Just what I needed, another airplane!

I just couldn't resist this. I've been in the low and slow tailwheel airplane fram of mind recently. So, when this little Starduster became available, I flew the RV-7 with my son, Alex all the way to Hartford, Wisconsin to check it out.  After a very brief inspection and taxiing around the airport, I bought it. No fuss, no muss, just give it to me.  Well, I actually have to go back and get it next week, since I can't fly two airplanes home.

Murky conditions along the route.

I almost didn't make the trip after checking the weather this morning at 4 a.m.  Lots of color on the radar with a convective sigmet over my route just west of Chicago. But there was a pretty good window which just required about a 30 mile deviation over to Davenport, Iowa. I filed an IFR flight plan, leaving Dewitt Spain at about 0530.  So, with the help of my trusty Garmin 696 with its XM weather radar (and some very helpful air traffic controllers who allowed me to deviate as I needed), Alex and I launched and made it to Hartford in a little over 3 hours.

Convective sigmet means deviation.

I enjoy this type of flying, too. That's the thing about aviation, whether it's speeding along cross country playing cat and mouse with thunderstorms, flying the pipeline in the helicopter, or just poking along in a little open cockpit biplane, it's all just so much fun!

The previous owner of this aircraft recently passed away. I promised his wife that this little plane has found a good home with me, and I mean it. I feel like I've adopted someone's pet. I can't wait to get it home!

Time Machine

It wasn't flying this baby that made me sweat.

I think of this airplane as an airborne version of Dorian Gray. Somewhere there must be a painting of N96710 in its real state, aged, wrinkled and faded from the years. It sits now in its hangar across the taxiway from my own hangar seemingly frozen in the condition in which it was shipped from the factory in 1946.  Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it's a real nice specimen nonetheless!  Anyway, the current owner, my friend, Glen, is kind enough to let me fly his airplane so that I can practice my stick and rudder skills.

This is your basic day VFR airplane!

There are no bells and whistles here. In fact there is not even a battery, so the aircraft must be hand propped to start it as they did in the old days.  Tie the tail down (or have someone sitting in the left seat to apply the heel brakes), pull the prop through about four times, make the mags hot, and she cranks with a quarter turn of the prop. The 65 horse Continental purrs.

I owned a Cessna 140 of similar vintage for a few years, and I must say that this airplane is much more pleasant to fly.  The landing gear is a bit firm compared to the Cessna, but the pitch forces on the control wheel are much less, making it easier to land.  So that's what I did - a bunch of takeoffs and landings. I prefer the wheel landing rather than the three-point landing preferred by others, but this plane will do either easily.  I am a lucky person to have friends that, for some reason, want me to fly their airplanes!