Getting ready to head on down to Coral Springs to look at my future project. Rob can be seen in the background working on the rear seat cushion, taking out foam so my head won't hit the canopy in the rear seat. (Click to enlarge)

I began wanting to build my own airplane in 1998 while flying for Mission Aviation Fellowship in Shell, Ecuador.

The first remembrance I believe I have of wanting build my own airplane came after seeing  an RV-4 on the cover of an EAA magazine in 1998. “Wow!” I thought.

Then I met Rob “Smokey” Ray this past summer (2009) in a work related opportunity.  Smokey is a former AF F-16 pilot and Major and now Captain’s a Boeing 737 for Southwest.

One evening Rob, his wonderful wife Teena and I had dinner and surprisingly the topic of flying came up .  Rob asked about the flying I’d been doing since returning from Ecuador to which I said, “Not much”.  So, he said, “Why don’t you build an RV?”.

“Yeah, right”, I said.  He then proceeded to layout a scenario and well, that was in May, 2009.  Today I have a partially finished RV-8a I am converting to an 8 sitting in my garage.

All that said, here is Rob “Smokey” Ray’s Harmon Rocket in his driveway at Greenswamp (FD33), the airstrip community he lives at in the Ocala/Lakeland area of Florida.

This was taken the morning we flew down to Coral Springs to look at a possible project to buy.

The Rocket is fun if you want to climb out fast at about 40 degrees!

Thanks Smokey for bringing me into the fold!

Smokey and his wife Teena also volunteered as Directors for the International Association of Missionary Aviation’s 2009 EAA AirVenture spotlight.  It was called Fly4Life and IAMA was featured on Aeroshell Square.

Here is a link to an article about them and the IAMA site.