Richard Strauss
Norfolk, NE
C-II CWS
|
|
Fuel Tank in. The upper rail under the engine was lowered for easier access to the plugs. |
|
|
|
|
|
11/20/06. Richard lays out the bottom of the fuselage fabric. J.D. is the photographer and assistant during the covering. You'll notice the pizza box at the bottom right. J.D.'s motto is "Will Build for Food." :>) |
|
|
More bottom fabric. You can see the wings already covered in the background. |
|
|
Gluing the perimeter. |
|
|
Bottom piece done. |
|
|
11/28/06. J.D. stops by again to help with the side fabric. Here Richard is being domestic with the iron. |
|
|
Getting the fabric to lay down around the tube. |
|
|
12/4/06. Finishing up the left side of the fabric. It'll be ready for paint soon. |
|
|
J.D. gets bored and masks up Richard's nose cone. :>) |
|
|
2/10/07. Time for paint. Dealer J.D. Stewart has a close tie to Renner Auto Body in Norfolk, and offers to paint Richard's plane. Here Richard is masking the cockpit off for the sealer coat that's coming up. |
|
|
Next is the masking for the stripes. We probably spent 5 hours of masking this day. |
|
|
Silver stripe is on. |
|
|
Silver and gray stripes. The blue masking tape actually looks good left on there. |
|
|
2/11/07. After 2 full days, the fuselage and tail feathers are all done. The gloss is incredible. The stripes on the top of the nose look like a runway. J.D. threatens to paint 01 and 19 on each end. :>) |
|
|
2/4/07. Another long weekend of painting. This time it's the wings. J.D. picked up a laser for laying out the stripe lines, and it works great, especially on the top of the wing where it curves. As with the fuselage, the project took lots and lots of masking. |
|
|
The wings turn out fantastic. Now it's on to final assembly. |
|
|
3/18/07. J.D. comes over with a couple of clients from Santa Fe, NM, who were looking at his Titan. With the winds being too high to fly on Sunday, we all pitch in to help with Richard's windshield. Lucien and Pradeep are shown here with Richard. |
|
|
4/6/07. The Norfolk Daily News does a front page article on Richard's plane! |
|
|
4/8/07. Richard and J.D. take the plane to the hangar at the airport. Hangar-mate Jerry helped Richard put the wings on. Not too much longer now, and it will be flying. |
|
|
6/13/07. Richard gets his airworthiness certificate the day before, so we wait for the weather to get better. Mid-evening of the 13th, the rain clouds dissipate and the wind dies down to nothing. A quick call to Richard has us both heading to the airport for N546RS's maiden flight. Here J.D is doing last-minute checks before cranking it up. |
|
|
After an initial high speed taxi down runway 19, pulling a wheelie most of the way, J.D. lines it up for takeoff. Stay tuned for movies. |
|
|
The plane flies wonderfully the first time through. Response is quick. Top speed so far is 91mph. Cruise at 5950 is 83mph indicated. The only squawks are not enough up elevator, needing a trim tab on the rudder, and coming up with a better PTT switch for the radio. Here the daring test pilot and proud owner pose with an airplane no longer bound to earth. |