knot4u
Repeat Offender
Yes. I wouldn't mind visiting it but I'm not going to get wrapped up again. I spent an inordinate amount of my 20s bringing that airplane back from a sort of broken legend back to what you see in that picture. It never flies, I don't know if it ever will again. Don't get me wrong, I still love it, but I'm not "in love" with it anymore. I can say it'll never have that three blade prop on it again and when the airplane changed hands the new owners found the exhaust system to be decrepit (it was, we were constantly finding folks to weld inconel and it was a major problem) rather than replicating the existing exhaust with new money and parts they just scrapped it and lost a big portion of what most folks don't understand regarding why that airplane was so fast. There's a bunch of science wrapped up in that stubby airplane, guided by the finest engineers in the world, they worked for free too. It was a different time, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Maybe someday I'll get an invite to visit but I haven't yet and I don't lose sleep thinking about it.