I have been contemplating taking the dive into building my own plane for about 25+ years now. That life long dream is about to become reality. I have done a lot of researching in the past year or so, and have narrowed my choice down to two. The RV-10 or the the RV-14a. During that time I was able to reach out to Mitch Lock and ask for a demo fight. My wife and I traveled to Manassas VA for an EAA Sportair Workshop on September 10-11. I took the sheet metal course. It was well worth the expense and effort, but that is for another thread.
Luckily we were able to travel to meet with Mitch on Monday, September 12, 2016. Mitch met us promptly, as planned at 10:00am, at his airport, St. Mary's Regional Airport, (2W6). We were greeted by a beautiful RV-14a, pristine hanger, and a great seating area right next to the plane, that I could not keep my eyes off of. As they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression, and wow did Mitch nail this one! With both my wife and me.
My wife is totally new to the General Aviation thing. Her idea of flying is buckling up in a Boeing and reading until we unload. I am a former CFII and currently have a Commercial Certificate and Instrument Rating. I wanted to jump right in the 14 and fly. My wife had many question and Mitch took his time and answered them all and discussed all of our concerns with us. He was very professional, friendly and patient with us. Vans could not ask for a better representative way out here on the East Coast.
It is very important to me to have Linda, my wife, comfortable with all the aspects of this journey I am about to undertake. She needs to be comfortable with the money and time spent on this. She has never flown with me as P.I.C., as I have been out for G.A. for the last 20+ years. That is about to change. As such I wanted her to fly with Mitch in his RV-14a to make sure she could even do this. It would be a total waste to build a plane and not have her with me in it.
So off Mitch and I went. He took me up and gave me a great demo flight. Wow, can that plane perform! Most of my time is in Cessnas and Pipers, you can imagine my thrill as we rotated and I looked over and saw Mitch was still feeding in power. Then Mitch took Linda up. Guess what? She landed and had an RV grin on too!
After talking to her she told me how Mitch handled the demo flight. We could not have been more pleased. He explained everything to her and answered all of her questions. An example she gave me was of him explaining to her a power reduction. All of us are used to and expect sound changes during a flight when we are at the controls. Not so to the uninitiated. Mitch warned her of the upcoming power reduction so she was not startled by the sound change. I am pretty sure I would have just reduced power on the climb out then spent the rest of a truncated flight explaining why I did not warn her.
I am sure this endeavour just came closer to being a reality due to Mitch Lock and his time he shared with us. I can not be more grateful to Mitch and to Vans for choosing a person such as Mitch. Again thanks Mitch!
Luckily we were able to travel to meet with Mitch on Monday, September 12, 2016. Mitch met us promptly, as planned at 10:00am, at his airport, St. Mary's Regional Airport, (2W6). We were greeted by a beautiful RV-14a, pristine hanger, and a great seating area right next to the plane, that I could not keep my eyes off of. As they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression, and wow did Mitch nail this one! With both my wife and me.
My wife is totally new to the General Aviation thing. Her idea of flying is buckling up in a Boeing and reading until we unload. I am a former CFII and currently have a Commercial Certificate and Instrument Rating. I wanted to jump right in the 14 and fly. My wife had many question and Mitch took his time and answered them all and discussed all of our concerns with us. He was very professional, friendly and patient with us. Vans could not ask for a better representative way out here on the East Coast.
It is very important to me to have Linda, my wife, comfortable with all the aspects of this journey I am about to undertake. She needs to be comfortable with the money and time spent on this. She has never flown with me as P.I.C., as I have been out for G.A. for the last 20+ years. That is about to change. As such I wanted her to fly with Mitch in his RV-14a to make sure she could even do this. It would be a total waste to build a plane and not have her with me in it.
So off Mitch and I went. He took me up and gave me a great demo flight. Wow, can that plane perform! Most of my time is in Cessnas and Pipers, you can imagine my thrill as we rotated and I looked over and saw Mitch was still feeding in power. Then Mitch took Linda up. Guess what? She landed and had an RV grin on too!
After talking to her she told me how Mitch handled the demo flight. We could not have been more pleased. He explained everything to her and answered all of her questions. An example she gave me was of him explaining to her a power reduction. All of us are used to and expect sound changes during a flight when we are at the controls. Not so to the uninitiated. Mitch warned her of the upcoming power reduction so she was not startled by the sound change. I am pretty sure I would have just reduced power on the climb out then spent the rest of a truncated flight explaining why I did not warn her.
I am sure this endeavour just came closer to being a reality due to Mitch Lock and his time he shared with us. I can not be more grateful to Mitch and to Vans for choosing a person such as Mitch. Again thanks Mitch!
