Original Posted By: Matt Dralle
Well, call me the greedy self-absorbed consumer. I only contributedenough to qualify for the Matronics archive CD. But let me rant on.This list, the Piet list, has been one of the most wonderful andencouraging venues for all of my experimental aviation activities.Through this list I have met dozens of ardent, avid, clever, experiencedindividuals who love flying and building as much as I do, and arehappy and willing to share everything they have and know, with me.All of you are treasures of building and flying experience andenthusiasm to be shared, and you have been more than willing toshare with me. I appreciate it, and look forward to yet anotheryear on this list with you.I have flown with a couple of you, met another couple of you, shareda beer with one or two (Jim Markle even paid for both of ours!), lookedat our airplanes, chatted, but mostly we have exchanged ideas and experiences right here at our keyboards and computer screens. It's astrange and disjointed way to experience people and airplanes, butwhat I have found is that in real life, all of you and all of yourairplanes and shops are so much warmer, and more genuine, and morelikeable than your online presence that it's truly a shame that theworld wide web brings such a huge geographically distant group together-because it's likely that many of us will never actually meet in person.I have Piet friends in dozens of states of the Union, and almost asmany countries of the world. The Air Camper is a wonderful ambassadorof good will and should be appointed to some sort of honorableposition by somebody, somewhere, as fostering good internationalrelations. Take somebody flying in a Piet, they grow a smile, weforget our differences and remember why we are all on the planettogether.Let's don't blow it by letting occasional flare-ups erupt. There istoo much here of enduring fun, entertainment, and education to allowa few personal differences to separate us. If all I have is a drawingor picture of a Piet on my wall, I feel as close to all of you as ifI had a dozen of them in my hangar, with different engines and paintschemes, because we all know and love the Piet even though we recognizeall of the differences in the individual ones and their owners (orthose who only dream of being an owner, builder, or pilot). I wasall of those things at one time, and never all of them at the same time.But I've always been a dreamer.I hope to be able to form up on your wing sometime, just as good ol'"Axel" Purtee snuck up and formed up on my starboard wing a yearago, and we made a flight of two, if only for a short while. AndI readily yield to the man who has 100HP on the nose... he out-climbedme, hands down. However, next time I'll catch him with the sun inhis eyes and surprise on my side and he will be all mine ;o)Oscar ZunigaAir Camper NX41CC "Scout"Flying Squirrel N2069Z "Rocket"Medford, OR website at http://www.flysquirrel.net ________________________________________________________________________________Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2011 00:09:53 -0700