Oil in Strange Places – Hangar Flying | Aviation

By Kenneth Florence, EAA 1509968.

This piece originally ran in the June 2024 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.

In March 2024, I purchased a fine example of a Leonard Milholland-designed Legal Eagle XL. Three weeks earlier, I had bought the plans for the airplane but then found this existing one for sale for less than the raw materials to build one from scratch.

Back in 1983, when I first became a private pilot, I was fascinated with the then-new Quicksilver MX. Well, 40 years later, after several certificated airplanes, my mission has become to experience the simple joy of flight again, and an ultralight vehicle became more appealing. Without the need to travel distances, and having sold my last four-seater when the third child was born, my mission is reduced to that. But when I say reduced, I say that from a perceived myopic perspective of others. The simple joy of flying is what drew me to pursue aviation in the first place. So instead, I feel liberated to just go fly when I want to.

I started the half-VW 37-hp engine once before I concluded the deal, and have now run it once since I bought it two weeks ago. Of course, I am on a hangar waitlist and considering just getting 10 acres and a barn.

A few days ago, I took my 18-year-old son to my storage unit “hangar” to show him the bird. The prior owner/builder was meticulous, and to…