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Doing my part as aviation ambassador

tkirk

Active Member
I have been wanting to tell this for a while, but I have been really busy lately traveling for work and flying the 40 hours off. Now, with the hollidays, I have been able to take some time to get caught up. Anyway, this past September I went to the home office north of San Diego, CA for our annual sales meeting and spend the week. Each year the boss has a surprise guest speaker spend about 30 minutes presenting whatever topic to give a break from the normal agenda. Well, this year he asked me to do the presentation on my RV-7 project, since I had done the first flight about a month earlier (this fits in with the sales agenda....you know...have the vision, work toward the goal, then succeed). Come presentation time, my coworkers' were shocked when they discovered that it was no one "special" speaking, just the funny talking guy from somewhere in the south. I began the presentation by telling everyone I was going to spend the next 30 minutes talking about how wonderful it is to live in the great state of Texas. After the groans, they discovered it was going to be about airplanes (anything but Texas is an improvement). I had put together a power point presentation with photos showing the construction progress, and then had some video of the first engine run, first flight, and first landing. All during the past three and a half years of building, one of the owners thought that any one who flew small planes was crazy, and if you built it in your garage.....well.....I better not write that comment on a family site! After the presentation, this nay sayer was just jaw dropping speechless. She couldn't believe that any one could actually build an airplane and all the detail and work that went into it. I think she had visions of bailing wire, etc. but now had a whole new perspective.

The next night was the company dinner/party. It turns out the surprise guest speaker (me) received a gift in appreciation for the time and effort in putting together the presentation. What was it? A brand new Bose Aviation Headset! Now here is the best part......Turns out, it was the nay sayer's idea!

By the way, the three short video's can be seen at:

http://youtube.com/timsrv7

My kids shot all of the video, so please...no comments on quaility!
 
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Thanks for the story. Are you an Aggie or did you just get lucky living in Aggieland? I spent four fun years at A&M.
 
Great

Very nice writeup, Tim. We can all speak at the Rotary, Kiwanis, etc. meetings when we're asked. An air tank with a quick couple threaded on the hose end will allow you to do some rivetting in the meeting, using one of them as either bucker or rivetter.

Regards,
 
No, not an aggie. Actually, I am a Red Raider. Talk about a stranger in a foreign land! Having said that, I chose to live here because this is a great place to raise a family. Also, the job requires me to travel, and because of the central location, I can go to several of the major cities in Texas for the day and still be home at night. However, when the kids are grown, I can see an airport home in my future.:)
 
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