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Garys RV-7 Builders Log
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Date: 5-6-2007
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Number of Hours: 0.00
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Attended a SportAir RV construction workshop.
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This Saturday and Sunday I attended a SportAir RV Construction Workshop at EAA's (Experimental Aircraft Association) headquarters in Oshkosh, WI. Dan Checkoway from Chino, CA was our instructor and he did a fine job. Dan has built an RV-7 which he flew from Chino to Oshkosh with only one stop in Nebraska for fuel. He flew at 17,500 feet with supplemenatl oxygen and made the entire trip in about nine hours of flying time. I occasionally fly to California for business and it takes about the same nine hours of time from when I leave my door, drive to Ohare, park, security, wait, fly, rent a car, etc. These are very capable airplanes.
The first picture below shows my workshop partner, Jim Merten. Jim is a very interesting guy and has a business fabricating custom boat propellers for competitive racing. He has recently purchased a WagAero Sportsman 2+2 project which is a homebuilt version of the Piper Super Cub. He has a great deal of experience designing and building racing boats and plans to leverage that skill to make his own floats for his project as well. Jim was gracious enough to give a few of us tours of his shop and also his airplane project. His business has also designed a power steering unit for tiller control of large outboard motors. This feature is particularly beneficial for walleye fisherman and back-trolling. Jim was a great partner and made the class enjoyable.
The other two pictures are of Dan's RV-7 which he finished a couple years ago and already has over 1200 hours on. He hasn't painted his bird and doesn't plan to. This is his first airplane project and it turned out nice. The cockpit is pretty simple, but does allow him to fly IFR (Insturment Flight Rules....flying by instruments) I like his set up with the throttle quadrant on the left side which allows him to fly with the stick in his right hand. Seems pretty natural to me. The standard arrangement is with the prop, throttle, and mixture control in the center, under the panel.
Overall, the class was great, I learne
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My partner Jim Merten hard at work.
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Our instructor, Dan Checkoway's RV-7
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Dan's cockpit and panel in his RV-7
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