Bob Greer and his Wright Flyer

A few months ago, I reconnected with an old friend of mine from Atlantic Aviation Corporation (AAC). Bob Greer and I worked together at AAC back in the early 1980’s…in fact, Bob was my boss at AAC! At the time, he was Vice President of the Aircraft Maintenance and Completions Division. Bob left AAC before I did and continued on with a very successful career with several other aviation companies. He is now retired to Ocala, Florida and is a resident and flying member of the ‘On Top of the World‘ (OTOW) resort community. Bob reports that he can get to the OTOW R/C flying field in 10 minutes by golf cart!

Bob sent me some information and a photo of one of the planes he flies and it is a beauty. Here are Bob’s comments:

‘See attached picture of me with a Wright Flyer model I built a couple of years ago. I have flown the Wright Flyer but she is a tricky bird and more than a bit difficult for me, not only the pusher prop thing, but the “wing warping” roll control makes it a real handful. The wing warping is a hoot as the whole aircraft sort of looks like it is “shaking it’s booty” when you do the preflight controls check. The Wright Flyer, it is sort of a kit, in as much as you start with 2 GWS Slow Stick kits and purchase a Wright Stick conversion kit from WWW.Radicalrc.com. I recently checked the web site and he has a larger 68” span version. I hope someone likes it enough to give it a try, as it is an interesting build, not too difficult.’

Here is Bob with his Wright Flyer:
(Click on the photo to get a larger image with higher resolution)

 

I also checked the RadicalRC website and found this great video of the Wright Flyer in flight:
(The pilot shown in the video is not Bob Greer)

 

In a recent email, Bob commented that he is planning to attend ‘Joe Nall Week‘ in May. He commented:

‘It’s been on my Bucket List for a few years now, and it looks like its going to happen this year. A group of guys down here at OTOW are going for 5 days! I’m going to bring my Fun Cub electric on floats. No, I’ve never flown ROW but what the heck, H2O is no harder than Terra Firma is it? I hope they have a rescue boat on hand, cause I’ll need it.’

It’s been good to reconnect with Bob and to hear about some of his current flying activities. And if you run into Bob at ‘Joe Nall‘, ask him about his Wright Flyer. Oh, and tell him you read about it and him on FlyBoyz!