Matt Dralle
Site Admin
Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 26320
Location: Livermore CA USA
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 Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 6:25 pm Post subject: RV Transition Training w/ Mike Seager - Day 2 - Sessions 1&2 |
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As luck would have it, Thursday morning it was raining in Vernonia Oregon. Go figure. After a wonderful breakfast at the Rock Creek B&B, I headed out to the Vernonia airport to meet with Mike Seager at 10am for my first RV transition training lesson. We spent the first hour in the office for some "chalk-talk" all about RVs. Mike went over RV speeds, attitudes (the airplane's, not the pilot's, btw), and other things related to flying an RV safely. It was a very good primer on the RV.
By now, it was only raining "a little bit", so we headed out to N477RV, an RV-7, and hopped in. We took off to the West, with a fairly stiff wind. I nice left hand turn and we headed out toward Scappoose. Mike took me though some aircraft handling such as turns and climbs and descents and got me used to the flight controls on the RV. As is typical with most new RV pilots, I was over-controlling some. The air was *really* bumpy and I was really working hard to keep the plane level with all the turbulence. Then Mike showed me how to just let the plane fly itself though those bumps by relaxing my grip and not constantly over-correcting. Wow! That's was a lot easier! We headed over to the Scappoose airport and set up to shoot some landings. There was a "nice", almost 90 degree cross wind there to go with all of the turbulence, so it was quite a work out both as a pilot and on my stomach. I didn't barf, but I sure wanted to... After 6 stop and go landings at Scappoose, we headed back to the Vernonia airport.
Mike has been restoring a 1923 Model T Ford and he decided that he was going to take it home for lunch that day. What a sweet car! Friday afternoon he even took me for a ride! Considering they started making Model T's around 1907, it rode surprising well. With the fully enclosed cabin and heater, it must have seemed like a space-ship compared to the horse and buggy that most were still using at the time. The little car has an amazing amount of power. There are a myriad of levers and pedals that must be negotiated to drive the thing. Most peculiar is that fact that the throttle is not a pedal, but rather a lever on the steering column that kind of looks like a turn signal.
Mike's also been into Radio Control model airplanes and has a number of them hanging from the ceiling in his hanger. Some of them were simply massive and frankly looked like you could put the family cat or dog on one and take them for a ride of a life time.
In the afternoon, I headed back out the Vernonia airport at 3PM for my second lesson. The weather was better, but the report for Scappoose was for even more wind than in the morning. So, we headed out to the McMinville airport South of Vernonia about 15 minutes by RV. http://www.macairclub.com/Welcome.html McMinville is where the Spruce Goose is now stored and there is a large aircraft museum there.
The wind was fairly calm at McMinville and so we did about 12 stop and go landings and then headed back the Vernonia airport. BTW, the Vernonia airport has a large hill on the East end of the field and so you have to sort of fly a dog leg around the hill and then straighten out right at the last minute to land on the grass strip. By the end of Friday, I had it down! Mike said, if you can land at Vernonia, you can land anywhere! 
After the second lesson on Thursday, I headed down to Hillsboro to meet some long time RV-buddies at the Rock Creek Tavern. Don Wentz and Jerry Springer were there and I met a new RV-buddy named Ryan along with his wife and daughter. The Rock Creek Tavern is quite a place with lots of atmosphere and even a live band on a Thursday night. The giant BBQ cheese burger was nothing short of awesome.
By the time I got home, I was bushed. The giant, comfortable bed at the Rock Creek B&B felt so good. I didn't wake up until 8 the next morning!
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Matt Dralle
RV-8 #82880 N998RV
http://www.mattsrv8.com - Matt's RV-8 Construction Blog
http://www.youtube.com/MattsRV8 - Matt's RV-8 HDTV YouTube Channel
Status: Test Flight
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