Geico266

Well Known Member
While I was attending a great little airshow at Spencer, IA yesterday I ran into a bunch of Brits who were promoting their flight / cause. There are 4 of these chaps that are going to attempt to set a world's record for landing in all 48 states in record time to raise awareness for diabeties. These guys were pumped! Every section of the lower 48 spread out over several tables, flight planning alternate routes, making calls, ect.

http://www.diabetesflight48.com/

This got me to thinking I (I know, that can be dangerous) ....without goals what are we doing? Burning holes in the sky? Wearing the traffic pattern out? Seeing how many bugs per hour we can kill with our planes? This is a quick way to loose interest in flying, it's way to expensive to just to burn fuel. We need a MISSION!

I am as guilty as the next guy, but we need to have an aviation goal! A project, A purpose...... A MISSION!

Start with small ones, then keep your eye on the next one.

What is your MISSION for this summer? Land at all the airports in your state? Learn to do acro? Tail wheel endorsement? IFR ticket? Finish the plane?

Find a Mission!
 
sort of a tangential idea

I am not sure what the charitable cause might be...but here is a "mission" idea.

How about building an RV in a week at Osh Kosh. RV-3B? RV7?, RV-8?

Build 24x7 with multiple sections in progress at the same time. Have the most experienced (multiple offenders) and DARs leading and the newer guys doing the grunt labor.

Sell the completed airplane and donate the "profits" to a charity.

Admittedly, it would take a lot of coordination, but other than painting there isn't that much that requires waiting around. Note: I have owned two RVs, but never built one...

OK, I thought about this for about 30 seconds before typing this post so I am sure there are lots of flaws in the idea. I'm listening.
 
I think it was tried

I am not sure what the charitable cause might be...but here is a "mission" idea.

How about building an RV in a week at Osh Kosh. RV-3B? RV7?, RV-8?

I think this was tried a couple of years ago but never heard what the outcome was.
 
Need a difficult mission

How about beating John Huft, Jon Ross and Alan Carroll in the 2009 Air Venture Cup Race from Dayton to Oshkosh?

Bob Axsom
 
I met Larry for the first time at Spencer... He has a nice looking RV-3 in Aeroshell T-6 scheme, very nice!

I saw the Baron, but did not speak to the crew.....

What about a 48 state relay? Take some symbolic item, like a teddy bear with a GPS or better yet, a Spot, in it, and start in one corner of the lower 48 and hand it off plane to plane until it had landed in all 48 states. People could meet the plane at the hand off. As it grew there could be local statewide rallies that hit all the airports in the state and then meet the nation wide rally airplane.

Maybe the statewide airplane that hit the most airports could take the next leg of the nationwide trip....

Something like that could get really out of hand, really fast.....

Tailwinds
Doug Rozendaal
 
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