Scooby Webcam

Wonder what I’m doing when I’m not at work, exercising, or doing videos?  Well as you might know one of my goals is to build a homebuilt aircraft and fly it around the entire US- from Maine to Florida, to California, to Alaska and back to Maine.  I started construction in 2001 and made good progress until 2006 when all my spare time went into working on this website and doing videos.  I have started again and will finish this plane in 2013!  Tune in and watch me build my plane.  There is an audio track too and when I can, I’ll describe what I’m doing.

Next Live Broadcast

27 February, 2013 1:15am Eastern: Last week you saw me start the covering process of the fuselage, tonight I am going to finish. I will be ironing the joints and heat shrinking the fabric, a very cool procedure. Its very late at night but I really, really want to get this done tonight because tomorrow I get my hand operated on and I wont be able to do shop work for quite a long time. The other reason I am staying up late is that I cant eat or drink anything after midnight so I am making sure I am awake at 11:59 to chug the water and get my last meal!!! Ironing the seams will take about 20 minutes and the heat shrinking will take about 10 minutes. I will then answer your live questions from the YouTube comments.

Previous Shopcam Broadcast

Got the wings finished and am now working on the fuselage. I will also show you my panel and my oh-so-cool fuselage rotator. Progress has been slowed a bit because I’m working one handed:

Today is something really cool, rib-lacing! I’ve been looking forward to this for years. Find out what rib-lacing is, why its needed, and how to do it.

How it all got started:

I built this model airplane at age 7, it was a rubber powered plane.  From there I moved on to larger rubber powered airplanes including the classic “Gollywock” till one day I lost a beautiful new plane in a thermal – it literally flew up, up and away.  It was the ’70s then and remote control sets were just starting to become affordable so I moved up to remote control gliders so that I would never lose a plane again to a thermal.

Then I got the real airplane bug.  My high school had an aviation class as an elective, it was basically a ground school class.  After the class, I took and passed by written exam for the private pilots license.  I then found a local Air Explorers post of the Boy Scouts of America where I was able to learn to fly for next to nothing.  Our instructor Mr. Manning from the Navy volunteered his time to teach us and the planes were dirt cheap – it was pre oil embargo.  Then flying got really expensive and I got busy so I stopped flying real planes for 25 years.  Come 2001 I realized that I really, really wanted to build a plane.  Not only just for the sheer joy of building but because of the cost savings.  When you build your own plane, you are allowed to do the maintenance yourself which is  *huge* cost savings so I figured it was the perfect solution for me.  I started to build in 2001 and as I mentioned before, made a lot of progress until 2006 when all my spare time went into my fitness outreach activities. Its time to finish this puppy though if I am going to do it before I die  Although the plane *looks* nearly complete,  by work hours, its probably only 60% done.  BTW, I still fly remote control gliders all the time!