Author: The Flying Dutchman

I am a man who loves Christ, loves my wife, loves my family, loves my church, and loves aviation. In that order.

A Prayer for Cristy

On By The Flying DutchmanIn PoetryLeave a comment

woman prayingO Holy and most Merciful Father,
Consider thy daughter.
Comfort her when she fears,
Reassure her when she doubts,
Watch over her while she sleeps,
Catch her when she stumbles,
Hold her when she weeps.
Never have I known a more Godly woman
Who seeks after You night and day.
She prays on my behalf without ceasing.
She prays over our children nightly.
She walks with You in the morning.
Lord, grant her many years on earth,
That we may enjoy her company,
And see Your love and light,
Radiated through her.
Your Spirit is in her.
She showers us with unconditional love.
Holy Father, you have blessed the work of her hands,
And those who dwell with her.
Merciful Father, grant my request;
May all her days be blessed,
May the fruits of her labors be abundant,
May Your Grace shower her and fill her,
All the days of her life.

Amen.

Follow up to skin cracks

On By The Flying DutchmanIn RV-4Leave a comment

Just got an email from the factory regarding some cracking in my wing skins.  The official word is no problemo.  I can just stop drill the cracks (making sure not to drill into the spar.)  I’ll have to ream out the elongated hole on my landing gear leg but it’s not critical at this point.  Big sigh of relief.

Upgrading WordPress

On By The Flying DutchmanIn OpinionLeave a comment

I just upgraded to WordPress 2.01.  It hasn’t been easy.  Probably because I can’t follow directions.  The site is finally back up 100% after 24 hours of “iffy” status.  I don’t think I’ll upgrade minor versions anymore.

More Cracks!

On By The Flying DutchmanIn RV-44 Comments

Drawing of cracking locations

Oh boy, talk about your crack pot! As I was giving rides to some church kids I noticed some more cracks on my plane. These were on the wing just outboard of the wing walk (where passengers step on the wing.) Not sure really what to do about this one. I’ve got an email in to the factory about this. I’ll enter an update once they advise me.

Lord Guard and Guide the Men Who Fly

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Faith, PoetryLeave a comment

Lord guard and guide the men who fly
Through the great spaces of the sky;
Be with them traversing the air
In darkening storms or sunshine fair.

Thou who dost keep with tender might
The balanced birds in all their flight,
Thou of the tempered winds, be near,
That, having thee, they know no fear.

Aloft in solitudes of space,
Uphold them with thy saving grace.
O God, protect the men who fly
Thro’ lonely ways beneath the sky.

Amen

By Mary C.D. Hamilton

The joy of likemindedness

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Faith2 Comments

Hey TivoGuy!  🙂
Your family is welcome in my home ANY TIME!  They were such a joy and help to Mrs. Dutchman today.  I’ve been kind of bummed all day because of an airplane crash which killed an acquaintance of mine.  Seeing your big ol’ land yacht parked in my driveway and talking with your lovely and godly wife just lifted my spirits like you wouldn’t believe.  As far as the likemindedness, you know what that’s about and that helps more than I can adequately express.  I’m praying for all your situations, brother.  Thank you so much for all your hard work in the church.  Keep the faith!

Ordered my parts

On By The Flying DutchmanIn RV-4Leave a comment

Ran into one developing problem on my annual.  The cracks in the elevator.  So rather than look at this as a problem, I’m looking at it as an opportunity to correct some minor mistakes that were made when installing the elevators.  I’m also going to install an electric trim system in the elevator rather than the current manual system.  This will be far lighter and more controllable.   I ordered the parts today so they should be in sometime next week.  In the mean time I’m going to repair the current cracks with JB Weld.  Yes, they’ve already been stop-drilled.

Discouragement

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Faith6 Comments

Since I know that no one even reads this blog I think it’s safe to talk openly.  I am so discouraged.  Got a buddy from church yesterday who spent most of the day telling me how dirty and smelly my plane was.  This was discouraging.  He did help me time my magnetos which was helpful.  He also took off some inspection panels which is also helpful.  He also noticed some cracking in the trailing edge of my left hand elevator.  This was discouraging.  He got sick when I took him flying.  Also discouraging.  Not that his sickness was my fault but discouraging none the less. 

 On a personal note, most of my friends are non-believers.  This is discouraging.  Most of the good, Godly people I go to church with are not my friends.  This is discouraging.  The non-believers I hang with treat me better than the good, Godly people I go to church with.  This is discouraging.  Events have piled up this past week in such a way as to be discouraging to me.

My only hope: prayer.

Let the Annual Inspection Begin

On By The Flying DutchmanIn RV-4Leave a comment

If you’re in aviation then you already know that all aircraft must undergo an annual inspection by an FAA-certified mechanic.  One of the joys of owning an aircraft you built yourself is that YOU are the mechanic for that airplane.  You may do all the work on it like an Airframe and Powerplant mechanic, and you may also authorize it for return to service, like an Inspection and Authorization mechanic.  Now I know that airframe inside and out, I drove every (well almost) rivet into that airplane.  What I don’t know much about is the engine.  That’s why I’m excited that a gentleman from my church is coming out to help me.  Dan is a mechanic for the Post Office and is really looking forward to getting to learn about aircraft engines.  They are not much more than glorified Volkswagon engines so Dan probably has an easy chore ahead of him.  I’m looking foward to having someone with a mechanic’s eye look the engine over.  I’m also looking forward to getting to know Dan better.  The more Godly men in my life the better.

Yellow Dog Linux Day 2

On By The Flying DutchmanIn OpinionLeave a comment

I’m finally getting the hang of YDL.  I had to recompile PHP to get it work with MySQL.  I had to find out how to do that first.  I ended up doing the following:

  1. Downloaded the latest 4.x version of PHP
  2. Inside my new PHP directory I executed the following command: ./configure –with-mysql
  3. Executed make
  4. Executed make install

Once that was done I could get phpmyadmin working to create a database for the phpBBS I wanted to install in the first place!

Linux is such fun. 😦