zzz BBob fell asleep at the wheel again zzz was Need Microbalancer

"pac plyer" wrote in message
om...

But one thing bugs me, and that is: How come Juan never flys his
creations?

Since you asked nicely, I will tell you.

-5B #1 was bought from a Idaho NG officer who had bought it from the
original builder. Had a great time tracking down the person I bought it from
when the original builder told me my seller had never paid for the airplane
and he would not give me title until he got his money. He was really cool
about it, and when I told him where he could find the lowlife, we caught up
with him in mid-summer weekend warrior refresher. His CO scraped the fluff
of his carpet with his ass and he coughed up the money. I finished the
fuselage and was about ready to start installing the landing gear, when it
was sold because Eagle hired me to work management in Fort Worth and would
not pay to ship the bird _or_ the tools to Texas. I had already paid a
couple thousand in taxes and shipping and wasn't about to do it again. So I
sold it to an IA in PR who runs a very successful NDT shop and hasn't taken
it a paragraph further in the plans. It took me over a year to round up
enough money to put a DEPOSIT on another airframe, and lets not talk about
how long it took me to fill up a toolbox again.

-5B #2 was the old N22TR, one of the first -5's to fly. After Ted Rogers
passed away it bounced around the country until it landed in the hands of a
genius by the name of Tom Johnson, designer of the only skirtless hovercraft
that can climb hills at 70 mph, among other _way cool_ hardware sitting in
his back yard near Oakland. He was the first to put a Rotax engine in a -5,
a 532. He partnered with Keith Hinshaw for that one. They took that engine
out and installed the first prototype of the AMW-225-3 but just as they were
almost ready to fly the Rogers' estate lawyer adviced the widow about the
word "liability" and she ordered the plane destroyed. Tom put it away for
some years until she passed away, and then I got a hold of it. It became
N522PR. I spent a lot of time restoring and upgrading it with what little
money I could must out of an Eagle salary. The engine was completely
overhauled and upgraded by the folks at 2SI, and I had them put in an
Airflow Performance mech fuel injection system, upgraded the landing gear,
bought the SuperSpar upgrade, designed and built a completely new panel,
etc. It was sold when I got the opportunity to buy a -5J built in Australia
by a CASA DAR. I sold it to a Citation/Lear ambulance driver in Spain, and
bought the jet with that money and some stock options I had laying around.

Immediately after I bought the jet, and one day before I was supposed to fly
my first Angel Flight mission (terminal pancreatic cancer), I went down for
the count with acute pancreatitis and woke up 10 days later and 55 lbs
lighter, with my tongue split open and tubes in places I didn't know I had
orifices. That was Nov of 01. AOPA Escrow had a great time trying to track
me down to complete the transaction. They thought I was dead (and little did
they know that they were almost right, I came this close to going the way of
Meigs). I was not able to do a damn thing to it until March of 02, when the
last of 5 tubes was finally pulled out of my abdomen and the large slices of
my side had closed up. The plane was damaged in transit. I talked the
insurance company into bringing the builder here (first trip to the US).
Since then I've been working to make the aircraft airworthy. I am done with
all items on my list except W&B and CG, and getting the hang of setting the
fuel controller to induce the appropriate misting from the engine injectors.
It also took me MANY months just to get some information on the engine,
enough to order a custom N1 RPM and be able to operate it safely.

And of course, I lost my medical and it took me until june of 03 to get it
back.

I'm not in your league when it comes to pilot experience, but I've paid my
dues since 1974, when I worked as a line boy in exchange for training in
Grumman trainers and a few hours in a Pitts S2A. Since then I've flown... I
guess some 20-25 types of aircraft, from C150's to... well, some things I'm
not supposed to say I was allowed to fly when I was in the Marines.

Juan