VansAirForceForums  
Home > VansAirForceForums

- POSTING RULES
- Donate yearly (please).
- Advertise in here!

- Today's Posts | Insert Pics


Go Back   VAF Forums > Main > RV General Discussion/News
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
  #21  
Old 07-27-2015, 06:07 AM
Caveman's Avatar
Caveman Caveman is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Oklahoma
Posts: 672
Default New Avatar

Quote:
Originally Posted by RVbySDI View Post
Lastly, Figgs and Phil, thanks for staying around and helping. Even friends who "slash" up your rudder are still friends worth having.
Glad everyone made it back. It was lonely flying home.

So, I understand that Jerry Fischer has christened UK Figs with a new call sign "SLASH", which is perfect. How about a new avatar contest for Slash to help celebrate his "coming out"? Anybody got any ideas for a good one?

P.S. Oh and before anybody thinks we are taking this too lightly, we try and do things right. Including having a departure briefing at homebuilt headquarters and also at the airplanes before we started up. Nobody can feel worse about this than SLASH!

Joe
__________________
Joe Schneider
RV-7, IO-360, BA Hartzell, N847CR
Flying since 2008
Reply With Quote
  #22  
Old 07-27-2015, 07:55 AM
DanH's Avatar
DanH DanH is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: 08A
Posts: 9,500
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Caveman View Post
So, I understand that Jerry Fischer has christened UK Figs with a new call sign "SLASH", which is perfect. How about a new avatar contest for Slash to help celebrate his "coming out"? Anybody got any ideas for a good one?


Poor Figs...he ain't never gonna live this down!
__________________
Dan Horton
RV-8 SS
Barrett IO-390
Reply With Quote
  #23  
Old 07-27-2015, 03:22 PM
uk_figs's Avatar
uk_figs uk_figs is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Tulsa, OK
Posts: 1,015
Red face Still feel bad

Quote:
Originally Posted by DanH View Post

Poor Figs...he ain't never gonna live this down!
Lesson learned the hard way, was tracking Steve in the conga line and looked inside to double check the tower frequency was in monitor mode prior to the line and ended up catching up to him and the spinner hit the rudder. Shut down the motor but it took a few revolutions to stop which took the plastic leading edge guards and a few nicks off the front of my Catto prop and tore up the lower end of Steve's rudder.
Very sick feeling and first accident in a plane since getting license in 1979 made even worse by tearing up your flying buddies plane.

I will say the RV community response was superb to come up with a rudder for Steve overnight, which included Craig and Nichole Catto coming up with a prop and spinner from the ECI IO-360 demonstrator that same day.

Nevertheless lesson learned to keep your head outside at Oshkosh.

As Dan said I know I will not live this down

Figs/Slash
__________________
Dave (Figs) (RV-7 N256F, Flying)
Dave's RV-7 Blog
Email me
Reply With Quote
  #24  
Old 07-27-2015, 06:39 PM
Jerry Fischer's Avatar
Jerry Fischer Jerry Fischer is offline
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Winder Ga
Posts: 914
Default Figs...er SLASH

UHHH...no, you won't
& Steve, you're welcome my friend.
__________________
Jerry Fischer KW4F
VAF# 1646
USS Randolph CVS-15 V-6 Div. AT2
RV7 N364SJ Miss Sandy sold
RV1 N1583 "Mockingbird 1" SOLD
EAA volunteer SNF

HBC volunteer/co-chairman OSH
Tech counselor
Reply With Quote
  #25  
Old 08-06-2015, 12:16 PM
RVbySDI's Avatar
RVbySDI RVbySDI is offline
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Tuttle, Oklahoma
Posts: 2,563
Default The rudder damage saga of Oshkosh 2015

So here is a follow up of the adventures of my OSH 2015 trip. I do not have the plane back to normal yet but it is in the works. Here is a synapses of the events:

Thursday was our scheduled departure date for leaving Oshkosh this year. We had originally planned to leave Wednesday but we were having such a great time that all but one of us traveling together decided to stay one more day. So after a fun filled 5 days we were ready to head home. Things were flowing smoothly that morning. We tore down our campsite, packed the planes and made our way over to homebuilt headquarters where all of us processed our camping refunds. After getting back to the airplanes we had a short briefing to discuss our plan of action for departure from OSH. Around 9:15 or so we had our planes out ready for the scooters to taxi us out to the conga line. Made it to the conga line and were slowly making our way to the end of 36L. We were a short 15 minutes or so from making it to the runway when Mary and I heard and felt the most horrible rumbling imaginable. In fact it really was ?unimaginable? because for a second or so I could not figure out for the life of me what was making such an incredible noise. The entire airplane was shaking and vibrating like it was being torn to shreds. My initial thought was something catastrophic was happening to the engine. But we were at idle. I looked at the engine gauges and everything was normal. We were actually stopped and the engine was idling contentedly around 750 RPMs. Nothing unusual. Then after a torturous, oh I don?t know, 500 milliseconds from the initial realization that it was not the engine, it dawned on me what was happening. David Figgins? (be it forever known that as of 8-23-2015 David Figgins shall be christened ?SLASH?) RV7 had slowly crept forward as the conga line was stopped. His prop began chewing away at my rudder! All of this occurred in a matter of seconds. Seconds were all it took for the damage to be done.



My rudder was shredded!



There would be no flying today! Where we were on the taxiway was just a short distance over to the emergency repair station. We taxiied into the station and I went to work trying to get a replacement rudder to the show that would allow me to fly home. One of the guys running the show at the repair station drove me over in their new aluminum body Ford p/u to the Vans tent. Van was actually there so I told him of the incident and asked if they had any completed rudders at their factory in Oregon. They did not build quick build rudders as it was not a part of the normal quick build kits. However, they did have a retired RV9 with an intact rudder in the rafters collecting dust. They agreed to have shop personnel pull the rudder off, pack it and ship it overnight to the show. Without going into details, that is exactly what happened. This was around 11:00am on Thursday. The next day at 9:30am I received a phone call on my cell from the EAA Warehouse telling me there was a shipment from Vans with my name on it. It was the rudder. In less than 24 hours it had been flown half way across the country. As I will explain below it turns out I did not need the rudder, but it was great to know they went above and beyond to get me a rudder that I could use to fly home. Because I did not need the rudder, Vans told me to bring the box over to their tent and they would load it onto the truck when the show is over and take it back home.

Well, the reason I did not end up using the Vans rudder was due to help from another RV flyer. After talking with Vans I logged onto the VAF forum website. I logged in and posted that I had a damaged rudder at OSH and was in desperate need of a new rudder that could get me home from OSH. Butch Weckman from Hutchinson, MN saw my post and called my cell. He and a friend were leaving that evening after work to go to OSH. He happened to have a rudder that he could bring to the show that I could use. Further, it was complete and if I wished to do so, I could purchase it from him as a replacement. To make this already long story shorter, that is exactly what happened. Butch arrived at the repair station bright and early Friday morning. I arrived at 7:00am and commenced to removing my rudder. The rudder has three bolts holding it onto the vertical stabilizer and two bolts holding the rudder cables. They were quickly removed. I installed Butch?s rudder and in the span of approximately 2 hours we were ready to fly home. Mary had decided to ride home with friends from home via ground.

David 'SLASH' Figgins and his friend Phil had stayed with me to help with repairs (SLASH was able to get a brand new prop from Catto props so he had his repairs made also). So Friday morning, almost 24 hours to the minute from the incident, we were now taxiing to RWY 18R for takeoff. We pulled into a much shorter conga line and with a great deal of looking out of the corner of my eye behind me the two of us pulled onto the runway. I announced we were a flight of two. The pink shirt called clearance for our flight of two to take off. We departed straight out on 18R and once clear of OSH class D climbed to 10.5K for our flight home.



We were headed to Paola, KS (K81) for our fuel stop and some great BBQ at We-Be-Smokin? BBQ. Which by the way, if anyone wants a nice day trip for some weekend you might think about flying up to We-Be-Smokin? BBQ for lunch. Great food right in the terminal building of the airport. So, the story finally comes to an end. I made it home just before 5:00pm Friday. Approximately 24 hours later than what was planned. The plane was finally tucked into the hangar after an eventful trip.



So, we now have two art pieces to display on the hangar apartment wall. A flap from the Sun N' Fun 2011 tornado and a rudder from the Oshkosh 2015 SLASH incident.

So what is it the French say? "C'est La Vie!"

And courtesy of the infamous philosopher Spock:
"Live Long and Prosper!"

I shall endeavor to live by both.
__________________
RVBYSDI
Steve
RV9A
https://rvwings.com

Live Long And Prosper! 🖖🏻
Reply With Quote
  #26  
Old 08-06-2015, 12:30 PM
DanH's Avatar
DanH DanH is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: 08A
Posts: 9,500
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by RVbySDI View Post
So Friday morning, almost 24 hours to the minute from the incident, we were now taxiing to RWY 18R for takeoff. We pulled into a much shorter conga line and with a great deal of looking out of the corner of my eye behind me the two of us pulled onto the runway.
You allowed Slash to get behind you?

In return for this manifest gesture of trust and friendship, did he buy lunch?
__________________
Dan Horton
RV-8 SS
Barrett IO-390
Reply With Quote
  #27  
Old 08-06-2015, 12:33 PM
TS Flightlines TS Flightlines is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Ridgeland, SC
Posts: 2,589
Default

Wow. First off, a big pat on the back for everyone that helped Steve with his incident. RV people are the best!
2nd----here's to Vans for having components that are somewhat interchangeble. Can you imagine having to scratch build a rudder from a kit that wasnt at OSH?
Having the resources to make such repairs a long way from home is amazing to me. Just goes to show you that being prepared is worth the effort.
Tom
__________________
Tom Swearengen, TS Flightlines LLC, AS Flightlines
Joint Venture with Aircraft Specialty
Teflon Hose Assemblies for Experimentals
Proud Vendor for RV1, Donator to VAF
RV7 Tail Kit Completed, Fuse started-Pay as I go Plan
Ridgeland, SC
www.tsflightlines.com, www.asflightlines.com
Reply With Quote
  #28  
Old 08-06-2015, 12:39 PM
RVbySDI's Avatar
RVbySDI RVbySDI is offline
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Tuttle, Oklahoma
Posts: 2,563
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by DanH View Post
You allowed Slash to get behind you?

In return for this manifest gesture of trust and friendship, did he buy lunch?
Yes, well, I figured there was no one on the planet that would be taxiing an airplane more carefully than Slash on that day.
__________________
RVBYSDI
Steve
RV9A
https://rvwings.com

Live Long And Prosper! 🖖🏻
Reply With Quote
  #29  
Old 08-06-2015, 01:55 PM
pazmanyflyer's Avatar
pazmanyflyer pazmanyflyer is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Litchfield Park, AZ
Posts: 1,019
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Caveman View Post
So, I understand that Jerry Fischer has christened UK Figs with a new call sign "SLASH", which is perfect. How about a new avatar contest for Slash to help celebrate his "coming out"? Anybody got any ideas for a good one?Joe


Maybe he didn't care for your paint color scheme?



Slash Strikes again!

__________________
Carlos in Arizona
EAA Chapter 538 www.chapters.eaa.org/eaa538
Wittman Tailwind W8 N53CH (built & sold)
Pazmany PL-1 N2029 (bought & sold)
RV7 - N537TC (reserved & building)
Emp, Wings & Fuse done - working on FWF

"The air is an extremely dangerous, jealous and exacting mistress. Once under the spell most lovers are faithful to the end, which is not always old age." - Winston Churchill

Last edited by pazmanyflyer : 08-06-2015 at 02:06 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #30  
Old 08-06-2015, 09:12 PM
maus92 maus92 is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Annapolis MD
Posts: 457
Default

That twin is the definition of "cut to ribbons."
__________________
CA
2000 RV-8A | O-360, SDS CPI, FP, G3X Touch, VP-X, EarthX | Eastern Shore | KESN
Reply With Quote
Reply


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 12:11 AM.


The VAFForums come to you courtesy Delta Romeo, LLC. By viewing and participating in them you agree to build your plane using standardized methods and practices and to fly it safely and in accordance with the laws governing the country you are located in.