Hi from Northern New Jersey

[NJMike]

Hi everyone. I love forums like these. They work really well and you get to meet some great people.

I am 57, almost retired, flew professionally for 20 years but have been out of it for a few years now...

I am looking for a used, 2 seat Quicksilver and hope to be a new aircraft owner soon!

Once I'm back up, maybe I can meet up with some of you. Hey, maybe we can even meet up in the air...that would be cool.

I plan to carry plenty of fuel and will accept any invitations to fly over and meet you!

[CBKERR]

Mike, welcome to the forum. Glad you stopped in all the students and new pilots look forward to insight from veterans like yourself. I'm in bel air, md. Not to far so we will have to meet up

Brian

[designrs]

Welcome NJMike!
Jersey boy from Princeton here!

[drseti]

Good to have you with us, Mike. I know Hackettstown fairly well. Live in central PA, but had an office in Bergen County (Little Ferry, sandwiched between Teterboro and Hackensack) for years. For a dozen of those years, I had a regular air commute between Williamsport and Teterboro in a Beech single. I used to fly an hour in each morning, tie down at the Atlantic Aviation midfield, walk to work, and reverse the process in the evenings. Those were some great flights, but post-9/11, I had to file and go IFR every day, because even on VMC days, VFR into and out of the NYC TCA became difficult at best.

I have about a decade on you, retired five years ago, but am a dismal failure at that gig. Opened a flight school three years ago, and am busier than I ever was when working for a living. So you know what you have to look forward to when you retire!

So, who did you fly for? What equipment? What prompted you to go the LSA route?

[NJMike]

I was flying Lear 60's out of Teterboro for American Cyanamid before we got bought out. I just got checked out in the Quicksilver and I am all current and legal now!

I am still looking for a Quicksilver 2S but no luck so far. They are out there. I have doubled my purchase budget but they are still above my price range so far. If anyone knows of one, let me know!

I just found ethanol free gas in Hackettstown, close to the airport so that is one obstacle removed. I will be submitting that to the pure-gas.org website (today I hope).

Until I find mine, if you have a two seater and want a PAX, let me know! My number is 908-616-4588.

[NJMike]

I have added the gas station to the pure-gas website.

[NJMike]

Drum roll please!

I have reached a purchase agreement on a Quicksilver Sport 2S and will be picking it up next week! Next summer is looking "up"!

[drseti]

That's great news, Mike. Congratulations! Can't wait to see it in flight. (please post pictures.)

[Mike B]

Congratulations Mike and good luck!

[CBKERR]

Congrats

[cornfieldflyer]

Please post some pics when you can. As a Newbie to this site myself I say welcome aboard. I too like forums like these, one can learn alot.

Tony

[NJMike]

Okay, the deal went through without a hitch! She is at her new home now (Hackettstown Airport, N05). She was reassembled on Saturday. Ever since then the weather has not cooperated!

Hoping to start her up for the first time tomorrow, although the weather is deteriorating for tomorrow too. Thursday and Friday still look good.

I plan to do a lot of taxi tests first, getting used to her. Then gradually increasing the power, taxiing faster, and hopefully pull her off a couple feet high, then let her settle back down.

I will post pics. In fact, here is the one that I have been looking at for the last two weeks....okay, well that didn't work; message said the file was too big! Sorry. I'll have to figure that out later.

[zaitcev]

Some people are virulently anti-crow-hop. They say the flight is unstable, many things happen at once, and it's way safer to make sure the bird is flight capable as much as you can and then just go up and build the safety pillow of altitude between you and ground, then make a circuit and land. If you see it's not landing the way you want, go full power. The idea is, air is much softer than runway surface and contact with the air is not generally going to kill you, contact with runway might. Not sure if it's good mode of thinking, maybe something to discuss in the "Safety" forum.

[NJMike]

My take is that altitude is good if you can maintain it! But, if you can't then you're better off close to the ground.

Still haven't started her up yet. Hoping for this afternoon but weather is questionable yet another day.

[NJMike]

I now have about 2.5 hrs on my Quicksilver!

It all started out quite exciting when I ran out of runway during taxi tests...

I had made multiple taxi runs up and down the runway, gradually increasing speed. I finally worked up to letting the wheels leave the surface about 6" high, then let her settle back down. I did that twice. On the third pass, she unexpectedly jumped up about 4 feet! Now I had a real landing to do, but being caught by surprise, I started porpoising down the runway, which is 2200' long and has a crest about midfield!

As I was now approaching the crest, still in the air and now realizing that even if I did get her back on the ground, I'd have to stop going downhill....I got a little scared and said...well, never mind what I said.

I put the power to her and went around!

The entire time around I kept yelling...well, never mind what I was yelling. (Are there women and children in this forum?)

And then I started remebering my landings a month earlier when I got checked out in the Quicksilver, and how ... "not good" they were, and I got even more concerned (and yelled a little louder although no one could hear me).

As it turned out, I made a half-way decent landing! After letting my nerves calm down a bit, I said...well, I decided that if I could make that landing on an unplanned flight, I could probably do just as good if I did it on purpose! So I made two more takeoffs and landings!

That put the first flight under my belt and I went home extremely satisfied. The next day at work, I found out that a co-worker happened to be going by the airport (the runway ends right a the road), saw me on the runway, saw me takeoff, and took out his iPhone and shot a video!

I've tried twice to attach it here but both times it failed. No messages, but maybe there is a size limit on uploading files here.

Hopefully next year some of us can fly in somewhere and meet. I still like my idea of meeting in the air at a predefined GPS location....