Our Little Ballerina

The parents were invited in to watch Lindsay's Dance Class this evening. We laughed and applauded at the little tykes efforts.

The Empire wants you!

A couple of Empire soldiers were out recruiting today at an Animal Rescue Halloween Party we went to down in Town & Country. They had Sky all but signed up when they learned he was under 18 and we wouldn't give our permission for them to take him to a far away planet. Beware the Dark Side!

Snow White goes to Creve Coeur's Halloween Party!

Our little Princess dressed-up for the Creve Coeur airport Halloween Party.

Where's Waldo?

I got a little bit done on the Cub on Friday. Messed with the gas tank valve fitting, took the gunky/grimy thing off of the fuel tank and bead-blasted it. It had leaked and was a complete mess. Also, primed the front seat and wheels. Fished out the tank straps out of one of the boxes and bead-lasted them also.

I was really excited when Glenn showed up that afternoon with the stencils for the side of the Standard fuselage. He must have been excited too because he had a gleam in his eye that I hadn't seen for quite a while. We unrolled the stencil, cut the two apart and took one back to the airplane. Thirty minutes later, it was all masked off and ready to paint.

When I left, both sides were painted and drying.

Yellow is my favorite color...and Boo-boo Bear likes it too!

Unbeknownst to me, Glenn ame to work and painted the fuselage and gear white this morning. It was quite a surprise when I showed up to the hangar and he said to go take a look. He also said he really wanted to paint it yellow this afternoon so I needed to get my butt in gear to look for runs and loose tape edges. I found 3 runs and 2 loose tape edges which were all quickly fixed.

Late this afternoon he fired up the spray gun again and shot 3 coats of the most beautiful yellow I've ever seen.

Ps to Dave H...I was so happy I nearly cried with joy. It won't be long now!

10-19 Cub Progress - Sanding the cockpit

Finished sanding the airplane today in preparation for the white layer to be put on. We're going to put white on the airplane before the yellow to make the yellow pop and not look green with the silver underneath it. Sanding the outside of the airplane wasn't too bad but there's a lot of tubes in the cockpit so you have to bend in all sorts of contortions to get all the fabric sanded.

Cub Progress 10-17 - Are we ever done sanding?

I'm beginning to think that restoring an airplane is easy. All you have to do for about 80% of the restoration is sand. I don't have fingers any more, I have flippers. My fingers have melded into them due to all the wet-sanding and pressure I've put on them in the past couple days.

First Frost

We had our first frost of the fall last night. It didn't last long as it only got down to 30 degrees and as soon and the morning sun hit it, it melted. I was able to get a few of these leaves in the shade before the warmth of the sun got to them.

Puttin' silver on the fuselage and gear.

Glenn put silver on the fuselage and landing gear today. The fuselage looks great! The landing gear looks perfect! He did such a good job. I can't paint with a childs watercolors and he made this look easy.

Now comes the fun part...sanding. I can do that. I don't even mind the drudgery of that. I'll take Sky out to the airport this weekend, put on some tunes, bring a box of donuts and we'll get it done. I'm getting excited because he says it'll be yellow by weeks end.

The tail is ready to spray also. And the sheet metal parts. That leaves the wings and engine and we're flying.

Starting to cut fabric for the Standard.

Glenn has the fuselage of the J-1 Standard ready for cover. Today he cut out the fabric that will go on the fuselage.

Bird Biplane

Went out to try and reshoot Ken Thomas's Bird tonight. The light went to c#$p right after we left but we hung out for a while over the prime hunting grounds and managed to get a few.

Ground Fog

I had forgotten how beautiful it is to fly early in the morning. Yesterday when I pulled the airplane out of the hangar, it was still dark. Only my car headlights provided illumination as I opened the hangar door. She was heavy, nearly full of fuel and took quite an effort to get her rolling out the door.

I let the engine run at a low-power setting for 10 minutes to warm up the oil and wait for the sun to come up. I have enough night time, thank you. Taxiied out and picked up my friend and photographer Gilles Auliard and took off. It was as smooth as a baby's bottom!

This fog was in the river valley, just west of Creve Coeur airport.

Dawn Patrol

Had to get up early to see these guys off this morning. And what a beautiful morning! Took off right after sunrise and had these two as escorts. I turned back just east of Lake St Louis and they continued on to their fuel stop at Boonville. They're trying to make it to Denver today.

Thanks Andrew and Mark.

Piper PA-12 Air-to-Air.

Rudy Haug's Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser.