RV-9A flying and online story of it all!
I have read all 18 pages of the posts on this thread and see a number of folks I have met in their shops, at LOE5, OSHKOSH, and online. An early posting in this thread by Bob Axsom required that I find my web page with his photo from LOE5 and some talk about his job before his retirement.
http://www.n2prise.org/rv9a180.htm
As for me, I have been in the cable television and satellite communications industry for the past 34+ years. My 35th anniversary comes on July 26, 2006 as I celebrate my first job with the largest company in the industry that began back in 1971. I applied for that job wearing the only suit I owned at the time, a CLASS-A green uniform of the US Army. I was still on active duty at Fort McPherson when I went for my first civilian job interview.
I fit into the electrical engineering side of this group of RV-builders. I have built satellite uplinks for C-band and Ku-band, both mobile and fixed installations. During my satellite years I met people like Senator Howard Baker, Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, Burt Reynolds, and Elizabeth Taylor. The company I worked for in those days had contracts to install 40 satellite receiving systems for television stations that premiered the Paramount syndicated show "Entertainment Tonight", which is still running after 25 years. I am now working for a small, family-owned fiber optics company that supports the cable industry and other specialized communications.
As for my flying career, no USAF, no Army helicopters, no airlines -- nada! Like so many others here, as a kid I started in the mid-1950's with the plastic models, Cox 1/2-A control line models, etc. I did not build and fly radio-controlled models until 1978 at the age of 31. I did not start flying lessons in a Cessna 172 until October 1991 and got my PPL in March of 1993. My pilot logbook shows 189 hours of flying rented spam cans around from flight schools before my first flight for transition training in N666RV with Mike Seager.
http://n2prise.org\rv9a132.htm#May31
My RV-9A first flew on June 9, 2005 after 2000 hours of building time in my garage and at the airport before I got the airworthiness certificate on June 8th. The project began in October 2002, eleven years after I became a student pilot. I managed to finish my 40 hours of phase-1 testing by July 2nd and took the 3rd off from flying since I put in 10 hours of flying on July 1 & 2. On the Fourth of July, I flew the airplane out of my Tennessee test area for the first time on a short trip into Georgia with some pilot friends. The airplane went into the paint shop on July 5, 2005 and came out the day before Airventure 2005 started. I worked on it that afternoon and the following morning putting in some of the interior and the seats and left for OSH July 24th. I was the last airplane parked in homebuilt camping 30 minutes before the airport closed Sunday evening, July 24th with 51 hours on the Hobbs meter. You can follow my Oshkosh exploits and the trip to New England that followed OSH beginning on this web page:
http://www.n2prise.org/rv9a151.htm
I was able to put in so much time building and flying during 2005 because I was laid off from my previous job at the end of February 2005. I had the airplane all paid for, and enough money in savings to have some fun through LOE5 before starting to look for a new job. The holidays are a tough time to get a new job unless you are doing something seasonal. It gave me more time to fly my airplane during the holidays to see old and new friends in Florida. All that stuff is documented with photos in my web pages.
You probably know by now that I was a Star Trek fan from the first season it was on NBC in 1966, when I was in college. What else could I call my "star ship" but ENTERPRISE! The whole story of its construction is online at
www.n2prise.org for all you builders to see and to ask questions if you don't find what you are seeking in my many photos.
The new job I took in January 2006 will allow me to fly my airplane instead of the airlines when it makes sense for time and money. The new job came just in time before the savings ran out. I am posting this entry from a hotel room in Pittsburgh, PA before a sales "meet and greet" event tomorrow at the local cable system. I had to drive my car this week due to bad weather, but spring should bring other opportunities for business travel in my RV-9A.
If you have been reading my web site, you probably know that I am assisting another builder with his RV-8. You can see those pictures and other builders I have visited on my web site also.
Jerry K. Thorne
East Ridge, TN
N2PZ flying 171.2 hours so far
RV-9A #90622