Takes all kinds

Friday I went to pick up my new obsession. I flew 300VV (victor victor, though at American Air Racing they refer to it as Very Vicious) back from Reno at a very high rate of speed, and parked it in my hangar. It sat right next to my first airplane. And I was worried.

I had tried to sell my airplane for six weeks in ads in two different places. I had been visited by one tire kicker, and gotten calls and emails for dozens. So many people exist who don't have money, bandwidth or real possibility of buying an airplane...but they call anyway to talk. They comb through the airplane classifieds thinking, "I wish I could..." These ads are, unfortunately, a form of masturbation for a lot of pilots. Like if Penthouse had telephone numbers next to the pictures. Maybe mail-order brides have to go through this.

Saturday morning I got a call from a guy in Oklahoma who got ahold of the ad I had placed that had no pictures, no real details. It just said, "I have an RV6. Call me for pictures and details." He talked like he'd crashed his car into a caffeine tanker and had to drink his way out of the wreckage; I talked like a guy who had talked to a couple dozen tire-kickers.

Half an hour later - third phone call - he said he'd fly to Seattle Monday with a cashier's check and buy the airplane, sight unseen. No pre-buy inspection. No talk with my mechanic. He was buying it on behalf of a buddy, and he knew his friend would like this one.

You just don't buy airplanes without having someone look it over. At least I don't. I just didn't believe he was for real.

Sure enough, the guy came in last night at 10. I picked him up at 7.30 this morning ("shit, I've only had three hours sleep...there was this cute damn flight attendant, and she thought I was gonna be fun - I didn't let 'er down." Funny thing is, I believed him totally - curly haired mullet and all.) Early 40s, used to own a Corvette repair shop, now he's into airplanes in a big way. I'll bet Corvette repair shops do really, really well in Oklahoma.

I took him out for an Egg McMuffin, drove him to the hangar, and 20 minutes later he's plugging in his headset. No test flight. No inspection. Didn't look at the maintenance paperwork ("it's all current, right? How much oil you got in it?"). And though he was apparently an experienced pilot, he didn't even go for a check ride with me. He'd never flown this model of aircraft, but he just wouldn't even take a trip around the patch with me. "It's an airplane, right? I flown lots and lots of airplanes..."

He cranked up the engine, and had to shut it down three times to ask me questions about how to make the radio work. Then he just gave me a thumbs up and rolled out. He pissed off the tower by taxiing hither and yon - they finally just said, "take the next taxiway. Stop there. We'll tell you when you can go." He had told me he didn't like these busy airports.

Then, of a sudden, he was gone. He called me from Dillon, MT to say he'd landed, got fuel and was leaving again. ("You weren't kiddin' about gittin the speed down! Man, I dint think this thing was gonna land. I used up jest about all that damn runway!") And from there off to the great wherever.

And now I get to learn all about a new love.