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Meet the newest member of the Wild Mama family, Wild Child. She is a 1978 Citabria 7GCAA.
On a glorious February afternoon, after nearly
5 months under reconstruction and annual, Wild Child has emerged from the repair shop for her christening. Vern pulled her out of the hanger and washed away the last 5 months of dust and grime which have accumulated during
the process. In all, she ended up with the wing spar AD being properly completed, a fresh annual, new regulator and alternator,
re-built carburator, new tires and wheel bearings all the way around, new brakes, new transponder, re-built turn coordinator,
new tachometer, new beacon and new hand grips with built-in push-to-talk buttons... and the list goes on. Suffice it
to say - she is good, clean and wanting to fly!
My first outing in her was from the back seat. After
such extensive re-constructive surgery, it is much preferred that the surgeon take the shake-down flight. So off we go,
Vern in the front,and I in the back. All went smoothly. Vern was touting the "great view" and "wonderful visibility"
in the aircraft. Well, yeah, from HIS point of view. He is tall and broad: I am vertically challenged and short bodied to
boot. I has a fabulous view of ... Vern's shoulders.
Anyway, I did get to fly her around a bit. It was a great
experience, bobbing and weaving  my head around. I was told that flying a tail-dragger was an exercise in using peripherial vision, but I don't think
my view was exactly what anyone was talking about! Flying Wild Child was a blast. Vern put her through the
paces: stalls, slow flight, the full range of flight controls, spins, maximum rate climbs, etc. I just got to play a little
after he declared her officially fly-able doing simple things like ground reference manuvers, straight and level flight and
basic navigation without a moving map GPS, a/k/a "where the heck are we now???" 
By the time we landed, a crowd had gathered as everyone knew today was her day. Today was her day, indeed, she
was open for rides and Brian was the first. Brian flies a Champ, among other things. For him, this was his Champ on steroids.
He and Vern took off and all we mere mortals on the ground could see was a cockpit full of smiles. Have fun. My turn comes
tomorrow.
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 Mini-Me has been resting not-so-comfortably at the VERNON CONLY AIR SERVICE hanger since her arrival in late September. Since
that time, she has gotten her new mags, new transponder, new alternator, had her turn coordinator rebuilt, had her fuel system
checked and re-worked, gotten new tires, new brakes, new wheel bearings, had her oil changed and gotten a thorough annual.
The last thing  remaining is the wing spar AD. Vern has been sanding and cutting on her wings to try to get all the required holes for the
inspection plates to be able to make a good inspection on the wooden wing spars. So far, the right wing in nearly done for
opening the holes, and the top holes are completely cut open on both wings. It will require many hours of work yet to complete the inspection process then to patch the portions of the wings which have been opened and install
the inspection plates, then re-paint the disturbed portions of the aircraft. Yes, she will be undergoing some cosmetic surgery.
We are hoping to be in the air sometime in January 2008 if all goes well with the inspection ... Stay tuned.
In keeping with my aviation project for the year - to get my tailwheel endorsement and do aerobatic
training - I decided it would be better for the training to have a plane dedicated to the task instead of flying off somewhere
to complete the training in a catch as catch can basis. On Septemner 25, 2007, Vern and I departed for Evergreen, AL to bring
home Mini-Me. True to form even the simple act of bringing home baby turned into quite the adventure.
Mini-Me has only been flown about 50 hours in the past 6 years; and her current state was evidencing that fact.
She is 3 years out of annual and required a ferry permit to bring her home. After inspecting her on Sunday, Vern was convinced
she was airworthy to make the trip and made the application to bring her home. First snafu: the registration did not match the airworthiness certificate.
After all day on the telephone with FAA Oklahoma City and the Alabama FSDO, at the last tick of the business day on Monday
an extremely helpful CLIVE JOHNSON was the hero of the day; resolving the paperwork issues in record time and getting us our
ferry permit so we could make the trip the next day as it was the ONLY day in the forecastable future that spoke of good weather
along the entire route.
With paperwork in hand, we departed in Wild Mama from X14 at 0700 for the 3 hour
flight to GZH to fetch the baby. The good news was that we had a  killer tailwind on the way up . . . the bad news was that we had the same killer wind, except now it was a headwind and Mini-Me
was expected to top out at a whopping 120 mph! Wild Mama and Mini-Me got their first introduction up re-fueling
in Evergreen. Although we were a bit apprehensive at first, Wild Mama took to her new role as "Mama Bird"
quite well.
Vern did a quick turn around the patch at Evergreen to  make sure all was well enough to make the trip and we both departed the pattern flying low and averaging about 95 knots ground
speed the whole way home. The adventure was about to begin, however. The next snafu was a malfunctinging transponder. Not really
anything too critical but we knew we had to go around Tallahassee instead of straight through it. No biggie. Next, the
tachometer was dreadfully off; but we had anticipated this potential and brought along the portable digital tach check, just
as as precaution. Next snafu: turn cordinator failed. No worries as Vern is a 22 year experienced pilot and we had a gyro
panel so go back to your instrument training days and keep going.
Our first planned stop was in Cross City:
this would be about 2 hours and half-way home, well within the anticipated capacity of Mini-Me. No
such luck there. Just north of Marianna (4th snafu of the day) Vern radioed that the right tank was showing full but the left
tank was nearly empty. Divert to MAI to re-fuel and check the problem. While Wild Mama was creeping along at
17/21 with 10 degrees of flaps to slow her progress, sipping barely 10 gallons per hour, the baby gulped a whopping 18.9
gallons in just 1 hour.  A quick check revealed some sort of fuel anomile with the right tank, the extent of which we would not be able to determine
until we reach home. We decided to keep close to airports and stop every hour for a fuel check. On to Perry-Foley (40J).
The hour long trip to 40J seemed faster than the first hour. Our stop at 40J was a quick turn-around with Mini-Me
only consuming 13.5 gallons for the leg. Better, but still we want to make the hourly stops as the anomile was now in the
left tank and NOT the right tank. Strange. We depart for Dunellen (X35). That's when (snafu #5) the mag malfunctioned;
but Vern could not communicate that to me because of the (snafu #6) overcharging electrical system, forcing him to shut down
everything so as not to  overcharge the battery. We land at X35 without further incident - not that snafu's 5 and 6 weren't enough. Only 12.2
gallons. Better yet.
We had been concerned about the weather, as is customary in Florida in the summer heat; but
today was pretty good. We decide to press on to Winter Haven (GIF). The radio crackles and Vern tells me to get on ahead
to GIF to make sure the fuel master was still there at 1730 hours or later when he arrives. I get there in time and the
gentleman at the FBO agrees to wait for Mini-Me to arrive. This time, the right tank took only 9.4 gallons and the
left tank was completely full. Very strange. We are just 45 minutes from home now but we see some spotty cells. Mini-Me
departs fast and makes the run for home. Wild Mama gets stuck behind landing traffic and we have to run hard to catch
the baby; but we finally spy her and resume our protectors' position high to her 4 o'clock. All is well.
 We were flying along well even with all the snafus for the day and home was in sight. A cell was blowing up very close to
the airport at LaBelle (X14) and moving in that direction. It was a race to the finish to see who made it first. Vern
had Mini-Me firewalled to drop in just ahead of the hard rain making a straight in on runway 14. Success! Wild
Mama had to wait for other traffic in the pattern and had to orbit to the NW of the airport as the downwind side of 14
was nothing but a wall of water. I finally lined up on final with little more than the VASI lights clearly visible and landed
safely. What a day but both Mama Bird and Baby Bird were safe at home.
Over the next 2-3 months, Mini-Me
will be in the shop for her annual, AD compliance  and replacing and repairing all the assorted ticks, glitches and anomilies which we find. At that point the real adventure
will begin for me - my tailwheel training. Stay tuned.
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... it's all about the plane!
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