Over the next several months, we hope to profile many of the people who have made the RV-1′s latest chapter a reality – vendors, volunteers, donors, and visitors.

In a series of stories we will title “Meet a Friend” we want to share those stories. The writing staff here are all volunteers so we will ask for a little leniency if we have make a typo or misspelling – the goal is simple, to share as much of this great adventure as possible with as many as possible. With that goal in mind, here is one of those stories …

I enjoyed the atmosphere at the coming out celebration but I am not one to wax rhapsodic. I was not able to volunteer any time, just a small donation. The distance was a factor (I live in New Mexico) as was a bit of a feeling of intimidation by the competence of so many who were involved.

I have been following the project with much interest since I first heard about it several years ago at a dinner with Paul Dye, Louise Hose and Ernie Butcher. At that point the airplane had been located and Ernie was talking about his big idea of purchasing it, restoring it, showing it around the country ending up at the museum. It all sounded pretty ambitious to me and I was pretty much a skeptic that it would actually happen. I guess I just didn’t know how persistent Ernie and others can be.

Since the tour is not planned to go anywhere near me, I sure wanted to take the opportunity, yesterday, to take a good look at it and I am very glad I did.

Larry also put together a short video for those of us not able to attend the coming out celebration at Hicks Airfield.

Thank you Larry for being a Friend of the RV-1. Let me express my thanks for sharing your story and for your contribution to the project !