Each year we experimental aircraft owners have to put our aircraft through what’s called an annual condition inspection. Those of us who built our own airplanes are authorized by the FAA to pe
Most corporate aircraft have no identifying marks on them at all because the company doesn’t want competitors knowing where their executives are going. They even go so far as to have their N-
I belong to an RV Aircraft builders forum called the RivetBangers. The forum operator recently challenged all the members to set a goal to be reached by New Year’s Day. Not an easy goal either
A friend of a friend (don’t all good hangar flying stories start out that way?) reminiced about flying rotorcraft in Vietnam. While there’s certainly adventure and excitement in becom
Been another disappointing year, flying-wise. I had hoped to complete my Commercial rating but being out of work for three months killed that idea, can’t see it happening next year either right
Was reading some aviation magazines and blogs last night, mostly about “exciting” flights or accidents and it got me thinking that despite 300 hours of flying time I am still quite the
Tuesday morning, my instructor and I were supposed to finish up the complex portion of my commercial training in the Piper Arrow. However, one of the Arrows was down for 50 hour maintenance and it ha
I started doing a little more on the RV-7 empenage today. First I had to clean up the garage a bit, even though it doesn’t look like it in the pictures. I used a soldering iron to remove some
I was hanging out at the airport tonight waiting to meet some friends, sat outside transient parking listening to the traffic on my radio. After a while a car pulled up and a lady got out with a young
I perused the recent archives here at the House of Rapp and was surprised at how often I write about aircraft accidents. It may seem morbid. But ever since I started working as a CFI, I am conscio
What a week this has been. There were family problems, work problems, thank God there were no church problems. In fact my church has been a great help this week. For the first time in recent memory
I recently completed my Biennial Flight Review or BFR as it’s known in aviation circles. You see, when you get your driver’s license, you take a driving test and that’s it. You may
I worked some more on my RV-4 elevator. I spent most of the day getting very little accomplished on it. It’s almost ready to rivet. I need to get some smaller nails for the close quarter dimp
I started work on the empenage of the RV-7 today. As compared to the RV-4 the RV-7 is like building a lego airplane. Progress for today was to mount the spar stiffener and the elevator hinges. This
The bulk of the work on the left hand elevator is now done. All I have to do is add a little more lead to the counterweight and then attach the fiberglass end tip.
I was a little intimidated by the
Just back from seeing the AME for my new medical certificate. As I expected, no problems anywhere though I did make a couple of tiny mistakes on the vision test, more because I was going too fast than