Warbird Information Exchange

These photos are through the glass window of the Fairchild. Robin could not be persuaded to open the window for photography in the icy blast. But we did OK I think.

Then went to Trail for the circuit entry to Alliston. The strip was recently cleared by one of the tenants, a farmer with a big snowblower, so we lucked in.


(This is luxury for Canada in winter.)



Inside, Dad looked over our prep on the RV6a. He has painted many cars in his life, and knows how to turn out a nice job without a lot of fuss or extra expense. Robin had a discussion with him about urethanes vs. polyurethanes (she's been reading up), and I, frankly, learned something just by listening.



But Dad's secret weapon, the Man With The HVLP Gun, is my brother Phil...


... a pilot and an artist, who had rashly, and in a weak moment, taken on the project.

Anyway, a day like this, in winter, with family and old airplanes, is a Bonus.

Dave

Spring time is here. Waiting for the latest update.

Sorry -- very busy winter! We did finish the RV6 and it looks great. Robin is very happy.

i don't know how to post photos using an iPad, and that's all I have at the moment -- I'm in China.

Will get onto it!

Dave

Hey, I might have figured this out...

Amazing. Apple appears to have corrected a problem with the earlier OS. I can now paste the url of a photo.

So, that was most of our free time last winter -- painting the RV6a. Lots of work; I'm glad it is a small, low-wing airplane!

Someone is happy!

Looks great Dave.
I was flying the inaugural flight for 'MAD today (flew and ran beautifully)
I was shooting circuits at Watts place and had Edenvale tuned in on the radio.
I heard Robin arrive in to the circuit. Great to see the RV looking so good.

Andy

Thanks, Andy. And I'm glad you heard that radio because I had broken it 2 days before trying to take the front plate off. (She got Chris at Edenvale to fix it... ) Glad to hear MAD is flying again.

To recap, we shifted airplanes last winter: Robin's RV6 into the Fairchild hangar at Alliston because it's heated, and we had decided to paint it ourselves.

So here was the Before picture.



I built a paint booth by stretching 3 ropes across the hangar, and tensioning them with tackles. Then bought 130' of 4 mil plastic, pushing it over the ropes, and spreading it carefully out. Then taped the end sections on using the red Tuck-Tape. This made a good "box".



Next I made an extractor fan, which mounted a very high-capacity blower in a cabinet. It discharged through 3 cheap furnace screens, to catch the paint droplets.

Then Brother Phil, who doubles as a very good car painter, led us through the Prep process -- de-greasing, masking, fine sanding, dust control, reducer wipe, etc. Then the final step was to wet the floor to trap dust.

Result -- a magnificent looking beast. Or maybe not.



I forgot to mention that the other side of the booth had a large panel of furnace-filter screens to supply air into the booth. We couldn't use outside air because it was winter and we had to keep the airplane warm so the paint would set. So, filtered air.

It worked -- the filters caught most of the paint, but didn't clog up completely.



Then, wet-sand before masking...

Next came masking, and applying the Red. Result: DISASTER!!! It orange-peeled. We think it was a combination of a new and unknown gun, plus attempting to paint too much of the airplane at once. Too much paint in the air.

So, back to the sanding, and sanding, and sanding...



Then we did the red in stages, which took more days but made it easier to control conditions. And we used a gun from my Dad's shop which had produced known results.

Result: SUCCESS!!!

I'm wayyyy behind on my postings... having too much fun!

In April I got to fly a HKG trip with my son Austin, who recently came over from 3 years as an F/O on the Embraer. This was a delightful happenstance -- I didn't pull any strings at all. I just bid to fly on that Easter Sunday and he was assigned that pairing while on Reserve.

We met at Flight Planning, looking a bit different from the last time we flew together, which was in the Fairchild.

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Then off to pre-flight the 777...

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... and then off over the high arctic, to about 83 North, and then down to the Siberian coast. Here we are going up the Lena River. It's huge, and we cruise up its length for about 2.5 hours.

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Got into HKG no problem (pre-monsoon, no thunderstorms to speak of), and had a great 24-hour layover. Then went onto the Ramp for some photos in front of the biggest engines in commercial service.


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Great trip -- and a wonderful "closure" : it's a long way from his first ground-school as an Air Cadet...

Dave

Let me jump ahead a bit -- I'm barnstorming again in 2016 with the Lysander, courtesy of The Lysander Funds, our sponsor for the season.

She came through the winter without too much maintenance work. The one cylinder we took off turned out not to have any problems, and we put it back on again. And I insisted on one of the modern MGL radios, which I use in the Fairchild. It's not perfect in the Lysander, but works adequately in that high-noise environment, and it's hugely better than last year when I had torrential squelch in my ears every moment the radio was on.

And we changed the pre-oil procedure, installing an integral oil pump, which vastly simplifies the summer's operation -- now I need only a 2-man crew to support the aeroplane, not 4 like last year (there's just me).

It was great to get it airborne again!

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Off we went to the Borden Air Show, with great anticipation that turned into cruel disappointment -- I had an air display role in that show, and very much enjoyed the practice on Friday. But on Saturday the wind was 25 kts across the landing surface, with hard, solid gusts.

I stayed on the ramp, behind a building.

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I had to improvise control locks. The aeroplane comes with nothing integral, and you can't reach the ailerons, so I improvised -- sailor-wise.

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And on Sunday the wind veered to merely a 45-degree crosswind, but then rose to 32 kts! I cursed, I made rash promises to various deities, I gnashed my teeth, but I stayed in the barn. (If one of those 32 kt gusts got under one wing, she'd have flipped, sure as antigravity.)

With all the other gliders...

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Earlier in the spring I'd test-flown the Fox Moth, which now belongs to Blake R, but stays in the Collection.

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There was a bit more play in the throttle linkage than is desirable, so he asked me to ferry it to Stan The AME's place in Grand Valley. It was a very windy day, blowing right out of the west, in my teeth. 3.6 hours in a Moth! That's the longest I've ever sat in one, by far. But of course the "biz-jet" version of the Fox has 35 gals capacity, and the limitation for endurance becomes my bladder, not the aeroplane. Still, a long time to get biplane-hammered in turbulence. I nearly needed a crane to get me out of the cockpit.

Stopped in Edenvale...

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... and later brought in the Lysander. (It's cool stealing 2 aircraft from a Collection. The trick is to fly them away like you own them!)

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