Hi, I'm Mike and I'm new at this blog thing. So I thought I'd start out by telling a little bit about where I've been in life. I was born in Camden Maine and my family moved to Ledyard Connecticut in 1954 when I was two years old. My interest growing up involved automobiles and any kind of mechanical stuff that could be taken apart and put back together.
You heard the old saying if I only knew then what I know now I probably would have chosen a different path in life. While I guess that was true with me as I had little interest in school or reading, but hand me a wrench and I was happy as a clam.
I remember when I was about 11 years old my mom and dad bought a house in Groton Connecticut. My dad had to completely redo the heating system which was hot water baseboard. During the time that he completely rebuilt the system, I was constantly under his elbow and soon learned to polish fittings and solder joints. In fact, the time I spent with my dad throughout my life was some of the best times of my life. In the end it was not nearly enough.
At age 15 my family moved back to the state of Maine. I finished grade school in a little town called West Bath and went on to high school in Bath Maine. Seems like everyone that went to Morse high school in Bath ended up working in the Bath iron Works or they just plain made the decision not to live in the area at all and moved out of state. As always, I marched to the beat of a different drum than most of the kids I hung around with. My interest still was in working on cars and racing cars or anything else to do with cars.
The one love that I found that took me away from everything else, was a love for music. From the time I was 15 years old until I was in my mid-30s, I played in rock 'n roll bands and practiced the drums, saxophone, clarinet, guitar, until all hours of the day and night. I also worked in gas stations and for a short time at the Bath iron Works to make ends meet. It seemed like no matter how many hours I worked there was never enough money. Ah, the good old days.
Things changed some at age 19 when I got married for the first time. A year and a half later a son we named Mike, and five years later a daughter named Brandi. Wow, if I only knew then all the things I know now.
Anyway, one of the other things I started doing at the age of 19 was learning to fly an airplane. Little did I know at the time, but this would end up being the one thing that I follow through to the finish and continue doing to this very day.
Along with my second wife came two more children. Jillian and Seldon, born in 1998 and 2000. Another of the greatest highs of my life. I got to fall in love two more times.
In 2004 we move from Bath to the Waterville area and built a new home. My passion for aircraft has continued. Although I have done endless hours of studying through the years to attain my flying ratings from student to commercial certified flight instructor, I never really studied deeply into fluid dynamics or aircraft design. Then about three years ago, while asking questions, I had a run-in with a horse's ass guru on the Internet that accused me of trying to steal his knowledge without paying. That pissed me off to the point of getting down and doing some real serious studying on my own. So this asshole probably actually did me a favor. But he is still an asshole x10.
The problem with trying to get a formal education informally is that you don't really know where to start. After a lot of searching and asking a lot of questions of some very knowledgeable people, I was able to get my hands on the college-level texts that I needed to get a pretty good background in aircraft design and aerodynamics. I spent the last three years studying everything that I could find about the subject of flying wing's and swept wing theory. How little you know, how little you know!
Beginning in the early 1980s I started building my own aircraft. From then until now I have built, rebuilt, or helped build nine different aircraft. I taught myself to do composite construction, welding and metal fabrication. My mechanical background has come in real handy. Along the way I bought a lathe and taught myself to operate that as well.
I started this blog to keep everyone abreast of the things that I'm doing concerning aircraft and other tidbits of life. I still give flight instruction in airplanes and recently upgraded my ratings to allow me to give flight instruction in weight shift aircraft as well.
In the Last two year period, I started building two aircraft. One of the two aircraft that I built was a weight shift trike that is two place and specifically designed for giving instruction. I did all the design and fabrication work myself. This aircraft first took flight June 30, 2011. It was built and registered under the experimental aircraft 51% rules and has now had the required 40 hours flown off during phase 1 flight testing.
This aircraft will become part of the flying club that I have started and will be available to club members for training. The second is still under way and will be completed in the spring of 2012.
So on we go…………….
