Connecticut Slingers

Building a Sling TSi in Connecticut

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The Seed

Right after FAR 91.107 (a), where we are admonished to wear our seat belts nice and snug for the flight, there should be a requirement that all pilots MUST make a Haj to AirVenture. At least once. Preferably, the trip should be done in a homebuilt, but anything older than 1982, with a hodgepodge of instrumentation and dingy spartan interior would be an acceptable ride. Its all about the spirit.

Making it through the torturous Fisk Arrival in a single engine-whatever makes one feel a bit more competent, and a bit happier with one’s self. That same sort of rush you get after getting through yet another flight review. Maybe they should make it a way to fulfill a flight review, particularly if they flew the arrival using foggles. Foggles or not, you still have that nice adrenaline boost when you get on the ground, which is good, as it puts you in the proper frame of mind for enjoying the whole raucous thing.

When we made our first Fisk Arrival, we had no intention to do anything other than to have a Max Blast Full Strength Turbo Charged Inter-cooled Good Time at AirVenture, Plus make a side trip to Neenah to visit Our Aunt and Uncle. There was absolutely no intention of building a Sling, we haven’t even heard of one before the afternoon of July 21, 2019.

it was that afternoon that the Mattituck Gold IO-360 under our cowling dragged Cessna N1226F along with its droning thrum, as we moseyed at a stately 110 KTS out of Janesville, 4500 feet above the sun splashed Wisconsin country side, the sweet smell of crops wafting up in the late afternoon sun. Finally, we were inbound to Oshkosh and AirVenture. It was lovely. We were excited about the chance to have fun, attend some workshops, exhibits and airshows. There would be days of it, plus a visit to Our Aunt and Uncle.

The afternoon before that, we had flown west all the way from Westerly Rhode Island, overnighting in Youngstown Ohio. The next day, we continued on, making it all the way to southern Wisconsin. But then, a massive, cruel black hearted storm grounded us in Janesville. We had just gassed up in Gary Indiana when we saw the storm over 100 miles away in Minnesota on the Foreflight GPS thingy. Ugh. Perhaps, with a bit of expeditious haste, we could make Oshkosh and have all Sunday to get the visit with our Aunt and Uncle over with before the show. Everything would fit together, nicely. Sadly, that simply was not to be. When we were cruising along north of Chicago, the storm was raging closer and closer to the north, west and east of OSH. Like a giant pincer, it was closing in on Whitman field, like a steel trap. In a matter of minutes it seemed that it got so bad that there was no choice, we had to divert to Janesville, where we joined dozens of other airplanes flocked together on the ramp, some tied down others not, like a wake of rain soaked buzzards fetching meager succor from the raging storm to the west. We all stared in nervous apprehension for an hour as the planes strained tiedowns and nipped at chocks, while the wind blasted through and the rain thrashed down.

As the storm moved on, Our fear turned to disappointment on finding the passing fury had closed Whitman field for the night. The staff at the Janesville airport did beyond the best of mortals finding lodgings for everyone for that night. For us, we had our lodging gem, a cozy un-airconditioned discounted room at a Motel 6, with its sumptuous made-over bomb shelter décor (The cold laminate flooring was particularly welcoming under bare feet). It was perfect, even the light was on just like Tom Bodell promised. Nothing to do but wait and sleep under the wretched light.

At 3 O’clock in the afternoon the next day, Whitman field was declared open. We joined the invading swarm of pilots and planes briskly plying north towards Green lake, where we would join yet hundreds more funneling their way to Whitman via the Fisk arrival. The drenching rain and blasting wind of the day before were but a memory now, as we negotiated the whole Fisk Arrival process, landing on the yellow dot on runway 36. At long last, We were going to have fun, lots of double stuffed, max blast, over the top Ice cream Sundae turbocharged fun. And visit our Aunt and Uncle. We were absolutely NOT going to build and airplane. No Siree.

We parked next to the Plane Lady and her husband Tyler who were building an RV10. They were a lovely couple who had flown all the way from Texas in their Cessna 180. You can catch a glimpse of our Snoopy’s Group flying club’s N1226F in some of her AirVenture videos. At the end of the first day, they showed us the little airfoil they had made during a workshop, it glinted in the late afternoon sun. That was when the seed was planted somewhere in the depths of our basal stems. By our third and last day on the grounds, we had migrated through all the other cool flying stuff to the homebuilts. Yessir. That was what did it. We sat in an RV10, the Interior was a bit spartan, and the control stick was loose, both of which, I suppose, could be easily rectified with some strategically installed cloth and plastic for the former, and some strategic wrenching for the latter. And then the Sling TSi. Pulled rivets. Aggressive styling. Slick backed tail. A gas sipping Rotax 915si. The RV 10 looked, well…rather church lady, albeit at 200 mph. We also visited the Velocity. We would build a Sling TSi.