I promised to not be a bad boy anymore with regard to my newsletters, and so here it is - (pretty much) on time - for 2014  -  in 2014  -  more better, eh?

    The Aviators

We are well.  Dot just got another clean bill of health - 7 years since her diagnosis.    Dancing and gardening.  I went a whole year without any trips to the E.R.  We are busy. Sometimes I'm not sure what I have been doing that makes me so busy.  But, I know I'm doing it just the same.  Busy!

Well I turned Septuagenarian (ugh and gag!) in March.  Yes, it's true - no more having to haggle about Senior discounts.  They finally believe me.   Every year on my birthday, I've always read A.E. Housman's poignant poem Loveliest of Trees.

Now of my three score years and ten,

twenty will not come again.

And take from seventy years a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom,

Fifty Springs is little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

It's been like a countdown at Cape Canaveral, all through the years.  Until this year.  This year - no more alloted years.  This year it became T Minus Zero.  Time for a Blast Off!  Which I've done, running even harder with even more gusto than my usually compulsive brand of living.  Since my birthday, I've taken to describing everything I do as "Playing with House Money."

   

Actually - you may have already figured this out - what keeps me so busy.  It's that airplane toy of ours.  It was three years ago, in December 2011, after my hip replacement, when we decided to go down this airplane path and drove down to the factory in Oregon for a demo ride.  Since then, it's been acquiring, building, training, testing, maintaining, and flying.  Acquiring a hangar, then a second, and setting them up.  Sort of like a boat - a manhour sponge - only better I think!

    N737G on approach

If you recall one of our earlier newsletters (also on my webpage here), we analyzed and defined (in the worst engineer's way) just how we would use such a machine - the places we'd go, etc.  The analysis turned out to be dead-nuts on mark, and we're actually doing all those things - County Fairs, San Juan Islands, Oregon Coast, Eastern Washington.

My many Museum volunteer visits - now flying instead of sitting in the ferry lines.  Actually saving time and money.  Amazing. And parking close too.

My parking spots at Boeing Field ...... and Paine Field in Everett

This great picture of Jim Hiestand and me landing was taken by Jim's wife Fran

Long drives, fighting traffic - and semi's, searching for motels - became very simple and enjoyable short flights..... day trips.  Here's an great example, one day we headed out for a picnic lunch on the Oregon Coast.  Sitting in the sand dunes.  Walking along the surf line.  A short 1:20 flight to an airstrip along the beach at Manzanita, Oregon. Probably 5 hours by car.

And here are a few pictures taken flying down there - you can't get these views from your car!  

Seaside, Oregon                                    Tillamook Head

    Astoria Bridge   

And - the very next day, a similar picnic day in Eastern Washington.  1 hour to Wenatchee or Ellensburg!

 

     

     

 

    
  
 

Frequent trips into the San Juan Islands

Friday Harbor on San Juan Island - almost a weekly destination.

2 days, 4 ferries, $171 ferry fare (Senior rate) - 20 minutes by RV-12, 2 gallons of car gas.

Each of these jaunts represented long drives, ferry trips, two-lane roads, and traffic with zilch in the way of views comparable to what we were able to enjoy.  I love my airplane!

So does Dot - My Co-pilot looks happy

So does the Captain

In January, we moved from Bremerton to the Jefferson County Airport at Pt. Townsend.  In June, I laid the airplane up for almost six weeks to do my first Annual Inspection and maintenance.  I've had two more maintenance lay-ups since as we acquired a remarkable number of flight hours (230), on 323 flights into almost 50 airports.

    My new digs at Pt. Townsend

I was able to give quite a number of rides to people who always came away wide-eyed and amazed at the airplane, its Buck Rogers instrument panel, and the fantastic views.

Dave Waggoner, Airport Manager at Paine Field in Everett is a former Naval Aviator - he's used to carrier take-offs and landings.  We took off for a 20 minute jaunt which became an hour and a half.  Four days later, he sent me an email saying "He hadn't quit smiling!"

A former boss and colleague, Jack Wimpress - head of the Tech Staff on the 757 - also came by. I thoroughly enjoyed the plane ride. It's a beautiful little machine with surprising performance, yet simple enough that you can get in and go places . Your electronics and guidance system is a sight to behold.

So did Louis-Philippe Cormier - my brother-in-law, who came and visited in October.

   
Down to the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field

Finally, took my friend Peter Morton for a demo and lunch at Friday Harbor in the San Juans - Peter was a long-time flight ops guy at Boeing and head of Customer Flight Crew Training and Flt Ops Support - he owned all the fancy simulators.  Afterwards, Peter wrote me: "Thanks, Bob, for the wonderful day of flying and for the photo you sent. What a day, though to appreciate the beauty of our land. Your flying is so professional; it is a pleasure to just relax and enjoy the scenery and feel at ease"

On one of our trips to Eastern Washington, we stopped in at a place called Desert Aire on the Columbia River south of Ellensburg/Vantage.  Who should I meet there but Linda Slott - my Secretary from Boeing starting in about 1987!  Amazing - I hadn't seen her in more than 20 years.

Also in October, we went down to Eastern Oregon to visit my friend Ron Ochs near Madras.  Ron is a rancher, former F-86 fighter pilot during the Korean War, and with his own airstrip.  A 7 hour drive became a 2 hour flight.  And we parked right outside his house!

      

Then we went to stay in his guest "cabin" - an amazing, secluded place in the hills with terrific natural beauty all around.  Alone.  No phones.  No (grid) electricity.  Absolute quiet.  And sitting outside at night - seeing the Milky Way splash across a jet black sky - a sight unseen in decades.

       
Sistership Hawaiian Chieftain leaving first (above left)

      

The Captain and his ship

I gave a number of talks and led tours at the Museum and elsewhere and produced a number of new sections for my website.  One was a piece celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the first flight of the 707.  You can read it here.  It received more than one million reads in the first month after release, and a number of re-prints - eliciting this comment from Dominic Gates - Aerospace Reporter for the Seattle Times:  " You’re a marvelous story-teller."

Visitors

We had quite a few, starting with Dot's niece Marietta and her man J.P.  They live in Montreal and were driving with their trailer.  This was their second trip here.

Next up was Kari Rankins and her husband Ed - they live in Chicago.  She was my H.R. person at Boeing for many years, and Ed is a retired Seattle fireman.  They actually brought their own lunch!  And what a spread it was.

My Mentor in the airplane building business, Tony T. came with his wife Karen, after a lot of arm twisting.  Like so many visitors, he spent a lot of time looking through the  field glasses at the ships passing by!

Jim Hiestand, my college roommate, and his wife Fran drove here all the way from Chattanooga, Tennessee.  They have been here quite a few times as they enjoy touring the West by car.  I took Jim for a ride in my airplane.

Dot's brother Louis-Philippe came for a week.  I had been nagging him for some years and he finally broke down.  We had a great visit.  I took him on a flying tour of the mountains, and the Museum of Flight.  I think he was suitably impressed.

   
Louis fell in love with a jigsaw puzzle we had going on the dining room table!
He also enjoyed "driving" a nuclear sub at the Navy's submarine museum in nearby Keyport

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A Few Flying Pictures

   

   

  



This is why I fly!

    Peace..........

Bob and Dot

 

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2014 Passings

Bob Rushbrook - 7 Nov 2013

Bob was one of the original 737 Captains at Nordair in Montreal.  After decades out of touch, we reconnected via the internet a few years back and exchanged many emails.  Like so many of my friends, I get suspicious after a prolonged silence, and start doing an internet obit search.  Sadly, I often find out why my emails stopped.  That's what happened in this case. Obit here.

Leah Hammer - 3 January 2014

A good friend from Port Townsend who helped me out with my genealogy website - she had been suffering from ALS for the past few years.

Wes Schierman - 4 January 2014

Wes was a fellow Seattle area RV-12 Builder and Flier.  He came to Tony's Annual Bremerton RV-12 get-togethers at Bremerton.  Here he is with his beautiful blue and white airplane. Before building his RV-12, Wes was a 747 pilot with Northwest Airlines.  And before that, he was a USAF fighter pilot.  It was while flying his F-105 over N Viet Nam, that Wes was forced down and spent 7.5 years as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton.  His remarkable story here.

Clyde Little - 14 April 2014

AA7WC - a ham radio fixture from Grants Pass, Oregon - who ran the Noon Time Net every day for decades and knew thousands of hams by their first names (and their wives, kids, dogs....)  We visited with Clyde in 2010 - picture here.

Wally Alder - 9 August 2014

A real shock - as Wally was a close friend, visitor and frequent correspondent; formerly a Boeing colleague.  In apparent good health and active and vibrant, died suddenly following heart surgery. Obit here

 

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