Category: Flying

EAA’s AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) was packed in 2018, no mean feat in what is supposedly a dying industry. Airplane parking at KOSH and general aviation camping were both full by Monday afternoon, the first official day of the event (a lot of folks arrive early).

My companions laughed at me for making an IFR reservation for our arrival. After we landed we heard about people who had been forced to hold for literally hours trying to get in on Saturday or Sunday (a lot of marginal VFR weather resulted in bottlenecks). IFR reservations via STMP aren’t that tough to get, even same-day, due to the fact that people make them and don’t confirm. We went out IFR as well.

If flying in and camping, my advice would be to arrive Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. By then a lot of campers have departed and some prime spots become available. You would still have four full days to enjoy the event. Make sure not to miss the night airshow, which is Wednesday and Saturday evenings. We were awed by Nathan Hammond doing aerobatics in an LED-festooned fireworks-launching Super Chipmunk. Like Burning Man, but without the dust storms!

One question that we couldn’t answer from EAA’s web site was “How do we park a car if we’re airplane camping at Oshkosh?” A friend drove in from Chicago and met us in our tent site. It turned out that the folks collecting the money for our camp site asked “Do you need a parking space for a car?” and for $10/day we got one right next to the beginning of the North 40. This was helpful for escaping “show food” at Manila and Gardina’s. It was also a pleasant way to get to the seaplane base.

We met several people who’d had mobile phones stolen from the charging stations distributed around the camp sites. The smart folks (i.e., not us) arrived with portable phone chargers so that they could charge a battery and keep their phones with them. Another dumb thing that we did was bring our own payload-robbing tie-down kit. EAA rents far better ones for use at the show for $20 ($30 minus $10 when returned). (The tie-down guys will also graciously let you charge a phone inside their shack, secure from the roving thieves!)

EAA does a remarkable job of keeping traffic moving during the show. Nonetheless, given the vagaries of flying in and the hassles of getting to and from the show by private car, I think the most sensible approach might be to stay in a University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh dorm room and catch the bus or an Uber to the center of EAA. Given that there are nonstop flights from everywhere in the U.S. to Chicago, it is a 2.5-hour drive from O’Hare Airport, and it is kind of nice to have a car at Oshkosh, there is no great argument to be made for flying in unless you’ve got an unusual plane to show off (our Avidyne-equipped Cirrus turns out to be one of 4,000 built!).

We paid up for the EAA Aviators Club (about $135 per day), which serves meals in an air-conditioned super-tent. We figured that it would be a necessary escape from the 95-degree heat and the crush of show crowds. 2018 turned out to be a relatively cool and comfortable year, however, and we got sick of the club buffet food pretty quickly. It was noisy inside the tent and it wasn’t difficult to get equally good seats for the airshow (if you were willing to carry folding chairs!). The owners’ lounge that Cirrus ran within its pavilion was actually a much better place to chill out, though it had no view of the flight line. On the third hand, it was nice to be able to charge our phones at the Aviators Club without worrying about having them stolen! And it was a convenient place to meet, pick up a cold seltzer, etc.

Interesting destinations we learned about…

• National WASP Museum in Sweetwater, Texas (unfortunately no parking on their ramp; why can’t there be more fly-in museums?)
• Dakota Territory Air Museum in Minot, North Dakota (some interesting warbirds that rotate through, plus a large permanent collection)

Interesting products that we saw…

• aural angle of attack project
• Flight Flix camera mounts. The example videos are impressively stable. The isolation is provided via an elastomer mount.
• Nulite ring lights that replace the hideous and uneven post lights in steam gauge aircraft such as Pipers and Robinsons (though I’m sure that Robinson would rip them right back out during a factory overhaul!)
• Dynon D3 Pocket Panel ($995 glass panel that does nearly everything that a $50,000 Garmin option package on a VFR-only Robinson R44 will do, and with essentially equivalent safety or that a $350,000 retrofit King AeroVue glass cockpit does in a King Air)

If the success of EAA AirVenture proves that general aviation isn’t dead, the pace of innovations for products on display proves that the general aviation industry is more or less dead. BendixKing is a great example of corporate suicide. They have an enormous installed base of transponders. Do they make a plug-compatible ADS-B IN/OUT replacement? No. They make a transponder that is ADS-B OUT only. So all of their customers are getting avionics shops to rewire for the Garmin 345. Why couldn’t BendixKing read the full ADS-B spec and implement it? Something that the portable electronics folks have managed to do for a few hundred dollars? Their folks at the show had no answer to this, though they acknowledged that they were losing customers every day to Garmin.

Avidyne is another good example of corporate suicide. They made roughly 4,000 PFD/MFD glass cockpits for Cirrus aircraft until the OEM switched to the Garmin G1000. Do they have an “in-the-box” solution for -G2 Cirrus owners that will put synthetic vision into the PFD and some ADS-B capabilities on the MFD? No. What are their customers doing? Converting to Garmin in a piecemeal fashion (soon it will be as tough to get maintenance for a Cirrus as for an old Cessna or Piper because the shop won’t have any idea what to expect for panel contents and wiring).

Speaking of suicide, how dangerous is it when 10,000 aircraft fly into a handful of airports in a small region for a week? KOSH supposedly saw 19,588 operations during an 11-day period (roughly 135 per hour during the 13 hours per day of official open time, so fairly close to a normal day at five-runway KATL (2,460 operations/day on average)). The NTSB database shows only four accidents in all of Wisconsin from July 1 through August 1, 2018. One of them was fatal, that of a 1950s DeHavilland Venom fighter jet. Some planes crashed before reaching Wisconsin, of course, but considering how many homebuilts and antiques gather it seems remarkably safe.

Airshow acts that I especially enjoyed:

• David Martin in a Beechcraft Baron (amazing to see what can be done without exceeding the limits of a normal-category airplane)
• Jim Peitz in an F33C Bonanza (amazing to see what can be done in a four-seat family airplane that was beefed up at the factory for aerobatics)
• Jeff Boerboon in a “Yak-110” (two Yak-55s glued together… with a turbojet engine stuck in the middle)
• Aaron Fitzgerald in the Red Bull Bo 105 helicopter (loops and rolls that you can do only once in a Robinson or Bell!)
• Patty Wagstaff in an Extra 330S
• Mike Goulian from our KBED home in an Extra 330SC
• Philipp Steinbach in the GB1 GameBird (see previous post)
• pair of Grumman F7F Tigercats (beautiful on the ground as well)

Least favorite airshow act: a synchronized drone array. These stayed pretty far from the crowd so it was essentially a bunch of lights that could have been replicated with a big TV (it is possible to project 3D onto 2D!). Unless the drones are all around a crowd I don’t understand why a 3D array of drones is more compelling to watch than a big TV (or your phone held up close to your eyes).

[Separately, would it still be fun to watch one of these aerobatics acts if entirely flown by computer? I couldn’t find anyone who thought it would be difficult to have software replicate the maneuvers, including adjusting for wind, of the aerobatic champions.]

The craziest people I met? A couple from Texas who spent 15 years building a turbine-powered Rotorway helicopter. He is a helicopter CFI so he plainly knows about the existence of used Robinson R22s! He now has 43 hours on the machine (half as many as one of our flight school’s R44s might fly in a busy summer month) and is already thinking about selling it to begin another project. Runner-ups: Essentially anyone who builds a kit airplane. The world is drowning in certified airframes. Why not take one, convert it to Experimental, and then do whatever is desired?

[Actually, the founder of EAA, Paul Poberezny, was a good example of this kind of craziness. He flew all kinds of high-performance aircraft in the USAF, including the P-51 Mustang. Then he came home to Wisconsin to build low-performance slab-sided airplanes and fly them. Imagine if a Ferrari race car driver decided to build dune buggies for fun.]

I’ve resolved to go to Oshkosh more frequently. In a world where almost everyone thinks it is crazy/stupid to fly light aircraft (why not buy a JetBlue ticket for $69 instead?), it is nice to be in an asylum for 100,000+ folks who love to fly despite the irrationality of it all.

Related:

• AirVenture streaming videos
• the official AirVenture 2018 Blu-Ray disk (ships November 2018)

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Two pilots in a Robinson R66 (plus ferry tank!) made it around the world in 97 days:

• article from the start of the trip
• article from the end
• the duo’s web site

Their motto is “Empowering People” (not to be confused with Shaesta Waiz‘s “Empowering Women” and “Inspiring Women”!). But how many people will feel “empowered” if they learn that doing this requires years of training and suitcases full of cash?

Related:

• “Two Robinson R66s Fly Around the World” (2017 Russian expedition)
• some calculations from the Ukrainians
• R-44 in the Smithsonian that has made the journey twice (solo female pilot with no autopilot)

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It is great to see the Blue Angels, but how many of us have the money and connections necessary to purchase an F/A-18?

At Oshkosh 2018 there were a couple of realistic aerobatic options to which ordinary humans can aspire.

The first is the GB1 GameBird, a solid block of carbon fiber whose design and certification was funded by the Walmart family fortune. Designer Philipp Steinbach awed the crowd with a demo of this magnificent machine, which can handle unlimited aerobatics (too bad the human body can’t handle the 19Gs to which the airframe was tested) more typical of a 1-seater but has two seats and a significant cross-country fuel capacity (84 gallons).

I asked the designer how this is different than the steel-tube-and-fabric Extra 330LT, purportedly a touring aerobatic two-seater:

Main difference to a 330LT is that the GB1 is fully aerobatic up to unlimited level, and has an empty weight of a 330SC. This, other than more performance, also makes for more legal payload, which is interesting for a flight school. The acrotank holds 25 gal, so there’s no need to switch tanks or ferry to the practice area on wingtanks etc.

Front cockpit has full engine instruments, throttle, mixture and prop, and access to radio and transponder. The airplane is not more difficult to fly or land than a Super Decathlon, but it is obviously a lot more responsive.

One of our local experts looked at the GB1:

The 25 gal acro tank is a huge plus. The Extra 300 has 10.6 gal (330 has 18.2) so you are pretty much a fuel emergency when you take off in the 300. This isn’t an issue at contests, but it is when you’re training students with the ferry time to the practice area. The training flights I did in the Extra — we took off with gas in the wings and ran them as low as we could, but we were never really sure they were empty before doing acro. Apparently some Extra owners have had to do some invasive maintenance to replace fuel cells from doing acro with gas in the wings.

He is right about most advanced and unlimited aircraft not being true 2-pilot airplanes. The pitts/eagle family absolutely cannot do legal acro with two 180lb men in the aircraft. I’ve had to teach myself snap rolls and inverted spins because I can’t fly with an instructor in my Eagle. I think the extra isn’t as limited as the pitts, but still limited.

The company is certifying this VFR-only aircraft with the Garmin G3X PFD, designed for experimentals. The cost? $400,000. When you consider that the Super Decathlon, designed mostly in the 1940s, is $260,000+, you’re getting all of the design and certification for free. Another way to look at this airplane is that it cruises as fast and nearly as far as a Cirrus SR22. It holds two people rather than four, but it costs only half as much. (On the third hand, with no autopilot or IFR certification, the GB1 might arrive a week after the SR22 if the weather is not cooperative!) I’m going to try to visit the factory in Bentonville, Arkansas. (It was already on “A 48-state tour of the U.S. by light aircraft“)

The other realistic way to be the envy of everyone at the airport… the L-39 experts at Code 1 Aviation have managed to stuff a conventional bizjet engine into the Czech trainer: press release. They’ve done four of these so far and it can cost as little as $250,000 to get an as-removed Garrett/Honeywell engine from a parked bizjet, with at least 1,000 hours to go, and install it in the L-39. Considering that a decent L-39 can be purchased for as little as $200,000, the total package need not cost much more than a GameBird. The bizjet engine results in longer range, faster cruise speed, lighter weight, much faster throttle response (less spool-up time), and certainly far easier maintenance. (The L-39 Wikipedia page says that the OEM is trying to do this as well, putting a 1980s Williams FJ44 engine into the plane and calling it an “L-39NG”. Pricing will probably not be civilian-friendly!)

The L-39 was certified to only +8/-4G so it can’t do the crazy RC-style maneuvers of the GameBird. The Code 1 folks don’t recommend going beyond 7G with the civilian engine installed. However, an L-39 certainly looks cool! The full L-39X will cost $850,000 to $1 million and includes a lot of additional upgrades.

An L-39X was parked at Oshkosh and you could see a lot of folks adding it to their wishlist.

If hangar rents come down and mechanics become more available… we should buy one of each!

Related:

• it would be nice if the Auto-GCAS system from the F-16 could be put into both of these; there have been a lot of accidents in the aerobatics world that could have been prevented by software and sensors

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Shaesta Waiz gave some talks in the Honeywell/BendixKing booth at Oshkosh. While the company has been forcing most of its customers to convert to Garmin, e.g., by making transponders that do ADS-B OUT but not IN and by failing to come up with a replacement for the CRT-based EFIS systems that it sold through about 2008, Honeywell/BendixKing has done some work with Internet connectivity for aircraft and Ms. Waiz used their AeroWave system for her 145-day 22-country 182-hour round-the-world trip in a 2001 Bonanza. She began the flight with 750 hours of flying experience, which included 200 hours of Bonanza time and a lot of instruction by Fred Furgang, a Bonanza expert.

One of Waiz’s themes is that women need to be “empowered” and “inspired” to become pilots (so that they can join men in doing a worse job than the software in a DJI drone?). Her talk, though, suggested that women actually have an easier time accomplishing aviation projects than do men (certainly they can be hired by a U.S. major airline with much less experience; see “The purported airline pilot shortage“). She called up ICAO to tell them about her plan and the international bureaucrats there got national bureaucrats worldwide fired up to help out. Male round-the-world pilots had told Ms. Waiz to expect nightmares in Egypt regarding airspace access, airport access, and 100LL fuel access. When Ms. Waiz showed up, however, the Egyptians had assigned female air traffic controllers to every sector through which she traveled (i.e., without being inspired by Americans, Egyptian women have somehow gotten sufficiently into aviation to be able to work Center, Approach, Tower, and Ground!). When she landed, instead of being greeted by soldiers holding automatic rifles she was greeted by 11 officials from the Egyptian equivalent of the FAA.

How oppressed are women in Afghanistan, from which Waiz’s parents migrated as refugees (then reared six daughters in California, including Ms. Waiz herself)? No insurance company wanted to deal with the risk of a Bonanza in Kabul so Ms. Waiz flew there commercially from Dubai for a 2.5-day break. Cut to next slide: Waiz in a meeting with the President of Afghanistan. Would he have met with a male round-the-world pilot?

Waiz shows up to Christmas Island and finds that there are two residents with pilot certificates… both women. If more men than women are pilots in the U.S. and Europe, is this simply an example of “The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM” (Atlantic)?

Readers: Is airline promotion of more women going into aviation (example from United) a sign of righteous altruism or simply that they would like to pay lower wages as a result of larger labor supply? (like a Silicon Valley employer promoting immigration and #Resisting Trump!)

Some practical tips: Controllers outside of the U.S. and Europe aren’t accustomed to light aircraft having to deviate around weather. “Deviating right” will upset them. “Flying to Fix XYZ” is a better way to explain a decision to abandon a flight plan route. Those crazy long over-water legs are less plagued with bad weather and over-land routes. An exception is the inter-tropical convergence, a reliably horrible place to be flying due to convection (claimed the lives of those aboard Air France 447, for example, though mostly due to primitive flight control software plus pilot error).

Regardless of pilot gender ID, is flying around the world in a single-engine piston airplane a good way to inspire people regarding STEM? The engineers who created the Bonanza (first flight 1945) and its engine likely died at least 25 years ago. It is mechanics who enable continued flights in Bonanzas, not engineers or scientists. Also, isn’t flying long distances over water in a Bonanza actually ignoring what we’ve learned from engineering? Engineers have given us multi-engine and turbine-engine aircraft that render the journey much safer and more comfortable.

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We attended an interesting talk by Craig Barnett of Scheme Designers at Oshkosh and learned more than we thought possible about aircraft paint. (See EAA Webinar version for the images.)

Other than working to develop new designs for manufacturers, why does his job exist? Why wouldn’t people just paint an old plane in the latest factory scheme? Barnett says that if there have been any changes in the airframe design people will look at it and perceive that someone is trying to tart up the old plane with lipstick.

Why paint any design at all? Why not paint the plane white and wrap it with plastic, the way that modern commercial vehicles are done? He said that AircraftWraps will do this for you but that the wraps don’t work as well on planes as they do on cars. Panels come off every year for inspection. Exhaust gets into the vinyl (the “tailpipe” of a plane is not at the tail). Sun exposure is bad, though solid vinyl stripes last longer than printed (Our 2005 Cirrus SR20 is all-white with some vinyl stripes from the factory and it still looks pretty good after a mostly-hangared 13 years.) Barnett’s choice for elaborate designs is to bring in an airbrush artist and put the design into paint. He does caution that any kind of paint scheme that involves a fade will be difficult to touch up if damaged.

Barnett recommended a dark color on the bottom of the plane (a “split base”) for a clean appearance (belly oil won’t show) and also for “more ramp presence” and 60-70 percent of his clients choose this. He is not a fan of the polished spinner: “painted spinners add length to the plane.” What if the whole aircraft is polished? Barnett was a fan of LoPresti Knot Wax as a sealant (I can’t find any source for this).

One of Barnett’s ideas was to consider adding a paint design to the top of the wing “so that you can enjoy it while flying.”

Wherever there is an aircraft owner wealthy enough to purchase a repaint there is a potential family court plaintiff and lawyer standing by. Barnett said “use the wife’s initials in the tail number” to reduce the risk of being sued for divorce. (The talk was in Wisconsin and therefore there was no limit on the profits that could have been earned via a casual sexual encounter during AirVenture. A litigator might want to set up shop at the adjacent BeerVenture, run by a landowner who has thus far rebuffed EAA’s attempts to buy him out; BeerVenture has a big sign promising “Bikini Bartenders”)

When it is smart to have a wild ugly paint scheme? He show ZS-OHK, a flight school’s plane in South Africa. They paint their Cessnas in crazy patterns and park them next to a road where customers are drawn in.

Barnett showed a lot of ugly and “not smart” designs. One bad idea is interrupting stripes to stick in a tail number. The tail number needs to be part of the design. Stripes should follow airflow. The tail has to balance the rest of the plane.

What about coming up with a design for a Cirrus? Barnett explained that the reason newer Cirruses are no longer simply white is that the factory worked with Sherwin-Williams (the “Jet Glo” folks) to develop paints of color (not “colored paints”!) that reflect sufficient light/heat to be used on a composite aircraft. But why are these schemes mostly so ugly? Barnett says that the challenge of designing a scheme for the Cirrus is that the plane is “pregnant” (let’s look to our own waistlines rather than blaming Duluth for this!). So a paint scheme has to distract the viewer’s eye from the fundamental shape of the airplane, unlike with, say, a TBM where the shape is inherently attractive.

Cirrus had brought some “Carbon Exterior” schemes to the show and we liked them better than any of the previous factory schemes. How to adapt this scheme to an older plane? Replace the “CARBON” on the tail with “NOT CARBON”?

Where to get all of this done? We heard good things about KD Aviation in Newburgh, New York, Flying Colors in Benton Harbor, Michigan (not to be confused with Flying Colours Corp., painters of Gulfstreams), and Corrigan in Hondo, Texas (they do Gulfstreams but somehow are also able to paint small planes at a reasonable cost).

Nobody could answer the question of why this labor-intensive craft of sanding down and refinishing airplanes has not migrated to Mexico. In fact, Mexican owners are flying their planes up to Texas for paint! Econ 101 would never have predicted that. Mexicans don’t come up to Colorado to find wood craftsmen to build stuff in their houses. Why can’t this skill be developed and practiced down in Mexico where labor is comparatively inexpensive?

[Based on my visits to U.S. paint shops, every person holding a sander up to a Gulfstream in a 100-degree hangar has identified as a man. So I had to refrain from asking when there would be a social justice movement to get Americans who identify as women into this career.]

My current dream: Strip off all of the factory stripes on the SR20. Buff the white paint. Apply wraps and decals that make the entire plane look like a golden retriever. By the time it reaches the 5-year point that Barnett says is the life of a vinyl-based job, the novelty will have worn off.

Related:

• Barnett EAA Webinar: “Designing the Perfect Paint Scheme”

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I attended the EAA Innovation Forum at Oshkosh. Note the Piper Seminole, certified in 1978 with engines dating to 1955, parked in front of the adjacent “Innovation Showcase”:

Pat Anderson, a professor at Embry-Riddle, pointed out that the early jets were re-engined prop airframes. It took a few years before the wings and fuselage caught up to the new powerplant. Similarly, he thinks that electric propulsion will result in aircraft that bear little resemblance to today’s single-engine piston airplanes.

Mike Sennett, an executive at Boeing, proceeded to talk about how 800,000 new pilots will be needed to staff the 42,700 new airliners predicted for delivery over the next 20 years (the fleet will double from 2017-2037 with huge growth in Asia). Mr. Sennett noted that aviation went from being perceived as high risk in the 1920s and 1930s to being super safe now (40,000 car-related deaths per year in the U.S. versus 0 in a typical year from airliners). [One wag, noting all of the “WomenVenture” T-shirts that had been handed out to pilots identifying as female, said “Now that airline flying is risk-free they want to get women into these jobs.”] Sennett sees a lot of growth opportunity in air freight. Currently only 1 percent of freight goes by air (35 percent by value). Boeing’s big drives are autonomy, AI, and electric propulsion. Maybe those 800,000 new pilots will turn into 1 new computer program?

After the two gray-haired guys got off the stage, a bearded California hipster began speaking. Adam Warmoth, of Uber Elevate, looked to be about 25. He explained that, within 25 years (i.e., by the time he reaches “GA age”), 6 billion people will be living in cities. The result will be that transportation grinds to a halt. People will spend hours in traffic if they want to go somewhere that is not within walking distance. Uber is going to fix all of this, at least for customers that can spend about $100 per trip, with electric aircraft that can make 25-mile trips within monster cities such as Los Angeles. The goal is a 150 mph aircraft that can hold 4 paying customers. Uber is designing common reference models that manufacturers can grab and use. Their goal is to be up and running in LA by 2023(!).

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I am just back from Oshkosh. Thanks to the readers who got up for my 0830 presentation on helicopter aerodynamics and maneuvers!

Let me start a series of postings on the event with Icon Aircraft, a great example of the typical path for a new general aviation manufacturer. I summarized the experience with “In case you missed the 2010 show, Icon was there with the same booth, the same promised delivery timeline, the same aircraft, and more than double the price tag.” The two-seat Icon A5 (my 2010 review) will now be over $400,000 with a few options, i.e., enough to purchase a fleet of 8 four-seat Cessnas on floats!

By contrast, Pipistrel was there with an interesting electric self-launching motor glider (complete with solar charging trailer for about $160,000; this was an already-delivered-to-the-customer plane, not a prototype) as well as their usual slate of Slovenian wonders. Cirrus also impressed with their steady stream of improvements to the SR2x series. They provided superb on-site customer support. An SR22 pilot camped near us managed to lock himself out of the plane. The Cirrus folks had thoughtfully brought a complete set of all possible keys to the show and had him back in his plane within a couple of hours. Cirrus also ran an owners’ lounge within their pavilion, complete with air-conditioning and cold drinks (though temps never got into the 90s).

Cirrus seems to be the prime force in light GA for personal transportation. The Cirrus owners’ group dinner was attended by over 700 people. Nearly every row in the campground contained a Cirrus. We met an Italian SR22T owner who flies over every year. This year it took four days to reach Oshkosh from Italy: “Once you get above 20,000′ in the Arctic there are never any clouds.” He had the plane packed with three guys, North Atlantic survival gear, etc. Cirrus is the only mass-produced and mass-maintained family airplane out there. The company had a “7,000 edition” plane parked in front of its pavilion. That’s not huge compared the 18,000-airplane-per-year rate achieved in the late 1970s (nytimes), but everyone else today seems to doing things on a hand-crafted basis. Despite having purchased an SR20 factory-new in 2005, I have been kind of a skeptic regarding the company’s claims to be revolutionizing GA. The parachute seemed like a gimmick when the engine was new. Now that it is approaching 2,000 hours I feel differently about it!

Here’s EAA’s “Innovation Showcase”. The Piper Seminole parked in front was certified in 1978. It is powered by engines that were first run in 1955.

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This is mostly a note to myself, but others might use this too. Everyone listed here is speaking/teaching at EAA AirVenture 2018.

For 16 years, Ramona Cox has flown her Cessna TU-206 into highly remote and challenging wilderness airstrips SOLO air-camping for months at a time. She fishes daily and hunts with a recurve bow while dodging wolves, bear and mountain lion. (Why a 6-seat 206 for someone camping “solo”? Maybe the payload and space is for elk carcasses?)

Dick Rutan received his solo pilot’s & driver’s license on his 16th birthday. A fighter pilot in the Air Force, he flew 325 missions in Vietnam. After the Air Force, Dick joined his brother, Burt, at Rutan Aircraft Factory & flew test flight programs of many types of experimental aircraft. In 1981, he founded Voyager Aircraft to complete the first world flight.

Shaesta Waiz, founder of the non-profit Dreams Soar, Inc., flew around the world solo in a Beechcraft Bonanza A36 aircraft in 2017, becoming the youngest woman to circumnavigate the globe in a single-engine aircraft. Born in an Afghan refugee camp, Shaesta is the first certified civilian female pilot from Afghanistan. [Afghanistan has a population of over 35 million.]

Gus Hawkins: After the May 2, 2009, crash of his experimental aircraft, Mr. Hawkins found that there were no readily available resources to help pilots overcome their doubts and fears and return to flying after an accident. Back To The Cockpit endeavors to provide multiple resources to help accident pilots. [Anyone can brag about his or her successes. But it takes real courage to come out and say “I built it. I crashed it. I am here to talk about it.”]

Mark Skoog, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center Principle Investigator for autonomy. Over the past 37 years I have supported numerous NASA and the Air Force fighter and UAV research efforts as well as initial flight test of the F-16 and B-2. Work has included integration of digital flight controls and avionics with high authority autopilots to automatically accomplish all phases of fighter combat missions as well as full vehicle autonomy.

Walter Fellows, Owner, Composite Creations Business-Gweduck Amphibian Aircraft Kit Sudied Aeronautical Engineering at University of Washington after retirement Instrument rated private pilot Previous career international and domestic investment and commercial banking

Kate Sampson, NOAA (see “Merry Christmas to the Sea Turtles“), giving Thursday and Friday afternoon talks about sea turtle flying.

Gao Yuanyang is the director of General Aviation Industry Research Center of BUAA (Beihang University of Aeronautics and Astronautics).Ph.D.,a famous general aviation industry expert,China Private aircraft owners and pilots Association (AOPA-China) deputy secretary general (talking about GA in China)

Dick Cole, the last of the Doolittle Raiders. (What kind of bravery do you need to take off from an aircraft carrier in an aircraft not designed for carrier operations and knowing that landing at an airport is unlikely?)

Readers who are going to Oshkosh: Which presentations and presenters are you excited about?

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About 15 years after the introduction of reliable inexpensive digital sources of attitude (is the aircraft pitched up or down?), a slew of new autopilots was announced at Oshkosh this year:

• S-TEC 3100, from the company that made all of the Cirrus autopilots for the first 10 (pre-Garmin) years. This includes envelope protection (nudge the plane back towards a reasonable attitude if crazily pitched or banked, even while the pilot is hand-flying) and “straight and level” panic button.
• King KFC 230 AeroCruze (they defrosted a marketing expert from the 1960s to name this thing?)
• Garmin GFC 500 and GFC 600, which might be the most innovative: “Both autopilot systems drive servos manipulated by brushless DC motors and a gear train that eliminates the need for a mechanical slip clutch, both of which reduce maintenance and improve reliability and longevity.” (An avionics installer/maintainer told me that previous generations of Garmin servos/clutches were notable for requiring substantial annual inspections/tests, so it is unclear whether these work better than competitors’ legacy actuators or if they are simply better than Garmin’s legacy actuators.)

Note that these folks are mostly playing catch-up to Avidyne, which certified its DFC90 in 2012.

The ADS-B IN capability that most $100 million airliners won’t get until 2025 (or ever?) due to certification hassles is now available in a mass-market $200 version to use with your iPhone: Scout.

Separately, in this Year of Avionics, Dynon is certifying its inexpensive glass panel that has been limited to experimental (home-built) aircraft. A Cessna 172 from the 1960s can have a better panel than a new one with a Garmin G1000!

If you like things that run off electricity, why not run the whole airplane? Aero Electric seems to have revoked the laws of physics with a four-seat 2700 lb. (Cessna 172 is 2,400 lb. gross weight) battery-powered airplane with “four-hour endurance.” (With the technology of 2012, “Gasoline [had] about 100 times the energy density of a lithium-ion battery” (APS).)

No Oshkosh report is complete without mentioning Icon. They’ve delivered 6 out of 1800 airplanes ordered.

Related:

• Aviation News from Oshkosh (2014)
• Oshkosh Wrap-Up (2010)
• Some news from Oshkosh (2007)
• NBAA 2015 wrap-up report (2015; bizjet world as a contrast)
• Sun n Fun report (2017)
• my own Icon A5 review from 2010

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