Van's Air Force Western Canada Wing

Members Only ------------ Membership List Listserver Archive Listserver Archive (pre Sep. 17, 2001) Revise Member Info Join Our Email Group Revise Your Listserver Settings Everything Else --------------- Home Site Map Make a Donation Articles on Building and Flying Austin Tinckler's Stories Builder's Tips Flight Test Log Cards Guest Book (Sign) Guest Book (View) Join Western Canada Wing Langley Fly-in Links - add your own! Members' Airplanes Members' Projects Miscellaneous Items Newsletter Back Issues Operating and Maintenance Procedures for RVs Regulatory Matters Social Events Tools - build your own! Please make only one selection at a time. Support this site with a donation...

Glorious Summer

Day after day this summer, I would be along side a young stud at the traffic light as he strained to blast off.  I let him go.  I thought back to school when teach would ask Johnny, “What did you do this summer”?  “I beat old fart at street drag!”  (Proudly.)

 I let him have his glory.  I had bigger things in mind.  I was fixing to strap myself into an RV and see what 185 feels like down along the beach where you really can see what 185 means close up and personal.  I would tell teach that I had a glorious Summer.  First biggy was riding in an RV, second was soloing an RV, third was takeoff and landing it by myself, and last but not least, flying in company with a bud.
When I open the hangar door now my bird, with nose high, seems to want to be let out.  But I wait a bit and peer into the shadows of the far bay, where sits old bud’s equally beautiful RV—waiting—waiting, like a horse without a rider, like a dog who will hunt no more.  Waiting.  Never again will I hear that engine start and run, never again will I hear old bud call and say, “Hah, you were flying today !  I know because I went down to the hangar tonight and felt your cowl—it was warm!”  Old bud is now one of the fallen.  Gone but never forgotten, because I will always have the joy of knowing the supreme gift of flying close in company and seeing how truly beautiful an RV and its golden prop looks when seen at altitude in a very late sun, peaks with pink snow reaching up way above us, and dark sea and phosphorous wake trails in the water far below us.  And then there are the pictures, lots of smiles—even at this distance you can see them.  Just off the right wing tip.  Without my old bud and my faithful RV, I wouldn’t have seen this part of aviation’s glory.

I grasp the roll bar, lean into the fuselage side and push out into the sunshine.  She starts well and quickly, and we taxi out, run up, look once again over at old bud’s hangar, throttle up and off we go.

 Here goes this old fart, 3 times faster than the street rod, airborne in a twinkling and climbing for the freeway of the air.  Don’t wait for me!  Not far off lies an old grass strip where the old and bold gather, and where the landings are the sweetest.  Wheels kiss the grass as we skim past the line of trees and the sleepy cows flashing ever slower past the wing tip.  The wispy green grass holds us, slowing without the need to brake, and we are soon among friends again with more smiles, and another RV to pore over.  Airplanes sure have a way of gathering people and capturing the imagination.  RVs, I think, even more so.

No longer will I be standing at the end of a long, empty strip wondering what could be more lonely and quietly haunting than a stadium empty of sound and people, or an airfield without the planes and sounds of engines.  No longer wishing and wondering, because RV is waiting, canopy open like beckoning arms, waiting to be let off the leash.  And off and up we go once again to dance and spring along the pathways of the air—homeward bound.

 Yes, all in all, the good and the not so good, it was a Glorious Summer.

A member of the Web Standards Project	Support free speech.	Built on... ...FreeBSD
Van's Air Force Western Canada Wing is not affiliated in any way with Van's Aircraft Incorporated. Western Canada RVator is not a publication of Van's Aircraft or any other corporation. All products reviewed or mentioned are not necessarily recommended for use by RV builders, but are described for information only. All builder's tips are presented only as a source of information and a forum for exchange and the sharing of ideas and construction methods. No responsibility is assumed, expressed, or implied as to the suitability, accuracy, safety, or approval thereof. Any party using the suggestions, ideas, or examples does so at his or her own risk and discretion and without recourse against anyone. The members of Van's Air Force Western Canada Wing, the editor of the Western Canada RVator, and all authors and contributors are not responsible for any product or builder's tips misuse, incorrect construction, or design failure, nor any other peril. All material on this web site is copyright Van's Air Force Western Canada Wing, or copyright the attributed author, unless otherwise noted.