my photo site

[Ol' Frank]

I haven't updated this site for awhile, but you might want to browse through it:

http://photos.toast.net/hezagzr

Yeah, I've been busy: I put four 55-gallon drums of water in that greenhouse I built last year (no pics available because they were wiped out when my old computer's hard-drive self destructed a month ago!) They absorb the sun's heat during the day and radiate it at night, so it's usually ten degrees warmer in there overnight. My tomatoes are almost ready to plant -- May 15th is our average frost-free date for planting -- and I even grew four 5-gallon containers of smaller ones for the greenhouse in case we lose the garden to hail this year.

Some of you happy campers may enjoy this email I sent to George Bush at the White House a few days ago entitled, "This says it all.."

The only text entered was .. "Dear President Fox:" and my signed name and address!

My God -- Colorado is overrun with illegal Hispanic aliens! It will cost us an extra billion dollars this year just to provide them health care and prison facilities. Enough! And now they're staging protest marches in what was once OUR country in the pre-Clinton and Bush era..? Disgraceful!

Note: At my age I've got the right to be a crusty old curmudgeon!

Be good or have fun -- your choice! - Ol' Frank in Colorado.

 

[Royal]

Common folks! 19 reads and only one comment? That sure is a great way to encourage posters!!

Frank, that looks like it would be a ball to fly in the mountains. Gotta feel like a bird in that little thing.

I appreciate your post.

I have thought about building a hothouse but up in Roscommon I am in the woods and there is noplace that gets a lot of sun.

 

[david(tx)]

nice painting,are those the actual colors of plane in it's day?nice plane,did you build it from a kit?

 

[Royal]

DO you have a pic of the first one?

 

[Ol' Frank]

Yeah, David -- I built it from a kit: It's a Quad City Challenger II, with a 52 HP Rotax engine. Flies slowly but nicely. I'm flying it under the new "Sport Pilot" ruling which makes it possible to fly light planes with only a driver's license for a medical certificate. I could almost certainly pass an FAA third-class medical exam, but it's another government Catch 22: If you ever flunk an FAA medical, you can't use the driver's license as a valid medical certificate!

Obtaining a Sport pilot's license is fairly inexpensive, so check that out if you want to get airborne.

And yeah, I live in a suburb about five miles west of Denver.

regards from Ol' Frank

 

[david(tx)]

horsepower it had,don't know if i have the stuff to fly,but got interested in small planes and spent alot of time on the internet just looking at them,beech bonanza's and the like,i know i could never afford one but it was fun.

 

[Ol' Frank]

Thanks, Royal -- I sure took my time building both of them, but whadda heck -- I'm retired, which is the past tense of "retarded!"

So far, John Gill and I have built our Moni flush-riveted motor gliders and helped five other people with their similar projects, then a wooden biplane (a Fisher 404), the RAF2000 gyrocopter which is currently in Arizona, the new Challenger and now we're preparing to build that Waiex 120HP 2-seater that should cruise at 170 MPH at 8000 feet. We also have John's 1967 Alon Aircoupe to play with, and his Valentin "Taifun" 17-meter motor glider. I helped John build his first plane and he's always appreciated my free assistance, so over the years I've gotten to be his pilot in a Cessna cardinal, Piper Turbo Arrow, and the aerobatic clipped-wing Piper Cub that Mel Gibson crashed (with Goldie Hawn as a passenger) n the movie "Bird on a Wire" -- a Hollywood studio bought it just [attachment 25542 YX_Poster_0422.jpg]for that purpose! What a waste of a good ol' airplane.

The Waiex is John's baby mostly because I have too many things to catch up on around the house and yard this year. Check out this picture of a completed project.

regards from Ol' Frank

 

[Ol' Frank]

David, I think we have about $20,000 in the Challenger, but that includes a transponder which costs about $1900 but is not needed at smaller airports. You can buy a used one for about $14,000 but you can't maintain it or give it Annual Inspections unless YOU built it, and aircraft machanics don't work cheaply! Otherwise,it's about like buying a new Honda Accord, except it would cost quite a bit more to build if a person lacked tools, and a compessor and spray-gun, etc.

If there's a local chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association near you they'd be glad to help you get started -- if I can build and fly airplanes, anyone else can! That's the best thing I've learned about life: Like yourself, I can do absolutely ANYTHING I decide to do except have a baby, and I'm not anxious to try THAT! Goto www.eaa.org for more info.

- Ol' Frank

 

[Art SC]

n/t

 

[Ol' Frank]

n/t

 

[Art SC]

n/t

 

[VT Dave]

n/t

 

[Royal]

n/t

 

[Royal]

n/t

 

[Ol' Frank]

I didn't have time to build another one, so I just bought a Dell E510 with a good video card and a GB of Ram -- it has a 17" LCD flat screen monitor which is nice, but marginally not as sharp as my old 17" .20 dot-pitch Samsung. But it's fast enough (3 GHZ) to run FlightSim 2004 at 30 FPS, even with all the hotshot video stuff like trilinear filtering activated. The FlightSim is really useful for keeping sharp when dealing with Air Traffic Control... speaking of that, we have a confused woman in the Jeffco (KBJC) tower whom I've nicknamed "Saphire", and she's a complete disaster! She will actually become confused and lose control of the pattern when eight or more planes are involved. The last time I flew, it became necessary to turn around 180 degrees and go farther out because she was too busy to answer my landing request! I suppose she'll kill some innocent pilot before common sense replaces political correctness.

I'm out here for the night, folks - be good or have fun, your choice!

--Ol' Frank

 

[Sunny]

to the small plane's ignition switch was a direction manuel??? IF so, there's got to be a good woman aboard who will read it to a man!