Tom was nice enough to invite me to go flying over to Urbana for lunch today. It was kind of cold and blustery, but Tom had the preheater on and the Lycoming started right up no problem. Dan Hempy had flown from his home airport in Marion down to Delaware, then followed us over to Urbana. He pulled up in formation off our right wing during the trip.

Here's another shot. This one and the one before were tweaked with the Gimp a bit to brighten them up. Here are a bunch more shots of Dan in formation (unmodified):

Joe Strausbaugh also flew over from Delaware. Joe's plane is really light, so it scoots with that Hartzell blended-airfoil prop.

After a good lunch we headed out.

Pete Britton is building an RV-8 in Dayton. He's just about at the point of flipping the canoe. Over lunch we talked about all sorts of aircraft topics like engines, prop, riveting, paint schemes, etc. I tried to find the paint scheme on VAF I plan on copying, but the smartphone was too slow. Here it is, except the blue will be replaced with burgundy.

I snapped a pic of Tom and I on the way back. Snappy hat, Tom! ;-P

After getting home, I drilled, deburred, and dimpled all the firewall stiffeners. I should have gotten this nutplate drilling jig a long time ago. Very handy.