Posted Sunday, March 31, 2013 @ 02:05 PM
I'm an aeroplane snob. I admit it. A long time student of aircraft handing, and an avid reader of Neil Williams and James Gilbert, I can't abide aircraft that don't handle well. Ten years into the rebuild of the Jungmann and I am going crazy. I need something good to fly. I mean I REALLY need something.
Something that handles beautifully, won't put too much strain on my already Bucker-strained finances, and something fun. There is a Cub in the hangar next door, but did I mention I am not a Cub fan? After pondering this for some time I had an epiphany. Those fabulous aerobatic motor-gliders I saw in an airshow over the Isle of Wight when I was a kid, and later watched in the King's cup air race. Perfect! I checked the specifications for the RF4D. Everything looked good except that I was a trifle over the maximum aerobatic weight. (Coincidentally caused by the consumption of too much trifle.) But, I reasoned, although I was a few percent over the limit, I would be flying the aircraft nowhere near the maximum permitted load factor. A self-imposed limit of +3.5/-1.5 G and I would be in fat city. (Pun intended.) - With lots of years of aerobatics behind me, I felt that I had the experience to accurately enforce this self-imposed limitation, and so it has turned out.
The next step was to find one. I forget exactly how I found out about N7724, but I knew Mira Slovak through the Bucker connection and on a visit to his California hangar I had a chance to look at his RF4D. With a yellow and blue sunburst paint scheme that had been in place since the late 1960s, she was obviously not perfect, but she had "good bones." Very low total time, a 1400 cc engine rebuilt by a respected master of VW aero engines (at significant expense), a modern radio and a low-power consumption transponder. Better yet, on the side of the fuselage was painted "Mira Slovak", along with a map of his two transatlantic crossings. We agreed that when the time came to pass her on, Mira would allow me first refusal.
It didn't take as long as I expected. In a few months Mira called and we made a plan. He would fly her to a friend's strip in Texas and I would pick her up from there and fly home to Ohio. (As it turned out, another RF4 turned up at just about the time this deal took place. It was less money, but a had a funky old radio, no transponder, an original 1200 cc engine, and no "Mira Slovak" on the side. With my wife's strong encouragement, I went for Mira's RF4. Provenance is everything )
And that is how I became the proud owner of N7724. As I continued work on the Jungmann, I flew the RF4 all over the state going to fly-ins, breakfasts, and airshows, or just pottering around the countryside, soaring now and again and practicing graceful Fournier aerobatics. I overhauled the magneto, replaced the somewhat peculiar outriggers with the newer nylon rod variety, but for the most part just topped up the tank and had all kinds of fun.
My friend Joe Foley bought the other RF4D, the one that I chose not to get, and we have practiced formation flying together. Nothing too close, and no aerobatics, but more fun than I expected.
Fast forward a few years. The Jungmann is flying, the paint work on the Fournier is looking very tired indeed, and the fabric has seen better days. The time has come to give her a well deserved make over. At the conclusion of that, I will fly her for a month or so and then make her available for the next custodian. One thing I have learned about aircraft ownership is like many things in aeronautics (lift, drag, momentum, kinetic energy etc) aircraft maintenance is subject to a square law. If it takes X hours to maintain an aircraft, it takes 4X to look after two, 9X to look after three etc. There are not enough hours in my life to look after two such precious aircraft.
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