It
was fly-in time in Arlington again. Hot
and dry this year, with beaming sun and lots of visitors. The BD-4 bunch hung
out lazy in the shadow under the wing of Jim
Huber's and Steve Mahoney's
gorgeous birds. The Canadians pop in for a day: Fred
Hinsch and Eric Munzer, both with their BD-4s. Fred has repainted his
venerable BD with a graceful paint scheme, the Canadian maple leaf in graded
colors on the rudder, not unlike the Murphy
Moose. Funny, to see the Canadians come in with tri gears and the Americans
with tail draggers.
Steve Craigle lives
in Arlington and toured interested builders to his two BD-4s in his hangers.
His own project, Ford V6 powered and flying BD-4 he bought earlier this year
from Tony Otto. With this there were six BD-4s at Arlington this, five of
them flying. Dave Anderson and
his sleek tri gear were missed. A number of builders unfinished BD-4s were
there, too: Craig Evans, Gord
Hudson, Mark Miller, Steve
Nemeth, and others that I didn't meet. Gord brought his builder's log
book with him. Unfortunately I only got to see the first half. He and a group
of other builders built their BD-4s from the plans and only bought some of
the parts from Bede, such as the spars. They bent the angles with a press
brake they modified.
The
flying BDs were are all pretty stock with more discreet modifications: auto
seats, overhead
switchboard and instrument panels, Steve Mahoney's up swinging doors,
Jim's 100 gal tanks and all ball bearings control system. The BD-4 works pretty
well with near stock configuration. Steve Mahoney lives 20 miles farther from
Arlington than I do. It took me almost 4 hours to drive to Arlington. Steve
got here in 1 hour and 15 min, the average GPS measured ground speed was 208
MPH - "I had a bit of tail wind".
On Saturday evening clouds darkened the sky and a few rain drops drew patterns
on dusty wings. Steve Mahoney took me over to the warbirds and introduced
me to the original builder of my project, N-239CP: Colin Powers. It was a
special pleasure and honor to meet with the person whose excellent workmanship
I admire when I repair his plane. And I believe Colin and his wife were delighted
to learn that their bird found a new lover and is restored.
After the show on Friday Steve Craigle took Craig and me up for a ride into
the setting sun. W&B had me sit in the back seat, which was an interesting
experience. I was much surprised by the room and comfort back there. It was
definitely roomier than the ride from the airport on the back seat in Steve's
Mazda sedan. The following pictures are some of those I took from the back
seat. When you click on an image you can view a larger one. You can also download
all pictures I took in printable and full-screen format (2048x1536 pixels)
in a single ZIP archive here
(13.5 MB).
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) Shortly after take-off. Arlington on the right. |
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) Craig Evans in the seventh heaven. |
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) The capt'n. |
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) Storing the trusty bird back into it's hangar. |
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It was an awesome flight, thank you Steve!
Your back seat-webmaster.