So far, I couldn’t be happier. I ran the engine for about 30 minutes on the ground at various RPM’s and then went flying and put it on 2500 - 2700 RPM for 30 minutes. During that time, I hot rodded around the airport trying to get the temperatures to go up. Finally, after a lot of hard climbs and 30 minutes, I got the cylinder head temps to 375 and the oil temp to 220! It was a fairly cool day, but still, this was an engine that was not broken in, and I was pushing it. Previously, I could not have gotten away with what I was doing due to elevated oil temps.

The plane is flying and feeling great and with the new firewall material reducing the sound levels and the engine no longer contacting the airframe, the cockpit environment is again very comfortable. The whole 30-minute flight, I didn’t once think about noise. I am really enjoying it again. I finally have my sweet little hot rod back! Now if the rain will just go away maybe I can get some hours on it before I have to leave for Florida!

That was the last day of Oshkosh. We had just torn down our exhibit and loaded the trailer and I was frankly exhausted. Tearing down the exhibit and loading it all on the trailer is no small task and I am not getting any younger. But I had committed to give some folks a ride in the plane that afternoon and didn’t feel like I could back out. In addition to that, I was still fighting the engine bathing the tail of the plane with oil, which was on my mind and a constant source of worry.

I was committed to doing some water work with one individual. On the second water landing, I was trying to stall the plane onto the water when a gust caught us or something and ballooned the plane up and it came back down hard. In retrospect, I think my tired reflexes just didn’t get on the throttle quick enough. The landing was EXTREMELY hard. One of those that makes you wonder why the wings didn’t break off! And there

Well, that was the last water landing I felt like I HAD to make that day. The other rides were kept pretty short and that was that.

A few days later after a few days of R&R, Toni and I returned to the field and loaded the plane and headed out for Texas. I had pulled a muscle while on the R&R in Michigan and was in mortal pain. I just couldn’t sit for long periods of time. I managed to fly the plane several hours a day, and as it happened that was all we could fly due to weather limitations. I went to a doctor and got some treatment and pills that helped a lot at one of our overnight stops in Iowa.

Then one morning in Missouri, I was pre flighting the plane and getting ready to leave when I bent over and looked under the belly of the plane. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was a large ripped and torn area about 2’ ahead of the step on the pilot’s side! I applied some duct tape and except for some extra drag, it wasn’t something that would keep us from proceeding