Rosie & Tuppergal are alive and well!

[Rosie]

Once again, Happy New Year to our VAF family of friends!

I heard from Gary ?Condor? Sobek there was a thread out there asking our whereabouts so I?m just following up (and very much appreciate somebody asking, Condor said it was another Gary who asked?) I?ve been laying low (on the computer) while on my 2-week break from work, spending most all my time in the hangar just ?hanging? out! We start this year with ~3,552 hours on the hobbs

I do try to login into VAF every day but it's impossible to read all the posts; At work, if my time card page or company page is not displayed on my terminal, it's official...I'm goofing off at work

I?ve been a member of these forums since Doug Reeves asked me to be a moderator back in December 2004. I don?t have a huge amount of posts out there (I know some folks have thousands) but when I do post, I try to ensure that it relevant AND would be helpful to this HUGE RV family of friends we have here in the forums. Recently, I couldn't resist posting to the thread Turbo started on spark plug holders!

And on that note: I?d would have never met Ed ?Turbo? D?Arcy had it not been for VAF, and to this day, I consider him a close and dear friend?Tuppergal and I have vacationed with his family at his (BVI) Virgin Gorda home?.ah?.we?ve vacationed with MANY VAFers including the Bakers, Cards, Bounos, Kleens, Larsens, Mills, Schneiders, Ziliks?.Ok I?ll stop here (but the list goes on and on: All great friends). All of this possible because we took the time to build an RV! I try to remember everyone?s name who I?ve met but it?s getting harder now. In 2000, there were ~1200 RVs flying, and now the counter is 7,958 as of this post

Flying was a LOT less expensive back in the year 2000 so Tuppergal and I were out and about ALL the time. Like everyone else, the price of avgas today (now $5.50 here in CA) puts a damper on things so we pretty much pick/choose a lot more carefully now to make every hour count. OSH 2012 was our big trip for last year, and it was just SUPER meeting so many new friends that know us from, once again, VAF (AKA Doug Reeves)!

We?ll forgo many short lunch hops and save those hours up for 3-day weekend flights to see friends in AZ/OR/ID/NV so there will be a couple of weeks between flights (and our plane is 20 paces out the back door to the hangar).

We?ve been doing pretty good on flying to the ?islands? every other year, and this year we are set for a 4 week (one month) trip from California to the Turks & Caicos and beyond. ]We depart on April 6th, and you find our current ground track via our website at http://www.PaulRosales.com (click the "Caribbean 2013" link).

We?ll be joined by the Cards and Bounos to the Turks. Indira & Chris ?Jailbird? Kleen and Mike ?Keys? Brewton will continue with us to the Virgin Islands, down the Antilles chain to Trinidad, west to Aruba/Bonaire/Curacao, north to the Dominican Republic then home. We only made reservations at the Turks and Virgin Islands and we?ll ?wing it? from there! I?ve been wanting to continue down the island chain and ?Island Hop? ever since our first Caribbean trip in 2004.

Here?s a rough outline I used for fuel purposes and does NOT include all the stops we?ll be making:



If you want to get a sense of what it?s like to fly with other RVers to the islands, check out my three-all-time favorite, the first three videos (shot by "Keys" & "Video" on their first trip to the islands). The first is our flight (Baker, Zilik, Rosales, Buono, Eulitt and Brewton) leaving the coast of Florida (out of Homestead) to Great Exuma. The second and third video is from flying the last 60 miles into Great Exuma, and they truly give you a sense of what's it like to fly the islands with friends

Yes "Keys", this is AWESOME! If you missed it, these posts come from our 2012 Bahamas Trip Report to VAF.

I can?t fully put into words how much we appreciate the friendships that have started just because somebody walked up to us and introduced themselves as a VAF?er?.It?s the best feeling in the world?.we?ll, almost?At OSH 2012, a guy walked up and introduced himself: Paul Kendrick. I?d given him a ride WAY back (2000-2003?ish, can?t remember exactly) and he told me he was there at his first OSH in the RV that he built?.now that was a GREAT feeling!

If you are flying, be safe, and if you are building, "Keep poundin? them rivets because it?s ALL WORTH IT!"

Rosie & Tuppergal

[Clouddancer]

Hi Paul

Wish you a Happy New Year!

The world seems to be small among VAF'ers... It was a great pleasure meeting you after all these years at the California Capitol Airshow this year. In the meantime I got married to my wife Monika and our sweet daughter Sofie was born on Dec 13th. We got quite some non-aviation events over here.

On the RV-4 I'm building together with Markus, we are on the FWF work that will keep us busy still for some time.

[panhandler1956]

Rosie,
It was great meeting you at OSH this year. Looking forward to hearing about your epic island trip!

Be safe!

[pierre smith]

Y'all have to realize just exactly what these little RV's are capable of! Rosie and Tuppergal were guests here as well and the cross-USA trip has been done by them several times and just look at the Caribbean route! Amazing.

Keep pounding them rivets and runnin' those wires and you can accompany them sooner than you think!

RV's have been around the world from East to West,, and West to East, to the North pole and the South, by Jon Johannsen of Oz fame. You can read his story on Van's home page.

Best,

[Ironflight]

So what's more nerve-wreacking Rosie - finding a tiny island in the middle of the ocean, or trying to find Polly Ranch in the middle of the suburban wilderness....

[Subwaybob]

Rosie,

I suggest you skip ADS and land at HQZ (Mesquite) when in Dallas. It's a suburb just like Addison with a great terminal and a 6000 ft runway. Not to mention fuel is ALWAYS around a buck cheaper than ADS. Actually land ANYWHERE but ADS. I know you west coasters are rich so it's only a nickels worth of advice!

(BTW, wish I was going too!)

[turbo]

rosie, great update on your trip. i was wondering if you are taking any preparations for corrosion in the salty environment for the month. i heard of one of the vans employes getting a bunch of corrosion in the engine compartment after a long down island trip. best to you both.

[pmccoy]

Rosie-

Thanks for posting links to the video's. Just watched them all. Can't wait to get my plane in the air. Based on the current, almost one a day, hobbs reading at Vans, I should be in the air shortly after Vans post number 8,000. Almost done and can't wait to get into phase 1 and beyond. Great inspiration.

[zilik]

Originally Posted by Ironflight

So what's more nerve-wreacking Rosie - finding a tiny island in the middle of the ocean, or trying to find Polly Ranch in the middle of the suburban wilderness....

Polly Ranch! You can see the islands 50 miles or more away.

[Rosie]

Originally Posted by zilik

Polly Ranch! You can see the islands 50 miles or more away.

Seismo....we gotta' tell the story.....

Seismo and I (with the wives) were a 2-ship from Corpus Christi to Polly Ranch (7XS0) to visit Paul and Louise for a couple of days after our 2009 Cayman Islands trip. We had flight following with a clearance into the Houston Class B that overlies Polly Ranch and we hear:

"8PV flight, Polly Ranch is 10 miles, 12 o'clock, report airport in sight.".... "8PV flight wilco"
"8PV flight, airport is 7 miles, 12 o'clock".... "8PV flight Negative airport"
"8PV flight, airport is 5 miles, 12 o'clock".... "8PV flight Negative airport"
"8PV flight, airport is 3 miles, 12 o'clock".... "8PV flight Negative airport"
"8PV flight, airport is 2 miles, 12 o'clock".... "8PV flight Negative airport"
"8PV flight, airport is 1 mile, 12 o'clock".... "8PV flight Negative airport"
"8PV flight...(pause)...look down"...."Oh, THAT'S AN AIRPORT!?!?!...Looks like a neighborhood...narrow road in sight, frequency change, squawk 1200, thank you Houston!"