{"id":5088,"date":"2019-01-11T14:25:09","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T22:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=5088"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:51","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:51","slug":"222-all-my-hobbies-require-a-helmet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/222-all-my-hobbies-require-a-helmet\/","title":{"rendered":"#222 All my hobbies require a helmet"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was many years ago and I was staying at Wayne Handley\u2019s place near Salinas, California.\u00a0 Two things captivated me about Wayne (well, actually there were several, but two come quickly to mind).\u00a0 One was the \u201cfrog and pond\u201d effect of which he became a graphic demonstration. \u00a0Because, when Wayne walked down the sidewalk in his home town, virtually everyone greeted him by name with obvious respect.\u00a0Wayne had become a \u201cfrog\u201d of fairly big size in the \u201cpond\u201d of that little town.\u00a0 Most people still don\u2019t know who he is, but those who are really into aerobatics and the building of aircraft certainly do.\u00a0 He has attained the perfect amount of \u201cfrog size\u201d.\u00a0 He\u2019s big enough to be recognized and to be respected, small enough to proceed through life un-bothered.<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n

Wayne Handley<\/strong><\/p>\n

The other thing happened as I was wandering through Wayne\u2019s garage, where he keeps kayaks and other items that help define who he is.\u00a0He stopped and suddenly realized something: \u201cHave you noticed,\u201d he said, \u201cthat all my hobbies require the wearing of a helmet?\u201d\u00a0 Suddenly it was as if Wayne understood what that simple fact meant, how it defined him as a man of action.<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

I make a living teaching pilots how to be better. For years I did it in a very low-performance airplane, the Cessna 140.\u00a0 I learned that those who owned RV aircraft had to get used to the ridiculously slow roll rate of the 140.\u00a0 I have related to several of them that I had the chance to fly one of Wayne Handley\u2019s \u201cRavens\u201d.\u00a0 Wayne asked if I\u2019d like to roll it and when I said I sure would, he instructed me to move the stick all the way to the stop in order to make one complete roll, then stop straight and level once more.\u00a0 I think I rolled about three revolutions before being able to stop the roll!\u00a0That\u2019s how effective the roll rate was in that airplane which Wayne had built in order to perform at airshows and also to teach aerobatics.\u00a0 Years later, I stood with my son, Hooper, in the aviation museum at McMinnville, Oregon.\u00a0There, hanging above us, was the only airplane in that beautiful place that I had flown.\u00a0 It was Handley\u2019s Raven.\u00a0 It was the only airplane in any museum that I had ever flown.<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n

Wayne Handley\u2019s turbine powered Raven<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHave you noticed,\u201d he said, \u201cthat all my hobbies require the wearing of a helmet?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[38,60,67,102,173,178],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5088"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}