After 5 years. . .

Let me take you back 5 years (I am watching Back to the future right now, so this kind of fits) We had just moved to Missouri, and I finally had space for the Mustang I had built before I left for graduate school in Ohio. As usual it needed some repairs. I took my son out with me when it was finally ready. It was a little cold, but that hardly matters when you are flying. I fired up the engine, and checked everything out and taxied out onto our grass runway, took a deep breath, and began my takeoff run. Ten feet into the air, the engine killed on me. The resulting "hard" landing put the gear up through the top of the wing. My son's compassionate response? "Can we go home now Dad?"

When we got back to Utah, I finally got around to finishing the rebuilt wing. Then it was a matter of waiting until my own father could be there to watch.-- I got tired of waiting for that, so I took it out to fly again today, just five years after its last flight. The weather was perfect. The engine was running great. The takeoff, well, the takeoff was very smooth.





. . . Until the throttle stopped responding that is. I had to fly around until the engine decided to stop, which was sooner than it should have been, so I have some more work to do and then try to land it dead-stick, without power. Mustangs don't like that, by the way.

Luckily the landing went as well as can be expected. There is some work to be done, but not too serious, if I can figure out the vibration problem.