How you like flying it. How was the transition? Expectations vs reality. All that stuff!
Okay, where to begin...
I guess start with why this topic is veering off course, and why. Tools was one of my primary flight instructors, if you ever get a chance to learn from him, go do it. We flew into kitty Hawk First Flight airport the first time together.
I've long been interested in Vans RVs. I investigated them enough that I stopped in at Dogwood Airpark VA42, if I recall correctly, to see a plane being built. Fascinating workshop. I forget the model, but it was not a 10 or 14. He took me over to his neighbors to sit in a flying 10. Neighbor was a short Asian man (most men are short compared to me) and the fit was horrible. Real tight getting from the wing, sliding dukes of Hazard like, and everything wanted to touch my knees. The two pilots present with me killed my RV ambitions my not correcting my assumption that the seats do not move. HINT: THEY DO... The practice kits I bought stayed in their packaging on the shelf.
I continued dreaming of better planes but found the marginal improvement in a 182 not worth it. A 182 would have shaved less than an hour off my primary family visit spot. Gotta love firelight profiles to demo such things. We had fun on a demo flight in a factory new 182 though. My wife in the back seat got to see all the functionality of the gadgets, helped me get a new panel in the 172. I made the 172 the forever plane. We also sat in a Cirrus, knees hit the panel, the seats do not move.
Early spring 2024 we took a vacation to the Pacific Northwest. Maybe 10 days, rented a car. We did lots of things with nature, kind of just being dogs with our heads out the window smelling the air. We mixed in several flying things for fun also. We saw a landing helicopter at a tour place, turned around, inquired, and maybe 10 minutes later we were airborne for a 30 minute flight. Great fun, clear day. Kind of fired me up for R44 lessons, one of which I later took. We also did our best to learn more about Bushliner, a company billings itself as making a new Cyclone (Cessna 185) though better. We had installed one of their panels in the 172, the owner had an interesting back story. What we saw suggested to us that production is much further out than they suggest, we did not put down a $100,000 deposit. I hope they make it, seems to be a nice bird on paper. We also stopped in at Van's aircraft for a factory tour. We love factory tours, this one was right up there with Harley. You get right out on the floor. The factory was humming, no pending out of business sale. At the conclusion of the tour they invite you to sit in the planes. The 10 was being upgraded for a show, the 14 was a snug fit, but maybe I could fly one.
I set up a demo flight with the factory rep near Philly years before, got cancelled due to his getting Covid. I now rescheduled, we sat in both the 14 and the 10, clearly the 10 did had much more room. I could nearly lock my legs out under the pedals, my knees did not hit, the seats move fore and aft, and recline. The rep talked me through doing much of the flying, got to see the potential of the plane. Not sure I could accurately describe all we did then, but when he took over the plane to show its performance, we did some commercial maneuver that took us 90 degrees steep turn like, I had a headache afterwards.
When I got home I shopped for a plane. As in the link above, it was a bit of work. I worried about good bones, good workmanship. For example, one plane had maybe a better engine and better avionics. But the fuel tanks had been replaced due to leakage, and I could tell from photos that the paint and finish was subpar. If that was the level of quality the builder put into it, I did not want to fly it.
Things I worried about: The power. Folks warned me it was a lot of plane, a big jump up, blah blah blah. I tried my best to learn performance numbers for various phases of flight (a weakness of mine when I got to end of IFR training). I really worried about my wife's acceptance of a low wing.
More later, tired of typing
