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RV-7A N357FD Frank Huber

Fhuber

Well Known Member
I purchased my second hand RV-7A quick build kit on March 4, 2011 in Houston, Texas and trucked it back to my garage shop in Maple Grove, Minnesota, with my best friend John. I got things organized and figured out where to start. I started working more regularly after retiring in September of 2012. By June of 2015 it was time to move it to our hangar at KANE, before we downscaled into a fifty-five and older community. Work continued until July of 2018, when I ran out of things to do and my friends verified it was ready for the inspection


On August 2, 2018 DAR Steve Wagner inspected my project and awarded us with an Airworthiness Certificate. On August 10, my friend Tom Berge, a two time RV builder, RV instructor and RV guru with thousands of hours flying RVs did the first two flights. It made sense to me to have someone with Tom's experience do the first flights. Tom flew with me on the third flight, which was still plenty exciting for me. I continued the test flight program, completing the required 40 hours, while gathering performance data and getting used the the equipment. After completing the test flying and getting my first $100 breakfast flight out of the way, I flew the aircraft to Hibbing, Minnesota to have Midwest Aircraft Refinishers complete the project with a great paint job. They completed the project towards the end of December. Tom flew me up on January 3, when I got to see the fantastic job the guys at Midwest had done for us.

I chose the Old Crow paint scheme to honor Col Bud Anderson, who has been my hero for over thirty years. I am looking forward to telling his story to everyone I have the opportunity to take flying and those,who see the aircraft as we fly around the country.

I owe a great deal of thanks to my wife Deb,my best friend John, my RV friends Tom Berge, Doug Weiler, Alex Peterson, Bernie Weiss and Pete Howell and the guys at Stein Air, who all provided me with help and encouragement!

The aircraft has an Aerosport IO-360 driving a three bladed Cato prop.
It has a Skyview touch on the left side, a D-6 backup, an I-pad mount on the right side with a cooling fan and charger. It also has a Garmin 650, PS Engineering com control panel, Flightline 760 com and a EI Commander.

It's been an excellent experience and at times frustrating, but I learned a great deal.The plane flies great and Deb and I are looking forward to seeing the country in our new flying machine.

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Beautiful, Frank!!

Midwest Refinishers is on my short list, can we discuss sometimes?
 
Congrats

Frank, she is beautiful. I recall seeing it in all its stages and the final is the best. Let's go get a $50 breakfast soon. Keep the shiny side up.
 
Congratulations Frank and thanks again for taking the time to show us the Bill Lane plenum installation.

Your plane looks fantastic!
 
Not bad for a guy whose gear I used to raise in another life. Can't wait to paint an RV-7A kill on my -8.:D

Congrats Frank!
 
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