It’s been almost 4 years since there was any activity on this blog. Thats not because there hasn’t been any work or adventures with Betty. Quite the contrary actually. There is way too much to catch up on that I am not going to attempt to go into detail on it at all here. Things such as an attempted paint job, repossessing Betty from the deadbeat paint shop, a trip to Oshkosh, a forced landing, attempting to make speed mods to get Betty fast enough to go to Reno, a 4 into 1 exhaust that nearly melted the prop off, a few small trips, etc. Maybe at some point I can post some photos of the last few years of flight operations for Betty.
Then there was buying a Lancair Legacy as a means by which to get to the Reno Air Races. Which took my attention off Betty for a while. It was a lot to learn to maintain the airplane, operate it, and get myself up to speed for all the skills required to go to Reno, which we did last year for our rookie year. Ramp Rat Racing was born.
I’ve recently started flying Betty a lot more again. Part of the reason for that is that I have a new flying buddy with an RV4, Shawn Jordan. We go out quite regularly flying formation, and I really have been enjoying it.
But the real reason I am back to blogging is that I have picked up a new airplane project and I have promised the family of the original builder I would keep them up to date on the project. I will describe the project and it’s previous builder in the next post, but without further ado; the late Brian Martinez’s Defian’t Derivative Airplane.

Awesome, and welcome back!
Thanks for sharing!
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Great to ‘hear’ you back Joe. Always enjoyed your blogs.
Doug Kouri