Yesterday I spent the day at the airport – nice weather again, though the weather guessers say it will probably be the end of our early Spring for several days.  Earlier in the week a friend had mentioned that he needed a Flight Review. I offered my services and he accepted.

He built a Glasair IIS several years ago and, through a series of circumstances,  had not flown it for over 4 years.  With that much time off I was curious to see how much rust had accumulated. The flight went fine, though some additional refresher work will be required to get up to Flight Review standards.

One thing I learned – a Glasair IIS is not built for my current body configuration.  It wasn’t an uncomfortable fit, but I didn’t have  a whole lot of wiggle room left over. It is a nice-flying airplane with light, fairly balanced  control pressures. We were indicating over 180 knots (21o MPH) as we cruised around the area – a good cross-country machine.

I’m looking forward to flying with him some more when the weather clears again.

I found three articles that you may have missed this week:

Florida professor to relive historic flight across English Channel
This is from the Sun-Sentinel in Palm Beach, FL. Barbara Ganson is an Associate Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University. This weekend she intends to recreate Harriet Quimby’s flight over the English Channel. The original flight actually occurred on April 16, 1912, but since this is Women’s History Month the flight will be a month early…

Masters of the V-12
This is a link to a pdf document that was forwarded to me by a friend. The document is about 6 pages long and describes the people behind three different shops that rebuilt engines for warbirds. The V-12 refers to the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. Very interesting read…

An Aviation Camp in Dayton is so successful it is adding a summer session.
This is actually a press release on PR Web. Air Camp USA has been operating for three years in Dayton, OH. This year, because of the increase in interest that they have seen, they are adding a third summer session. The camp sessions are in June and July and and concentrate on aviation and STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). The camp is open to students entering the 7th – 9th grades for the fall 2012 school year. Application information is available in the article.