[Steve91T]

Hey I figure if you guys can talk guns and corvettes, I can talk about airplanes.

Long story short, I've been flying gliders since I was 13 and the. tow plane for a glider school in SC since I was 18. I did that for a few years and built my time until I left for college. After I finished I got a job at a commuter airline and now I've been flying the Airbus 320 for American Airlines for about 4 years now. Sailplanes still have a special place in my heart. It's the most pure form of flying. Very bird like. And the tow plane, an old crop duster, is a 225 hp 1000 lb fabric covered plane that is meant to fly slow, and carry a lot of weight. It makes a perfect tow plane.

Anyway, last weekend I had an opportunity to fly the tow plane in an air show. To top it off, it was at my brothers Air National Guard base where he flies F16's. Truely an amazing opportunity.

I just thought I'd share a quick video I made. If anyone has ever had an interest in aviation, I can't recommend finding your nearest glider school and at least taking a ride. I promise you'll be hooked.


https://youtu.be/8odWPfFU16w

[trackbird]

Oh yea, you can talk airplanes here. The 320 is supposed to be a nice bird. Though I've never had the chance to fly on one. I'll have to check out the video. That sounds like a pretty awesome weekend.

The following information may come as a surprise to many of you because it doesn't come up much around here.

I always wanted to fly. Wanted to fly fighters, but had no idea how to actually accomplish that (and I was a bit of a screw off in school). I spent a few years as a civilian avionics installer/technician. I worked at Hagerstown Aviation Service ( at KHGR). I worked on everything from kit planes to the occasional 727 (just altimeter certs on those for a ferry flight down the coast). I even logged a few training hours at the FBO next door. I quit when my instructor made a full stall landing 6" before the paved runway started in variable gusting conditions with a stiff headwind that would come and go (Cessna 152). He wanted to make the first turn off and avoid needing to work with ground control to get back to the apron. It was dumb and dangerous and I quit after those hours. He was an Embry Riddle graduate (which is where I always wanted to go). I expected him to be smarter. Though the landing went ok, I wouldn't have pushed it that much just to be lazy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagerstown_Regional_Airport

I installed "everything". Autopilots, GPS approach coupled autopilots, intercoms, storm scopes, instruments, transponders and encoders, I did Pitot-Static checks, etc. Richard Collins of Flying magazine brought his Cessna 210 to our shop for equipment installations when he was testing equipment for the magazine. I used to work on this plane a few times a year:

http://airfactsjournal.com/2014/09/logbook...ing-turbulence/

I last worked on that aircraft in 1998. sadly, I later found out that he scrapped it in 2007. We joked that it was a mini 727. He had more instrumentation in this aircraft than you can begin to imagine. It was seriously equipped.

http://copa8.blogspot.com/2007/12/richard-...-his-plane.html

I also worked on all the company aircraft for Propilot magazine. Usually Murray Q. Smith would fly them in personally (top left corner of the link below).

http://www.propilotmag.com/about.html

He was an absolute gentleman to talk to and he was a great guy. Some aircraft owners are too good to talk to "mechanics", but Murray was as friendly and personable as they come. He would pull up and we'd push the plane in the hangar, he'd hand me a huge ring of keys (like the wardens had in old movies), fill me in on the job for the day, chat a few minutes and scurry off to the restaurant next door to a meeting.

I left Hagerstown Aviation Services and headed south to Bridgewater, VA and went to work for Dynamic Aviation.

http://www.dynamicaviation.com/

We did all kinds of things and they seem to do more now. I spent some time in Nicaragua to fix a couple autopilots and complete some altimeter certifications. Ultimately I didn't like the company and I moved to Ohio and closed out my chapter in the aviation world.


One of the craziest things (looking back) that I ever did.... We were chasing an electrical issue on a Piper Navajo (twin engine, piston driven, light aircraft) and I wound up standing between the engine nacelle and the fuselage with my back to the prop and my waist against the leading edge of the wing during a full power engine run up so we could try to find this issue (I was holding a test probe on a charging circuit on the engine). I'm not sure how many other people on this planet have done such a thing...but the ones who haven't are far smarter than I was. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)