Every pilot's nightmare, a new neighbor moves in near (now my closet neighbor) your existing private strip, and turns out to be a airplane hating nut, a California transplant no less When I heard that the home over 1/4 mile from my place had a new owner my radar went up. Turns out, I had nothing to worry about, though indeed a CA transplant I could have done a lot worse, as a casual invite from me to go flying sometime received an enthusiastic acceptance.

The flight up to the pre arranged hill side LZ above her place (both my place and hers are in the picture) took about 10 seconds, pretty handy for me. She had snow shoed up from her place and we were both right on time. Parking on the slope presented the usual ski plane issues, I had to stop sideways, and the loading door I use was on the down hill side so a little awkward. An hour plus flight over the surrounding rural area and a few slope ski landings, were followed up by a half hour over town, where I got to play tour guide to the newbie.

The air was just a bit burbly, and I was doing lots of circling, and at one point I started hearing some odd sounds over the intercom. "Let me know if you feel like you're going to vomit, if you think you're going to puke I have a bag, please don't hurl inside the plane," I told her. Not really, the last thing I ever do is raise the subject, even if, ESPECIALLY if I suspect "it" may be happening,incipient motion sickness, I talk about anything else and not too obviously head back to the barn as directly as possible. She kept it together and laughed it off after landing, and never did do the deed. She had a blast and we'll do it again sometime, no worries from this new neighbor.

Snowshoed up to meet you, and she’s cute. Buy a lottery ticket.

That's awesome, sounds like you have a new advocate in the neighborhood! Good thinking, starting a new thread for this one...she may have taken it wrong if you had posted in your "Got Some!" thread.

Good catch, didn't think of nothing but that it was using the ski plane, not the play on words! Not my intent at all. I would not screw up a favorable relationship with a rural neighbor for anything. Besides, I'm probably her grandfathers age. The thing is, any new neighbor, could have even been male and ugly, would still have gotten the same invite from me, and I would still be happy that they took me up on it. OK, not as happy if Bubba was my new neighbor, compared to her, so for sure it was an amazingly good stroke of luck for both of us.

I forgot to mention that before we took off, I asked her when was the last time she did any ski plane flying, and then feigned surprise when she answered "never!" Then I said, when you BS around the coffee machine with your co workers (she has a doctorate in what she does, nuff said, very impressive) Monday morning, and they talk about what they did this weekend, I was pretty sure your story would cap any others. Point is, we pilots get pretty casual about what we do, but it's pretty damn rare and somewhat amazing to the ground pounders.

Very true. We are fortunate and it’s great you were able to share. Good on you!

That's awesome! Good to keep happy neighbors.

Very cool. A friendly attitude and a short joy ride can do wonders for neighbors. However my neighbor was spit out the bowels of hell.
Cops,lawyers and surveyors bad. I'm a feakin super reasonable guy too!
Some people you just can't work with.
Last laugh will be on him though when I sell my house to government housing.

A guy I know used to fly his SC out of a backyard strip at his place.
He made sure that all his neighbors' kids & grandkids got an airplane ride.
It went a long way toward eliminating complaints.
Esp good since his was not a registered airstrip, or grandfathered-in from way back,
so complaints to the county could have gotten him shut down.

So, my new neighbor's folks were up for a visit a few days ago, from San Jose CA., and I was invited up for dinner. In bs'ing with her father, I of course asked what he did down in San Jose. "36 years, working for United, (still) A&P, but the last couple years in calibration." I have no idea what calibration entails, but it sounds impressive, and at one point, since they were going to be around for a couple days, i told him if he and the wife got bored, come on down and I'd give them the nickel tour. He's not a pilot, but my neighbor assured me he'd be interested to check out my plane and my power system.

As I was just finishing up an oil change, I decided to leave the cowl off just to make things more interesting. The day before I had noticed a bit of oil on top the oil cooler and down wind on the cylinders, and of course made a note to check the torque of the flared barbed fitting that the hoses go to. The next day they all stop by, and when we got to the hangar, I said, "probably not what your used to being around, this a pretty complex aircraft, not a simple bird like yours, oh wait, I got that backwards." Then, as I ever so casually mentioned I maybe had a bad oil cooler, if the fittings checked out, as I had a bit of a leak (just making conversation, I mean what in the hell could he contribute to trouble shooting a Rotax) he immediately said, "check the O ring under that fitting the flared fitting goes to, that could be it." Keep in mind he never even looked closely at it, just a quick glance from 5' away. Long story shorter, later that day when I mentioned this cooler issue on a S-7 forum, one of my homies there immediately came back with the same exact thing (thanks Pete), more to the point, when I removed the flared nut, prior to taking the fitting below it, with it's O ring between it and the cooler body, I found the O-ringed fitting didn't NEED a wrench, it was finger tight/loose! And, the O ring below was clearly funkified, problem solved. 59 cents at NAPA and I was airworthy again. The moral of the story I guess, is a good A&P is a good A&P, doesn't matter if they work on something just a little bit different. I let my neighbor know the out come, and to tell her old man that he did good.