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Home My shop SunNFun2003
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About me April 2004 I am 33 years old, and
I currently live in Escondido California. I was born in Columbus Nebraska and at
the age of 5 moved to and lived in Hawaii for almost 5 years. There I lived on
Maui, Oahu, and the big island. From there, I moved back to the mainland, living
in Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, California, (previous to this run in CA)
Washington, Colorado, and again in Nebraska, and finally graduated high
school in Nebraska. After high school, I attended Spartan School of Aeronautics
in Tulsa Oklahoma. I even graduated. ( with an airframe and powerplant license).
While attending Spartan with the goal of becoming a certified aircraft mechanic,
one of my instructors would always drift off the subject of engines which is
what we were supposed to be learning, and tell stories of his
flying adventures. Well, up until taking his class, I had never thought of
becoming a pilot. I guess it was the way he told his stories, so one day after
class, I said, "Mr. Anderson, how do you become a pilot?" He said you just go
down to the local FBO here in Tulsa, and take a discovery flight which counts as
your very first lesson, and you then buy a 5.00 log book, and your instructor
will log your flight time. That sounded pretty easy. So, after school that day,
I drove straight there and took my discovery flight I did! I soloed in 7 hours.
That is very early for most, but my instructor said I was a natural. It
wasn't easy studying from a book of 1,000 questions for my airframe test,
studying from a book of 1,000 questions for my powerplant test, and now studying
from a book of 1,000 questions for my pilot's license ground school test. I'm
not even a good student! But I suppose it goes to show when you really want
something, you can do it. My dad helped me financially (a lot) with the flying
lessons while I attended school. (Thanks Dad) Anyway, after I finished up in
Tulsa, I said goodbye to the two roommates, the girlfriend, and packed the
U-Haul (and my Samoyed) and headed to California where my dad was living. I
rented a 3 bedroom house 1/2 block from the beach in Carlsbad. ( 30 min north of
San Diego ) ----got myself a couple roommates, and with beer starting to get a
little old at that point, began to learn about how the world works. While
waiting to land a job working on airplanes, I worked cleaning carpet, selling
TVs and camcorders, selling advertising for a newspaper, cleaned carpet for a
different company, etc. -all the while, keeping current with my pilot's license,
flying friends to Catalina Island, flying over the San Diego skyline at night,
flying up to LA, etc. About the time of leaving that job, my dad (a product developer) was finishing the design of a curved, two sided disposable shaver, and needed some help. So we joined forces. The way I see it, my aircraft mechanics certificate was not going to waste, because I soon realized what I learned at Spartan carried into the world outside of aircraft. You see, working on an airplane is not like working on a car. Airplanes can't pull over to the side of the road when they don't feel good. You need perfection. And that is what they taught at Spartan. For instance, if you dropped a wrench on the floor during shop class, minus one letter grade! And it did happen. Boy, it's loud when that wrench hits the floor, and everyone just ate it up. " ooooooooo "!!! So these quality-oriented mechanic's workhabits carried on with me when I left the aircraft industry. ( I guess it also helps a little now that I am building and airplane ) My first project was to help build a robotic assembly machine for the disposable shaver. That was a blast. We did finally get the robot to a point where it would almost spit out a complete shaver without a human hand touching anything. "almost" being the operative word. SO, off to China we go!! Manual assembly it is. We made several custom assembly tables, all the necessary tooling, etc, and put it all on a really big boat that set sail for China. So then, 13.5 hours on a Boeing 747 later, we're in HONG KONG, awaiting visas to go to the factory in China. After arriving in China, there was lots of work to do setting up all the tables, plumbing all the air lines, etc. My first trip there was for 3 weeks! ( been there 3 times ). China was very interesting. I could fill several pages with interesting stories. Aside from boring shaver assembly stuff, I will just say that traveling to China, being IN the factories, and seeing how things are done, it gave a whole new meaning to "made in China" on that little sticker on the bottom of your portable cd player. Here are a few China Pictures. After all the China stuff wound down, I moved back to Nebraska and moved in with my old high school buddy on the farm. During my first few months back home, I was working with Lance on the farm. (cattle) Ya, a slight change in direction I know. But that's what life is all about. Experiences. A typical day would include riding on the metal front rack on a 4-wheeler at a high rate of speed, hanging on for dear life while crossing rows of corn, chasing a sick 150 pound calf. When Lance got close enough, I would jump off and wrestle the calf to the ground. Then we'd load him up in the trailer and take him back for treatment. Another typical day would include being in the middle of a harvested field of corn in the middle of winter, in a Toyota pickup trying to catch a sick calf, only this time the calf's mother was right there. So after chasing the both of them all over the field, the mother is growing more and more impatient with us. If you don't know anything about cattle, I'll tell you, when you get behind a cow and yell at him "hey, ho, hey"!! They move. 99% of the time, that's all there is to it. However, when you anger a cow beyond his boiling point, they turn the other way and now you are face to face with an animal a few times your weight. And that is exactly what I was faced with when I jumped out of the truck, and tried to take down that mother's calf. She came at me full speed. I ran like you would not believe. The truck was about 50 yards away, and if I had run that fast at an NFL training camp, I would have started first string!! Luckily, the window was down, and I leapt into the air assuming the superman position and didn't even touch the door. I turned around and there she was. You could hear the air blasting out of her nose at what sounded like at least 50psi. That can be dangerous! Lance has had a couple times when he has very nearly been trampled. What a blast! Lots of good times on the farm. Anyway, back to Nebraska. My buddy's dad had bought a run-down truck stop that had been flooded by a river years prior. One day while working up at the feed lot getting ready to treat some sick cattle, Lance's dad told me to go down to where the truck stop was, and start cleaning up all the junk that was laying around. Okay. Next thing I knew, I was coordinating vendors to stock newly installed coolers, working with all the fuel pump installation guys, setting up the restaurant making sure all codes were met, coordinating with the electricians, heating and air conditioning contractors, doing all setup of banking for the checking account as well as payroll for 20 employees, setting up to accept all credit cards including several special credit cards that only truckers use. (nightmare) I even hung a lot of the drywall. Well, after that small project was finished, I managed it for a few months and then it became apparent to me, that it was time for me to move on. So, I packed up the u-haul again, along with my samoyed (Shamu), and headed back to California. More product development in California. We started into TOOTHBRUSHES! That's right. We built a better toothbrush. A two sided, manual toothbrush with bristles on both sides. We called it Remedent. We sold an admirable amount of brushes, even getting into several chain drug stores. Eventually we stopped manufacturing them and started in on an electric toothbrush. This product is called Hydrabrush and has 6 brushes, and 4 water jets. As of this writing, my dad and I are in the latter stages of designing a cordless, rechargeable version of Hydrabrush. And that's where I am now. I have a lovely wife from Vassar Michigan who supports the Cozy project to the fullest extent of the law. She loves to travel and she likes flying with me. Yes! Building the Cozy is my passion in life right now. I enjoy the cozyweb of builders, getting to know fellow canardians, and I dream of someday flying to airshows and parking my Cozy next to all the other guys who have cozy construction websites right now and shooting the breeze. They say it is an elite group, the pilots of canards. I didn't understand that for many chapters of construction. However, after investing 1,400 hours of evening and weekend time, and seeing that I'm still not even close to completion of this project, I now understand what it really takes to be a cozy pilot as opposed to a cozybuilder. When I go to airshows now, and I meet those who have flown their cozy to the airshow, I think to myself, "wow, he did it". "That guy did it". And that's a big deal. It takes patience, perseverance, determination, and organization, among others, and I hope some day I can be fortunate enough to be one of them.
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Email -- Jay Hegemann |