Hi Roly and Vedette!
Finally, some more people are starting to pay attention to this diatribe! Please tell all your family and friends to follow along for the entertainment value, if nothing else
Ordinarily, since I'm a dyed-in-the-wool engineer and pilot with 41 years of experience with Murphy, I would agree wholeheartedly with your entirely pessimistic assessments (or, as I like to call such prognostications, "pestimistic", reflective of the attitude of Those Who Can't or Won't). It's OK, I've dealt with that kind of thinking my entire life, and I have a pretty good track record of having done so much, with so little, for so long, that I can do anything, with nothing, forever. Anyone who has served in a part of the military that actually does anything that really matters (aka The Pointy Tip of the Spear) will recognize that phrase, along with the old recruiting ad motto, "We do more before 9 AM than most people do all day." I spent quite a full career in the Navy, as I served on subs, carriers, amphibs, and smaller surface skimmers/targets (so, you know I'm a submariner, first and foremost).
After I served as a nuclear engineer, pilot, software engineer, computer scientist, intelligence officer, and systems acquisition officer, I spent almost 20 years as a software engineer and leader in Sillycon Valley startup companies. 120 hour work-weeks are the norm in The Valley, and the compensation is excellent, you just have to wait a while to actually spend it on anything, like building three aircraft in my case. My typical workday has been 16 hours pretty much my entire adult life, and now I have 24 hours a day to do whatever I want for the next couple of months. I've flown into Oshkosh before, but because I need to pick up some educational computing equipment around the country during my trip to/from Airventure, I'll be constrained to ground operations this year (building the equivalent of a C-130 was just a bit beyond my budget and even my more-than-optimistic schedule estimates!
)).
I spent a large chunk of my military and software career doing planning, so that's another reason for the voluminous verbiage here. "Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.", and "Plans always collapse upon contact with the enemy, but planning isn't the goal, it's a process that enables you to ferret out as many bad outcomes as possible, and avoid them.", as we professionals say. In software development, as with flying and aircraft maintenance, successful practitioners spend much more time planning than actually executing plans - only about 15% of the time expended on a typical software project is spent actually writing code that will wind up in the final product. Military aircraft maintenance typically requires 200 person-hours of flightline and operational hangar effort for every hour of flight, and that's not counting depot-level work for overhauls and major equipment replacement and upgrades.
I'm not approaching the Corto project from a dead stop as of a week ago - I've been thinking about this for many, many years, that included building an 8 x8 x 24 foot (H x W x L) aircraft transportation trailer (I built that in a couple of weeks using 2 x 2 framing and plywood/FRP-exterior sandwich panels - so, the Corto isn't my first whirl at the dance). I've also observed and discussed what others have done in RV builds (not just TDTs), incorporating a lot of what went into my commercially-built 7.5 x 8 x 24 foot (H x W x L) V-nose vehicle trailer, as well as what I've seen through my engineer's (and, just as importantly, fabricator's) eye at countless RV, boat, and aircraft shows and events. The materials and techniques we have available today are far beyond what was known even as recently as when this forum was started, much less what was possible going back to the 1930s, with literally baling wire (a structural material) and chewing gum (for sealing leaks). Chewing gum is actually quite a capable material when allowed to harden, as I can tell you from trying to remove it from the undersides of the seats in the movie theaters my parents managed when I was a kid (which required the nasty carcinogen carbon tetrachloride - they just leave it there, nowadays)!
Using FRP for the skin saves the months that others have spent stretching, gluing, and painting fabric, in addition to sealing a multitude of leaks and correcting misalignments due to non-square/non-straight edges. It's also immensely strong with minimal work/time, well beyond that possible with any wood and fabric construction, just as modern aircraft and boats are much more durable than their wooden and fabric forebears, without substantial maintenance. The weight and fabrication/assembly time advantages of FRP/foam/veneer-plywood over the beautiful all-wood carpentry that took upwards of years to complete is another reason why I'll be able to accomplish my self-admittedly insane build schedule. I'm almost certainly not going to be able to build my own door(s), let alone windows, before Oshkosh, so I'm considering whether used/new options will fit within my current budget (I'm in an extremely rural area, so local used opportunities are limited), but those may not be possible to get done before I leave in a few weeks anyway due to the time crunch.
The pop-top may not even be within the realm of reality, but if I
can get that done, the windows and doors can be delayed until after my trip is over, as I can enter/exit via the rear (ala a Kampmaster). I could just hang lightweight bug netting around the edges of the pop-top, and dropping it nearly closed when, not if, the thunderstorms pass through. A freak 70-mph microcell passed right over Oshkosh back around Airventure 2008 that snapped the fiberglass poles in my substantial dome tent pitched next to my aircraft - it came and went within about five minutes. As I said, if all else fails, there will be plenty of room in the back of the van - that's my ultimate ace in the hole - I really don't need to finish much before I get on the road.
Regarding writing vs. doing, I've been slinging code pretty much my entire life (being a complete nerd from a very early age), so, I can type 200+ words per minute because it's a professional hazard (as well as a hard-earned "gift"), so this isn't taking nearly as much time as it would for "normal" people (whomever
they are!). That's on top of my various other professional work, and building a seaplane, an autogyro, and a helicopter, but each of those took several years of part-time effort, so I'm not as much of a threat to fellow/fellowette pilots (not to mention innocents on the ground) as one might otherwise surmise
. I'm not writing this so much for anyone else to read as I am to document my thinking, progress (or lack thereof), and personal events for myself, because the current generation's penchant for everything to be a video is simply worthless without about 100:1 time editing of source material down to a final product, and for that I don't have any time. However, you have at least picked up on my sharp wit, or weak attempts at humor, at best, perhaps, and that is a big part of my reason for writing. Plus, it's cathartic, so it allows me to vent my frustrations built up after an academic year with high school kids who mostly have no interest in learning anything, let alone STEM subjects (there are some outstanding exceptions, and they're the ones I'm there for the most).
As a three-star admiral once admonished me after my first, very dry, boring, technical briefing on Soviet naval and aerial operations, "That was a very nice, detailed briefing about things my staff and I don't understand the associated minutiae, so if you can't be informative, at least be entertaining!" The next day, I slipped substitute names for some of the ships (e.g., "Boris Badanov"), along with other subtle quips, into my briefing, and I could see the admiral's brow start to furrow as his subconscious processed what I was saying, after the fact. Suddenly, he said, "Wait, what did you say the name of that ship was?" I replied, "Boris Badanov, sir.", and he busted out in a big grin, saying, "As in the bad guy in 'Rocky and Bullwinkle' ... very good, that's
exactly what I was talking about! Proceed." I got a Number 1 of 10 rating compared with my peers on my fitness report from him - Mission Accomplished, as they say.
Since you may not have read, let alone absorbed, everything I've blathered on about so far, I'll reiterate that my only goal for Oshkosh is to have a safely-towable utility trailer frame with an FRP/foam/plywood sandwich shell mounted on it that may, or may not, be camping-ready at Oshkosh. If the TDT isn't habitable, I can always snooze in the back of my Dodge Caravan, which can fit 4 x 8 foot sheets of material, at least four feet high, with the Stow 'n Go second and third row seats folded down, and the computing equipment can ride in the Corto, in that case. Airventure campground shower/toilet/IT support facilities are simply amazing, and I can remain overstuffed just feeding on tailgate BBQ offerings from complete strangers willing to listen to my ersatz (but, true) stories, so I don't need any bath or kitchen stuff in the trailer there, but it would be nice. Hotel reservations are already made along my route where camping isn't a good idea, to ensure comfortable and restful sleep during the long-distance sojourn. I have been known to drive all the way across the country in a few days, sleeping in my reclined vehicle driver's seat in rest areas just before I got too sleepy to make rational decisions - well, OK, less irrational decisions!
).
Charles Dickens didn't originally publish his magnum opuses (opi?) as books, they were serials in newspapers, and while I would never compare my writing to Dickens', think of these "posts" as a similar art form, only to be bound in a compendium upon sufficient demand (and after my death, like so many misunderstood raving lunatics who turned out to have at least a few good brain farts
). I have included some pictures for the less literature-intensive readers, and if someone is willing to pay for it, I'll produce a comic book version ... "Look, up in the sky ... it's a bird ... it's a plane ... [SPLAT!] ... no, it's a bird ..."
"In all the confusion, I lost track ... was it five shots, or was it six? Do you feel lucky today, punk? Well, do ya? Go ahead, make my day!"
Happy Canadia Day back atcha! "Oh, Canada ... La-la-la-la-la-laaaa!"
150 years old ... man, you Great White Northerners must bury yourselves in snow banks to achieve suspended animation each Winter (September through June?) ... but, it must work, as you don't look a day over 149, Cryptkeepers!
As for ongoing progress, to quote a military FLA (Four-Letter Acronym, which is itself a TLA, a Three-Letter Acronym!), STFB, mo-foes! Film at 11 ... note that I didn't say AM, PM, or what day, week, month, or year, of course - I may be crazy, but I'm not
stoopid! And now, time to analyze some aerodynamic simulation calculations that have been running during my typing, while enjoying some delicious reheated pizza for lunch - Italian-style food is always better as leftovers since the carbs get to absorb the sauce ... as Homer Simpson would say, "MMMMMmmmmm ... Piiiii-zaaaahhhhh!!!"
All the Best,
Jim