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The second official trailer for Top Gun 2 was just released. At 1:33 it gets really exciting!

I solo'd a 65 hp 1940 Piper Cub the weekend before last. Finally... flying a Cub. And it is spectacular. Restoration was done 20 years ago... and when my friend bought it, only 180 hours had been put on it since the restoration. Planning to fly it a fair amount. IMG_3152.HEIC

Remember when the GOP was against going into debt? This two year thing is an abomination. All fun and games until the bill comes due.

I could see how the yellow triangle could be confused as sector of viewing from the cockpit. Glad to hear I was able to help.

Buddy of mind got stationed up at Wainwright. Bought a house complete with wooded grass airstrip and a Super Cub. His weekend fishing/camping pictures almost made me want to go to Wainwright. Super jealous. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Being a lethal pilot and progressing in one’s career don’t HAVE to be mutually exclusive...yes one of those paths means flying less as you get older; but at the end of the day, don’t we want the “lethal pilots” being the ones in charge?

Everything old is new again, but this got me nerding out as well. If you are a fan of Star Trek, you’ll probably like this. I love to see Jeri Ryan at it again.

Meanwhile in the airline world...

I think Tom Cruise has figured out the retention problem. Line flying O-6, qual’d in at least 4x planes simultaneously, and personal motorcycle storage right on the flight line. Edit: especially since the taxpayers will think this is reality anyway after this movie comes out.

Unless you actually need the money now, you're better off just holding on and riding the wave. Many studies show that buy-and-hold outperforms market timing >69% of the time. Think about it this way - let's say you sell today and there is a 10% correction immediately after that. If you sell and pay $9k in taxes, you're left with $91k. If you hold and eat a 10% dip, you're sitting at $90k... virtually identical scenarios. On the other hand, if you sell now and the market goes up another 10%, you're talking about the difference between $91k and $110k and you're going to be kicking yourself. Couple that with the fact that the market tends to rise over time, and holding starts to look even better. Short term losses and gains are almost impossible to predict, but macro performance in the long- to very long-term is actually pretty easy: the market's going to go up, and the longer you hold on, the better your odds are of capturing that return. Here's another example. Let's say you're 35-40 right now and don't need the money right away, so you're looking at a 30-year horizon for your investments. What are the odds that the market will rise over the course of those 30 years? Obviously there aren't any guarantees about the future, but if you use the past as a guide, you would say virtually 100%. If you look at the performance of the S&P 500 over the past century, and try to pick the absolute worst time to invest (at the market peak immediately prior to the Great Depression) with a 30-year horizon, you're still looking at about an 8% annual return over that time period. If you let short-term fear and emotions rule out, you might get lucky here and there, but the odds aren't in your favor when you're betting against that kind of long-term macroeconomic trend. Hold on long enough though, and you're almost guaranteed to win.

RVs are awesome planes and I had the order form filled out for an RV-7. However, after talking with quite a few builders I decided to hold off, maybe down the road. Orbit gave a pretty good description above about the various RVs. I'll add that I really wanted the RV-9 but after lots of research figured you're much better off with the RV-7. They're pretty close to the same plane, but the 7 is aerobatic. This is huge for resale value! If you like the Kitfox, you have got to check out this guys videos. His day job deals with filming/expensive cameras, plus he lives near a bunch of BLM land, which means he can land anywhere can make awesome videos. Also, check out the Rans S-7 or S-20 if you're interested in an alternative to the Kitfox. I've flown with a few Captains recently that have built the S-7 and they love them. I've flown both, they are a blast to fly and they're essentially the same plane, but the 7 is tandem and the 20 is side-by-side. I ended up going with the Rans S-21 and my wing kit is showing up to my garage in a few hours. I don't really care to fly aerobatics in an aircraft that doesn't have an ejection seat, and would rather bounce around the local dirt strips, with the occasional weekend trip. It's relatively new, but much of his stuff is being reused from other kits he has designed. It's STOL-like but will cruise around 155mph @ 75% with a 180hp motor. For me the build time/complexity was a huge factor, and that's another place this plane excels. Given that it's all aluminum (CNC milled parts...read very little drilling/deburring) and built mostly with blind rivets, they're forecasting 500 hours, not including paint. Based on a few bloggers that have already started their wings, that seems fairly accurate. On top of that, there are very few times where you need another person there to help you, which is key since I live by myself and don't want to have to always bribe my buddies to buck rivets for me. Here is one that is already built. It's hard to tell in the pic, but the doors and roof are all lexan...great for visibility. Cargo space is pretty awesome and is easy to access due to the large door and seat that fold down quite a bit.