Finally Home!

By: Jeff Shapiro

By KAVU

February 22^nd, 2022

Bringing Her Home

When my family and I moved to the Oregon Coast, I didn't want to move the KAVU Cub over from the hangar I rented in Montana to the coast without a place to store her. The coastal air, with all it's glory, has a way of corroding metal in ways that made it feel like a less-than-ideal way to store the plane in the open.

The plan was to make a life-long dream-come-true and build my own hangar within walking distance of our new home on the coast. So, when my family and I found the perfect spot, we drove back across the mountains to fly the Cub back to the coast. That first leg went well but with winter approaching fast, Oregon hangar construction wasn't exactly efficient. There was lots of paperwork, engineering and drawings to be "stamped" by the City's planning office before I could officially "break ground".

So, until we could "officially" get started building, I'd found a spot at Twin Oaks Airpark but that left one more short ferry flight to actually get the plane "next door".

The fun thing about aviation is how passionate pilots are.... and how willing we all are to help each other out. It's like we can empathize for the sever affliction or addiction to the feeling of flying... and because of that, we all like nothing more than to share it and promote it.

Kara and I had tried 3 times to go get the plane to fly her home but each time, because of variable weather, we got shut down and couldn't make it happen. Each time, we'd drive nearly 3 hours from blue skies on the coast to a completely socked in Willamette valley. The sky would be inverted and the forecast for it to burn off would never come to fruition, making a 3 hour drive home without being able to fly the Cub bittersweet.

Well.... lucky for me, my good friend Issac Levinson is a fellow addict and offered to help out. He's a world class kayaker, a passionate paraglider pilot and also a general aviation pilot who owns and flies a Mooney, which is pretty much one of the coolest and fastest single engine commuters out there.

So, when the timing lined up, Issac ninja'd his way under a low ceiling of clouds out of the Hood River Gorge where he lives, to fly to Newport to pick me up. The plan was to fly together in the Mooney to Twin Oaks in a fraction of the time it took to drive there, and in the process, we would get a real time view of conditions across the Coast Range, making flying the Cub back to my house a lot easier and safer.

Not to mention.... I was psyched to get to fly with my good friend!!

Our cruise up to the Airpark was fun and uneventful and I must admit, that quick hour in the air to fly back to the coast truly was a dream-realized when I climbed up over the Coast Range and saw the mighty Pacific Ocean from the plane. Opening the windows, I felt that cool ocean air and was literally smiling ear to ear.

I love to fly in the mountains and will continue to do so (can't wait to explore this area and, it's only a short hop back to the Idaho back country) but there is so much coast line to explore and the cruise home made me even more excited!

So much beauty and adventures to come!

Back at the Newport airport (which is basically next door), one of my better friends, Louie Cole and I (with his daughter Jasper supervising) continued the hangar dream by finally breaking ground and getting some work done before I had to leave on my annual trip to guide paraglider pilots around the Valle de Cauca in Colombia again with Eagle Paragliding.

The plan was to get the foundational posts set in concrete and be staged to have the hangar take form when I returned. It's a good thing that Louie and Jasper are good at what they do. And like Issac helping me get the plane home, to have such a good friend to work with on this project made me more grateful than I can express in words

Slowly but surely, the dream is taking shape!!

And until then, another pilot and friend is allowing me to store the KAVU Cub in a hangar, safe and sound, just a few doors down until I get mine done. And now, I can walk over, throw paragliders and/or surfboards in the back and fly the Cub down the coast for some serious KAVU adventures!