Yooper Rocketman

Just got this on my Avweb news this morning. The lifeguards were given the drone that very day! Click on the option to watch it on You Tube. Tom

Be careful Anthony. You may get sent to "The Pit of Misery"!! DILLY DILLY !!

My Hangar partner with the E model (has owned it a REALLY long time) taught me on my "F' to thumb nail check the top of the handle in the bracket. If you can get your nail between the top of the handle and the bracket it's not locked all the way up. Or......maybe it was MORE than your thumb nail? Dang it's been 17 years since I bought my Rocket but when I flew his E a year and a half ago, I still did it by memory; didn't think about it at all. Tom

And no $1,000 "no back spring" that should be replaced that the only known failure has been a new one. Tom

Michigan charges a penny a pound based on the gross weight of the airplane. $32 for the Rocket, $42 for the Lancair. The money is used to run the State aviation department and for airport improvements. Most airport improvement projects are 90% Federal Grant, 5% State Grant and 5% local match. Can't say I have a problem with it. I've had twice in the last 10 years I missed the cut-off date, which adds a 50% penalty. A call to the state office both times got the penalty dropped, so pretty good people in the office. Tom

First off, the guy making the comment was not "born in some third world poverty stricken village ...............Egypt" either, and the comment was "his perspective". My recently passed "mentor" WAS born nearly as you present, and died last December with 4 airplanes, a helicopter, an airpark home on Heavens Landing, (and established a scholarship fund for the less financially fortunate that want to become a pilot). I'm sure he was "lucky" too, as it clearly had nothing to do with perseverance and hard work. Our lives, absent our birth place, were remarkably similar (including writing an aviation scholarship) and I think that's why we got along so well. I was born with extreme poverty in my family, the oldest of 6 kids, watching my parents do everything they could to NOT accept government help. No college and rarely working less than 100 hour weeks for 30+ years, putting every asset I owned, including the house I lived in, to finance my business, yah, I guess I was lucky too. Tom

I'm usually posting something when I will be at Spruce Creek (about half the time during the winter). Open invitation to anyone while I'm there. Just need to check with me before planning. Tom

Tell us those pictures where at your delivery airport or in route. There is no way you are seeing clear skies in the Seattle area in the winter!! I was stationed at Fort Lewis back in the 70's (god, was it really that long go?).. My Rocket was maintained by Galvin and was based on Boeing Field when I purchased it in 2001. I know full well the likelihood of that kind of weather in the winter out there. :>) Tom

There's one that flies out of lower Wisconsin into Spruce Creek. My wife and I were golf carting the park during our last trip down and he taxied up and blocked us from getting out (not a problem, taxiways are for airplanes first, then golf carts). It was a really nice plane. He got out with one passenger and I watched them move it in the hangar as I talked with his friends/neighbors. When I got home I looked up his filed speed on Flight Aware and he has 15 knots on me, for just south of $4 Million (about 8-10 times what I will have in mine). Out of my league. Tom

I did my 25 + this year and passed 300 flights since I started doing YE Flights (they just sent me a nice jacket too). I posted a story this last summer about an airport event I attended in Houghton MI. My local EAA Chapter works with two adjacent chapters sharing resources (Snoopy simulator and pedal planes). When I mentioned I was coming up, I asked them if they wanted me to bring my Mooney (so I could do YE Flights) or the Lancair, as an attraction. They said bring them both! So my hangar partner, Steve, flew the Mooney up and I flew up in the Lancair. Well, after he and I alternated flying YE's all day in the Mooney and were pretty tired, we were about to leave and I saw a group of girls sitting on the ramp waiting for their ride. All the pilots had left except two local ones, each flying 2 seaters. It was obvious these girls were going to wait a long time, or possible be sent home. Steve was just landing with the "last flight" of kids, and was planning to go to the fuel farm to fuel. I called him on the radio and told him 8 girls were waiting for a ride, would he do ONE more. I would take three of them in the prop-jet and the last two could go in the last two single seat planes still flying. He said yes and those girls were obviously happy after we got done. And.........like Alex says, they really take on to the YOUNG pilots. The young man in the photo bought his own plane, got his license, and has been accepted into the Air Force Academy. He had one year of high school left when this picture was taken! My Lancair can be seen behind the Ercoupe. Tom

I was talking with the father-in-law of my sales manager after church a month ago and he had just heard my wife and I bought a Florida winter home. He asked if I was getting any flack from employees or friends and I said not really. He said anytime someone gives him flack about his Arizona home, telling him how "lucky" he is, he says "Yep, I'm lucky. The harder I worked, the luckier I got". Tom

I just want to clarify a few items on my last post. First, I mentioned "reasonable" mark-up. Aaron's situation is not what I would consider "reasonable mark-up". I was responding more to some that think there should be no mark-up. Secondly, there is a huge difference between an A&P and/or an IA working independently and a licensed shop. I've used both and clearly the overhead is much different. Many independents would rather NOT deal with getting the parts. A licensed shop must deal with a ton more things that bleed off profit, either in time or money, that the independent guy does not. A few things come into play on how customers are treated, and whether they will come back. That "reasonable mark-up" will most times never be questioned by a customer that has a good trusting relationship with their shop. When a shop treats on "out of towner" differently than a regular customer, at some point word will get out and that treatment will likely affect "some" future business. Taking care of the customer fairly will lead to more business, and likely that customer sending new business to you as well. No amount of TV ads and other advertising will bring you more business than a good reputation and satisfied customers. In the end, most of us can figure out who we want to spend money with. We've had enough feedback over the years it's easy to see who will treat you right when you grace their doors. No one in business is perfect, but if they are honest and make a serious attempt to treat you right, that's 90% of the business relationship. Some mentioned in this thread are clearly in that category, and some are not. Just don't through them all into the same basket. Tom

I had a waste gate fail on the Rocket, was busy with the Lancair, so had my local FBO check it (was an excessive oil leak out one of the vent tubes, so not diagnosed by me). They removed the waste gate and it was sent out for overhaul. I have no idea if they marked up the overhauled part, but they should have. I flew one flight and it was sticking so they had to work on it again under warranty. It wasn't their problem, but they sold it to me and installed it so had responsibility to get it fixed (and did). In my dealership we buy most our parts from the factory PDC (parts distribution center), so our wholesale pricing is pretty decent. We DO have to buy parts regularly from other sources, including a few local auto supply stores. We mark up the parts a reasonable amount for many reasons. We did the work finding and often picking up the part. We're not a non-profit, so if it runs through our books, there's going to be some profit on it. If the part fails and causes an accident, my company WILL be in the litigation chain. And finally, if the part fails and needs to be replaced under warranty, my shop performs that repair for FREE, even though it was the part that failed, not a labor warranty. I have a local limousine company that recently had us take the parts back to NAPA because he wanted to buy them direct himself. We did and he did. Napa sold the part to him, a new customer, for the same price as ours (we were doing probably $10k-$15k a year with them). NAPA no longer sells to m y dealership (our choice and they aren't real happy now). The final saga to that story; the limousine company comes back after one of the parts failed for us to fix it and wondered why he paid full rate for the "warranty". I told him take up our labor charge with NAPA, we didn't sell him the part that failed! To answer the OP's original question.......it's appropriate for a shop to place a reasonable mark-up on parts they sell or charge a small fee for parts brought in the door. I guess I akin someone bringing parts in the door (that we could easily source, not odd ball stuff) to me bringing my eggs or steak into a restaurant and asking them to cook it for me. Tom

Probably 30 degrees would be reasonable over a few days (high temp with sunny day followed by cloudy days). Never saw any issues with condensation. Probably because humidity level in hangar in the winter up here is pretty low. Tom

I started this post just after lunch on my Iphone but no matter how I took pictures, once I posted them they kept coming up sideways. I even took more pictures "sideways" and they still ended up the same in the post. So..........posting from home. Anyway, I was sitting next to one of my southern exposed large windows, enjoying the warmth of the sun on a 6 degree (for our high) day and reveling over my solar collector that was warming the hangar. The hangar was already 10 degrees above the thermostat setting (48) and ended near 65 degrees by late afternoon. I designed and built this hot air solar collector as one of my first solar projects (been many since). This one was probably the fastest return on investment, as it was built pretty simply and with low cost. It's been up for about 10 years and we've been monitoring the hours of run time for about 8 years (see hours meter picture below). With the exception of these last two winters, where I am working on the Lancair during the winter, we only heated our bathroom through the winter and only turned on the main heat for the hangar the night before a planned flight. When unplanned flights came up during the winter and the sun was shining, if I could delay the flight until 1-2 PM, my plane would be warm as well as the hangar, requiring no preheat for the flight that day. Since my website does not sell any components for this style collector, I think it's appropriate to share my website for my solar business. The site is MOSTLY build tips and projects anyway as we only provide one product, stamped aluminum absorber for DIY hot water solar collectors. This particular project is at the bottom of the page listed below. We changed the Polycarbonate a couple years ago, going from the cheap Home Depot corrugated product to twin wall poly. https://www.aluminum-solar-absorbers.com/solar-hot-air-collectors Tom

When I first started flying I had a C150. Every time I went over Lake Michigan ATC would drop Flight Following as soon as I was about a third of the way across. Really? Told my CFII about it and he simply said "they can't do that to you on an IFR Flight Plan". The first summer I had my F model we did several cross country flights to the Denver area. Flying my family below the overcast, getting beat up by turbulence, or popping above through a hole and worrying the rest of the flight if I could get back down were enough reason to get the rating. Got it just over two years after my Private in the F. I flew that F for 5 years, 1300 hours, with no A/P, no GPS in a fair amount of IMC, shot a bunch of VOR Approaches and filed airways for every flight. A good portion of the states filled on my travel map were done in that old bird. You guys with the short bodies that get your ticket and fly without an A/P will be some of the best IFR Rated GA pilots on this forum!! I flew my hangar partners E last summer and that's a workout in IMC if you've gotten lazy using the A/P a lot and fly a medium/ long body. Tom

I have a German 8 mm Mouser that by grandfather brought back after WWI. He was in the Marines and walked up to a German officer trapped under his dead horse. My grandfather spoke some German and as he walked up the officer asked my grandfather if he was going to shoot him? My grandfather said " no, I'm just taking your rifle ". His thoughts were it took more resources to deal with an injured soldier than a dead one. He disassembled it, put it in his sea bag, and brought it home with him. He used it to deer hunt until he died, gave it to my dad who used it hunting until he could no longer hunt, then gave it to me. I shot it as a kid but haven't shot it in 40 years. I will likely give it to one of my nephews since neither of my sons is into hunting or guns. It's a really neat rifle. My grandfather pulled the saddle strap clips off it and filled the stock with some sort of filler. It has a flip up forward "site" for long distance shooting. I can't remember the range. It was marked in meters but seems like it was 1,000 on the longest range mark. My dad claimed the Germans designed that rifle so it could use American (or English) ammo, yet their ammo was just a tad too large for our rifles. Not sure if that was true. I'm in Florida right now but if I was home I would have snapped a picture of this neat rifle. Tom

Glad I'm not the guy pulling your bottom panels off for service or annuals. I can't imagine that stuff is not getting into every crack, seam, and crevice? I know what leaded fuel and my exhaust stream does to my bottom panels. It seems every couple years I'm cleaning light corrosion off and repainting another bottom panel. Tom

It appears it was originally listed at $59,900 and now reduced to $56,900. That's not that far from $50k. I would at least look at it if prepared and financially capable of buying it. That way an offer at less than the asking price is serious. I agree to not get too attached to it due to the looks but if the rest of it checks out decent I'd much rather own and fly a plane that looks good than one that looks like crap. There IS SOME VALUE to the paint and interior as long as it's not hiding some serious mechanical issues. That can be determined by a good prebuy inspection. I'm not a big fan of low engine time as you're paying for something you have no guarantee of getting the time you paid for. If over 50% of the engine time is gone, and figured into the price, your risk of that hurting you financially is significantly lower. Just my opinion. Tom

That would be a bad day in ANY airplane! Tom

I'm usually between 10 & 12 NMPG. IT was pretty cold out thus I was getting more performance and a higher fuel burn. I didn't build it to pull the power back but could get higher MPG if I pulled it back some. Remember, Jet A is cheaper at the pump too. My actual trip fuel costs are almost the same between the Rocket and my Lancair, but quite a bit less time in the Lancair. Tom

Had a real nice flight today, leaving -18 temps in the U.P. of Michigan to landing just under 3.5 hours later, 1231 nautical miles south, just south of Daytona Beach at Spruce Creek Florida where a T-shirt was comfortable. I know it's not a Mooney, but it WAS a Mooney driver. It's soooo cool I built this animal in my garage and it flies faster than certified planes costing 5 times or more than I have in this one. Now if xcrmckenna Can hook up with me in Florida I can get another Mooney Space member a ride in this magic carpet. Tom

When the mercy flight organization I am currently president for bought their first plane about 15 years ago it was a twin, even though the two longest standing members were NOT twin rated ( I was one of them). There were a bunch of active and retired airline pilots who out voted us on a single ( interesting enough, none who fly for us today) and passed a resolution to allow the organization to cover the cost to get the two of us "twin rated ". I flew about 6 hours and decided there was no way I would fly enough to be "proficient " ( the other single rated pilot did the same) and decided I would just continue supporting the organization with flights in my Mooney. My Mooney was faster than the twin, better in weather, and I was building a single engine prop jet almost twice as fast as the twin . Couldn't quite see the advantage of a twin. Years later we sold the A/C equipped Seneca 5 to buy a 3 with better payload, and had enough money left over to buy our first Bonanza. Operating costs have been half the twin, and our second "newer" turbonormalized Bo is 20 knots faster with FIKA. I rode in the twin once in the winter time in icing when one set of boots decided to NOT work and will always take a TKS system over boots. I have to agree with Byron on this one. If you are going to fly a twin you better be open to frequent and serious flight training. These planes are a lot less forgiving of a pilot not dedicated to serious training and real currency. Tom

I had that whole story posted once and just as I was about to submit I lost it. Forgot to mention my response to the MSP Sup. I told him no problem. If I want to fly in the Flight Levels with the big boys I have no issue being treated like them either. They deal with ground stops all the time. Tom

We had an interesting trip to Florida today. Delayed an early departure for low weather in the Daytona Beach area and some weather in southern Georgia. Looked doable a little later so filed for a 9:15 departure. Got the Lancair running, taxied out and tried picking my IFR Clearance up and was given a 1 1/2 hour ground stop? I asked why and after the controller looked into it advised Florida was the issue. I told her I couldn't sit running a prop jet that long so would taxi back and shut down. I thought about how I could get around this but burning JetA gets really ugly below the flight levels and that was probably the only option. When we finally got airborne a MSP Supervisor came on and apologized while trying to explain the issue. Apparently a lot of airline traffic was backed up due to the fog as well as a ton of snow birds heading south. About halfway down a corporate jet tries pulling his IFR to lower Florida after already airborne and is told he has a 4 hour delay on his clearance. He tries multiple times to negotiate but the Indy controller has no latitude to give him what he wants. He gets FL220 to the Florida border and 12k from there, which he did not have enough fuel for. Not sure if he was trying to cheat the system or just had the terrible luck of not knowing this was happening and couldn't or elected not to get his clearance on the ground. Either way, ATC was not giving in. Made us happy we just complied with the inconvenience. Tom