[Fwd: Why I'll never build a kit plane.]

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 09:10:33 -0500, Jim Willson
wrote:
Even though I'd be quite capable of doing it, I'll never build a kit
airplane. Call me a wimp, but I've assembled too many bicycles on
Christmas morning to think that I could be 100% correct in building an
airplane. And for what?! A thrill. The pride to say, "Look what I
did!"

You are saying in one sentence that you could build an airplane, but
saying in the next sentence that you don't think much of your ability
to put together bicycles. You are aware that the process is supposed
to involve experts who inspect your work and assembly and advise you
on what you need, right?

Yes, there for sure is an immense amount of pride to be able to say:
"I built that". That goes for airplanes, cars, bicycles, houses or
furniture. Anything you build yourself and do a good job gives you
pride and satisfaction. I might add that this goes for raising a
family well too.

I wonder what the kids will say about their daddy. I'm sure he
spent hours at the hanger instead of with them. Perhaps they sat at the
hanger watching him asking him annoying questions so that they could at
least get his attention. I'm sure he made many promises to spend more
time with them when the plane was finished.

You're sure of that are you? You know him personally and know that he
spent time at the airport while his kids were begging him to play with
them?

We spend so many hours of our lives chasing after the temporal things of
this world, (i.e. hobbies, work, a name, a reputation). We never spend
time chasing after the things that will count when we're gone (the
character of our family) or those things eternal.

I grieve for this family. What a waste!

R/
Jim

================================================= ============================================
Please speak for yourself Jim. I have been bulding an airplane for
more than 13 years. The reason it's taken me this long is because I
spent a lot more time with my family than working on the airplane.
They always came first. The kids are gone now but I still find myself
spending a lot more time with my wife than the airplane.

I too grieve for his family.

Corky Scott

Corky Scott wrote:

Yes, there for sure is an immense amount of pride to be able to say:
"I built that". That goes for airplanes, cars, bicycles, houses or
furniture. Anything you build yourself and do a good job gives you
pride and satisfaction. I might add that this goes for raising a
family well too.

My point is one will last forever, the other will not.

R/
Jim

Jim Willson wrote:

Even though I'd be quite capable of doing it, I'll never build a kit
airplane.

Why are you reading this newsgroup?

We spend so many hours of our lives chasing after the temporal things
of this world, (i.e. hobbies, work, a name, a reputation). We never
spend time chasing after the things that will count when we're gone
(the character of our family) or those things eternal.

Well, I assume you are a former naval officer, since you said you had
some 300 traps in another post (what'd you fly?), so you understand the
importance of leadership. And leadership does not only apply to your
sailors, it applies to within your family.

A finely crafted airplane is a work of art. The pursuit of excellence in
its creation is as fine an example as you can set for your children. Use
it, not as an escape from them, but as a means to educate them (wax on-
wax off grasshopper). burn it when you're done, if you don't want to fly
it. It's the journey, not the arival that is important.

Ever watch monster garage? Family run motorcylce customization business?


I grieve for this family. What a waste!

A tragedy for sure. A waste? An open question...

Earlier, Jim Willson wrote:

Even though I'd be quite capable of doing it, I'll never build a kit
airplane. Call me a wimp, but I've assembled too many bicycles on
Christmas morning to think that I could be 100% correct in building an
airplane. And for what?! A thrill. The pride to say, "Look what I
did!" I wonder what the kids will say about their daddy. I'm sure he
spent hours at the hanger instead of with them. Perhaps they sat at the
hanger watching him asking him annoying questions so that they could at
least get his attention. I'm sure he made many promises to spend more
time with them when the plane was finished.

We spend so many hours of our lives chasing after the temporal things of
this world, (i.e. hobbies, work, a name, a reputation). We never spend
time chasing after the things that will count when we're gone (the
character of our family) or those things eternal.

I grieve for this family. What a waste!

It would be difficult address all of these points to the appropriate
depth. However, I will make a couple of observations and suggestions
on behalf of homebuilt aviation:

Everybody who endeavors to partake of homebuilding should read Tom
Wolfe's _The Right Stuff_. Or, if you're too busy, watch the movie
twice through; it's sort of a condensed shorthand for the main themes
of the movie. Here's what I think you should take away from the
experience:

Flying is generally sort of safe, but it is inherently unforgiving.
Especially when you are doing things that are untested or in uncharted
territory, unexpected things may happen. They may happen quickly and
brutally.

Everything you do in aviation has risks, and you must carefully
balance your obligations to your family and friends against those
risks.

However, you must also balance these same obligations against the
absence of risks, for without risk you cannot advance in either your
personal or professional lives. Just as the unexamined life is not
worth living, nor is the unlived life worth examining.

The accident in question happened at an airport where a lot of my kit
sailplane development is happening. I've been there with my family
several times, and I've flown there with my daughter in a small
airplane. I've stood in the hangars there and addressed audiences to
tell them that my project is behind schedule, and that it is so
because I'm spending time with my family rather than in the shop.

And yet part of why I do these crazy things, think up these crazy
systems and mechanisms, and handle crazy materials, is for my family.
I want my daughters to know that dreams are more than pictures inside
your head. Dreams can be expressed with your hands and be made real.
You have to choose your dreams carefully, and express them with care
and precision that does not come naturally to dreamers. But dreams
they are, and real they can become.

Sons and daughters don't learn these dream lessons from television.
They don't learn it from their Nintendo. They can sort of get the idea
from school, although only in a pale shadowy form. They learn them
best by doing them, and they learn the idea of the doing from seeing
it done. And they must learn that dreams are inherently risky, but
that risks can and must be managed.

Exploring the risk management aspect a bit further, I have to ask
myself, would I do the things that this pilot seems to have done? I
think that the answer would be no in many aspects.

Would I test my new airplane on a swaybacked mountainside airport with
narrow pavement, 6500 foot density altitude and relatively few
alternate landing sites? I think I would not. I would rather choose a
flatland ex-military airport with acres of tarmac and abundant
options. Especially if one was right down the highway.

Would I start testing my new airplane with a single launch and
takeoff? I think I would not. I would rather approach takeoff speed
progressively on many runs over a period of days or weeks. The actual
first takeoff would hopefully seem to be an anticlimactic
afterthought.

Would I start testing my new airplane with friends and family
watching? I think I would not. I have know too many such events to go
awry. Be it stage fright, performance anxiety, or whatever you'd call
it, Heisenberg's principle dictates that watchers cannot but influence
the outcome. I would rather make my test program start so early in the
morning, and be so inherently boring, that those few who came to watch
would wander off after the first three or four hours.

Would I start testing my new airplane with no recent time in a similar
type? I think I would not. I would rather either refresh my flying
skills, or get someone else who is more qualified.

Those are just my few thoughts on the matter at hand.

Thanks, and best regards to all

Bob K.
http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24

In article ,
(Corky Scott) writes:

Please speak for yourself Jim. I have been bulding an airplane for
more than 13 years. The reason it's taken me this long is because I
spent a lot more time with my family than working on the airplane.
They always came first. The kids are gone now but I still find myself
spending a lot more time with my wife than the airplane.

I too grieve for his family.

Corky Scott



I occasionally spend too much time with my wife and she politely encourages me
to get back to work on the plane. ;-)


Bob Reed
www.kisbuild.r-a-reed-assoc.com (KIS Builders Site)
KIS Cruiser in progress...Slow but steady progress....

"Ladies and Gentlemen, take my advice,
pull down your pants and Slide on the Ice!"
(M.A.S.H. Sidney Freedman)

It is difficult, if not impossible, to know what it is that our
children will remember long after we have forgotten.

My daughter and her husband, both vo-tech high school and honors
college graduates, had a problem with the base board heating in their
home. They were about to call a plumber when my daughter said, wait
a minute, we are both college grads. We should be able to figure this
out. And they did.

She later told me that all the times I had made her stand by to hand
me tools while fixing the car, or a plumbing problem, or any of the
other host of aggraviations around the house really paid off that day.
That, when she was a kid, she didn't care why a socket was the right
tool for this job and an open end wrench was the right tool for that
job. But as an adult she appreciated knowing the difference. And
appreciated my showing her.

July 31 @ 9:35 PM (but who is keeping track) will be the 23
anninversary of a near fatal motorcycle accident for me. After that I
did spend more time with my family but continued to do the things that
I enjoyed as well. We all need togetherness with, and time apart
from, those we love.

Moderation in all things!

Errol Groff
EAA 60159
Leaving for OSH at 6:00 AM on Friday!

In article ,
Errol Groff wrote:

It is difficult, if not impossible, to know what it is that our
children will remember long after we have forgotten.

My daughter and her husband, both vo-tech high school and honors
college graduates, had a problem with the base board heating in their
home. They were about to call a plumber when my daughter said, wait
a minute, we are both college grads. We should be able to figure this
out. And they did.

She later told me that all the times I had made her stand by to hand
me tools while fixing the car, or a plumbing problem, or any of the
other host of aggraviations around the house really paid off that day.
That, when she was a kid, she didn't care why a socket was the right
tool for this job and an open end wrench was the right tool for that
job. But as an adult she appreciated knowing the difference. And
appreciated my showing her.

July 31 @ 9:35 PM (but who is keeping track) will be the 23
anninversary of a near fatal motorcycle accident for me. After that I
did spend more time with my family but continued to do the things that
I enjoyed as well. We all need togetherness with, and time apart
from, those we love.

Moderation in all things!

Especially moderation (Oscar Wilde)


Errol Groff
EAA 60159
Leaving for OSH at 6:00 AM on Friday!

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
"If you raise the ceiling 4 feet, move the fireplace from that wall
to that wall, you'll still only get the full stereophonic effect
if you sit in the bottom of that cupboard."

Barnyard BOb wrote in message At 65, ... waxing philosophical

Did you wax away 5 years also? Hey! Does anyone see the 5 years that BOb
just lost?

D. (just kidding- you don't look a day over 80)

Barnyard BOb wrote in message At 65, ... waxing philosophical

Did you wax away 5 years also? Hey! Does anyone see the 5 years that BOb
just lost?

D. (just kidding- you don't look a day over 80)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

80 ain't bad when you consider the worst case alternative --
being a teenager or a steadfast auto-conversion fruitcake.


Barnyard BOb -- stranger than fiction

Barnyard BOb wrote in message 80 ain't bad when you consider the worst
case alternative -- being a teenager or a steadfast auto-conversion
fruitcake.

That's why I'm designing my own engine. It will power my tilt-rotor.

D.