Friends,
We are now just one month away from the opening event of the 2012 season, Corvair College #22 in Austin, Texas, hosted by Shelley Tumino & Kevin Purtee. It is time to sign up and make plans. Do not let this event pass you by.
I spoke with Shelley last night, and she has this event so well-organized that I am thinking of having her write a briefing book for future College hosts. Kevin did want to have it pointed out that he did a lot of muscle work, including building many all new work benches for builders. For storage purposes, Kevin told me that he is leaving the final bench assembly until the day before the event. Shelley chimed in with the detail that it takes exactly 16 screws to finish each one. Now that’s having the details down cold.
On the serious side, Shelley did say that the motel reservation discounts that she lined up at the selected locations expire in 10 days. If you’re heading to the College, time to get the plan in gear. We have a great airport facility for the event, but there is no on site camping nor anything near by, so you want to get the motel lined up quick, as there are other events in Austin at the same time, and you don’t want to get stuck with a long drive to the airport.
“Brother Roy” of RoysGarage.com is headed to the event also. He is bringing a limited number of parts and tools because he is driving down in a solo banzai run from Michigan and in the interest of fuel mileage and a respectable cruise velocity, he’s planning on driving his Caddy down without his enclosed trailer. If you need something from him, contact him in advance and he will squeeze it in the car.
Corvair/601 builder Ken Pavlou, aka The Central Scrutinizer, has set up the online registration for #22. Ken has covered this on 6 of the previous 8 Colleges from his workshop in Connecticut. Here is the direct link to the registration page:
https://corvaircollege.wufoo.com/forms/corvair-college-22-registration/
Shelley had organized the food and has all the meals planned from dinner Friday through Sunday afternoon. All of this is included in the registration cost. This will be a hard-core working event, where we want you to get your hands dirty. Builders at any stage are welcome, from just looking, through ready for a test run. I am tuning up the run stand and bringing a truck and trailer load of parts and tools. Ken told me that we have about 60% of the capacity of the event signed up already, so don’t wait too long. The sooner you sign up, the more prep work you can do, and the more you can get out of the event.
Below, I have a series of photos to give some flavor of the hosts and the event for people who are yet to meet Shelley and Kevin.
Above, Kevin’s Pietenpol (2,700cc, Weseman bearing). It has flown from Texas to Brodhead, Wisc., twice.
Above is a photo of Hans van der Voort’s Corvair powered Air Camper. Kevin said that he is hoping to have Hans at the College.
Above, the very first time I met Kevin in person was just after he landed his Piet at Brodhead, on one gear leg. Kevin had the left main gear on his Piet give out on a touch and go on a muddy spot on the field. With incredible cool and skill, he made a well planned landing after selecting the runway that allowed landing right into the wind. It was about 10 a.m. He was assisted by many members of the local Brodhead Gang, and the plane was back flying by the end of the day. A lot of people were very impressed by the chain of events. Kevin told me that he was moved beyond words by people he had never met before working diligently on his plane with him for eight solid hours. The plane was back flying before sunset, the same day. He was impressively positive, as if nothing were out of the ordinary. It was just the kind of attitude you would expect from a guy whose day job is flying combat helicopters for the U.S. Army.
Kevin never brings it up, because he isn’t that kind of guy, but I think all Corvair builders should take a look at the link below to understand what kind of quality human being we have for a host at #22:
http://www.stripes.com/military-life/kevin-purtee-allen-crist-not-again-not-if-we-could-help-it-1.92790
Above, in a photo from Corvair College #18 in California, Ryan Mueller, in the black shirt, attacks an unrepentant Stromberg. Ryan won the battle and fixed the carb we used to break in the engines that were built at #18. He has signed up for CC#22 to assist in any way he can. I will be bringing my own MA3-SPA equipped run stand from Florida, so he will not have to demonstrate his field expedient carb repair techniques. But we will have plenty for him to do. I was thinking of challenging him to see who could lay down more productive hours of work at #22, but this isn’t a good idea because Ryan is half my age and I would have to resort to my world-class coffee drinking skills to even the odds. Ryan returning to Colleges as a volunteer to assist other builders with their own projects is a great example of the spirit of these events.
