Welcome to Haught Air

And so the big day has finally arrived. Dear husband is in the air, getting the hours he needs with an instructor to get his new-to-us Beech Bonanza V-tail insured. The policy requires that he have ten hours flying in his plane with a certified flight instructor.

Herb got his pilot's license back in the early 80s, but he hasn't flown in 20 years until this year when he renewed his license with an instructor in Bartlesville, OK. His parents and mine owned planes, so he used to fly a lot. He and my dad logged tons of hours together and had a blast doing some limited aerobatics. When Herb and I were at college in Auburn, Dad would take us to faraway places for breaks. I think a lot of the motivation was that he just loved having Herb as co-pilot, someone he could talk physics to who shared his passion for flying.

But I digress. Herb got his license renewal completed last week in a rented Cessna 172. A recent furlough of Cessna test pilots in Independence, KS, about 20 minutes north of us, blessed him with a local pilot with experience "out the wazoo" to get him checked out in his Bonanza.

It's been a long wait.

Herb was building a kit plane, an RV-6, but he just never had the time to complete it. One of the big drivers for purchasing our last home in Texas was that it had a grass strip and a hangar. Sadly, the runway never got used. Last year we started looking for property with a building on it where Herb could finish the RV-6. We even had a contract on one that would have been perfect and solved some other storage problems we have now that we live in a subdivision instead of on rural acreage. But the seller decided that he did not want to remove the "junk", and so the deal fell through. At that point I told Herb that I would rather him buy a plane that is ready to fly rather than spend money on property and still have to invest so much time and money in getting the RV-6 completed. Herb jumped on that suggestion. I feel bad now. I think that is probably what he wanted to do all along, but I am always so careful about money that he didn't even consider that I would be open to it, much less encourage it.

I can't remember exactly when the Bonanza purchase was made, but it was right when the Rona was descending on this country--middle of March, I guess. Its home was a small town in New York. By the time we had the inspection done, the country was shut down, and no one wanted to fly to New York to ferry the plane back for us. It was pretty awful. As the weeks dragged by, I began to wonder whether we would ever be able to get it. Herb was never worried, though. God bless him. I need his steady confidence so much.

A couple of weeks ago, one of the pilots that Herb had dealings with in New York let him know that a plane was being ferried into the airport where Herb's plane was, and that the ferry pilot would like to fly the Bonanza down to Coffeyville for us. O happy day! Herb made all the arrangements, and we met our plane for the first time at the Coffeyville airport. We stood on the tarmac, pretty much vibrating with anticipation, and watched it approach and land. It was so exciting! When the ferry pilot taxied toward us, tears sprang to my eyes--a combination of relief, happiness for Herb's dream coming true, and poignant memories of my dad and his beloved Bonanza.

The ferry pilot was surprised to learn that Herb had never seen the plane in person, and so right away he offered to take Herb up in it, even though the ferry pilot had been flying most of the day. Herb accepted, and I was overcome with joy watching them take off. They invited me to go, but I just wanted Herb to have that experience.  I guess they were gone for about 20 minutes. The sun was setting as they landed, the perfect ending for this historic day. Herb reported that everything about the plane was as advertised and that it flew like a dream. Since then, he has visited it three times, twice taxiing it around and imagining what it will be like to be able to take off as pilot-in-command.

Herb getting in for the first time.

I'm hoping that Herb gets at least two hours with the instructor today. We are eager to fly to Florida to visit Herb's parents. The test pilot has ten days completely open starting next week. So many possibilities flood my mind now. And gratitude, heaps and heaps of gratitude.

The King and the Thing in the Wing

My husband heard a mysterious noise in the garage the other night.  It emanated from one of the wings of the airplane he is building.  Until then, dear husband's face had reflected the contentment of a quiet evening at home, where he rules as a benevolent but just king.

What was this thing in his wing, and how dare it be there?

Oh, thing!  Have a care!

THE KING DECLARES WAR

The wings are stored overhead.  They have "skin" on the outside, but the far end, the one that will be the wing tip, is wide open.  Armed with a .22, the king drew a ladder to the wing root.  He climbed up, grabbed the wing spar, a piece of metal that protrudes from that end, and shook the wing.

A furry critter scrabbled out the far end onto a rafter.

Oh, possum!

Pow!  The king nailed the possum in the head just as it realized its life circumstances had grown perilous and it better make a break for it.

Despite the mortal wound to its brain pan, it leaped. . .






back inside the wing.

UTTER DISMAY contorted the king's face.  "He's bleeding out in my wing!" he complained bitterly to me and Emma as we rushed in.  (We had been banished from the garage, but we had pressed ourselves against the side entry door, where we, all a-tingle, watched the proceedings through the window.)

Now that we were inside, we could hear the varmint scratching out a frantic break dance inside the wing.

Ewwww!   My stomach rebelled at this sound and somehow pulled on my tongue, causing me to have to swallow several times, which action caused my eyes to squeeze shut.

At last, all grew still.  The prince was called to assist with the extraction of the deceased. 

His assistance was not needed after all.  The king, unbeknownst to me, managed to grab the possum's tail, and suddenly its bloody corpse, with eyes still bright, swung down into our midst.

Something about the way its body came swinging down overwhelmed my senses, and I gasped and had to turn away shivering.  Emma comforted me.

The body was dispatched to the field morgue.  Yesterday a team of winged medical examiners worked feverishly on the post mortem.

And so happily ends another possum tail in the Kingdom of Haught.

Gimme Some Skin

After a long hiatus, my dear husband posted an update on his airplane building project on Haught Wings Cafe!

An Update on Herb's Plane Project

UPS visits our house regularly with mysterious packages, and the lights in the garage burn most every evening. Herb has been working again on his RV-6 airplane kit.

He has taken tons of pictures to document the process, but he has been working so hard he has not gotten them all posted on Haught Wings. He started yesterday. Read about them here.

Mother Hen

Emma has been reading all of the flying magazines that Herb has been getting. Consequently, she has fallen in love with ultralight airplanes and plans to own one as soon as she can. There are only two obstacles: her dad says "no", and she doesn't have the money. She has decided that the best approach is to earn the money first, then patiently present her research to her dad showing that ultralight technology has improved dramatically, and they are now safe. That's the plan anyway. If he still says "no", she'll have a nice nest egg for something else.

My mother has contracted for Emma's weekly maid services. Emma plans to earn the rest of the money by selling eggs, rabbits, and milk if I will finance half the expense of a cow. She also wants to raise Bantam Aracaunas. So at the Laetare Sunday dinner, she traded Mickey a dozen of our eggs for a dozen of his hopefully-fertilized Bantam Aracauna eggs. She dragged out our incubator, cleaned and sterilized it and studied the direction booklet. It was not much help. Actually, it was rather disturbing. It has a long list of things that can go wrong and the causes: mushy chicks, soft chicks, exploders, etc. The editors didn't bother to explain the difference between a mushy chick and a soft chick. Nor did they deem it necessary to tell whether a mushy or soft chick is dead or alive. Details, details.

Temperature is, naturally, one of the critical factors, so Emma has been diligently checking the temperature inside the brooder with two or three different thermometers and doing internet research on embryology. At least once a day she retreats to her "candling" room (our half bath) to check the eggs with a flashlight for signs of life.

In the midst of all her concern for her "babies", Mickey texted me to tell me that one of his hens just hatched eight chicks. Naturally, Emma was a little discouraged that he should reap all of these benefits with so little effort, but he has offered her the mother and the chicks. That smoothed everything over! She'll bring them home today after Mass. . .if she can catch them.

Mickey's birds are wild.

Get Your Haught Wings

At the Haught Wings Cafe!

I've created a new blog for Herb to help him keep his parents and friends updated on his RV-6 plane-building project. The FAA requires recordkeeping anyway; this seemed like the most satisfying way to do it.

Herb and Nathaniel are really excited about the cafe. I've cooked up the first few posts, but Herb plans to write some as well. I volunteer to let him write all the technical posts. Leave me the sweet stuff! Say, would that be "pie in the sky"?

I plan to cover the Experimental Aircraft Association meetings that we attend and interview as many interesting pilots as I can, starting with my dad, father-in-law, and mother-in-law. My mother-in-law belongs to the 99s, a women's flying group that was founded by Amelia Earhart.

Emma got a video camera for Christmas, so she is looking forward to capturing some exciting stuff in the garage as the project progresses, preferably something with sparks but no flames. I'm sure with Herb's mechanical expertise, he will come up with some wonderful design improvement or technique that will be a great subject for a video.

Hope to see you there!

Herb's Plane Happy

Herb returned home Saturday night towing a mighty project, an RV-6 kit plane. His dad started it in the early 90s and decided that it was time to pass the torch, so to speak. Herb will have to make one more trip back to Florida to bring back the wings.

We have a 2100 foot grass runway along the west side of our property, so Herb is eager to complete this project and fly. He has already joined a users' group called Van's Air Force. It offers lots of technical support. Additionally, there are good pictures of completed planes on Van's website.

Herb will also join the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). Our local chapter meets at a hangar about a mile and a half from us. We only have to make one left turn off our street to get there. We have to drive long distances to do just about everything, so this being so close is simply amazing to me.

From what Herb tells me, a whole social life comes with the plane. The RV airplane owners get together a lot, fly to lunch, make day trips, etc. He's also expecting all of his parents' airplane buddies to fly over to our house and check up on him--I mean visit. I'm dusting off all of my "feed a crowd" recipes in anticipation.

We're hoping that Herb's folks will come stay for a month or two in their motorhome. Herb Sr. and my dad would have so much fun bossing, I mean supervising, Herb and Nathaniel. Herb's dad got a lot of experience working on planes in the Air Force, and he and my mother-in-law got their private pilot's licenses after he retired. They flew a Piper Cherokee for many years. My dad re-built an Aeronca Chief as a young man and learned to fly out of his parent's pasture. Later he bought a Piper Pacer, which he sold when I was little. After I married, Dad bought a Beechcraft Bonanza.

Herb and I started taking flying lessons in the early 80s. I soloed but lost confidence afterward. I stopped flying before finishing the requirements for my license. Herb got his pilot's license and enjoyed flying the Cherokee and the Bonanza.

Now Nathaniel and Emma want to learn to fly. I guess it's in their genes.

Here are the pictures of the uncrating: