Various projects and exploits
The quest to build and fly my own airplane has become two-faceted. To build requires careful planning, time in the shop, and craftsmanship. But in order to fly the thing, a very different sort of thinking and skills must be developed. Thus, while both consume time, one does not cast boredom onto the other. These […]
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At the end of my most recent lesson, my log book rolled over the 10hr mark; ten hours of dual instruction in a 1999 Cessna 172R. The primary takeaway from my experience so far has been that it was not like I expected. This is not to say it was a negative experience. Simply that it […]
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The high-level path I chose to follow for building the wooden structures was wing ribs, tail feathers, fuselage, and wing assembly. I say “wing assembly” because the bulk of the work has been done by the time the ribs are built; what remains is to put the ribs on the spars, and add all of […]
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While drawing wing ribs in AutoCad is an interesting endeavor, [EDIT 2/20/2024: I cannot recommend the CAD route. I have edited the previous post on this topic to indicate why this is a waste of time, and how it went wrong for me.] nothing sets the aviator apart from the idle dreamer like sawing spruce, […]
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EDIT: Since the original publication of this article, my prospective on aviation costs have changed somewhat. The thoughts in the article below do not necessarily represent my present ideas on aviation. I am writing another article which will be linked here when it is published. From any honest viewpoint, the truth remains: Aviation is expensive. If […]
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EDIT: 2/20/2024 – I cannot recommend following my example below. I printed this CAD drawing onto multiple sheets of paper, and carefully measured and taped them together to make my full-size rib layout. Unfortunately, my laser printer produced slightly trapezoidal printings – unlike the perfect rectangle that the area inside the margins should be. This […]
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If you happened to be one of the 0.0001% of the people on the Internet who have read this blog in the past, you may have noticed that there hasn’t been an update for over 3 years. I have still been doing things though. In fact, I’d like to think I’ve been doing more awesome […]
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