Readers Digest version for those of you who remember it...
Always loved aircraft, flew RC from the age of 12.
worked as a full time musician and had a landscape construction company.
Designed and built a RC gyro in 1995.
Started an EPP foamy slope glider biz. in about 96 which snow balled into a UAV company doing
Special projects for govt. labs. and SOCOM.
Did 10 take offs and landings in a Bensen Glider about 5 years ago.
Bit the bullet 2 years ago and bought a $6k AC with trailer and low hour 503.
Started training last fall with any instructor I can catch up with!
Now finishing the AC R&R and hopefully going to Bensen Days...
War and Peace version below:
1979 I moved out on my own before I graduated high school, got a string of crap jobs until I worked at precision sheet metal shop,
and I was trying to be a full time musician the whole time. Within the first year I was in 2 bands, going to college part time and working.
realized 8 to 5 employment would never work and started a landscaping company which is a job I did in high school.
That worked out well for the next 20 years and I installed hundreds of yards and irrigation systems all over the Phx. area.
(Did some maintenance too Ron!) I actually like mowing grass.....sometimes...
During the early 80's I was a full time musician with a part time landscaping biz. I also dabbled in carving waxes for a custom jeweler, custom metal fab and remodeling kitchens.
Early history: When I was a kid, I loved anything that flew. I would get up Saturday mornings for cartoons and steal the styro egg carton to cut the top off and make little biplane gliders while the cartoons played.
I built balsa models, plastic models and made my own kites from spinnaker scraps given to me at the Schock sailboat company in Newport Beach.
My father dragged me into sailing and racing Lido 14's in the Az Yacht Club (No yachts there!)
I never thought I would be in the aviation field from building models. I got my first RC plane on layaway from Hobby Lobby when I was 12.
It was a 40 sized trainer, but I ended up teaching myself to fly with a 2 channel glider and pretty much stayed in sailplanes....
Also built a hang glider when I was 13 but never flew it more than about 10ft. high down embankments in a large construction site...
Fast forward mid 90's. With landscaping as a primary biz. I dabbled with an occasional RC glider, then decided to try building a RC gyro.
I had always like them and wanted to build a Benson type, or AC, but a teeter bar tractor RC model was in my $$ range, so I built a balsa fuselage, designed a delta 3 rotor head (Fixed) and put winglets and a tail on it. I calculated CG by defining the lateral line across the disk that was 30% of the disk area back from the LE of the disk edge. (This also made it hang at about 17 degrees!)
It was ,28 powered. it flew great, like a trainer, it could loop and even rudder roll.
I then discovered EPP foam and heard about making foam and tape slope gliders for full contact combat.
When I saw the foam I got the idea for bending it on to the spar with contact cement to build a Corsair wing and decided that a small kit business would be a good way to write off my airplane vice, radios, newfangled internet stuff etc.
I was the third EPP RC MFG. Bowman's hobbies was the first, he discovered the foam at his job.
Dave Sanders was second with Dave's Aircraft Works and I came in third. Jerry Teisen was already outselling everyone with the flying wing "Zagi" but it was styrofoam, he didn't offer EPP for a couple of years.
Anyway, I made series of warbird kits then discovered a French folded foam delta wing called a "Pibros" by "Marcel Guwang".
I had always been into flying wings and heavily studied the Horten's and Jack Northrop's designs.
This little delta with extremely low wing loading had very interesting flight characteristics, so I thought the design could benefit from developing an actual airfoil for it and optimizing it.
It resulted in a series of planes (One was an Avro Vulcan slope glider) that flew very well. I had a couple of emails from Marcel who was pleased that someone took interest in his little fan fold plane. (it was really genius as to how simple it was).
My little tax write off biz. was netting serious $$ per hour, but with a very narrow market.
The larger deltas got some interest from people at a national lab and after coming in on time and under budget for a few projects, I got entrenched in special DOD projects building custom airplanes and launching systems for various groups.
This also snowballed into doing threat assessment for a couple groups and being the lead contractor for 2 AFRL Commanders Challenges.
My most recent outside project was being an external pilot for a program at WSMR. I really love being on that range.
Most of it won't be discussed on a public forum, but I have spent a lot of time on bombing ranges and unofficial sites..
The last gig morphed into me designing and building a series of 25lb "Loitering Munitions" that were a copy of enemy aircraft.
They needed to learn how to acquire them and shoot them down. I was given a photo of one and 3 weeks later I had a working prototype.
I then built about 10 more, then the company I was working with stole the design and has produced hundreds of them and scaled them up and produced hundreds more. I had NDAs and told them they could go around me for 2% of the contract and I would include project management for that too. They went around anyway. Unfortunately, the UAV industry is swimming with sharks who make outrageous claims about their product, rob you blind and never deliver....
2 years ago I "Bit the bullet". I found an AC with a low hour 503 and trailer for $6k.
It came with helmet, radios more instrumentation than needed etc.
The trailer was a tow dolly I sold for $600.
I could not find nearby instructors, so I decided to take it where I could get it.
I did my first couple hours with Peter at KBFFI last fall, then on a road trip, I got a couple hours in with Ron Menzie and then on the way back, bought a Dominator package from Dave Seace and had an hour or 2 with him in a 2 seat Dominator. (Greg S's)
Once you fly the Dominator, the Eurotubs suddenly feel like driving a bus......
I had great experiences with all the instructors. I got a couple more hours in with Peter out of his home port at Pacoima.
It was busy, and the radio was busy too, not my idea of fun, but it was good instruction.
I am in process of getting the AC ready for prime time and also assessing the Dominator to get ready to finish it.
There are plenty of low cost single seaters that show up, I have seen around 4 to 5 great deals a year and I am not looking very hard.
The difficult part is finding instruction and the local support came from active groups is very isolated now, so you have to go fishing for info.
This is a good place to find it...
