pierre smith

pierre smith

Well Known Member
....what do you do for thrills? I've been doing back-n-forths for 41 years now:eek:

I fly in a 35 mile radius spraying cotton, peanuts and wheat, so I've seen everything there is to see around here...all the ponds, alligators and cows.

Nowadays, if I start the airplane, not the 502, the RV-10, it's going to a direct-to destination, not a local flight. Day trips to BBQ's, Sun 'n Fun, the Biltmore, Spruce Creek and our own EAA chapter's grass strip and next week the Race to Ridgeland in South Carolina.

What do you pro pilots do to get your rocks off?:)

Best,
 
I'm thinking Red Bull racing....

...would do the trick since I miss my -6A for occasional acro.

Flying under high tension cables and under the branches of tall oak trees satisfies my thrill-seeking nature to a degree but that's work now, more so than thrills.

Best,
 
I breathe, live, sleep and make a living in aviation. I sell GA and Corporate wings and represent the largest Aircraft manufacturer in the world in a couple of countries overseas....

Flying is getting to be very expensive especially if you have an aircraft that wont take MoGas....by the 10th of this month I have already burned my flying monthly budget of just aerobatic flying over my airport which is btw, the only flying I ever want to do!
 
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Pierre,
I had a conversation with Ken Kreuger about this a couple of years ago. At the time (my schedule doesn't allow it now), I was flying the airplane quite a lot (every other day). He asked me what I was doing with it. I told him... everything you (Van's) designed it to do and could do. I fly local late afternoon/early evening sunset hops at 500' to check out the scenery, early morning breakfasts sometimes before sunrise, numerous lunch destinations, take kids and friends flying, take my wife out on a lunch date, numerous local and regional fly-ins, aerobatics, and formation. I also find that most people are not 100% completely comfortable with flying at night or IFR. A round robin around Atlanta at night is wonderful. About once every couple of months I go up and do night pattern work at different airports. An overcast day with 500'-1000' ceilings and no icing or T-storms present is perfect for IFR work. I practice multiple approaches to include, missed approaches, and holding. Because of that I am 98% comfortable with my 430. I could use another 2% (gives me another excuse to fly more). I have taken my airplane into 1500' grass strips and 12000 x 200' strips at major Class B airports. An RV looks puny on such a strip and the visual illusions are challenging. For some reason it looks different in an RV than it does in a MD-88. I take the airplane to see my parents in Ft. Lauderdale, take it on vacations to the Bahamas, with my wife, and take my son anywhere! I can always find a friend I hadn't seen in a while whether it's someone in Macon or Texas. The other thing... and this is my pet peeve... most people don't know their own airplanes really well and what it can and can't do. How far will it glide? What is the fuel burn and distance flown to top of climb? What is your fuel burn, speed, and range at 5000', 10000', and 15000'? Can you make a safe landing if your engine quits on downwind? The other day I did about 7 or 8 consecutive 4-5 turn spins. I wanted to investigate spin rate, altitude loss per turn, oil pressure left v.s. right spin, characteristics with pro and anti-spin aileron, recovery hands free v.s postive control inputs. I think everyone could use getting to know their airplane a little better. What better excuse to fly? Take care Pierre. I look fwd to seeing you at the next pancake fly-in if I could ever get a weekend off.

Jerry
RV-8 N84JE
DAL MD-88 FO, Retired AF
 
RV8Squaz said:
Pierre,
I had a conversation with Ken Kreuger about this a couple of years ago. At the time (my schedule doesn't allow it now), I was flying the airplane quite a lot (every other day). He asked me what I was doing with it. I told him... everything you (Van's) designed it to do and could do. I fly local late afternoon/early evening sunset hops at 500' to check out the scenery, early morning breakfasts sometimes before sunrise, numerous lunch destinations, take kids and friends flying, take my wife out on a lunch date, numerous local and regional fly-ins, aerobatics, and formation. I also find that most people are not 100% completely comfortable with flying at night or IFR. A round robin around Atlanta at night is wonderful. About once every couple of months I go up and do night pattern work at different airports. An overcast day with 500'-1000' ceilings and no icing or T-storms present is perfect for IFR work. I practice multiple approaches to include, missed approaches, and holding. Because of that I am 98% comfortable with my 430. I could use another 2% (gives me another excuse to fly more). I have taken my airplane into 1500' grass strips and 12000 x 200' strips at major Class B airports. An RV looks puny on such a strip and the visual illusions are challenging. For some reason it looks different in an RV than it does in a MD-88. I take the airplane to see my parents in Ft. Lauderdale, take it on vacations to the Bahamas, with my wife, and take my son anywhere! I can always find a friend I hadn't seen in a while whether it's someone in Macon or Texas. The other thing... and this is my pet peeve... most people don't know their own airplanes really well and what it can and can't do. How far will it glide? What is the fuel burn and distance flown to top of climb? What is your fuel burn, speed, and range at 5000', 10000', and 15000'? Can you make a safe landing if your engine quits on downwind? The other day I did about 7 or 8 consecutive 4-5 turn spins. I wanted to investigate spin rate, altitude loss per turn, oil pressure left v.s. right spin, characteristics with pro and anti-spin aileron, recovery hands free v.s postive control inputs. I think everyone could use getting to know their airplane a little better. What better excuse to fly? Take care Pierre. I look fwd to seeing you at the next pancake fly-in if I could ever get a weekend off.

Jerry
RV-8 N84JE
DAL MD-88 FO, Retired AF
Click to expand...

Hey Jerry: can you comment in regards to your spin experiences in the RV. Love to hear them all since I will start building an RV8 soon.!!!
 
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Introduce people to the JOY of aerobatics/formation!

I am finding one of my favorite things to do is take a pilot or non-pilot on an intro to aerobatics or formation ride...or both! Last week I had the pleasure of taking up a retired AA pilot with 18,000 hours on an aerobatic ride in my RV. He had wanted to fly in the RV just to see what they were like having been a production plane kinda guy all his life. Prior to flight he had warned me, "No upside down kinda stuff, I have a week stomach!" He, like so many others, had previoulsy been exposed to an aerobatic ride by some other pilot who had basically scared him and turned him off to 3-dimensional flight. After takeoff and after a few gentle turns and local flying, and with music playing in the headset, I asked him if he would be comfortable with a gentle maneuver. He replied he was enjoying himself and so I proceeded to do a barrel roll around the sun, never exceeding 1 3/4 Gs and with a slow roll rate and positive G through out. He loved it, "Again!" WE proceeded to do most postive G maneuvers. While he was still having fun we flew home. Upon landing and with a cold, tasty beverage, he said he'd like to learn how to do that and now we are making plans for his aerobatic lessons. A fifteen minute ride may have caused him some money in the future! After teaching aerobatics and formation for over 2,000 hours of IP time, it's fun doing it for fun and without the pressure of a mandatory syllabus, and with people who find out they really might like this stuff. Very satisfying for this pilot!

Tailwinds!
 
Hey Pierre! that would be formation flying, aerobatics, formation aerobatics. Also, a good dogfight once in a while is good for a pilot, just to stay sharp :D
 
Pierre,

I'm not a pro, nor have I ever been, but like you I do get tired of boring holes in the local airspace. I get my kicks going places and seeing scenery I've never seen before. On LONG cross-countries, I try to take different routes to and from just change things up a bit. On a trip from SoCal to Alaska and back in my 170 ten years ago, the return route only duplicated about 50 miles of the outbound route. Also, I've done just enough formation to think I could really get into it.

My Dad was a pro (Piedmont Airlines) for 27 years, and flew nearly 20 years after he retired. He was happy as long as he was separated from his shadow. He owned a Stearman for 23 years and many of those years he put 300+ hrs on it. People use to ask him if he ever got tired of only going 80 knots. He always replied "No, in the Stearman, I'm always right where I want to be".;)
 
My RV flying sounds a lot like Jerry (Squaz)... lotsa local hops including evening sunset flights, the occasional dawn patrol (getting up early, ugh), just general puttering around to no place in particular with some basic acro thrown in for fun. I quite like warbirds, so luckily in Texas there are numerous warbird hangars and museums to check out. Breckenridge, TX tops that list... what an amazing shop they have there. I've done quite a bit of traveling in the RV and would like to do more, but my work schedule sometimes precludes it. As luck would have it, just about the time I finished the 40 hour test period, I upgraded to 737 captain. Generally that's a good thing, except for the fact that I went from being a somewhat senior F/O with lots of days off to being a bottom of the heap junior captain with minimal days off. The upgrade came with a pay raise to help with the avgas habit but now I have less time to burn it... waahhhh!!!! Also, it seems I end up working most weekends, so I miss out on many fly-ins and burger runs. But I guess 685 hours over 3.5 years ain't so bad.

Over the last few months the weather and work has really cut back on my RV flying, but over the last two weeks I kinda made up for it; a vacation trip with the wife out to Phoenix and Tucson for a few days, then home for a two day break and an oil change, then off for a 3 day solo trip to see the Air Force Museum in Dayton and the Staggerwing Museum in Tullahoma, TN. 26+ hours and 3 cool air museums (Pima in TUS) in 2 weeks, I'm catching up!

Still need a paint job. Thinking I need an autopilot.

Jetj01 said:
...a retired AA pilot with 18,000 hours
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He retired with only 18K hours?? Man, what a slacker!:) I'm 41 and well past that. Then again, he was at an airline with a decent contract and work rules... at my outfit, we have no rules other than FARs and fly way too much.
 
Well, I fly for a living - assuming a pesky volcano doesn't keep erupting and our idiot children who run the airspace keep it closed......

Anyhow, it opened Wed night and we are into recovery flights.

I fly for Thomas Cook - big holiday company in UK, 95 airplanes in the group, all through Europe.

Prefer A330 to Sanford FL, Canada or Vegas - I have buddies there and can fly and skydive.

Caribbean is a drag - 5 days in Jamaica - keep it, boring.

Fun - meeting all you Colonials everywhere I go, making new friends, pounding rivets in a foreign country, drinking beer and telling lies and tall stories.

FL - in the Florida Hotel at the Mall in Orlando

NV - Rennaisance on Paradise

For the Cannucks

YVR - Sheraton

YYZ - Marriott next to Landing Strip and De Ja Vue......

YYC - Westin down town.

Finishing our RV7, should fly this summer, mind you, said that last year as well.


Drop me a line, you can buy me a beer..............
 
I do just the opposite of the kind of flying at work. Go where I want to go and see what I want to see. Don't talk to ATC, fly off of grass strips, fly low level and upside down as much as possible.:D
 
Different flying

Flying medical helicopters for a living provides for hours of organized boredom with a diversity of flights mixed in. We fly excellent aircraft with unequaled maintenance and great medical crews. Most are rather routine, especially in the daytime. However night flights a provide a challenge. NVG's keep us safe and allow flights into areas that would make most cringe.

Despite the "cool job" that is rewarding, we don't get to have much fun. We can't return to our base NOE or do high banked turns for fun. In fact, at my initial training, the instructor told the pilots that our job was to bore the med crews to tears!!!

So, most days I fly my 7 to work, 15 minutes each way. On my days off I try to go and do some fun flying. It may be a day trip to somewhere or a couple days to visit family or friends. Love to take people up for their first RV ride too. This is rewarding flying. Giving someone a ride AND introducing them to the wonderful world of RV's. Can't get enough.

Sometimes just being alone is fun. One of my memorable flights was getting up on Christmas morning and watching the sun rise. Beautiful and peaceful.

RV's are great and have definitely changed my life for the good.
 
Hey Mitch,
The spin in the RV-8 is pretty normal. At first I couldn't even get my airplane to spin due to a fwd CG. I have an angle valve IO-360, Hartzell const. speed prop, and inverted oil, so I'm pretty heavy up front. I usually carry a 27# bag of stuff (cleaning supplies, chocks, parts, tools, canopy cover, etc.) in the back. The airplane felt nice with that bag in back, but I would take it out for aerobatics since it wasn't strapped down. A while back ago I sewed up a cargo net to secure my 27# bag and added an O2 bottle in the bag. This shifted the CG enough to where I can now to spins.
The nose it pretty low about 70 deg, spin rate is fast about 1.5 to 2 sec, per turn, and altitude loss in a 5 turn spin was from 7800' to about 5000' The airplane gets into a stabilized spin pretty much after about one complete turn. Recovery was immediate with full opposite rudder and tick toward neutral. My airplane, because of the fwd CG, will pretty much come out of the spin if I don't maintain full control inputs. Recovery took about 3/4 of a turn and about another 1/2 turn longer doing a hands free recovery. All this was done solo. I would like to try this with more wait in the back. Take care and keep the sunny side any way you want!

Jerry RV-8 N84JE




mv031161 said:
Hey Jerry: can you comment in regards to your spin experiences in the RV. Love to hear them all since I will start building an RV8 soon.!!!
Click to expand...
 
Ooops, I meant from 7800' MSL to 5000' MSL , a 2800' altitude loss. Also, I didn't notice too much of a difference in left v.s. right spins in regard to oil pressure, maybe due to the inverted oil system. There was a drop in oil pressure, down to about 50 psi but the engine was at idle.


RV8Squaz said:
Hey Mitch,
The spin in the RV-8 is pretty normal. At first I couldn't even get my airplane to spin due to a fwd CG. I have an angle valve IO-360, Hartzell const. speed prop, and inverted oil, so I'm pretty heavy up front. I usually carry a 27# bag of stuff (cleaning supplies, chocks, parts, tools, canopy cover, etc.) in the back. The airplane felt nice with that bag in back, but I would take it out for aerobatics since it wasn't strapped down. A while back ago I sewed up a cargo net to secure my 27# bag and added an O2 bottle in the bag. This shifted the CG enough to where I can now to spins.
The nose it pretty low about 70 deg, spin rate is fast about 1.5 to 2 sec, per turn, and altitude loss in a 5 turn spin was from 7800' to about 5000' The airplane gets into a stabilized spin pretty much after about one complete turn. Recovery was immediate with full opposite rudder and tick toward neutral. My airplane, because of the fwd CG, will pretty much come out of the spin if I don't maintain full control inputs. Recovery took about 3/4 of a turn and about another 1/2 turn longer doing a hands free recovery. All this was done solo. I would like to try this with more wait in the back. Take care and keep the sunny side any way you want!

Jerry RV-8 N84JE
Click to expand...
 
RV8Squaz said:
Hey Mitch,
The spin in the RV-8 is pretty normal. At first I couldn't even get my airplane to spin due to a fwd CG. I have an angle valve IO-360, Hartzell const. speed prop, and inverted oil, so I'm pretty heavy up front. I usually carry a 27# bag of stuff (cleaning supplies, chocks, parts, tools, canopy cover, etc.) in the back. The airplane felt nice with that bag in back, but I would take it out for aerobatics since it wasn't strapped down. A while back ago I sewed up a cargo net to secure my 27# bag and added an O2 bottle in the bag. This shifted the CG enough to where I can now to spins.
The nose it pretty low about 70 deg, spin rate is fast about 1.5 to 2 sec, per turn, and altitude loss in a 5 turn spin was from 7800' to about 5000' The airplane gets into a stabilized spin pretty much after about one complete turn. Recovery was immediate with full opposite rudder and tick toward neutral. My airplane, because of the fwd CG, will pretty much come out of the spin if I don't maintain full control inputs. Recovery took about 3/4 of a turn and about another 1/2 turn longer doing a hands free recovery. All this was done solo. I would like to try this with more wait in the back. Take care and keep the sunny side any way you want!

Jerry RV-8 N84JE
Click to expand...

Thks Jerry....means a lot to me!!!

Sorry for the kidnap......Back to the thread now...
 
After flying Ag for over 27 years, looking forward to flying the 7 for fun and learning some Acro from someone like Jetjo1.
 
Trust me Brent....

....after flying the -7, you'll throw rocks at the 802:D

I flew my Phase one over the winter a few years ago and when Spring came and brought with it wheat work, I cranked up the 502. Man...I'm flying a deuce-and-a-half:eek:...compared to the light and nimble RV. Really made me appreciate my -6....you will too....but, the 'Tractor pays the bills and buys me toys, so it's not all bad:)

BTW, I'm in Ag year # 41!!

Best,
 
Pierre, It does fly good. I flew it for 50 hours before I tore it apart to paint. Base coat is finished, just lack trim colors. I just want to get a little acro instruction first. Would hate to fly Ag all my life, and get hurt in RV.
 
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