Hey congrats! Glad you made it work, I'll have to stop in on my way south this fall!!

Congrat's on your own airport.

Huge congrats David! Awesome. Be sure and send me the coordinates so I can drop in on my next trip by.

Living the dream!!
Congratulations.

David-

Clearly your life does not suck! Keep up the cool photos - congrats!

Dave

DBI wrote:David-

Clearly your life does not suck! Keep up the cool photos - congrats!

Dave

Haha. Thank guys. It doesn't suck but it sure is busy! This is the scout I rebuilt this winter. Turned out real nice I think.
And some super Cubs wings being done in oratex.

Great work on the business and airstrip bud, that's something else, congrats! The Scout looks awesome as well, we'll have to send some work up your way to fill all that spare time you'll have when working from home, haha! Great job!

Well its been a few years since I've updated this thread. Had a new addition the other day and now the 206 is full! My son Walter got his first flight today at 17 days old. Had a nice flight up to LaCrete to visit my father in law for tmThanksguving this weekend. The fall colors and low clouds made for a nice picture. Harvest is done, so I'll be getting back to flying/wrenching. I've gotten 156hrs in my 206 in 16 months now and it's flying great. Participated in a STOL competition with it this summer and took the heavy class by a fair margin. 172' takeoff and 275' landing. I know I can shorten the landing up some, hoping for sub 400' total next year. More practice needed! I'll try to keep this updated a bit more and keep some pictures coming.

Congrats on the new addition. Don’t stop there! They make an airplane called a Grand Caravan for even bigger families.

The old 206 popped her sandbar cherry today. Chased that supercub around a bit. It's hiding against the background of the last picture.

That’s a great looking kid!… Congratulations

Well, another milestone for me today. Just passed my CPL check ride earlier today. I start ag and turbine training next week. I'll be spending the summer in a 402/502. Getting excited for that!

A1Skinner wrote:Well, another milestone for me today. Just passed my CPL check ride earlier today. I start ag and turbine training next week. I'll be spending the summer in a 402/502. Getting excited for that!

Awesome!!

David, there will be no kid in the back and most turns, even with race track, will be pretty steep. It will be all energy management turns so the nose will be well down in the latter part of the turn. The wing has to be level going over wires and obstructions and to keep from dragging a boom off in the field. We don't want to be late getting the nose around and on target. Banking a bit too much and letting the nose go down to start the turn helps with not having a wing down late and low in the turn. Slipping is a no no as it slows the rate of turn. Most pilots don't use enough rudder in the direction of turn (skid fear) thus slipping around. With the nose down we don't have to fear skidding. You most likely won't, but no need to fear. On the bottom of the turn if late getting the nose on target, yes we can push the nose onto target. The only other option is go around, as putting a down wing through a wire is a no no. We have to level the wing before going over things and before pull up.

Another two things not to worry about too much as they are very hard for humans to do. Pushing the nose down too much going into the field is not likely. Pulling up late at the end of the swath run is not likely to happen. What happen most at first is reluctance to push the nose down into the crop row. What happens most at the end of the swath run is pulling up too early and bleeding energy going too high over the wire or tree at the end of the swath run.

One caution with really old guys who flew slow Ag planes. We used to wait until we couldn't stand it and then pull up sharply to not leave more than one swath clean up. The materials are much better now with stuff to cause it to go down well. A smooth pull up is fine, just don't continue pulling to go too high over the obstruction. No obstruction means very little pitch up. Of course under wires is often safer than over, but that will come later.

Congrats David!

Rod
UpNorth

Congratulations. Looks like a pretty good area to work. While I like wind turbines that are close by, my friends with 502's and 602's are not too happy.

Well had a pretty awesome summer of flying. Flew 394 hrs, 120 in my 206 and the rest in the turbine. Learned a lot. Had an unfortunate ending due to the loss of a plane and pilot, but lessons were and will be learned. Wife got lots of good pictures.

Strapping into my baby.

The kids liked my yellow airplane.

This one especially loved “her airplane”. It was hard to get her out so I could go to work.

My nephew watching my do my thing killing some pea crops.

Didn’t fly a ton this winter, but have gotten almost 20 hrs in this week with a bunch of night flying. Got my family up for the first time in 6 months and they loved it as usual.


Walt got his first stick time had a pretty solid grip on the yoke!

Flew some hockey players around as well this week to help a team out. Had some awesome night flights and great northern lights. Here is just one example of the show. Pictures just don’t do justice. It was like a flashlight turned on with how bright it was.


Thanks for playing along!

Man, that's the good stuff. Congrats on your first season, here's to a long, safe, and rewarding ag / av career. And aurora from an airplane? that's amazing as well.

Sorry for your your loss at work. He sounded like an amazing fellow.

Take care, Rob

Thanks for sharing all the cool pictures!!!!!! I didn't realize it at the time but the lights were pretty good down here a few days ago too.

Delete.