Thanks to all!
I wanted to take a second to thank all of you for the well wishes and confidence. Suzanne and I had planned for the day when I would 'retire' on our terms, it just didn't work to the timeline for the 'others'. So moving up 5 months was a little bit of an inconvenience, but fortunately all was already in place.
We're making some room in our shop at home to put some of the RV7 components here, so in some down time, I can be making some progress to get it finished. So with that, and some equipment I brought home with me from the other 'job' its a little crowded, but I've worked in a smaller area before! Looks like I'm going to need a bigger shop, before the airport expansion at 3J1 is completed!
To all of you, there is NO interruption in service---in fact, it may actually speed up things a little bit. Phone still the same, website the same---may even get a makeover to help ordering (!), and some of those R&D projects will finally get done to help all of you.
I want to express my sincere appreciation to Lee Logan. As a lot of you know, Lee and I have been friends, well since the mid 70's when he was flying F-4's out MCAS Beaufort. He was very influential in getting me started in this business, AND getting me going on my 7 project. On top of that, I've been 'borrowing' space in his hangar all of this time, and quite frankly haven't made the progress on it that I had hoped. All of this is my fault-surgery, illness, honeymoon, and the business that is funding it, all seemed to get in the way of progress. All the while, Lee has been a cheerleader, a mentor, and above all of that, a great friend. Without him, TS Flightlines probably wouldn't exist. So a big debt of gratitude goes out to Lee and Diane for being there!
I'd be remiss with out mentioning Dennis Argentsinger, my A&P, and one of our build partners, Ray Eaker, of our build group, Bo Mabry--a vast amount of knowledge and renowned Globe Swift expert, Jay Pratt, Walt Aronow, Paul Dye, James Clark, the current and former members of Team AeroDynamix, that flight tested alot of our early projects, my business partner Steve Tschurwald of Aircraft Specialty. As many of you know, Steve and I have collaborated on many projects for RV's and other experimentals over the past several years, and we are expanding that effort with a BUNCH of new and exciting things to be released shortly. I want to thank Doug and Susie Reeves for having this forum so we can voice our 2 cents worth. You dont realize the far-reaching effect of VAF---to all the people and places it allows us to communicate with, LOL---most are email clients, or voices on the phone. Some have become very good friends, some I'll probably never meet (gotta do that RV social thing). But the truth of the matter is that TS Flightlines would not have been a success ( and this day would not have come) without VAF and Doug and Susie and their sacrifice. Thank you guys. The list of contacts and clients is pretty big, and its all because of you guys. Word of mouth advertising still works, and event though I've dropped the ball on a few things over the years, I've tried to help you and treat you how you helped me and treated me early on. Its funny now, but several years ago when Paul Dye was still at NASA, he was a client and I think we were doing something on 'TSAM". Here I was, a small guy talking to a the lead Flight Director at NASA. Paul was a big inspiration to get me to think out of the box, and come up with solutions to issues that arose. Paul and Louise---thank you! Pierre Smith was another early client that helped kick this thing into 2nd gear. Ray Lawrence, and the list gets bigger and bigger. Suzanne and I don't take that for granted, and our heartfelt appreciation goes out to all of you. The emails, phone calls, letters, cards and text messages after the surgery incident in November was very overwhelming. Some of you even offered to come down and build hoses while I was recuperating. Overwhelmed is an understatement.
So---some changes are coming, the future is bright. WE aren't going away. Far from it. Some of you are aware of the expansion plans. More details will be released when the time is right.
But above all, we want to sincerely express our thanks to all of our friends and clients that have allowed us to be a small part of your projects. Its fun!
Tom and Suzanne Swearengen
