Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy……
Builders
Since we are working the risk management topic, let’s take a look at a different story; in the last one we examined ‘when bad things happen to good people.’ In this one we can get a look at a different corner of the outcome matrix, namely ‘when bad things happen to bad people.’
Without this story, people new to aviation might falsely conclude that accidents disproportionately happen to good people. Just to emphasize my point that Physics, Gravity and Chemistry don’t play favorites, here we have an example that they are just as willing to eliminate bad people. These impartial referees are indifferent to most character traits with one exception: Judgement, which they always respect. If you develop and exercise Judgement, the three referees with be the most reliable friends anyone ever had. They have never ‘turned’ on anyone, ever. In every case, it is the operator who changed and stopped respecting them. At that point they just remorselessly went about their business.
At the center of this story is one of the least likeable humans I ever met. Let me start by saying that I am an optimist by nature and something of a romantic about aviation. I truly believe in the essential message of The Great Waldo Pepper, that aviation is a brotherhood that spans many differences. Here is an exception. The man’s name was Ray Blondin. For many months he posed as a regular Corvair builder. At the start, he knew nothing about engines, and little about planes. He was a lawyer. He bought almost every part we sold, and asked many questions. Getting his plane done was just his first goal. He was going to use every thing we knew to form a LLC and make cheap copies of everything thing we had developed. I know this to be true because the week after he was done he launched a company with a big website named Ventureray LLC, incorporated in his home state of DE, and it said directly on his webpage that had been the goal all along.
Blondin was a sociopath, and let me assure you that one didn’t need a medical licence to make a conclusive diagnosis. Our attorney, who is a Zenith 750 builder who lives in CT, sent Blondin a cease and desist letter, based on the fact that I had Blondin signature on our product rights agreement. Blondin immediately called the Delaware State police and said he was being physically stalked by my attorney, a very serious charge. My attorney happened to be in Manhattan Federal Court at the moment Blondin claimed he was in Dover DE, 200 miles away. The Delaware State police told my attorney not to be concerned, as Blondin had made this same type of call dozens of times before. It would later turn out that both he and his wife, who was also in the plane with Blondin, were lawyers who had made their livelyhood by suing most of the people and organizations they came across.
I would like to say that I have a very loyal fan club who wouldn’t but cheap copies of our parts, and I would be mostly right. But truth be told, a number of people were attracted to saving $50 on a motor mount, even if it meant not knowing who welded it or what it was made of. Blondin also had a lot of support on discussion groups on the net, chiefly among vocal people whose feelings I had perviously hurt by taking the position that their three-week school on changing oil at Jiffy Lube didn’t make them an A&P. Blondin wrote his whole website in third person and spoke of great engineering developments he had done and teams of technicians he had. In reality is was just him and some borrowed space in a hangar. He had tried to have all the copies farmed out, as he could make nothing himself.
A day or two before Blondin’s accident, a got a letter from a guy who was disgusted by the internet response of some people. The guy wasn’t very subtile, and the last line said that he wanted to live in just country, a place where “scum like Blondin would be publicly executed.” As it turns out, this is just what happened, and Blondin handled the task all on his own.
In short, he took off into a 10 mph headwind, and still needed 2,500′ of runway to get airborne. That is five or eight times the distance it should have taken. Here is poor judgement at work: that take off roll was more than one minute long, and if he pulled the throttle back at any time, he would have lived. He never gained much altitude, apparently stalled crashed and burned. His wife, beside him died also. The longer report is below, but keep in mind that nearly everything Blondin said was a lie, so I don’t think he really had 250 hours nor do I think the plane flew 100 hours either. I spoke with people at the airport later, and no one wanted to back those claims. The local paper painted a picture of both Blondin and his wife as great humanitarians. Public records indicated that Blondin has actually sued the organization the paper had credited him with supporting.
By starting his LLC, Blondin cut himself off from reasonable assistance. Even if he didn’t go that route, nearly everything we later found out about him indicated that he had no judgement. His website kept going for one and a half years after Blondin was dead. It reminded me of the ghost radio signals being sent by the window shade in the doomsday film On The Beach. About once a month, some new guy would crop up on an internet discussion group, raving about the great products available on a website called VentureRayLLC.com, and saying he had just placed an order with their Paypal system.
When I first started in 1989 I had a lot of dreams about things I would do to play a positive role in the greater story of homebuilding. Today, through time and hard work, many of these things have come to pass. But I will honestly say that I had no idea that things like Blondin lay in my path. I have many other stories much like this one. If I ever come across as short-tempered, consider that you don’t know all of things that went into providing what we have today. The next time someone asks you “why are there not more products for working people in aviation?”, guide them to this story and point out that the more affordable the product is, the simpler it is, and the easier to copy it is. (My prop hub is a much easier target that a moulded composite fuselage) I still believe that the vast majority of homebuilders are good people, but Blondin proved something that plenty of entrepreneurs bypassing the affordable product market know: That many working class people who should have high loyalty to people working to help them, actually don’t, their primary loyalty is to save a dollar, even if it is bad judgement.-ww
Very important Note: Blondin is the rare case where a vermin from our industry harmed himself, not his builders. This is not usually the case. I know far more stories from our industry where the casualties are all customers and builders. Stay far away from people like this, very few of these stories end in this way.
Above, Blondin’s plane at Dover DE. Get a good look at the terrain and ask yourself why an off runway landing there would be difficult.
From our website in 2007:
“Ray Blondin of Delaware is the ninth pilot to fly a Corvair powered 601. Ray took to the air recently in his primer clad HDS, pictured above. Ray kept a steady pace going in recent months to see his project through to completion. He picked up a number of Installation Components from us, but built his own unique installation. Ray’s aircraft utilizes our Motor Mount, specified 66″ Warp Drive prop, Prop Hub, and Distributor. He chose to make his own cowling.”
| Tail number | N27S |
|---|---|
| Accident date | November 4, 2007 |
| Aircraft type | Blondin 601HDS |
| Location | Farmington, DE |
NTSB description
On November 4, 2007, at 1011 eastern standard time, an amateur-built Blondin 601HDS, N27S, was destroyed when it collided with terrain after takeoff from runway 34 at Chorman Airport (D74), Farmington, Delaware. The certificated private pilot/owner and the passenger were fatally injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan was filed for the personal flight conducted under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91.
In written statements, several witnesses described the accident flight, and their statements were consistent throughout. They stated that the engine sound during the takeoff roll and initial climb was “normal,” “strong,” and continuous with no interruption. The takeoff roll was “much longer than usual” and the airplane used about two thirds of the 3,588 feet of paved runway.
The witnesses described a very shallow climb after the airplane lifted from runway 34. The airplane drifted right of the runway centerline, and flew around the east side of a grove of trees off the departure end. The airplane then banked to its left “in an apparent attempt to return to the airport,” turned to the west, then disappeared from view behind the trees.
The airplane then reappeared above the trees in a steep left bank. According to one witness, “[The airplane] popped up in a very steep left bank (both wings were vertical like a knife edge).” The airplane then disappeared from view, the sounds of impact were heard, and a large smoke plume appeared.
The airplane was examined at the scene by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) aviation safety inspectors, and all major components were accounted for at the scene. The airplane was consumed by a postcrash fire. Therefore, control continuity could not be established; and neither could any information be gathered from the cockpit.
Examination of the propeller revealed one propeller blade separated from the hub, and the other delaminated during impact.
According to FAA records, the pilot held a private pilot certificate with a rating for airplane single engine land. He was issued a third-class medical certificate in March 2007, and he reported 250 hours of flight experience at that time.
The airplane was manufactured by the pilot/owner, was issued an airworthiness certificate in February 2007, and had accrued approximately 100 total aircraft hours since that date. The estimate was based on reports from witnesses who were familiar with the airplane and the pilot/owner. A member of the pilot’s family reported to the FAA that he would conduct a search of the pilot’s home for airplane and pilot records, but no records were ever produced.
Examination of satellite images revealed that the airport and the grove of trees were surrounded by flat, open, cultivated fields.
At 0954, the weather reported at Georgetown Airport (GED), Georgetown, Delaware, about 10 miles southeast, included clear skies with 10 miles visibility. The winds were from 310 degrees at 9 knots. The temperature was 13 degrees Celsius, and the dew point was 4 degrees Celsius.
Risk Management, Judgement Error, money in the wrong place.
Builders,
Below is a five-year old photo of a 601XL built by a great guy named Ken Lien in WA. Paint job on the plane is super detailed, and it easily could have been a champion at Oshkosh. The major impediment to that happening is that Ken is dead and the plane was destroyed on the very first flight.
Although I spoke with him many times, I met Ken in person just once, at the Arlington airshow. By coincidence, one of his life long best friends has a hangar 700′ from mine and is in my EAA chapter. He told me many times what a great human being Ken was. I don’t doubt him at all; after 25 years in aviation I fully know that when builders make a serious error, physics, gravity and chemistry kill them without taking any consideration of what kind of life they led on the ground. It isn’t fair, but they are ‘inhuman’ like that.
I will share the highlights: Ken spent 18 months and thousands of dollars painting the plane. When I saw him at the Arlington show, he told me that the plane did not run well. We went over a lot of points, but I was pretty sure is was his MA3-SPA carb. To eliminate any possibility it was ignition, I handed him a brand new distributor. When he got home he confirmed that it ran exactly the same with new ignition. From this point he had the carb on and off the plane many times. What he did not do was send it into D&G fuel systems like I suggested for a $500 overhaul. He ran the plane up and down the runway several times, but did not run a ‘two minute’ full power test.
On the day of the first flight, he may not have intended to go, He had not flown in years, had no biannual and had no transition training. He took off and flew away from the airport. The engine quit a short time later. He crashed in a school yard, running into a brick wall inverted. Fortunately it was a Sunday and the place was empty. There was no fire. The airframe was destroyed, but in the news photos you could clearly see the flowing checkerboard paint job, with all it’s detail.
It is later found that he reassembled the carb incorrectly. It had floated over to idle cut off on its own. If he had run a two-minute test it would have done this on the ground; if he had spent the $500 for the overhaul it would have been correct; if he had stayed over the airport, he very likely could have glided back. But those are all things someone exercising good judgement would have done, along with getting back into flying in a controlled way. Again, I am sure he was a great guy. There are many people who are great people who don’t make good decisions around planes. There are also people who are first class A-holes who exercise good judgement. Like it or not, the later live a lot longer.
You can read more about the accident on-line, but I want everyone to know I am not slandering the dead here. I have a hand written 4 page letter from a friend in Ken’s EAA chapter describing how people there tried to get Ken to have a professional look at the carb. Long after the accident report, I heard from the guy who covered it, and he confirmed the probable cause.
It is well worth pointing out that this accident has absolutely nothing to do with Corvairs;The carb was the exact same model that a Continental O-200 uses. Had Ken selected an O-200 instead, he would have had the same carb, and there is no reason to believe he would have done anything different, and he would have ended up dead in the same spot, just the same. And before anyone goes there, it isn’t the carbs fault either, because any other person with good judgement would have just put it together correctly or had a pro do it. This accident had absolutely nothing to do with machinery at all. It was a 100% judgement error.
Ken’s story is not unique, I can think of dozens of builders who I have counseled that a 5th bearing and a good carb are a lot more important than a fancy paint job, a great interior, or any avionics. Think people listen to me? Less than 50% do. In many cases I resort to sharing the Ken Lien story, but it doesn’t change many minds. When a guy who I have worked with is about ready to go flying and he has a Dynon panel, a $2,000 interior and a paint job, but a poor carb, and no 5th bearing, and didn’t set the timing with a light, he may tell people he learned a lot from me, but in my book he didn’t learn a damn thing. If after several years of working together he still makes decisions like that, he missed everything important.
Go to any other website you like and I really doubt that you will find stories like the ones I write. Search for words like ‘Dead’ and ‘Killed’ words that I have used in dozens of stories; smart people never write about this stuff because they know it is bad for buisness…..besides, most people are not listening anyway. But I never learn, I still talk about these themes with the hope of getting people to think. If you are one of the people I am giving a hard time over poor decisions, it is your right to think of me as an A-hole. I’ll live with it. I don’t need to be liked, I am not in this to hold the hand of people without judgement and listen to their rationalizations while they walk straight to the graveyard. -ww
From 2007:
“We’ve recently received a number of photos from 601 builders nearing the finish line. Check out the progress of Ken Lien of Washington, Ken sent us a half dozen photos of his very sharply painted XL. “
Risk Management, Factor #1, Judgement.
Builders,
I was at the airport yesterday and spoke with Dan Weseman just after he completed test flight #4 on the Panther prototype. You can read the story of these flights on the Panther blog at:
http://flypanther.net/
Just like the first three flights, the fourth was mechanically flawless. Dan has inspected the aircraft carefully after every flight, but he has not had to make a single change nor adjustment. This is how every test flight program should go. Theoretically, Dan is flying a new design on a just built conversion engine, and this is thought to be dangerous. But I contend that he is actually at very low risk, because of one single outstanding factor: He has, and exercises, good judgement.
For comparison, let me point out that a number of people are killed in proven homebuilts with certified engines on their very first flight every year. In my 25 years of experience working with homebuilts and homebuilders every day, it is very clear that the number one cause of such accidents is poor judgement.
Ask a 5,000 hour pilot what is the most important risk management factor, and he is sure to tell you it is experience, yet I will tell you that I have had 2 personal friends with more than 25,000 hours each die in a plane because they chose to do something unnecessary and foolish. Ask a PhD engineer what is important, and he is sure to tell you that education is the number one factor. I have had several friends with engineering degrees that had been educated to know better, but still willfully did their last act in aviation against better judgement. Ask a guy who has been getting away with doing stupid things for years and he will tell you it is just luck or fate. Only idiots speak that way. Ask the man of great faith, and he will tell you that God protects. I will tell you that I have never met a man of greater faith than my friend Bob Bean, but when a poor decision and serious weather came together, Bob’s God protected his soul, but not his mortal life.
Judgement is the vital element, and without it, the other factors, experience, education and all the rest, don’t add up to any protection. Are you new to aviation and concerned because your flight instruction didn’t cover judgement? If the instruction was good it did. Quality instruction spends a lot of time on the subject of “Decision Making,” and this is the topic of Judgement. If your instructor spent more time teaching you radio procedures, then go find a real instructor and correct this error, now, before you fly again.
Here is very simple advice for the new: Don’t spend any time hanging around people with bad judgement. Here is some easy ways to ID them. If they ever use the phrase “It should be alright”; If the person speaks of luck; If they preflight planes while speaking on cell phones; If they are in a rush; If they planned on being home by dark, but then decide night flight is ok because they ran late; If they are poor listeners and finish your sentence for you with the phrase “yeah, yeah, I got it.”; If they brag about things they got away with, pencil whipped annuals or biannual flight reviews where they didn’t actually fly; If they are inherently cheap or complain about the cost of maintenance that is half what their car dealer charges; Any pilot who can’t tell you the Va speed of a plane he is about to fly; If they have the slightest tendency to show off in front of people; If you see any of these things, have nothing to do with such people. All of these are signs of poor judgement, and ignoring them and flying with these people is the equivalent of continuing to play Russian roulette.
The past 36 hours brought several examples of poor judgement. An email from a builder who is now taking the advice of his local Corvair car expert over how I teach people to torque flight heads, complete with a follow on email from the expert on how I do things absolutely backwards; A phone call from a builder who admitted to me that he ordered weak stainless head nuts by mistake, but was in a rush so he bolted the heads on with them anyway. In this process several of the nuts galled, but his solution was to just put more lube on them and put them back on (same man also used uncalibrated Chinese torque wrench to kill most of the studs in his engine on assembly); Third guy is trying to have an 8″ prop extension made for his Corvair, to be used on an airframe with a very high stall speed and little chance of survival in an off airport landing.
Now, back to my point about experience and education being no defense. One of the above people has a PhD in engineering and thousands of flight hours; another comes from a flying family and has attended two Corvair Colleges; another actually considers himself an aircraft mechanic. One of these people has been a paid expert witness at a civil trial over the mechanical judgement of others. I would not fly in any of the planes that these people are working on, and unless these people change what they are doing, neither should anyone else. I have seen about 50 Corvair projects seriously compromised by people who followed car mechanics over me, including 3 destroyed planes; I have seen countless people use substandard or incorrect parts because they were cheap or in a hurry, this was the direct cause of a fatality on a first flight, and about a dozen destroyed engines; a 7″ prop extension broke a non-5th bearing crank a few hours after I said it would, aircraft destroyed, pilot seriously injured.
Do you want your first flight to go like Dan’s Panther flights, or do you want me to be typing a story about your judgement in a few years? Is saving $10 that important? Want to “show” people something? Are you going to follow the advice of a car guy because he stops by your shop and pressures you? Think no one would do these things? They already have many times, and there is a long history of these things not working, at times with tragic results. I write about it all the time, but in one way or the other, 1/3 of builders make the same judgement errors. One out of five people flying today have never timed their engine with a light. Right now I could type in 100 stories of poor judgement off the top of my head; Flying 65 hours on break in oil, taking off for the first flight without a working charging system. Flying 4 flights without 1 spark plug connected, a take off and 90 mile cross-country with a completely blown head gasket. First flight with a car distributor with 45 degrees on mechanical advance. Static timing set to 32 degrees. etc, etc, etc.
Who can you trust? Yourself, that’s who. Every single one of the above things was unnecessary. In 75% of the above cases, people knew what they were doing was wrong, but they did it anyway, willfully. That is the definition of poor judgement. Let’s make up a number and say 1 out of 1,000 people who builds a plane gets killed flying it. The first thing to understand is that it isn’t a random drawing. This is not a lottery, it is almost completely under the control of the people in it. By my estimation, people who are chronically cheap, always in a rush, don’t do their homework, are show offs, or demonstrate any form of “get-ther-itis” are 50 times more likely to buy the farm. Having 5,000 flight hours is no defense compared to exercising good judgement.
I am not clairvoyant, but after 25 years of studying builders and having the time pass to see how their story works out, I have come to posses a disturbing ability to accurately predict people coming to harm. Every airport has a guy who predicts every single person will come to trouble, and when 1 out of his 10,000 predictions comes true, he wants to gloat over it. He would likely have a much more somber perspective, like I do if he had my track record of 1 out of 3. If I ever have a detailed conversation with you about rethinking your judgement, take it seriously. I don’t do it often, but I now need two hands to count the names of the people who thought I was kidding or not worth listening to.
If I ever seem short-tempered and cranky at times, much of it can be traced to a very ironic reality that I must live with. For 25 years I have worked to teach people they can participate in the best part of aviation, a path where they can learn to count on themselves, to really know what taking control of their life means. The Corvair itself is just good hardware, the real project is yourself. I have seen this work out for many, many people, and I find this very rewarding. But it remains very ironic that when I am done, the experimental aircraft community will judge the value of our efforts not on the track record of the builders with good judgement who achieved the most, but on the trouble caused by the ones who had poor judgement, people who would have had issues no matter what type of engine they chose. I have almost no control over this. This irony is true for most people who work in this field, they also know they have little control, so they wisely don’t ever bring up the subject. I’m not that smart, and every now and then, when I have a day with several examples of poor judgement, I try one more time to convince a few more people to exercise better judgement, just as if their life depended on it. -ww
Sun N Fun 2013
Warning: This story contains a four letter word in bold print, it is a direct and exact quote, it is here for a reason. The story also makes literary reference to an imaginary day with Richard Branson. If you can’t or shouldn’t read such things, skip this story and read the next one.-ww
Builders,
Here is a photo review of Sun ‘N Fun 2013. It was my 25th consecutive year at the airshow. The modern era of the Corvair movement actually began right in Lakeland in 1989. That year was my first Sun ‘N Fun, and I was new to aviation. I stopped in front of the Teledyne Continental Motors booth and directly asked them why they no longer made engines like the C-85 or the O-200. (For a long time Continental focused only on very expensive engines like the TSIO-550 and the Tiara, both over $50K even back then.) I pointed out that as an A&P mechanic, I was something of an unpaid field rep for Continental’s products. I was expected to stay up to date on all of their ADs and service letters, techniques and models, all while being compensated at the then A&P wage of $8/hour. Was it too much to ask that Continental produce an engine that mechanics might save for several years for? Were we relegated to being spectators and errand boys for wealthy people who could afford engines that had price tags of many years’ gross income for an A&P? What was Continental’s position on this?
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After checking to make sure his boss was out of earshot, the sales guy leaned forward and slowly said “We could make C-85s again tomorrow, but we won’t, because Teledyne Continental Motors Inc. does not give a shit about you or anyone else who works for a living anymore.”
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To put it mildly, I was stunned. A flash of anger passed as I realized that this man had just said the most honest thing I would hear from corporate management of aviation. I actually thanked him, and as I walked away I determined that I would proceed to develop something out of the two old Corvair engines that were in my workshop. Whoever the man was, he was the spark that lit the flame.
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In the 25 years since, I have often thought of that day. Countless times I have spoken with good people who harbored a terrible mistaken belief that big corporations in the aviation marketplace would eventually produce something affordable for them, the working class guy. For the past 25 years, I have known that this was never going to happen. It works just the opposite: Businesses that once had affordable products phase them out to chase the easy dollars of the wealthy. Need two quick examples? Lancair was founded to make aircraft that used an O-200, and sold for $10K in 1984, with a remanufactured engine. In a few years this was all abandoned to focus on pressurized four-place aircraft and certificated models. Rotax used to make some affordable engines, the 277, 377, 447 and the 503. All gone now, in favor of 912s that start at $20K, injected models for another $8K, and the turbo 914 in the $34K range. Go back to what the Continental rep said; I spelled out the four letter word, not just because he said it with great emphasis, but because I want you, the builder to wake up and know this in your heart.
You are the only person looking out for you in aviation. Don’t wait around for a white knight, he isn’t going to show up. The inventors who are working on new engines like diesels are all aiming for wealthy people’s budgets, not yours; you will never stumble over a good engine for $4K in the fly mart no matter how many times you look. (If it were good they would have sold it at their home airport rather than dragging it 1,000 miles to sell anonymously.) You can wait for something that will never happen, or you can choose to take the path that will always work: You decide to count on yourself, get your hands dirty, learn some stuff, and build your own engine.
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Even if this takes time, it will pay off. In the past 25 years I have watched hundreds of people who could have been builders fritter away their remaining years because they held on to their daydream that there was a solution around the corner that would allow them access to flight. It never happened for them. It only materialized for the people who understood that working people were only going to get the things out of aviation that they were willing to take with their own hands. If you have persistence, time and experience will teach you that you, the real homebuilder, the person who struggled, will actually know the real rewards of homebuilding. The people who did nothing more than write a check only ended up owning the hardware; they robbed themselves of the experience of becoming an aviator.
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In December of 1903, when Wilbur and Orville got to the bottom of the sand dune at Kitty Hawk, they did not turn to each other and proclaim “I think we have made something for Vanderbilts and Rockefellers!” They had solved the first stage of flight for all people, not just wealthy ones. You own the sky just as much as any other human being. For the past 100 years there has been a lot of talk about “affordable flying,” but virtually all of the commercial effort has been aimed at providing a wealth of products for the wealthy. It is a lot easier than making something practical and affordable for working people.
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Few designers like Chris Heintz and John Monnett devoted their work to affordable planes, they have my highest respect. I was once a fan of Rutan’s, but I slowly woke up to the fact that he abandoned working class homebuilders decades ago. Today he still enjoys broad admiration among EAA members, people he wouldn’t stoop to designing a homebuilt for in the past 25 years. Only a person who has resigned themselves to spectator status still takes close interest in his work. I save my praise for designers who still work in this industry, not those who elected to leave decades ago.
(I type the last sentences with bad conscience; If Richard Branson called and invited Grace and myself to his villa on Bora-Bora to be fed martinis on the beach by mostly bare Tahitian women, I would be pulling up a chair on the beach right beside Burt.)
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Below are photos of builders who have long since decided that they are going to be their own white knights, look after themselves, and make their own adventures happen, instead of sitting down and waiting for a ride that isn’t coming. Take your pick, it’s your life. If you are willing to accept the challenge your seat at the table awaits. You will be in good company, and we will be glad to have you aboard.
Above, many of the 60 people we had at the FlyCorvair/SPA Panther cookout.
Dan flew the Panther the Sunday before the show. It attracted crowds all week.
Richard VanGrunsven, designer of the RV series aircraft, leans on the Panther and speaks with Dan.
Lynn Dingfelder flew his Zenith 601XLB down from Pennsylvania. Sebastien Heintz warmly welcomed the plane in the Zenith factory booth because it was an excellent example of economic building. Lynn started with a regular kit, but finished the plane with a full paint job, panel, 100hp Corvair, Weseman 5th bearing, and interior for a total of $24K, including the kit.
CC#23 grads Mark and Sandrine stopped by. Mark is an ATP who flys for a major airline, but is working on something more fun to do with planes.
Longtime Corvair builders Bob and Pat Pustell, down from New Hampshire. Bob has had adventures around the globe in flight, but he is still working to add building and flying a 601XL to his list. No matter what else you have done in flight, homebuilding is still a very special facet of flight.
Many old friends stopped by for the cookout. In this photo, Skycoupe pilot Gary (with wife Vicki) Coppen, my ERAU roommate Chris Welsh, 1,000 hour Corvair pilot Mark Langford, and editor Pat Panzera. 
Skip and Dan Kelley at the cookout. Both were also at CC#25.
Because rain threatened (but didn’t happen) we served the food buffet style by having friends walk through the Panther trailer. Off the wing tip walks Son of Cleanex builder/pilot Chris Smith. Flybaby/Corvair builder/pilot Glenn Goode speaks with CC#24 grad Irv Russell. Dan and Rachel stand on the tailgate.
Many people at the show saw the privately owned Douglas A-4 Skyhawk in the airshow. The guy flying it was Dave Dollarhide, in the flight suit. He flew them in Vietnam, took a short 40 year break, and went back to it this year. Both he and Dan are in our EAA chapter. Everyone is having a hard time deciding if Dan or Dave is having a better year in flying in 2013. Whatever you do after reading this, decide that you are going to have the kind of smile that Dan and Dave got from being In The Arena this year.-ww
Away at CC#25 and Sun n Fun,
Builders,
We are packing the truck and trailer to leave at 6am for Leesburg and CC#25. We will be there from the 5-7th. We will have one day off, and on Tuesday the 9th, we will start my 25th consecutive year at Sun n Fun. We will have a full commercial display, in booth N-66, which is on the row in front of building “C”, the third of the four main display buildings. This is one row over from where we were last year. Sun n Fun is the second largest air show in the US, and it has been held every spring in Lakeland Florida for many decades. It is a big event, and it draws thousands of planes.
A fun internet story from 10 years ago, and then I will make the connection to the two events we are heading off to:
Here goes: Ten years ago, while we were away on an airshow road trip, away from the computer and unaware of this, a storm started up on the Corvair internet discussion group. A builder, who we knew pretty well, wrote an angry post where 400 other people could read it. The nature of his complaint was that I had done something very careless, that could even jeopardize his safety. He wrote this about the fact that I had sent his a conversion manual that had four pages missing. He had only caught the omission because he had closely looked at the page numbers. He speculated that there might be “critical” information on these pages that he would have never found out about, and my careless ways had left them out, directly putting him and his loved ones at risk.
Another guy wrote back and said that he was angry also, because his manual was also missing pages 122-125. He also agreed that ww was some kind of careless fool to be sending out ‘defective’ manuals.
A third guy wrote in and said his was missing the same pages. He had a good guess why also. It wasn’t ww being careless, he was definitely hiding something. Two others wrote in to say that theirs were also missing the same pages, and they both were sure that I was hiding something. The second guy said that he had been tolerant of my long hair to this point, but I was now exposed as the kind of person he had known I was all along.
Before it was done, ELEVEN people wrote in to say that I had left out the pages, and most of them used words like “Demand” and “get to the bottom of this.” I am sure that many others reading this also saw I had left the pages out of their book also, but there was little point in saying more, as ww was certainly done in aviation.
We came back a week later, turned on the computer and read all of this. Do you already know what the answer was? Of course, each one of these people including the people who were sure it was a cover up, had actually ripped the pages out of their manuals themselves. 122-123 was the manual registration page and 124-125 was their liability statement. All of these people had removed them themselves, and mailed them to me. In the middle of a very good conspiracy theory and big expose, they had forgotten that they had done this. I got on the group and pointed this out, and asked them politely if they were concerned about being PIC with this kind of memory issue.
Actually I forget stuff all the time, it is part of not sleeping enough. The part that I found disturbing was how quickly the lynch mob formed, and how quick people who I had met in person were willing to buy into the “he is hiding something” mentality. Out of 11 people, came a single apology, and it wasn’t in public like the man’s accusation was.
Here is the connection to today: This type of stuff goes on every time I go to an airshow or a college. I had a guy call twice in one day while we were at CC#24, and then go on a discussion group and ask the question “Is WW still in business?” Last year, I had a guy tell me that because I went to Oshkosh for two weeks, and he couldn’t get me on the phone, He was certain that I had some type of health issue. He had told his wife that he was sure I “had a stroke.” I weigh less than 170, I have never smoked a cigarette in my life, I don’t drink, and my father is almost 88 and doing fine. Who think’s I am a candidate for a stroke?
There is nothing I can do to stop people from saying these things. I have resolved myself to accepting that the internet is a great facilitator of hysteria. The only thing I ask is that if anyone reads a post like this, please take a minute to point out that we are at CC#25 and SnF, and that I was not abducted by aliens, I have not had a stroke, and I didn’t leave pages out of anyone’s manuals.
*Lest anyone think I am making up the story above, I have the original posts in a file that I keep on a cabinent out in the hangar. When ever I feel too good about myself, and I start thinking that I have a good ability to communicate ideas with airplane builders, I go out and read it to keep my perspective in check.
Corvair Power Row in homebuilt parking at Oshkosh 2013.
Builders,
I got the letter below from Zenith 601XL builder Ken Pavlou. He has been doing a lot of work with EAA headquarters to get us a row to park just corvair powered planes in at Oshkosh this year. This is not an easy trick, it takes being persuasive, insistent, and charming, but he has pulled it off. Our booth at Oshkosh is directly across from Zenith. Dan and Rachel have the one right next to us. Just like last year, we are planning on having a cook out on the evening of the night airshow. It will be great to have the Corvair powered planes right behind the booth all week and use this as a focal point of social fun all during Airventure.
Ken has already begun to organize the Zenith/Corvair pilots on our ‘Zenvair’ discussion group, and we expect a large turn out of flying planes. But I want to be sure that we have all types of Corvair powered planes on hand. If you are even thinking of flying your Corvair powered ship to Oshkosh this year, I encourage you to contact Ken directly. He is a multi faceted guy who can offer a lot of assistance. Last year a corvair pilot who had never flown into airventure before stopped 20 miles short at Fon dulac, wisely deciding he would rather have a second set of fresh eyes in the planes. Ken was immediately dispatched in a mini van and returned an hour later with the pilot in his plane. Ken is very serious about supporting ideas he has promoted.
If you have never been to Oshkosh, or it’s been a number of years, This is a good year to plan on going. With the booths, planes and cook out, builders and flyers on hand all week, it will be an outstanding year for Corvair power. Don’t miss it. Hats off to Ken Pavlou.
“Hello Gang,As I type this Oshkosh is 119 days away. I’m happy to report that we’ve secured reserved parking behind the Flycorvair.com and SPA booths at Airventure this year. William, Dan, and I thought it would cool if we can get a flock of Corvair-powered birds behind the booths to demonstrate installation in various airframes and to generally celebrate our choice of powerplant.
Parking procedures are pretty simple at Oshkosh. After landing and clearing the runway display two signs, one that says “Homebuilt Parking” and another that says “Corvair”. Please print the signs on standard 8.5 x 11″ paper with bold capital letters as big as possible. The friendly EAA volunteers will direct you to our reserved parking spots behind the booths.
On the subject of volunteering, I highly recommend signing up for a few shifts at Oshkosh. I’ve been volunteering as a departure briefer for the last few years and have found it to be very rewarding. It certainly is an interesting perspective.
It would be awesome to have a big Corvair turnout. If you are planning on going this year please type a quick response to this thread so I can give the EAA an estimate of how many aircraft are arriving.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns.
Thank you,
Ken Pavlou (annken100@aol.com)
AKA – The Central Scrutinizer, Adonis, and official TBFL”
