favor of the newer, yet remain open to the opportunities presented by new acquaintances. This is actually a piece of fatherly advice that I shared with a younger Co-pilot Egg back in the days when I was still able to fool myself into thinking that she would listen. As I recall, she was very enamored with her first true boyfriend, to the exclusion of all of her girlfriends. I warned her that she was driving away her old friends and may some day regret when/if the relationship with the boy had run its course. I probably told her something along the lines of, "Boyfriends come and go, but your girlfriends are forever." Eventually I was proven right and she learned a valuable, albeit painful, lesson.

I now find myself in a similar position on a couple of fronts. At home, Cabot, the little puppy that we adopted a couple of years ago, has blossomed into a healthy, hearty, and attention-demanding young dog. So desirous of attention is he that it is difficult to remember to share time and affection with the older, more sedate Brave Sir Hogarth.

It doesn't help that Cabot has a possessive streak a mile wide and is quite jealous of any petting of, or playing with, Hogarth. He makes quite a scene, really.

The other (and slightly more topical) situation has to do with my airplanes. The RV-6 seems to have adopted a bit of a bad attitude after having been listed for sale. I was warned that anthropomorphizing airplanes tended to make them angry but, as with my progeny, I have to learn these lessons for myself. And have I ever paid the price! You may recall that I had an in-flight situation wherein some of the rubber weather stripping at the back edge of the canopy came loose and caused a ruckus as we were approaching Darke Co. International Airport for landing. A strip of duct tape got us home, but I figured that a prospective buyer might find that kind of repair to be somewhat off-putting; it would need to be fixed.

Figuring that the canopy repair would lead to at least a couple of days of down time, I thought I'd also perform an oil change. While the current load of oil only has a dozen or so hours on it, it's been in there since April. There are those who say that the oil should be changed every three months no matter what, but I figure that oil is millions of years old already. Twice a year will do famously, says I.

I have come to dread the removal of the engine cowls over the last few years because it seems that every time I remove them, some of the hinge strips that hold them together will be broken and in need of replacement. And that replacement? It's an unholy bear to do. The hinge strips are riveted into the fiberglass of the cowl and there is no way to drill out those rivets without creating large, unsightly holes in the fiberglass. That necessitates refilling the holes with epoxy, re-drilling them to fit new pieces of hinge strip, and painting over the result.

As I removed the top cowl, I heard the tinkling of the three hinge hoops that formerly resided on the strip that sits in the small air inlet area right behind the prop spinner as they dropped through the engine and onto the hangar floor. I hate that sound so much that I'm convinced that every time I hear one of those little broken hoops rings as it hits the ground, an angel gets a colonoscopy.

It was at that moment that I realized I had been ignoring my old friend. It was a difficult decision to list the -6 for sale and I dealt with the pain of it partially by starting to step away emotionally. Which is to say, I lost interest in working on it. That would have to change - this time I would not be replacing the broken hinge strip with another hinge strip. No, this time I would do what I should have done ages ago: I would add a metal plate to the bottom half, put some nutplates in it, and match drill the top half so that it could be screwed into place. That would be a far more robust solution and would (in theory) solve the problem of the broken hinge strips. This would, of course, mean that I would have to divert my attention away from the RV-12 canopy for awhile. So be it.

Only one of the four hinge strips was broken, but they all needed to come out. Drilling a metal rivet out of fiberglass is tricky - the bit senses the fiberglass and much prefers to drill through that than metal.

The inner edges needed to be cleaned up. It seems that the original builder didn't trust the rivets to hold and smooshed some epoxy in there too. The little belt sander that I bought for working on the RV-12 canopy sure came in handy!

Meanwhile, Pete was removing the canopy strap so we could put new rubber on it.

Using peel ply for the first time ever made me wonder why I had never done it before. It was a great way to make sure I got a nice flat epoxy surface to work with. In the past, I've always had to try to sand a bumpy surface smooth and it never really worked out very well.

Aircraft Spruce sells aluminum in much larger chunks that I actually needed.

So the RV-6 is fixed, and just in time for a beautiful Native American summer. Hopefully I'll get some flying in to cheer me up. I'm pretty despondent over the loss of my little red Miata, which is a completely different story.

The increased dating pool

I didn't go to work today, at least in the normal sense. Rather than my thirty-five minute semicircumnavigation of the city followed by nine hours of mental labor sitting in front of a admittedly quite nice 24" LCD monitor, I drove 10 minutes to a local distribution center where I was to endure eight hours of Diversity Training. Those amongst you with experience in the ways of Corporate America are no doubt wondering what my infraction was that warranted such harsh punishment, but I went voluntarily. Well, it was mandatory training, but I volunteered to attend at this particular location just for the easy commute that was in it.

It's not that I find no value in these classes; some of them are quite valuable. Others, not so much. The corporate CYA classes, for example, are shallow, facile time-wasters that serve no purpose other than allowing the company to wash their hands of you and your behavior should your actions ever result in a lawsuit.

"Hey, we trained him. Don't blame us!"

This was not one of those classes. The knowledge imparted was both contemporaneously pertinent and well presented. The class did feature one of the things I hate the most about these kinds of seminars, though. We had to separate into sub-groups for "an activity." The only thing worse is role playing. In this case, there were three groups separated based on our childhood environments. One was rural, one was urban, and mine was suburban. We were instructed to write on the large easel-mounted paper some of the defining traits of our environment. For us suburbanites, we came up with:

- Safe
- Quiet
- Lawns to mow
- Neighborly
- Etc. You get the picture.

We were then instructed to flip the paper we were writing on. Our next sheet said Rural. We were to write our perceptions about what it would have been like to grow up in a rural area. We came up with:

- Boring.
- Wide open spaces.
- Lot's of animals and smells. (Hey, have you ever smelled a manure spreader on a hot August day?)
- Early morning chores.
- Dangerous. (That one was submitted by an agoraphobic co-worker that watched the movie Deliverance at an impressionable age)

The fun part was when we had to read our lists to the entire class. We suburbanites got a chuckle when the urban kids listed 'Upper Class' and 'better stuff' under the Suburban category.

When that was done, we flipped our charts again. The new headings were 'Straight', 'Gay', and 'Bi'. Our category was 'Bi'. Assuming that we would be tossing out our perceptions regarding those lifestyles, I suggested that our number one item be "More Options."

In retrospect I wish I had worded that "Much larger dating pool."

It was after we had recorded our perception for all to see that we noticed that the rest of the class was not participating. The reason became clear: the intent was not for us to actually write or say anything; the facilitator (what normal people call the 'teacher') had been trying to make a point. The point was that we are perfectly willing to talk about mundane cultural differences, but are far more squeamish about discussing more personal or potentially controversial traits.

In theory, anyway. I didn't get that memo. I was perfectly will to talk about it.

So, you're wondering why I share this story, aren't you? Well, the fact of the matter was that I leapt into action without waiting for the full set of instructions. The interesting thing is that I did exactly the same thing last night.

Consider this set of instructions:



I read through that paragraph at least five times. My sticking point was that I was being instructed to install nutplates to only the F-1225-R Seat Floor, which kind of left the fate of the F-1225-L seat floor up in the air. Now I figure that if Van's doesn't specifically tell me to do something, well, it's not my place to question why. There is inevitably a step later that answers that question. The problem is, if I was going to do both floors I'd prefer to do that all at once so I wouldn't have to reconfigure the rivet squeezer from 'dimple the nutplates' mode to 'squeeze the rivets' mode. Resigning myself to the fact that I'd end up doing the left side sometime in the future, I went ahead and did the right. I dimpled the nutplates, changed the rivet dies and the gap between them for the AN426AD3-3.5 rivets, and finished installing the nutplates.

By this time, 99% of you are screaming "HEY! It says RIGHT THERE to repeat this step for the left side!"

In half a dozen times reading through that paragraph, I swear that I never saw that sentence.

There's a lesson in there. It ought to be a lesson that sinks in now. After all, I've learned it twice in as many days.

Should I shelve the twelve while I fix the six?

Every time I look at the maintenance situation with the cowls on the RV-6, it looks worse. I went out to the hangar tonight and removed the bottom half so I could at least proceed with the oil change. As I was removing it (hard to do alone, even harder when I get a call from work that I have to take while trying not to drop the precariously dangling cowl) I noticed that a whole set of hinge hoops are missing from the left side air inlet. Where'd they go? EllifIknow. But they sure need to be replaced! Luckily, I ordered a six foot length of the hinge material from Van's.

I more or less have a plan for the repair, but it involves fiberglass work. Ugh. I also need to pull out the plans and manual and reverse engineer how the hinges were installed in the first place, the plan being to end up with a repair that is at least as strong as the original installation. Not that the original installation is bathing itself in glory these days.

All of this is going to have to be in lieu of time spent building the RV-12. If one were to anthropomorphize the RV-6 (which I do, I suppose, by assigning him a gender and a name), one might assume that he is acting up in rebellion to the new kid on the block diverting so much of my attention and effort.

Bad Papa! Bad!

Nope, I don't anthropomorphize at all, do I?

Am I on a schedule?

Hugo asked:

Are you working on any kind of a timeline on your build, or are you just letting your pocketbook dictate the speed of your build?

Neither, really. While I eagerly anticipate the completion of the plane because, well, it will be a brand new plane, I view the construction of it as a purely recreational and educational activity. I don't handle the winter months well (more on that in a  bit) and desperately need something to keep myself occupied during the dark evenings and inclement weekends that are par for the course from December to March. Even during the rest of the year, I often lack for meaningful projects to keep my hands occupied in off-work hours. Sure, I have a tentative timeline; I think it should be done in two or three years. The problem with setting any firmer schedule than that is that it makes the work feel like, well, work.  I get enough of that during the days at the paying job, thanks.  I think striving for a sane balance between airplane building and all of the other things that I do (for example, I have four game reviews to write in the next two weeks for GamingNexus.com) will keep the project as enjoyable to me as it has been for this last month.

Regarding the winter season, as it stands today it's already getting dark too early for me. Experience has taught me that the early darkness of the next three months will sap my strength and initiative if I don't have something to compel me to activity. I'm starting to feel it already. As mentioned on my flying blog, I have a maintenance problem with the other plane in the Schmetterling fleet. Last night I went out to the hangar to take a drastic action - I had to drill out all of the rivets that hold the cowl hinge in place. It was the action of last resort because it will take a lot of work to repair the now enlarge holes in the fiberglass of the cowl, and once that's done I'll still need to buy, fit, and drill a new length of hinge material. Finally, it will need to be painted with paint that I don't have, and matching the color exactly will be a challenge. It took roughly an hour to drill out the rivets and get the cowl off of the airplane. By the time I had that done, it was 6:30 and already dark. Between the depression of having maimed my baby and the early darkness, I didn't have any interest in doing even the most mundane RV-12 work. In other words, I spent the evening in a funk.

Fortunately, that won't last long. I'm already thinking about which things to tackle first and what I can get done on the 12 tonight. Today I'll order the parts I need for the RV-6 from Van's and force myself to just forget about the broken airplane sitting forlornly in its hangar for a few days. Tonight, I will be back to work on the RV-12.

Building an airplane: it ain't all sexy

There's a lot of grunt work that comes with building an airplane. For every session pulling rivets with the awesomely powerful and inarguably sexy pneumatic rivet puller, there are hours of menial effort in deburring, fitting, test assembly, test finished de-clecoing, and cleaning up the resultant mess.

Last night I spent a few hours deburring the major components of the stabilator.

This morning, I enjoyed a few hours outside in the glorious Native American (nee Indian) summer we're having. What was I doing out there? Well, finally cutting up the crate of certified insect-free lumber that the tail kit arrived in.

Finally, a chance to use my saws-all! Or, as I like to call it, the bone saw. Because make no mistake, this saw doesn't care whether or not what you put in front of it is wood, metal, skin, or bone. It will saw through it! As an exercise, count how many safety infractions and/or imminent personal disasters you can find in this picture:



Brave Sir Hogarth, true to his ironically given nickname, was keeping a safe (and sane) distance from the events:



He ain't the bravest pup of the litter, but he ain't all that stupid either.

I'm wearing just the right shoes, though. I only buy them for the name:



Miraculously, I still have all my digits! Or, more importantly, I can still count to 20 if I need to:



Using the same level of foresight that has gotten me where I am today, I have the wood all loaded up to haul off to.... well, I have no idea at all where I'm going to haul it off to. That's TBD.



For the rest of the day the plan is to fly the RV-6 a little bit, if only to get the oil warm enough to drain out for the last oil change of the year.