[J57ltr]

Wow talk about expensive hobby! I have grown up around aircraft all my life, my Dad has his AI/A&P. When the oil bust hit in the 80's my Dad took me along when he would do work on peoples private planes mostly Cessna 150s and 172s, Beechcraft Bonanzas, Piper cubs and the like.

We used to go flying all the time and I loved it even in the dead heat of summer down here. I remember doing touch and gos and we would get beat up pretty good. He even let me fly all the way from Montgomery County airport to just over the boarder in Louisiana (he took off and landed of course).

One day my Dad brought home a Bell 47J (think MASH for the rest), we had that thing sitting in the driveway parked like it was a car. The tail boom was removed and engine and trans were removed. My friends and I even would play in it. Then he got a Cessna 150 that a guy landed in a muddy field and folded the nose gear and smashed up the firewall and underbelly. I remember he got a second 150 that was just the fuselage (a 150 will fit in a 2 car garage diagonally without the wings and tail section FWIW). He basically mated the belly skins and firewall from the donor to the wrecked one. I remember it had so many Clecos it looked like a porcupine. I never want to buck another rivet as long as I live. I felt like Bugs Bunny with the jackhammer. Now he is on to the next project It’s a UH-? I only know it by Bell 206 (think it’s the Jetranger not the LongRanger). And there is another in the garage. Let the you might be a Redneck jokes fly.



So what powerplant are you going to go with? You going to stick with the traditional Continental or Lycoming, or go the Subaru or Rotax route?

Jeff