Robin
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2011
- Messages
- 249
- Reaction score
- 72
I’ve been on this forum for a couple of months, and love it! I was on a couple of other ones for years and never even aware of Piper Forum. I am so glad I was invited to join.
I started flying in Mexico, around 1961. That was exciting, and involved buying and selling fish and lobster. We made a tiny airstrip in the jungle out of a football field, and I rapidly became pretty good at short strips. In 1969 I moved to Grenada and bought an Apache, leading to ten years of flying air charters. Many of my flights were over 500 miles over water, and that’s why I started modifying my Seneca I. It was too slow and lousy on one engine.
As some of you know, I’m now in the mod business and have been for just over 30 years. I started Laminar Flow Systems with a kit for the Seneca, and a couple of years later expanded my certifications to include all Cherokee based planes.
Then in 1996, I moved from the USVI to Daytona Beach, Florida, where I remain to this day. Once here, I certificated the Power Flow Systems exhaust which I had spent a year designing and testing in 1984. I didn’t want to introduce it while I was in the V.I. because I was sure it would be copied, as all my other designs had been. Now we are on firmer ground, with no devastating hurricanes and their consequences. We’ve had a few, but the damage done was negligible. So, in 1997, I launched Power Flow Systems.
Power Flow has owned an Arrow II since 1997 but never sold an exhaust for it, as the gains did not match the ones we were accustomed to. These days it spends its life at a flight school.
Power Flow has outsold Laminar Flow since the very beginning, chiefly, I believe, because everyone understands power, but aerodynamic gains are less easy to quantify. I’m working on that, with Jimc’s help.
So, thanks for the invitation, Austin, I’m so glad I came.
Robin
Laminarflowsystems.com
I started flying in Mexico, around 1961. That was exciting, and involved buying and selling fish and lobster. We made a tiny airstrip in the jungle out of a football field, and I rapidly became pretty good at short strips. In 1969 I moved to Grenada and bought an Apache, leading to ten years of flying air charters. Many of my flights were over 500 miles over water, and that’s why I started modifying my Seneca I. It was too slow and lousy on one engine.
As some of you know, I’m now in the mod business and have been for just over 30 years. I started Laminar Flow Systems with a kit for the Seneca, and a couple of years later expanded my certifications to include all Cherokee based planes.
Then in 1996, I moved from the USVI to Daytona Beach, Florida, where I remain to this day. Once here, I certificated the Power Flow Systems exhaust which I had spent a year designing and testing in 1984. I didn’t want to introduce it while I was in the V.I. because I was sure it would be copied, as all my other designs had been. Now we are on firmer ground, with no devastating hurricanes and their consequences. We’ve had a few, but the damage done was negligible. So, in 1997, I launched Power Flow Systems.
Power Flow has owned an Arrow II since 1997 but never sold an exhaust for it, as the gains did not match the ones we were accustomed to. These days it spends its life at a flight school.
Power Flow has outsold Laminar Flow since the very beginning, chiefly, I believe, because everyone understands power, but aerodynamic gains are less easy to quantify. I’m working on that, with Jimc’s help.
So, thanks for the invitation, Austin, I’m so glad I came.
Robin
Laminarflowsystems.com
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