I had a once in a lifetime opportunity for an airplane ride presented to me from a very good friend and former club member Mike Sturart and what a ride it was. Mike learned to fly R/C with my home club The New Hampshire Flying Tigers and while there he and I became good friends. Mike decided to relocate and ended up in Atlanta Georgia. Never loosing his passion for aviation Mike decided to try his hand at full scale aviation by building his own airplane. The first project was a RV-6A a small two seater sport aircraft which turned out very well. I think the RV-4 was a little too tame for Mike who always flew his RC planes on the edge. The next project was a RV-8 same basic design but with a tandem seating arragement rather than side by side. Mike never does anything half way so this airplane has all the bells and whistles and as much power as it can stand to boot.
We met on a Friday afternoon at a small grass strip not far from my home where we proceeded to tear up the sky. My daughter Jessica was with me and Mike offered to take her up for a ride Jessica jumped at the chance. They took off and disappeared for a minute or two and then the next thing we knew they came screaming down the runway at about fifty feet with smoke on! Well after seeing that I couldn't wait to get in the air.
My turn finally came it seemed like a very long wait. After take off Mike let me take the controls for a while and I could not believe how responsive that little airplane is all you had to do was think about moving the stick and you where in a banked turn. So after about twenty minutes of me putting around not knowing where I was headed Mike got us headed back to the little grass strip.
I gave the controls back to Mike and said "ok Mike let's do it". The first thing we did was a straffing run which started with a roll and a very tight turn and a low pass down the runway. I got to tell you that woke me up. Then it was on to stall turns, a cuban eight, a four point roll, a barrel roll, a 4g turn, and finally another low pass at full throttle about fifty feet off the deck!
We came around for a landing and our speed was up a little so Mike side slipped it on to the runway. I've had rides in small aircraft before but I have never experienced anything like this. Mike is an outstanding pilot with an outstanding airplane and the experience was incredible.
Mike has a web site you can visit to learn more about his experiences during the building process of these two airplanes and more about what he does. I forgot to mention he also flys formation with a bunch of other people who fly RV's
