Least Expensive Flying

Mention 'The Man From Illinois' and most people will say 'Abe
Lincoln.' And I mean, most people EVERYWHERE. But for me the 'man
from Illinois' will always be the fellow who asked my opinion
regarding the least expensive way for him to fly. To give him an
honest answer I needed to know a bit more about him and for a time we
exchanged messages on an almost daily basis.

He wasn't a tool user in that earning his daily bread did not depend
upon driving a truck, building a house nor using one machine to make
another, as would be the case of a machinist (at the component level)
nor assembling parts made by others, such as someone on an assembly
line or building bulldozers or what-have-you. Indeed, during our
exchange the fellow finally admitted with a laugh that while he
FACILITATED the building of things, in that he was involved with
finding the MONEY on which everything in our society depended and
which I saw as a necessary job, he himself could not claim to have
built ANYTHING in the physical sense, unless we returned to his days
as a school-boy during which he and his fellows had assembled an 8"
reflecting telescope. Sports-wise he played golf and tennis. When he
mentioned 'crew' I asked if he meant rowing or sailing and in doing so
probably revealed my short-comings as a councilor, for there followed
a lengthy gap in our messages. We eventually settled on rowing AND
sailing, both done while in college but the latter still engaged in
although not as a major activity. I believe he said his age was 54
and I recall listing his abilities as sailing a boat, driving a car
and piloting an airplane but if he had a leaky faucet he would call a
plumber.

As for his financial status he said -- more than once -- 'There's
simply no money.' Which wasn't quite true. There was 'no money'
relative to 'money' as defined by his working experience. Could he
afford a 1/4" drill motor from Harbor Freight? (At that time listed
for about $14.00.) That got a rather confused reply involving someone
building an RV-4, the 'builder's kit' which proved hilariously
inadequate, failing to mention the REQUIRED air compressor, hoses,
regulators and so forth. And of COURSE he could afford a drill-motor
costing less than twenty dollars, although he was fairly sure *I* may
have been mislead with the cost of building an aluminum airplane.

Then (and now) Aluminum sheet stock various sources was going
for ...about two bucks a pound. (That's a very wishy-washy 'two
bucks' but the early worm and all that... I've picked up .016 in 5' x
25' sheets for eighty-six cents per pound. It was a local new/surplus
item the bulk of which eventually went to a Boeing sub-contractor.
But half a dozen sheets managed to fly into my shop before the truck
headed north.)

The man from Illinois was excited to learn there was a new/surplus
market for aviation-grade materials. I don't know what he did about
it but I never heard another word about the cost of materials. But
there were plenty of other things to cause him to hint, always
politely, that I may have been out of the field a bit too long; that
he was convinced only a HIGHLY SKILLED metal-smith could duplicate
Cal's efforts.

Rather than argue the point I steered him to the CX4 Group. That was
about two years ago. I haven't heard from him since.

The point here is that the only barriers capable of PREVENTING you
from building a safe, reliable airplane a 1. Yourself. 2. Your
language and 3. Your location.

Did he? Didn't he? I don't know.

-Bob

On Mar 27, 12:43*pm, " wrote:
Mention 'The Man From Illinois' and most people will say 'Abe
Lincoln.' *And I mean, most people EVERYWHERE. *But for me the 'man
from Illinois' will always be the fellow who asked my opinion
regarding the least expensive way for him to fly. *To give him an
honest answer I needed to know a bit more about him and for a time we
exchanged messages on an almost daily basis.

He wasn't a tool user in that earning his daily bread did not depend
upon driving a truck, *building a house nor using one machine to make
another, as would be the case of a machinist (at the component level)
nor assembling parts made by others, such as someone on an assembly
line or building bulldozers or what-have-you. *Indeed, during our
exchange the fellow finally admitted with a laugh that while he
FACILITATED the building of things, in that he was involved with
finding the MONEY on which everything in our society depended and
which I saw as a necessary job, he himself could not claim to have
built ANYTHING in the physical sense, unless we returned to his days
as a school-boy during which he and his fellows had assembled an 8"
reflecting telescope. * Sports-wise he played golf and tennis. When he
mentioned 'crew' I asked if he meant rowing or sailing and in doing so
probably revealed my short-comings as a councilor, for there followed
a lengthy gap in our messages. *We eventually settled on rowing AND
sailing, both done while in college but the latter still engaged in
although not as a major activity. *I believe he said his age was 54
and I recall listing his abilities as sailing a boat, driving a car
and piloting an airplane but if he had a leaky faucet he would call a
plumber.

As for his financial status he said -- more than once -- 'There's
simply no money.' *Which wasn't quite true. *There was 'no money'
relative to 'money' as defined by his working experience. *Could he
afford a 1/4" drill motor from Harbor Freight? *(At that time listed
for about $14.00.) *That got a rather confused reply involving someone
building an RV-4, the 'builder's kit' which proved hilariously
inadequate, failing to mention the REQUIRED air compressor, hoses,
regulators and so forth. *And of COURSE he could afford a drill-motor
costing less than twenty dollars, although he was fairly sure *I* may
have been mislead with the cost of building an aluminum airplane.

Then (and now) Aluminum sheet stock various sources was going
for ...about two bucks a pound. *(That's a very wishy-washy 'two
bucks' but the early worm and all that... I've picked up .016 in 5' x
25' sheets for eighty-six cents per pound. *It was a local new/surplus
item the bulk of which eventually went to a Boeing sub-contractor.
But half a dozen sheets managed to fly into my shop before the truck
headed north.)

The man from Illinois was excited to learn there was a new/surplus
market for aviation-grade materials. *I don't know what he did about
it but I never heard another word about the cost of materials. *But
there were plenty of other things to cause him to hint, always
politely, that I may have been out of the field a bit too long; that
he was convinced only a HIGHLY SKILLED metal-smith could duplicate
Cal's efforts.

Rather than argue the point I steered him to the CX4 Group. *That was
about two years ago. *I *haven't heard from him since.

The point here is that the only barriers capable of PREVENTING you
from building a safe, reliable airplane a *1. *Yourself. *2. *Your
language and 3. Your location.

Did he? *Didn't he? *I don't know.

-Bob

Hey Bob! Glad to see you're still at it.

Monk

On Mar 27, 12:43*pm, " wrote:
Mention 'The Man From Illinois' and most people will say 'Abe
Lincoln.' *And I mean, most people EVERYWHERE. *But for me the 'man
from Illinois' will always be the fellow who asked my opinion
regarding the least expensive way for him to fly. *To give him an
honest answer I needed to know a bit more about him and for a time we
exchanged messages on an almost daily basis.

He wasn't a tool user in that earning his daily bread did not depend
upon driving a truck, *building a house nor using one machine to make
another, as would be the case of a machinist (at the component level)
nor assembling parts made by others, such as someone on an assembly
line or building bulldozers or what-have-you. *Indeed, during our
exchange the fellow finally admitted with a laugh that while he
FACILITATED the building of things, in that he was involved with
finding the MONEY on which everything in our society depended and
which I saw as a necessary job, he himself could not claim to have
built ANYTHING in the physical sense, unless we returned to his days
as a school-boy during which he and his fellows had assembled an 8"
reflecting telescope. * Sports-wise he played golf and tennis. When he
mentioned 'crew' I asked if he meant rowing or sailing and in doing so
probably revealed my short-comings as a councilor, for there followed
a lengthy gap in our messages. *We eventually settled on rowing AND
sailing, both done while in college but the latter still engaged in
although not as a major activity. *I believe he said his age was 54
and I recall listing his abilities as sailing a boat, driving a car
and piloting an airplane but if he had a leaky faucet he would call a
plumber.

As for his financial status he said -- more than once -- 'There's
simply no money.' *Which wasn't quite true. *There was 'no money'
relative to 'money' as defined by his working experience. *Could he
afford a 1/4" drill motor from Harbor Freight? *(At that time listed
for about $14.00.) *That got a rather confused reply involving someone
building an RV-4, the 'builder's kit' which proved hilariously
inadequate, failing to mention the REQUIRED air compressor, hoses,
regulators and so forth. *And of COURSE he could afford a drill-motor
costing less than twenty dollars, although he was fairly sure *I* may
have been mislead with the cost of building an aluminum airplane.

Then (and now) Aluminum sheet stock various sources was going
for ...about two bucks a pound. *(That's a very wishy-washy 'two
bucks' but the early worm and all that... I've picked up .016 in 5' x
25' sheets for eighty-six cents per pound. *It was a local new/surplus
item the bulk of which eventually went to a Boeing sub-contractor.
But half a dozen sheets managed to fly into my shop before the truck
headed north.)

The man from Illinois was excited to learn there was a new/surplus
market for aviation-grade materials. *I don't know what he did about
it but I never heard another word about the cost of materials. *But
there were plenty of other things to cause him to hint, always
politely, that I may have been out of the field a bit too long; that
he was convinced only a HIGHLY SKILLED metal-smith could duplicate
Cal's efforts.

Rather than argue the point I steered him to the CX4 Group. *That was
about two years ago. *I *haven't heard from him since.

The point here is that the only barriers capable of PREVENTING you
from building a safe, reliable airplane a *1. *Yourself. *2. *Your
language and 3. Your location.

Did he? *Didn't he? *I don't know.

-Bob

Hey Bob! Glad to see you're still at it.

Monk

On Mar 27, 4:22*pm, Monk wrote:

Hey Bob! *Glad to see you're still at it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Monk,

You'll have to define 'it'

Peering into my own body? Not by incision nor X-ray but
electronically using Magnetic Resonance Imaging. That's a big IT .
If you can stand the pain or the noise, you can get a 'Full Body Scan'
for your IT.

I couldn't stand the pain of the painless procedure.

Indeed, the procedure itself IS perfectly painless -- everyone sez
so. It was the position -- flat on my back -- which proved
intolerable.

As for the procedure... when your body is inserted into a powerful...
a POWERFUL magnetic field, the molecules within the cells that are
randomly aligned re-align themselves with drill-team precision. Now
hit them with a jolt of electromagnetic energy, such as your favorite
Top Forty radio station, and they will try to align themselves with
that.

As a ham radio operator I was interested in the procedure but that
interest quickly wained when I saw the powerful magnet was roughly
akin to a sewer pipe of claustrophobic dimensions. But the back pain
was too much. I managed to get through the exam -- about 15 minutes
-- but I would need massive amounts of pain-killers to last any
longer.

What happens when they hit your aligned molecules with RF is that each
molecule tries to realign to an angle that is -- apparently --
proportional to the RF. And it is that emitted signal the machine
records. My back was good for 58 megabytes which, when viewed with
the appropriate software, has Kodachrome detail of tissue as well as
bone. Tumors are revealed, as well as the honeycomb of what was once
good, healthy bone.

Does anyone even remember Kodachrome in these digital days? I recall
a then-famous money manager urging everyone to buy Kodak...

Looking at the image of my spine reveals the rather disturbing fact
that my #5 Lumbar Vertebrae is gone, save for a sickle-shaped shard of
bone industriously digging into the meat & muscle, producing
spectacular light-shows of pain. The bone doctor isn't too happy with
my spine, which he sees as a playground. I'm not too happy with it
myself, since everything is connected to it.

In effect, the missing vertebrae has been replaced with Pain.

They've already tried gluing it back together. They, meaning
physicians, don't like to mention their failures but the glue-job was
one of their less-than-perfect efforts. What they're talking now is a
Graft Job. Given their success with the J.B.Weld I'm wary of giving
them the go-ahead. After all, they have an endless supply of
patients, some of whom I assume they see on time, whereas I have only
one spine to play with, which I always deliver ON -TIME rather than 45
minutes late.

I mean, think about it. If the guy isn't competent to read a clock do
you really want him rummaging around in your spine?

So my '..it..' for today is Thinking, as in Thinking About It.

-Bob

"Bob Hoover" wrote

They've already tried gluing it back together. They, meaning
physicians, don't like to mention their failures but the glue-job was
one of their less-than-perfect efforts. What they're talking now is a
Graft Job. Given their success with the J.B.Weld I'm wary of giving
them the go-ahead. After all, they have an endless supply of
patients, some of whom I assume they see on time, whereas I have only
one spine to play with, which I always deliver ON -TIME rather than 45
minutes late.

I mean, think about it. If the guy isn't competent to read a clock do
you really want him rummaging around in your spine?
************************************************** *********************************
Unfortunately, fixing fritzed backs is what doctors are the worst at. The best
of them will tell you that they only have a 50-50 chance of fixing it.

But, having been there myself, I was jumping at the 50% chance they could make
the pain go away.

How did I do? Some where in the lower part of the 50%. The pain has gotten no
worse, which it would have if I did nothing, but it didn't go away, either.It
comes down to choices, I know, but if I were you, I would throw the dice and let
them at it. Things ain't worth a damn if you can't even lay down for 15
minutes, without extreme pain, right? I would think they could improve on that,
anyway.

I've got some dead guy's bone in my spine. It was a tough couple months,
afterwards, but you seem to be able to handle tough ok. Just don't let them
take the bone out of your hip or something. I've heard people who did that say
their back is fine, but their hip hurts like stink.

Hope you figure it all out, and recover well.
--
Jim in NC

Bob

I have a bad back from my ejection from a jet. Was an early seat and
hard on spine during ejection and then landed on fozen rocks in
GreenLand.

One thing I use. is capsaicin (pepper juice, don't laugh).

1. Over the counter.
2. Can be applied as often as reqired. (On bad days I put on every
hour or so)
3. Doctors know about it but being over the counter they don't have to
prescribe.
4. When you start it may feel warm or hot especislly if you are out in
sun and prespiring.
5.I've been using for many years and I now don't evn feel any heat.
Just the pain quits in a few minutes and all of a sudden if I think
about it I say bejeuse the pain is gone.
6.Generic is not expensive.
7.Use roll on and not cream which puts on your hands and if you touch
your eyes with pepper juice it smarts )

If you try and helps I can give you an address near Houston that you
can order over phone and they will ship to your door. I buy by the
half dozen.
8. This does not fix ur problem, just stops the pain.

Or if you want, let me know and I'll send you one of my roll ons to
try. With the good data you give to people need to keep you
operational )

Big John
************************************************


On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:01:10 -0700 (PDT), Bob Hoover
wrote:

On Mar 27, 4:22*pm, Monk wrote:

Hey Bob! *Glad to see you're still at it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Monk,

You'll have to define 'it'

Peering into my own body? Not by incision nor X-ray but
electronically using Magnetic Resonance Imaging. That's a big IT .
If you can stand the pain or the noise, you can get a 'Full Body Scan'
for your IT.

I couldn't stand the pain of the painless procedure.

Indeed, the procedure itself IS perfectly painless -- everyone sez
so. It was the position -- flat on my back -- which proved
intolerable.

As for the procedure... when your body is inserted into a powerful...
a POWERFUL magnetic field, the molecules within the cells that are
randomly aligned re-align themselves with drill-team precision. Now
hit them with a jolt of electromagnetic energy, such as your favorite
Top Forty radio station, and they will try to align themselves with
that.

As a ham radio operator I was interested in the procedure but that
interest quickly wained when I saw the powerful magnet was roughly
akin to a sewer pipe of claustrophobic dimensions. But the back pain
was too much. I managed to get through the exam -- about 15 minutes
-- but I would need massive amounts of pain-killers to last any
longer.

What happens when they hit your aligned molecules with RF is that each
molecule tries to realign to an angle that is -- apparently --
proportional to the RF. And it is that emitted signal the machine
records. My back was good for 58 megabytes which, when viewed with
the appropriate software, has Kodachrome detail of tissue as well as
bone. Tumors are revealed, as well as the honeycomb of what was once
good, healthy bone.

Does anyone even remember Kodachrome in these digital days? I recall
a then-famous money manager urging everyone to buy Kodak...

Looking at the image of my spine reveals the rather disturbing fact
that my #5 Lumbar Vertebrae is gone, save for a sickle-shaped shard of
bone industriously digging into the meat & muscle, producing
spectacular light-shows of pain. The bone doctor isn't too happy with
my spine, which he sees as a playground. I'm not too happy with it
myself, since everything is connected to it.

In effect, the missing vertebrae has been replaced with Pain.

They've already tried gluing it back together. They, meaning
physicians, don't like to mention their failures but the glue-job was
one of their less-than-perfect efforts. What they're talking now is a
Graft Job. Given their success with the J.B.Weld I'm wary of giving
them the go-ahead. After all, they have an endless supply of
patients, some of whom I assume they see on time, whereas I have only
one spine to play with, which I always deliver ON -TIME rather than 45
minutes late.

I mean, think about it. If the guy isn't competent to read a clock do
you really want him rummaging around in your spine?

So my '..it..' for today is Thinking, as in Thinking About It.

-Bob

On Mar 28, 5:02*pm, Tech Support wrote:

One thing I use. is capsaicin (pepper juice, don't laugh).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Big John,

Maybe we should chalk this one up in the Eerie Dept.

Since an electric hot-pad appeared to provide some relief -- all in my
head, of course... I tried Vicks 'vapo-rub' (a necessity if you've
ever been on a body recover team).

And since Vicks seemed to work -- all in my head for sure, this
time... I tried something a bit worse..

Now, I KNOW the stuff doesn't work, okay? But I actually slept a few
hours in a row -- and felt enormously better for it.

----------------------------------------------------------

Your rub-on stuff MAY be something I was urged to try by a
professional 'sports trainer,' who described it as keeping the NFL
afloat. Except he vanished down the internet before passing along any
place to buy the stuff. So, yes please. I would love to have the
address. And promise not to tell through at least the first set of
fingernails.

-----------------------------------------------------------

But it DOES seem kinda odd... back hurts and we do what? Curl up
with our back a bit closer to the clan's fire? (And probably alienate
the clan Medicine Man, who insists it couldn't work... :-)

Bob

"Bob Hoover" wrote

Your rub-on stuff MAY be something I was urged to try by a
professional 'sports trainer,' who described it as keeping the NFL
afloat. Except he vanished down the internet before passing along any
place to buy the stuff. So, yes please. I would love to have the
address. And promise not to tell through at least the first set of
fingernails.

-----------------------------------------------------------

But it DOES seem kinda odd... back hurts and we do what? Curl up
with our back a bit closer to the clan's fire? (And probably alienate
the clan Medicine Man, who insists it couldn't work... :-)

My wife tried that stuff, for a bum shoulder, so I tried some too.

A couple things that need to be ACCENTUATED with big john's cautions.

Bejesus, don't let that that stuff get in your eye. I had some on my hands and
touched my lips AFTER I washed them carefully, and I though I would die before
the burn went away. I can not IMAGINE how bad it would be in your eyes.

The bit about sweating. The stuff gets hotter with any water, so be very
careful about breaking a sweat for a few weeks after starting to use it.

A story. A lot of you know I teach carpentry, house construction, in high
school. We were out in a late spring warm day, and I had started using the
stuff about a week before. I started to sweat, and all of a sudden.... I was
running around in a circle, going WOOOOOP, WOOOP, WOOOP, as loud as I could,
because it was better than the string of words that I couldn't say in front of
my students. As I was circling, my shirt was coming off, too.

My students were laughing, but later said my back was redder than a fire truck.
It felt like it, and I was very glad when I finally cooled down. I've never
tried it again, cause I can never guarantee that I won't break a sweat.

The stuff is available for the asking at any pharmacy, but it might have to be
ordered. I think it comes in two different concentration, I think.

Sure, give it a try. The back surgery recovery will surely be easier after you
fully recover from the "C".
--
Jim in NC

Bob

Ur e-mail address keeps bouncing????

Big John
************************************************** ****
On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:10:43 -0700 (PDT), Bob Hoover
wrote:

On Mar 28, 5:02*pm, Tech Support wrote:

One thing I use. is capsaicin (pepper juice, don't laugh).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Big John,

Maybe we should chalk this one up in the Eerie Dept.

Since an electric hot-pad appeared to provide some relief -- all in my
head, of course... I tried Vicks 'vapo-rub' (a necessity if you've
ever been on a body recover team).

And since Vicks seemed to work -- all in my head for sure, this
time... I tried something a bit worse..

Now, I KNOW the stuff doesn't work, okay? But I actually slept a few
hours in a row -- and felt enormously better for it.

----------------------------------------------------------

Your rub-on stuff MAY be something I was urged to try by a
professional 'sports trainer,' who described it as keeping the NFL
afloat. Except he vanished down the internet before passing along any
place to buy the stuff. So, yes please. I would love to have the
address. And promise not to tell through at least the first set of
fingernails.

-----------------------------------------------------------

But it DOES seem kinda odd... back hurts and we do what? Curl up
with our back a bit closer to the clan's fire? (And probably alienate
the clan Medicine Man, who insists it couldn't work... :-)

Bob

To all.

I get my Capsaicin @ Suppliment Spot, 1-877-205-0040. They take CC.
I use .075% and they have a lessor strength. Read prior postings about
heat and persperation. I have used for so long don't have heat
problem, just pain relief. Couldn't live without it. Cost between $5 &
$10. They have gone up a little like everything else numb nuts has
touched.

Big John

***********************************************
On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:14:05 -0400, "Morgans"
wrote:


"Bob Hoover" wrote

Your rub-on stuff MAY be something I was urged to try by a
professional 'sports trainer,' who described it as keeping the NFL
afloat. Except he vanished down the internet before passing along any
place to buy the stuff. So, yes please. I would love to have the
address. And promise not to tell through at least the first set of
fingernails.

-----------------------------------------------------------

But it DOES seem kinda odd... back hurts and we do what? Curl up
with our back a bit closer to the clan's fire? (And probably alienate
the clan Medicine Man, who insists it couldn't work... :-)

My wife tried that stuff, for a bum shoulder, so I tried some too.

A couple things that need to be ACCENTUATED with big john's cautions.

Bejesus, don't let that that stuff get in your eye. I had some on my hands and
touched my lips AFTER I washed them carefully, and I though I would die before
the burn went away. I can not IMAGINE how bad it would be in your eyes.

The bit about sweating. The stuff gets hotter with any water, so be very
careful about breaking a sweat for a few weeks after starting to use it.

A story. A lot of you know I teach carpentry, house construction, in high
school. We were out in a late spring warm day, and I had started using the
stuff about a week before. I started to sweat, and all of a sudden.... I was
running around in a circle, going WOOOOOP, WOOOP, WOOOP, as loud as I could,
because it was better than the string of words that I couldn't say in front of
my students. As I was circling, my shirt was coming off, too.

My students were laughing, but later said my back was redder than a fire truck.
It felt like it, and I was very glad when I finally cooled down. I've never
tried it again, cause I can never guarantee that I won't break a sweat.

The stuff is available for the asking at any pharmacy, but it might have to be
ordered. I think it comes in two different concentration, I think.

Sure, give it a try. The back surgery recovery will surely be easier after you
fully recover from the "C".