These days, my current primary source of excitement is aviation. I own N581, a Grumman AA5A (Cheetah). Originally, I based it at Fletchair at Houston-Hobby (HOU). FletchAir is one of the premier Grumman facilities. These days, I have it based at Houston-SW Airport. For more info on the various Grumman aircraft, I would suggest that you contact the American Yankee Association (AYA).
My aircraft paint scheme is in a pseudo-military paint scheme.
This is Don McNamara's AA1B that I used to pattern my
aircraft after. Don was very thorough in his research of the paint scheme and it
definitely shows. He sold his aircraft awhile back and now someone else is the lucky
owner.
Flying VFR on-top, give you the impression that you are
flying at high altitudes. Unfortunately, the Grumman AA5A only has a service ceiling
of 12,500 ft. This makes it interesting when crossing the Rockies.
I have had a couple of memorable trips in my aircraft.
At one time, I owned a gyrocopter. They are extremely fun
aircraft, but are very unforgiving of mistakes (more so than normal fixed wing aircraft).
If you are interested in gyrocopters, I would suggest that you check out the PRA (Popular Rotorcraft Association). Here is a photo of me
and it at the start of the last day that I flew it. Notice the full coverage motorcycle
helmet... I will have a chance to utilize it later that day...
And here is a photo of myself and the gyro at the end of
that day. Neither one of us came out of that crash all that well. I cracked a rib and a
bone in my left foot in addition to a slight case of runway rash. It ended up
being basically totally destroyed. I still have the engine since it survived with minimal
damage. The rest of the pieces were recycled and have probably been made into beer cans by
now. Grace and Kaitlyn were both watching when this incident occurred. I had been
flying around the airport during the day and on what was to be my last landing for the day
(not my last landing for all time), I suffered from fuel starvation when I pitched down
for landing. It seems that the fuel sloshed to the front of the tank, off of the fuel
pickup line and thus the engine quit. Unfortunately, I had not performed a proper weight
and balance calculation on the aircraft and it was too nose heavy to land without engine
power. I had pointed the nose down to the ground, maintaining a 60 mph descent. When I got
to the point where I needed to flare, I pulled back on the stick and NOTHING happened. Or
to be precise, the FLARE didn't happen. I proceeded to hit the pavement at 60 mph...
Ouch... Luckily, I was wearing a good quality full coverage motorcycle helmet and what
could have been a major accident turned out to be basically an inconvenience.
Although my Grumman consists of conventional control yokes,
there have been individuals who have outfitted them with control sticks instead. Some
Grumman owners have expressed an interest in having this modification done to their
aircraft, so I'm posting the photos here. Here's what it looks like with this option on an
AA1-series aircraft:
This mechanism looks nice, but one has to wonder whether the
moment arm is long enough. It seems that aircraft control would be very sensitive
with the stick this close to the point of rotation. It would be nice if we had a cheap way
to try this out without having to go to the trouble of getting a STC or 337 approval.
Perhaps it would be possible to create a temporary attachment to the yoke that would allow
us to experience what this type of stick feels like, but still gives us the
capability to fall back to our normal yoke for landing in case we are not comfortable with
the sensitivity of the new control. One such design might be what I like to call
a Tri-Yoke design.