The VW Sure Sounds Good

[eschrom]

I've received many compliments about how good the Sonerai sounds but this one's the best so far...

Yesterday I took a leisurely flight around the area and when it came time to head home I was on the opposite side of the class D airspace near my home field. So I went up to 3500' to get over it, then practically dove to my field's TPA of 1500', entering upwind while still 500' high and doing about 160 mph. The throttle was at my "low cruise" setting of 22" MAP but being back driven by the dive the VW was humming along quite nicely. The crosswind and downwind turns came in rapid succession. Finally down to TPA, the slowing began on downwind, and base leg and final were more or less normal. (The landing, since there were no witnesses, was pretty good.)

Now at my airport there is a group of hangar flyers ranging in age from low 80s to low 90s who don't get excited about much. You know the guys I'm talking about. They might become a bit animated about the day's political news but if Marine Corps 1 landed on the hangar roof I don't think they'd stir from their seats.

After the flight as I was cleaning off the bugs one of them drove over to my hangar (they don't walk anywhere) and asked, "what was your RPM when you flew over?" I told him I honestly didn't know because the Tiny Tach is broken and he said, "man, we all ran outside to have a look. We thought it was a P-38!"



Best flight I've had in a while.

Ed

 

[Aviacs]

I was on the opposite side of the class D airspace near my home field. So I went up to 3500' to get over it,

.....all ran outside to have a look. We thought it was a P-38!"

When i was a kid, there was a P-38 based not far from you, at York (KTHV).
Often saw it on the ramp from Rt30, once or twice with the props turning.
Possibly the same one seen from our field outside Columbia sometimes.
They are really quiet airplanes in the sky, though, even down low.

smt

 

[eschrom]

I'm not going to tell that to the guys at the airport. Let them think what they want.

...our field outside Columbia...

- an airstrip or a farm field?

 

[Aviacs]

Sorry-farm field where my non-farmer parents rented part of a house in the early/mid 50's
I would stare up at the sky and airplanes overhead. Dad had ID'ed "flying boxcars" which seemed to be sort of common & had twin booms.
One day i pointed a twin boom airplane out and shouted "flying boxcar". He said, "no, that's a lightning. P-38 lightning" Even i could see the difference and looked for it after.

Much later in life when i started flight training, after solo, my CFI signed me off for several airports including FDK, THV, & W05 (Gettysburg) so i could chase him down for the next lesson, depending where he was working that day usually with more remunerative instrument students. Since York was more or less his home base, i asked him about the P38. He named the former owner, & said, "oh, that was a sad thing. After gas got up past 25-30 cents a gallon, nobody could afford to fly it anymore". (I have no idea if those actual numbers bear any relationship to fact - he was not all that older than me, maybe by a decade or 12 yrs. But any gas prices would have been a factor for 2 of those engines).

The turbo chargers muffle the engine/exhaust noise in a -38. You can hear the props, then a slight rising turbo whistle, & a sigh, as it ghosts by. But i have not heard one flying for at least a decade.

Thanks for the chance to reminisce - your Sonerai (& other's completion stories) is certainly inspiration to keep plugging away at mine!

smt

 

[kennyw]

Talking about a great sounding engine: I've been trying to get someone to video my flyover. So far, the best one I've gotten is my daughter's recording of me flying past her house at 1,000' agl and the engine turning at 3,300rpm.