What else is in my Garage !!!

[CaptFrank2001]

Other Builds - My Goblin shares my Garage with my Harley Heritage Softtail & my wife's CAN-AM Spyder RT. Also in there are most of my Radio Control (RC) planes, about a dozen. Two of my latest are the Opterra Wing & the F-15 Electric Ducted Fan (EDF). Where I fly is a pretty rough 20 acre pasture so I had to remove the wheels from the F-15 & build myself a Catapult Launcher ("Other Build"). There is a short video of it on YouTube at:

 

[Jareth]

That is quite the collection.

.

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

Love the Ag-Cat! Reminds me of my early teens and working with my neighbor for his spraying business. Tanking up was always a challenge when you had about 10 minutes to get the juice into the spray tank with the engine still running - then running over to the target field to spot with a flagpole for sequential passes to minimize spray overlap and not leave gaps. Fun times! And I got paid all of $3.25 per hour! $20 per day was great money when your 15 years old (at least in the 1970s) - and also got to work around planes.

 

[CaptFrank2001]

I'm sure it was a fun job. It flies nice & has good slow speed characteristics. Just got it last week. An older guy was getting out of the hobby & I got this and three other planes plus a brand new transmitter for $350. Didn't really need more planes but the price was right !!! My wife's ex was killed in an Ayres Turbo Thrush, (similar to the Ag-Cat) when he hit a guy wire and lost a wing in N88MQ on 5-19-2002. Can be a dangerous profession.

 

[OptimizePrime]

Have you looked into the FPV drones?

 

[CaptFrank2001]

Have you looked into the FPV drones?

I have a Phantom II drone that I play with. Also the Opterra Wing is designed to be FPV-ready. Have to pop my GoPro in there for some video as well.

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

I'm sure it was a fun job. It flies nice & has good slow speed characteristics. Just got it last week. An older guy was getting out of the hobby & I got this and three other planes plus a brand new transmitter for $350. Didn't really need more planes but the price was right !!! My wife's ex was killed in an Ayres Turbo Thrush, (similar to the Ag-Cat) when he hit a guy wire and lost a wing in N88MQ on 5-19-2002. Can be a dangerous profession.

Sorry to hear that, agreed that flying low is a dangerous profession.

 

[escapepilot]

Nice RC collection. I'm also partial to the Air Tractor. Is that a Carbon Cub on the wall and what is the top one - Pilatus?

 

[CaptFrank2001]

Yes, the Air Tractor is pretty sweet. Carbon Cub on the bottom. Turbo Timber on top. 2nd from top is the Tecnam that I converted to a tail-dragger. Third from top is the Arrows Bigfoot. The Opterra wing is a blast to fly but mine crashed on the maiden flight when the receiver quit. Luckily the damage was minor & Spektrum sent me a new receiver for free. I flew RC many years ago & built all my own planes, servos & transmitters (Heathkit). This is me around 1980 with a Balsa Pica Duelist I built with twin .40 Supertiger engines.

 

[jcdman]

@CaptFrank2001 Sweet RC collection. College I went to has a dedicated runway and facilities for students to fly their own RC planes. Ever doing any flying yourself? I'm working on my pilots license.

 

[CaptFrank2001]

Thanks. Sounds like you have a great Aviation background. I have about 8,500 flight hours and some more time as a Turbojet Flight Engineer. Three Type ratings ..... one in the Shorts-360 and two Boeing- 737 Type Rating. One from the US and one from Japan. I am fully licensed in both Japan & the US. I flew for two Japanese Airlines & lived in Japan for about 4 years.

 

[jcdman]

Thanks. Sounds like you have a great Aviation background. I have about 8,500 flight hours and some more time as a Turbojet Flight Engineer. Three Type ratings ..... one in the Shorts-360 and two Boeing- 737 Type Rating. One from the US and one from Japan. I am fully licensed in both Japan & the US. I flew for two Japanese Airlines & lived in Japan for about 4 years.

8,500??!?!? Holy cannoli that's a lot. I'm only at 23 . Japan sounds like a really cool place, I work with a few guys out of Misawa air base.

 

[CaptFrank2001]

Keep on flying if you can afford it these days. A career or in my case a second career as a pilot is a lot of fun. I flew for Sky Net Asia and was based in Miyazaki, Japan for 3 years and that was a blast. Then I flew for SkyMark in Tokyo and that sucked. Living in Tokyo in the Ginza section was like living in the middle of Manhattan & I'm just not a big city guy.

Before I went to Japan (2005) I flew for the US Dept. of State based in Frankfurt, Germany. I flew classified missions into Baghdad, Iraq (5 missions) and into Kabul, Afghanistan (35 missions). I took the first two photos while taxiing by the terminals. The last one is me refueling in Baghdad in front of Saddam's personal Airplane Hangar.