Van's talk this morning ?

[diamond]

For those who went to Van's talk at OSH this morning, I'd like to hear the highlights.

[paulincapetown]

yes please - me too

[N5916R]

I am assuming you are talking about the So You Want to Build and RV talk? I attended and it was very good. Here are some of my notes:

Ken presented most of the material
-These are simple aircraft to build. He could teach you all you need to know in 20 minutes, and that would waste 10 minutes just talking.
-Take a Sport Air workshop
-Get practice kits
-Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
-Get rid of something (for him it was television) to have time to dedicate to building.
-Consistency of time beats quantity of time. If you work 2 hours a day you will get more done than if you do nothing all week but spend the whole weekend in shop.
-You must like doing shop work.
-Be really honest with yourself on this project.
-Build a plane that is an extension of your personality and delivers the mission you want to fly.
-Most people only use 10% of the capability that they invest in avionics.
-Prime only if you live around a coast or plan to store your plane near a coast. He said if you live in Kansas, he wouldn't prime anything. Good comment there, he said that priming is messy ugly time consuming work. It adds weight and you need protective gear. He said lung parts are way more expensive than airplane parts.
-I took a note about injection vs. carb . Injection is more complex to maintain.
-Have a supportive family that is invested in the completion of the project.
-Great story on competing a project. He said Serial #28 kit just flew recently. He said usually when you hear things like that, the kit has been bought and sold several times. This we the original kit owner. Took him 27 years to finish. He commented about when do actually say a kit is never going to fly? Hard to say when you draw the line and say it wont.

That is what I can remember. The thing that I took out the most is a slide he showed, well two. Slide one, a guy with his arm hanging out of the canopy with the RV grin. The next slide was a tombstone that said "I wish I had built an airplane. It looked like fun". Pick which guy you want to be.

[Camillo]

Originally Posted by N5916R

The thing that I took out the most is a slide he showed, well two. Slide one, a guy with his arm hanging out of the canopy with the RV grin. The next slide was a tombstone that said "I wish I had built an airplane. It looked like fun". Pick which guy you want to be.

So, that means that I can now die, happy...

[humptybump]

I love the note, "Build a plane that is an extension of your personality and delivers the mission you want to fly."

Somehow, I managed to find the one guy who built the one plane that is an extension of my personality. How amazing is that - and thanks to VAF