Fun Flights

VariEze N95BJ flew 1400 sm non-stop from Fort Worth Tx. to Reno, landing in Truckee, Ca. in just under 8 hours at 11.5K, 175 mph, on 31 gallons at 3.8 GPH. I hope to make the trek again soon with the 0-290.The normal drill when not grinding on the plane is to fly 15 to 20 sunsets a month, plus a few trips. At Oshkosh one year a man was asking about the plane’s speeds and ranges. I laid out my 5 foot wall map on the strake showing the tracks from Fort Worth to Reno, Atlanta in 4.5 hours, Denver in 4:02, Oshkosh nonstop in 5 hours, to San Antonio to see my folks in 1.5 hours instead of the six hour drive… Another man spoke up with an accent, asking “Who give you permission to fly all these places…?”

That Oshkosh memory renews appreciation for our country and spurs the recurring sunset emotion, “Burt, the Wright Brothers would have killed to be doing this.”

A fellow at a fly-in had been studying the airplane and taking notes for a good while and said, “So, your plane has side windows, wider hip and thigh room (condensed consoles), harmony in pitch and roll; the strakes are aerodynamic, structural, have elbow room in the front seat and baggage space in the rear, thirty-five gallon fuel capacity; the wings are level with no anhedral; there are access panels for the nose, canard, instrument cover, a belly hatch; and those and the wheel pants are held in place with rods—no screws; including the cowls that come on or off in a couple of minutes; cooling plenums, that weird prop…”So,” he says, “…of all the things on your airplane, what do you like best? The best thing to have on the plane? Bug guts.