Would You Please Buy Me An Airplane? (Support AirPigz Today!)
Monday, December 31, 2012 at 08:52AM 
VW powered Nieuport 11 replica homebuilt for sale on barnstormers.com - $8,900
Use this donate button to support AirPigz and help me buy this airplane!
($220 in donations as of 3:59pm EST on 1.13.13)
This might be preposterous (btw, that's the first time I have ever spelled out preposterous in my life!) but I'm asking you to consider supporting AirPigz today with a least a $10 donation (or more, or much more if you are willing and able) so I can buy a very inexpensive flying machine. A great example, and one that I would absolutely consider if it's in good airworthy condition, is the Nieuport 11 replica pictured above that I found on barnstormers.com last night. It's a VW powered homebuilt with 160 TT and is available with an asking price of just $8,900. Just $10 from about 1,000 AirPigz friends gets me back in the air! I floated this idea on twitter and facebook last night and raised $50 already... so maybe I'm not so crazy afterall for asking : )
But why would you give me money to buy an airplane? Good question, and I'm glad you asked. Well, I have a list of reasons starting with the fact that I'm four years into running AirPigz.com and the total amount of revenue thus far is around $1,000. That's pretty sad. And there are many reasons for it... but it isn't because I haven't been working hard! It's also not because I don't have a pretty good sized audience... I am now solidly over 50,000 page views each month with 25,000 or more unique visitors each month. It's taken quite a while to get to that level, but that's a pretty good aviation audience for a one-man operation. Seems like a small donation to support the one-man-show efforts here at AirPigz isn't really so preposterous! (you paid how much for that fancy cup of coffee?)
Btw, this might be a good time to point out the CoolPix category here on AirPigz which includes a rather big collection of large images (many now also available in 'desktop image' sizes) - some are historical images, but many are photos I've captured and made available here for you to enjoy at no charge.
A weathered AirPigz logo and web address would look perfect on this Nieuport replica!
I have spent an unbelievable amount of time developing this website as a fun and interesting outreach, and as an entertainment tool for aviation. But the ads you've seen here on AirPigz (except for the book ads like the one currently at the top right) have been just me trading promotion or service with other avgeeks. The book ads are a good idea, but so far the revenue there isn't enough to cover my $20/month blog platform fee. And, in the last 18 months, my day job as a ceramic tile and hardwood/laminate installer has picked back up to the point that it's about all I can do to keep the quality content showing up here 5 to 7 days a week. There's not much time left for figuring out the enigma of generating internet revenue. Most all of my day-job income is still going toward undoing a pretty severe financial crisis that occured in 2008/2009... I'm still on the deep stall side of the power curve!
I'll happily answer any questions you have about my financial situation, but mostly I'd like to ask you to consider making a donation to support the quality avgeek content that I put out on a consistent basis... and if enough money comes in from this request to buy an airplane like this cute little Nieuport 11 replica, then you can feel good about putting a passionate avgeek, who has worked hard to bring the best of avgeekery to you, back in the air again. (I have about 1,000 total time but haven't been current since 1995)
Thank you for considering my request : )
Reader Comments (2)
Hi Martt, Mike here. It's taken a few days... I recall the EAA Chapter at Independence Oregon (between Portland and Salem) had a near-squadron of Nieuports, maybe a dozen. VW powered.
The first one built did the first takeoff... had enough lift to leave the ground but not enough airspeed to keep directional control, minor prang in between the runway and taxiway.
I think after that everybody held the wheels on the ground until they reached "yy" airspeed and then they were fine.
Mighty light aircraft, easy to roll around single-handed.
g'day from the Airbus Desk.
Mike- two thoughts: first, with the donations somewhat stuck at the $150 mark, there seems to be little chance that AirPigz support will wind up paying for an airplane for me! And second, a possible difference here that might make this Nieuport fly well is that the VW has a belt drive speed reduction for the prop. You can see it's swinging a pretty big prop which is something a direct drive VW just can't do. Maybe the one's you're speaking of also had reduction units, but it would seem that the light weight airframe and the availability of 60-75 hp (making good thrust) should make for a dandy little flying machine. Unfortunately, I will probably never know for sure : /