Hangar Flying => Hangar Flying => Topic started by: Bill James on July 23, 2010, 04:04:17 PM
Title: The Building Bug
Post by: Bill James on July 23, 2010, 04:04:17 PM
I think the VariEze building push lasted about ten years. The impetus was turning 40 and realizing time really was flying and I was not. The day before, I had been 20, now I was 40, and tomorrow I would be 60. Many dreams had been reached and many had been on hold, and now was the time to get the plane going. As I planned it, it should take about ten years to fly. The criteria, based on when the youngest child was expected to be out of college, set the time when I expected be able to get the engine. So maybe 10 to 12 years to first flight. That was frustrating but better than doing nothing at all. Once the pile of parts and boxes was in the garage I was OK, no longer so much living that life of quiet desperation in the aviation realm. I thought of also building a scale working model of the VariEze with all of the details built in so I could show the detail of the many mods in the plane. Instead I built the plane. The highly detailed model I envisioned would have probably taken almost as much time to build as the real plane. Especially since building the plane went faster than I expected. From start of building to first flight took 5 years. During building life was gooder. The more self-employed work I had the better the building went, with each kinda feeding on each other; the opposite of what I would have expected. I enjoyed the discipline of doing something every day and, with the mods, did in fact probably did stay fairly well epoxy fumed-up for another 5 years or so.
About three years ago we moved from our home of 28 years. During the intense move and until now the plane has been flown at will with only moderate care and feeding. Several cowl refinements were accomplished at that time and still haven’t been finished up with proper paint. I hope they will be a little more presentable for heading to Oshkosh. The thought here has to do with not being in the building mode for several years, and how recently my head was about to bust with several un-acted-upon ideas bouncing around in there trying to get out. I was (happily) waking up every morning with the image of a new airplane project out in the hangar. Not that I need another airplane, which would be fine, rather the issue was whether the seemingly excellent ideas were solid, efficient, and beneficial; or just something that someone else had probably already dreamed up and tried, that didn’t work. The solution, immensely gratifying, satisfying, and simple, has resulted in a crude scale working model of the landing gear mechanism concept, and a hand-carved tan foam two-foot-wingspan model of my idea of what the perfect airplane would look like at the moment. Being able to actually hold, touch, play with the ideas, and run my finger along the lines of the airplane, resolved probably 75% of the angst, at no cost, and if I want something in the hangar I don’t have to walk an extra half-mile around an expensive, unfinished, un-flying plane to get the tool I need. Hats off to those that have put their ideas to work and actual use. For now I will continue to claim minor success through the enjoyable venting of some elbow grease that was burning a hole in my sleeve, acting like I was building something for a time, and making a tiny step forward on some ideas, without getting in over my head. Yet. Good Eze-ing,