Giant Killer

This is the smallest factory-built airplane I've owned and the funnest one I've ever had. The photo was made by a motion detecting camera I installed at the side of the runway on my farm. The largest airplane I ever flew was right seat in a B-52 for a very brief period and the smallest was once I built in my barn, taking two years to construct.

To give you an idea how short a modified Cessna like this can get off, look at this one on YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Min8mPpDjrQ

An A&P/IA mechanic (folks who are licensed by the FAA to work on airplanes and sign off on the annual inspection) once owned this little jewel and he spent a fortune installing a much larger engine into it. I acquired it a few years later and added some more whistles and bells and this puppy turned into a Giant Killer.

The runway on my farm was once 3,000 feet long and 90 feet wide, but I shortened it so my critters could have more grass to eat. When all was said and done, the "new" runway became 800 feet long and basically 11 feet wide.

My "giant killer" didn't even need 700 feet for a take off, and in the picture here, in my previous airplane, I wasn't even off the ground yet.

My best adventure in the Giant Killer was the summer of 2011 when I flew from Texas to Mount Saint Helens and stopped to see an uncle who like my dad was an Army Air Corp Instructor Pilot during WW2 and who flew B-25s in the war.

I wish I would have had a camcorder in the airplane for that flight so that I could look back and savor every minute of that incredible experience... I flew half way across Texas, through New Mexico, into Arizona, into Utah, into Idaho, Oregon, Washington State (all the way to the Pacific Ocean, to Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and back home.

On the return trip, I had no idea that I had cancer and a few months later had surgery and I still see an oncologist even now in 2014 (and a mess of other doctors) toss in two years later a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and it's adios to flying an airplane and I was forced to sell The Giant Killer.

She flew me to 15,000 feet while above a mountain in Wyoming and was happy to get up to 150 miles per hour, but I usually flew it around 100. These days, I just "fly a Volt" and I fly it slow too.