JdFinley.com

Fulltime RV Living Adventures

RV-12 Over New Mexico

This past week I uploaded some more raw flying video footage from my Drift HD camera to my computer and I thought: “Self, you have a lot of good video footage but you have done nothing with it in at least six months. You should be ashamed.” I am ashamed. The problem is that processing… [Read More]

Throttle Quadrant and Trim

I have a friend who is building a Thatcher CX-4. He had been working on his elevator trim installation and had put the trim control on the right side of the aircraft and the throttle on the left.  This triggered some thoughts that other builders may find useful so I figured I would document them… [Read More]

Backcountry Flying/Camping Trip 2013 – Part 3

Note from JD: This is the third installment of this trip. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. The day dawned spectacular on Saturday so there was no doubt that lots of flying was on the agenda. The first order of business??  Breakfast, of course. Breakfast was being hosted at the Big Creek airstrip… [Read More]

Backcountry Flying/Camping Trip 2013 – Part 2

Note from JD: Part 1 of this trip is here. Friday dawned cool, cloudy, and wet. We launched as early as possible to start our exploring adventure but there just wasn’t enough cloud clearance to get very far. When the clouds are sitting at mountain top level, it is pretty easy to fly up and… [Read More]

Backcountry Flying/Camping Trip 2013 – Part 1

I reported on last year’s trip to the Idaho backcountry here.  We had such a great time that we decided to do it again this year!  We is me and my neighbor with a Vans RV-4 (among eight other airplanes that he has built himself). I’m late posting this report – we actually made the… [Read More]

Negrito Airstrip Work Weekend

The weekend of May 31 – June 2 2013 was the annual work weekend at the Negrito backcountry airstrip.  The thought of physical labor is pretty close to the bottom of my ‘favorite things’ list. However; this was for a most excellent cause and involved flying and camping.  So, I was in. The video below… [Read More]

A really long cross-country flight

A couple weeks ago, I went on a really long cross-country flight… It all started with the need to be at the home office (Minneapolis) of the company for which I work.  This just happened to be around the time that the Quickie Spring Fling Fly-In was scheduled in Decorah, IA.  Finally, I was past… [Read More]

Piper In the Air

Did a bit of flying the other day and found this Piper Cherokee (aircraft) in the air. So, I took a few photos! Apparently, he saw me too as he took this photo of me!

Condition Inspection Time

A year has come and gone – amazing! Time for the annual Condition Inspection for my Vans RV-3B aircraft. Believe it or not, I was really looking forward to this inspection as there were several areas that I had not really dug into on this airplane and I wanted to see them. The bulk of… [Read More]

Tale of the Tail Wheel Replacement

The tail spring and tail wheel on the Van’s RV-3 is a pretty simple setup. However; there are two negatives. First, it is not a full swiveling wheel one has to lift the tail to push/pull it backwards.  Second, it lacks ground clearance. One doesn’t exactly go four-wheel driving with an airplane so why does… [Read More]