vfrazier
Well Known Member
Friends, fellow RVers, Rocketeers, and aviation enthusiasts,
It is with great sadness that I report that we lost a true giant from among us yesterday. Jim Winings passed suddenly after visiting another fellow pilot at a nursing home. Jim was found collapsed in the parking lot by another pilot friend.
Jim had a huge impact on the RV community. He was one of the earliest RVers, owning or building 5 RVs,including one F1 Rocket. He started early and never let up. I talked to Jim about a week ago, and his excitement about flying was unchanged from the first time I met him in the late 1980's. Positively contagious is the only way to describe him regarding aviation.
Jim gave dozens, probably hundreds, of us our first RV flight, including me. If he wasn't Van's top salesman, and completely for free, he had to be in the top 3. There were, and are, RVs being built all over the Midwest, all over the country, and all over the world that were a direct result of Jim's boundless enthusiasm for the RVs and for flying.
He was completely selfless about promoting the RV aircraft, particularly the RV-4 and Rocket. Jim was adamant about keeping his planes light. Performance was everything, and handling qualities were everything x 10.
Jim was a mechanical genius in the truest sense. Literally, not 1 in a million people could do what he could do. And he was completely "aw shucks" about it in every sense, giving gentle advice, building parts and pieces, fixing, helping, and generally just going the extra 10 miles... all while making it look as easy and routine as getting a glass of water.
Jim story time... a few years ago, Jim had a new SUV. Jim felt that the steering should be lighter, just like he wanted for his earth moving equipment and his airplanes. Jim modified the power steering to make it lighter, stating " I want to be able to drive that car with ONE finger." I mean, who does that, modifying a brand new vehicle? Jim does.
Same for his airplanes. The modification list would read like a checklist for a B-52... so I won't even try to relay them all here. When Jim was building his F1 Rocket, a magnificent aircraft by any standard, he chided Mark (and me) about how that airplane could be better. And, to no one's surprise, he made it better. Effortlessly. Like it was nothing. Jim's mods to his Rocket, to list just a FEW of them, included: changing his elevator and rudder trailing edges, changing the intermediate bellcrank ratio, modifying the gear legs, designing new rear seat rudder pedals, flap arm covers, installing a flopper canopy, and a hundred small things that were all 100% designed to reduce weight and maximize performance and handling.
Jim's F1 Rocket, being flown by Tom McCord.
Jim built 2 RV-4s and 1 F1 Rocket. All were yellow with no stripes or graphics of any sort. Nothing but the N-number, which he wouldn't have added if the FAA didn't make him. He said that the lines of the plane were sufficiently beautiful that no other adornment was necessary. Who can argue?
Jim worked on P-51s while in the military. He often compared the RVs/Rockets to them, and many other aircraft that he'd flown, even hotrods like the Glasair III, and said about the RVs/Rockets: "There are just no finer flying aircraft anywhere."
We all owe Jim a huge debt of gratitude. No doubt. However, I personally, I owe Jim an even bigger debt. His selflessness has allowed me to be in a small business with my son. What a gift that has been. Here's a brief version of that story: Jim and I were at a breakfast fly-in back in 2005. Jim walked in and was showing a new tailwheel fork design that he thought worked better, and handled better. He gently suggested that I really needed one on my new Rocket. (He was right, of course!)
During the conversation, he handed the tailwheel fork to me and said " I'm too old to mess with making these, but they're really needed on the Rockets/RVs. Why don't YOU make them?" I had no clue how to make something like that, and botched quite a few learning, but ultimately that conversation started a small, very small, business: Flyboy Accessories, which my son, Blake, now runs full-time.
What a gift that one humble, talented, selfless man can make in the lives of others. Jim gave that gift to me, Blake, and hundreds of others in the RV community. He will be sorely missed.
Godspeed Jim Winings.
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