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Just before my Last flight in my RV-9A

rv9aviator

Well Known Member
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I sold my RV-9A to a great guy in Indiana and delivered it to him last Sunday. He and his Dad are planning lots of exploring together. I spent nearly 8 years building her and only flew her for 2 years but enjoyed almost every minute of the experience.RV's are wonderful machines. For me at 62 years old the effort in keeping current with medical issues and all the other flying requirements just got to be more work than the fun I was getting out of flying.Looking back I wish I had bought a flying RV-9A and flew that 8 years instead of building. Not to say I didn't enjoy the building process but I enjoy flying more. For the longest time I couldn't figure out why Roberta would give up flying and switch to building boats but I completely understand now. I am not through flying but am seriously thinking of building a Legal Eagle Ultralight. That is flying in its simplest terms. Oh, I did buy a boat with some of the proceeds Roberta. :)
Anyway I'm not going away from the forum as a friend is getting ready to build an 8. I get to be a mentor and tool loaner for flying privileges if I decide to keep my medical. To everyone here who has answered all my questions and offered support when i needed it I am very grateful for the experience. This is the best forum on the web as far as I am concerned. Thanks Doug. [Jim, my friend, you are most welcome. Don't be a stranger, and if you're ever in the DFW area you give me a call. v/r, dr]
 
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Thanks Vlad. Not sure what the future holds. I'm just going to think about this for a while and see what direction to go. I will say one thing about building the RV9, I paid for everything as I went along and didn't borrow any money over the 8 years. I worked on the plane in the evenings and weekends instead of sitting in front of a TV. I now have a sizable chunk of money in the bank that would never have happened had I not built the plane. That money that I spent on the plane would have disappeared over the years with nothing to show for it. I'm not the best at saving money and this turned out a great way to build a nest egg. I will say when I delivered the plane and walked away seeing it for the last time in that big empty hangar it kind of hit me and felt like I abandoned a child. :(
 
This is kind of strange

You read posts sometimes because of the thread titles. For whatever reason, probably the "last flight" part, I read your post. I saw up in the upper right corner of the post that you live in Arkansas and as I read I wondered if I would recognize your name when I got to the bottom. I was quite surprised when I saw that it was you. We have exchanged pleasant posts over the past few years, mentioned getting together once or twice and I actually landed at Harrison once to see if there was an RV-9A around. Never happened.

I think you probably had a better life experience building your RV-9A and flying it for 2 years than if you had bought one and flew for an additional 8 years. When Jeanine and I bought our RV-6A kit we had the full experience of renting a truck in Portland and driving to our home in Orange County south of Los Angeles to start the build. It took us 8 years to complete ours as well but I was 60 when we started.

I am getting ready to fly to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho on Thursday to fly in the Pappy Boyington Memorial Cup Air Race on Saturday. As miserable as it is in the heat I am waxing the plane for the second time this year. I got the top done to the back of the cockpit (including the wings) and I was looking at the upper fuselage skin back there. I reflected on how I laid plywood on the formers in the tail cone and back riveted that skin on with Jeanine holding the bucking bar on the outside. She belonged to a sorority and once a year the meeting would be at our house. She would always take her sorority sisters out to the garage with pride and show them what we had done since the previous year. Jeanine died of breast cancer in January 2012 and my strength and endurance have decreased alarmingly but I find a way to pace myself and carry on.

It is not fun to fly these long distances, fly in the races and fly home but it is SOMETHING! Even though I am alone in the cockpit, I am not alone in my mind. When the race starts and I am released for takeoff I focus on the race strategy I have planned and try to execute it precisely. It is for the "Jeanine and Bob Axsom Racing team" and I am highly alive in the moment.

Selling your RV-9A and living your life to the fullest makes perfect sense to me but I understand that it was not an emotionless transfer of ownership. However, even at 76 I cannot imagine any way I would ever sell the plane that Jeanine and I built and traveled from coast to coast in.

Have a good one Jim,

Bob Axsom
 
I wish I could have met you and your wife in better times Bob. I can understand the emotional ties you have with your plane. I didn't have that so much with the building of mine. My wife of 44 years was completely behind me all the way but wasn't involved in the process. She never really enjoyed flying because of a sinus problem. She always worried about descending when we got where we were going. Even the last flight we descended out of 7500 ft. at 200-300 ft per minute it still got to her when we got to 3000 ft. It was bad enough to make tears run down her face. I would rather spend time with her than flying places by myself.
I lived in Orange County back in the 70's. Buena Park. We enjoyed it at that time but so glad to be back in Arkansas now.
Give me a holler if get back over to Harrison, and I'll buy lunch.
 
So Fast

Jim, I envision people I have helped, flying their RVs a long long time. So sorry to read you have sold. Time passes so fast,
 
Jay, you're right about time passing fast. Too fast sometimes. Thanks to you I got to fly a lot sooner than I would have. Look me up if you pass through HRO.
 
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