The Best Award

I was surprised this morning by a friend with a gift-wrapped package when we arrived at his field for a quick breakfast. David is a longtime mentor of mine and we have shared many projects (big and small) over the years. His fabrication quality is always prompting me to up my game and I am a far better builder because of it! He followed (and gave immeasurable help from afar) as I built my F1 Rocket (the Valkyrie named “Myst”) the past couple of years, and even though he is no longer flying, he stays involved by following my progress.

Even with help like his, I build my airplanes to fly, not to win awards. I didn’t intend to have my Rocket judged at AirVenture this year, but a “judge me” sticker appeared on the airplane’s prop tag overnight and I didn’t have a chance to pull it off before it was visited and initialed by a cadre of homebuilt judges. And … of course it didn’t bring home a trophy—the folks that deserved them … got them!

But this little package proved to be the best award I could have imagined. I don’t build for the judges, I don’t build show planes—I like to build “crowd-pleasers,” airplanes that attract attention because people like the way they look or like the features I build into them. One of the best measures of “crowd-pleasing” is the amount of dead grass left around the outline of the airplane once it has left the show. David arranged for Rocket impresario Vince Frazier (we displayed “Myst” in his booth) to take this picture, then David had it printed on fabric and framed—and it means more to me than anything because it shows that people liked what I have done. The deadest grass is where they stood to look into the cockpit—a thing I appreciate because I take a lot of time getting my cockpits “right” (by my definition).

So thanks to the crowds that visited—and thanks to good friends who know what is meaningful to me … and congratulations to those who strive for perfection to earn EAA’s highest recognition and awards!