Pilots and airplanes

Pacific City on the Oregon Coast is home of a small air strip.  I wrote about it here.  Well we had a guest of honor here at The Craftsman B&B a few weeks ago.  A couple showed up at the door, I did not hear a car door, my usual alert to a guest arrival.  They got checked in and we found out they flew in for an over night stay.  Nothing out of the ordinary for us, we have had many guests fly in.  After talking for a bit, we discovered our guest is the founder and CEO of Van's Aircraft.

Mike has a friend, Dave who along with his father have been flying radio controlled airplanes and helicopter's for years.  Dave decided to get his pilots licence a few years ago and was talking about building his own airplane.  He wanted to build a Van's Aircraft plane, so Mike knew what his business was about and how popular his planes are for the home builder.

Mike used to race sports cars years ago.  He has met his share of engineers and self taught mechanics through out his racing career.  A few have been adventurous enough to build their own cars and planes.  Living not to far from Lawrence Livermore Labs, there were a lot of engineering and tech geeks all over.  Some of them also flew home built planes around the Bay area.  Mike has several friends who are pilots and knew how to talk the talk with them.  In the case of our guest, Mike was wise to just listen, as this guy knows all there is to know about a successful home built plane.

Based at the Aurora airport in Oregon, Van's has a lot of customers in the area.  One of our locals, who used to own the hardware store in town is building a Van's in his garage.  Pacific City is a good spot for local, Willamette Valley pilots to come for lunch and a day at the beach.  Fat Freddy's is a popular spot for the $100 hamburger.  A mile walk up the beach to the Pelican Pub is another popular spot.  But pilots must obey the bottle to throttle rule.  They must take some beer home with them...

No matter how you get here, we are always happy you found us.  Park your car or tie down you plane, Pacific City is the perfect little beach town to walk around, enjoy the shops and restaurants and most of all relax.