Airshow

Mita Jacques and I went to the Gainesville Antique Airplane Association fly-in this weekend [okay, it was a while ago, I'm behind on posts], and she and Jacques played the role of sedate adults as I ran around like a puppy.  We saw the Stinson that did a cool awesome stunts in "Space Cowboys", and talked to its owner, who had the unbelevable good luck to have her first solo be in that airplane.  As I scraped my jaw off the grass, Mita asked if it would be a good plane for me to learn in.  When I asked how much it cost per hour to fly, the owner told me she hadn't done the math, because "if I knew, he'd know [her husband] and then I wouldn't be able to fly anymore."  My math adds up to about 400/hr.

After a bit more moseying, we stumbled upon a pair of beautifully restored Luscombe model 8's, one of which is below [Image taken from the Fly-In's Photo Album]:

Mita and I talked to this plane's owner for about 20 minutes, talking about learning to fly, what its like to have an airplane like this, and I did my best attempt to hide my excitement about getting to look so closely at such a beautifully restored airplane.

We saw a bunch of airplanes, but this was the one that stuck with me, so I started googling around for information about them, learning that they're pretty fun little airplanes, you can get one in flying shape for about $20,000, and they're about as practical and as cost effective as a small airplane can be.  I also found a great site detailing the loving restoration of one.  It showed the custom fabricated engine cowling, and the custom fabricated instrument panel, and a beautiful yellow paint-job, much like the one we saw at the airshow.  The panel looked a little familiar, with roughly the same position for the controls, but I didn't think about it until it got to the custom teak control stick grips.  They looked just like the ones I saw on Saturday.  I looked through the air-show's photo album to find the picture above, which has the owner's name on it, and confirmed that the restoration page that I saw is of the same aircraft by its current owner, further confirming my theory that while its a big world, if you delve into something even a little bit, its still a really small one.