Oshkosh: Day 5: See Spot Run, Sea Plane Fly

Today was the day! My first time ever in a sea plane! My appointment for the flight was at 0900 so we made sure to get an early start on the morning commute. The weather looked perfect, but the morning temperature looked more amenable to jeans and a long sleeve T-shirt than the normal summer garb. Besides which I hoped to be flying at 100mph with the canopy open in just a few short hours. After having been caught in flagrante delicto with my pants down during a clothing change just a couple of days ago, I decided that the jeans would have to see me through the day and the sleeves could always be rolled up if it got too hot.

The Weather-out-the-Windshield&trade forecast indicated that we would have what can only be called perfect flying weather:

We made good time up the highway, but my planning had failed to account for the increased crowd at Oshkosh brought out by the Chamber of Commerce weather and the end of the work week. The line for parking was longer and slower than that to which I had become accustomed and I soon made the first of what was ultimately be many worried glances at my watch. We got the car parked and arrived at the shuttle bus pick-up point just a couple of minutes after 0800, the scheduled departure time for the first bus. Egg took the opportunity to protect herself against the strong sun:

The bus finally arrived just before 0825 which should have left us plenty of time, but the combination of a passenger that exhibited incredible difficulty in accomplishing the complex task of counting out three dollar bills and the most timid bus driver on the surface of the planet extended the time of the trip such that we arrived with only five minutes remaining before the appointed hour. I was a nervous wreck by then.

We hustled down the trail to the seaplane base only to find the SeaRey table empty. A few minutes later a company representative arrived and told me that they were running late due to some demos of a competing company’s new plane. Phew, was that a relief! That gave Egg and I a few minutes to wander around enjoying the pleasant weather and scenery:

My turn to fly came around about a half hour later and I waded out to the plane with the demo pilot, who also turns out to be the guy that designed the plane in the first place. How cool is that? I found it a lot easier to climb into the plane than I did the last time, the previous experience having taught me how not to do it. The pilot started up the Rotax engine and I quickly adjusted to the higher RPM that the Rotax turns as compared to my Lycoming. It was interesting to hear the sound of the engine coming from the back of the plane rather than the front, but that too quickly began to feel normal.

We taxied out from the beach a wee bit and then it was full steam ahead. I was again aware of the screamingly high RPM of the Rotax, but even more exotic was the incredible sensation of speed as we raced across the water accelerating to takeoff speed. You sit right down on the water in a SeaRey, almost as low as in my kayak. The only time I remember having a similar feeling of moving way too fast in the RV-6 is when I haven’t flown for awhile and have lost my acclimation to the pace at which things happen. After a relatively short takeoff roll run, we briskly climbed out in a right turn around a corner of the coast. I pulled the canopy fully open to get an idea of how much breeze there would be (which was about the same as I get on the highway in the Miata with the top down) and how pictures would look without a layer of plexiglass interfering.

Canopy closed:

Canopy open:

Pretty good, I’d say. I tried to sneak a cameo of the pilot, but he caught me:

Not wanting to play the tourist for the entire ride, I set down the camera for a few minutes and asked if I could get a feel for the controls. Now, I ask that you keep in mind that my regular ride is by no means a fair basis of comparison due to its very responsive controls, but it’s all I have to go on. With that in mind, I would describe the roll control to be a bit more ponderous that the RV’s. It takes much more stick travel to generate much less roll, in other words. But the funny thing is that I didn’t feel like that was a fault with the plane. On the contrary, it felt very solid, it stayed where I put it, and I could see where it would be quite an appropriate and welcome thing for doing aerial photography.

That said, I noticed that it seemed to require much more elevator back force to hold altitude in the turn than I would have expected. As I experimented with it some more, I developed the impression that it is not all that responsive in pitch. This opinion is based on just a handful of minutes at the stick and should only be given the credence deserved of an initial impression, but I think I would have liked just a bit more response. I also have to caveat this with the statement that I don’t think we were going very fast. I think the flaps were at 10 or 20 degrees and we were loafing along at 70-ish mph. That would certainly make a difference.

I also felt that a bank angle of 45 degrees made the wing want to continue into the roll and that I was having to hold some opposite aileron to keep it from doing so. I tried the same thing later when we had the flaps up and were going faster and found that that feeling went away. I suspect that it is something you would just get used to.

I also tried the rudder response in flight and found that I could control the airplane in the roll axis solely with rudder input if I wanted to.

I relinquished control back to the pilot and let him demonstrate a stall. That was a complete non-event. Again compared to the RV, it was a very benign stall that arrived at the laughably slow speed of 35-ish mph.

We then spent some time down low, often below treetop height, cruising along the banks of the lake. That was simply one of the most incredible things I’ve ever done in an airplane! We flew low enough that people in boats could wave at us as we zipped by. One of the closest wavers was what looked to be a rather attractive and aviation-enthused woman on a boat. I commented to the pilot that learning that SeaRey’s were Babe Magnets came as a pleasant surprise, but that it wasn’t necessarily a feature that would sway the Co-owner. He replied that down in Florida it’s not all that uncommon for the women to remove their tops and flash him as he flew by.

That reminded me to ask him how well the plane performed in slow flight.

Quite well, as it turns out. With just a little power you can float along at 40mph to your heart’s (and libido’s) content.

Our half hour was regrettably coming to and end. As we headed back to base I asked a few questions about speeds and fuel burns and found them to be typical for a Rotax powered LSA, albeit with a notable speed cost due to the dragginess of the landing gear and pillar-mounted engine. All aircraft designs require trade-offs and the trade of 20mph for the opportunity to see naked boaters land on water seems reasonable.

The landing was again something new and unique to me. Sitting so low to the water while we flared for the landing presented a sight picture that is known only to seaplane pilots and those guys that forget to put their landing gear down before landing their Mooney or Bonanza. The sense of immense speed was again something only familiar to me when I’m making my first landing after a lengthy layoff from flying.

There was quite a crowd watching our return. I felt almost like Harrison Ford when he lands at Oshkosh to meet an adoring crowd:

Of course it was the plane that they came to see, but the feeling was the same. I was worried that I’d trip on the way out of the plane and make an ignominious splashdown in front of the crowd, but managed to simply make an ungainly but non-humorous exit.

I was famished after all that excitement, and because I had skipped breakfast. They’re trying to sell those SeaReys, after all, and who would want to buy one if the thing was covered with someone else’s breakfast?

Which reminds me. Apropos of nothing, I admit, but I’m wondering if Oshkosh can develop some kind of Port-O-Let etiquette guide. Inviolable Rule Number One: close the damn toilet lid. No one wants to see that!

Anyway, the food is much better at the Seaplane base than it is at the homogeneous corporate concessions over at the main show, so Egg got herself a hot fudge sundae and I got a black (or red, I guess) Angus shredded beef sandwich. It was fantastic:

I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around with Wingman Ted and/or his lovely wife looking at the Classic planes and touring the Aeroshell square. I’ll share just a handful of pictures:

We’re back at the West Bend Data Center now where Co-pilot Egg is taking a much deserved nap. We’re going to pack up the car tonight and hit the rode at roughly 0300 in the morning. We’re both anxious to get home, and I’m holding a probably futile and naive hope that we can get through the Chicago bottleneck relatively easily at 0600 on a Saturday morning. This has been the best Oshkosh experience I’ve ever had, but that’s not going to keep me for surpassing it next time, whenever that may be.

Oh, and did I mention that I simply must have a SeaRey?

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Oshkosh: Day 4 – Fun That Sticks to Your Ribs

The wonderful weather was too good to last. Here’s today’s Weather-out-the-Windshield&trade to give you an idea of what Wisconsin summer weather had in store for us today:

Fortunately Egg works indoors at the booth and I had saved a couple of sheltered events in reserve for just such an eventuality. I had also thought ahead far enough while packing for the trip to bring not just one but two water resistant jackets. Of course, by the time I took this picture about halfway through our morning commute to Wittman Field, both jackets were safe and dry hanging in the closet back in the hotel room. My only hope was that we’d get through the worst of the weather before arriving at the airfield.

And yet again the fundamental truth that Hope is not a strategy was proven true. The weather remained every bit as cruddy throughout the remainder of the drive. We had umbrellas in the car so all was not lost, although Egg’s favorite pass time of spinning her umbrella and drenching me with the resulting horizontal rain ensured that I was wet and cold by the time I dropped her off at work.

It was 0825 by that time and my special “dry” activity for the morning started at 0830 so I had to boogie on over to the Workshop area to get there in time for the start of the Gas Welding program. As I was just about the last to arrive, the best I could get was a seat that was only 78% under shelter. Some is better than none, so I counted my blessings (final answer: 12.3) and endured the discomfort. It helped that gas welding is a completely new endeavor for me and was therefore engrossing enough to at least partially (roughly 61%) distract me from the cold rain dripping down my back.

The lecture was scheduled to take an hour but was needlessly slowed by the “there’s one in every class” jackass that wanted to spend our time arguing with the presenter on the topic of whether (or ‘weather’? No, @tendancer, I’ll avoid the temptation) or not oxygen – propane welding is as suited to the task of airplane building as oxygen – acetylene welding. Happily the argument was ended when the pompous jerk stormed (heh, I couldn’t help that one) off in disgust.

Once the lecture was completed, it was time for the hands-on portion of the class. We worked through the ins and outs of properly lighting the torch and how to “run a bead” on a piece of scrap metal. When my turn came, the older guy tutoring me felt that I was having a hard time holding the welding torch still because I was too tense. He said that I was so tense that my hands were shaking. I had to point out that stress had nothing to do with it – my hands were shaking because I was freezing! Figuring that a quality welding experience was a lost cause under the conditions, I apologized and beat a hasty face-saving retreat to the EAA merchandise building where I hoped to procure an appropriate outer garment for the inclement conditions.

As luck would have it I found a nice nylon zipper jacket with a hood and an embroidered EAA logo on sale marked down $20. Even at the reduced price it was still fairly expensive, so I had to forgo a purchase of an EAA sun hat that I had hoped to make. Maybe next year. As I was paying the nice lady at the cash register I was unable to resist pointing out the lack of retail acumen on display in the store. It’s Business 101, really. When it’s cold and rainy outside, you mark the price of water resistant jackets up, not down. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. The jacket made all the difference and I ended up wearing it for the rest of the day.

As I was heading back to the gas welding workshop, I realized that I didn’t really want to try again. Unlike my positive experience with fabric covering, I realized that I simply didn’t have a burning (really, I can’t help it!) desire to weld. Maybe I’ll feel differently if I ever get a chance to try it again under better conditions, but for now I’m going to forget about it.

I reached this conclusion just as I was passing the Adult Rib Workshop. The ‘adult’ in this case is not to be taken in the same sense as, say, Adult Bookstore. What it refers to in this context is that it is not the same wing rib workshop as the one where kids are allowed to play along. This one is restricted to age 13+ (and really, one could argue that a 13 year old is still a kid) with the further restriction that only those 16 and above may operate the power belt sanders. Building a wooden wing rib seemed like a fun thing to do and I thought Egg might be interested in participating as well.

We had a great time cutting lengths of wood and arranging them into the proper arrangement using the templates provided by EAA. We used T-88 epoxy to glue the joints, then glued gussets on top of each joint to add strength. It was still cold, so the epoxy was slower than usual to set up. With the glue still sticky, we couldn’t use the power sanders to sand off the overhanging gusset material so these still look pretty rough:

It was fun. It was relaxing. And you know what’s coming next… I simply must build a wooden airplane. Fortunately, wooden airplanes are fabric covered so it’s not a matter of shifting priorities yet again.

Being at Oshkosh has a very distinct advantage in this kind of scenario. No matter what idea comes into your head, it’s a simply matter to search out a solution. In this case it was the Fisher Flying Products booth. FFP sells complete kits for all-wood, fairly low cost airplanes. I particularly like The Youngster:

Here’s an example of the typical wing construction technique:

The cost? $8,500 for the kit, about $4,000 for a VW engine conversion. Not bad!

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Oshkosh: Day 3: The other Oshkosh

I often hear it said that Oshkosh has drifted from its roots. I don’t go far enough back to have a firm opinion on the topic, but even in the decade that I’ve been going I’ve noticed that it is becoming more and more commercial. Major sponsors like John Deere, Ford, and Honda are ubiquitous. The Experimentals, Classics, and Warbirds are still there, but are geographically placed on the fringes of the show. Center stage is chock full of factory builts like Cessna, Cirrus, Mooney, Piper, and many others. Airplanes of interest are often layered five rows deep in spectators and tire kickers, often making it nearly impossible to gather any meaningful information. The kit plane dealers are relegated to an area well past the main drag. Hungry and thirsty patrons line up for 45 minutes for the privilege of paying $2.75 for a bottle of water and $3.50 for a hot dog.

There’s benefit to this, of course, in the form of ever-improving amenities on the airport grounds. But something has been lost as well. That’s not entirely true; it hasn’t been lost, but it’s been pushed to the rear. What’s missing in the majority of the Oshkosh experience is the relaxed atmosphere and the tight focus on the sport facet of aviation. There is, however, one remaining outpost of sanity: the seaplane base. Or, as I call it, The Other Oshkosh.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Today’s Weather-out-the-Window&trade forecast is brought to you by Co-pilot Egg. She’s been craving some behind the wheel time on our commutes to and from Oshkosh and today was her first chance:

With her driving, I was able to unclench my white knuckles just long enough to grab today’s forecast:

Very, very nice! Perfect weather in all aspects. Well, prefect right up until the time it mattered most, but I’ll get to that later.

Our first stop was, as usual, dropping her at the Girls With Wings booth for another day of volunteer work. We stopped at the front gate for a commemorative photo:

Then it was through the gates. I have perfected what I’ve taken to calling the Oshkosh Salute. That’s where you briskly raise your arm in a half salute to disply your wrist band to the folks guarding the admission gates. I tried to get Egg to so it in synch with me but she says it’s embarrassing. The net result of that will be pretty much what you’d expect: I’m going to use an even more dramatic flourish now.

I snapped a picture of this sign as I walked by:

As if!! I can only wish that were true!

Egg gets a kick out of the Butt Cans, presumably because she’s still in the age group that thinks anything involving the word ‘butt’ is funny. She didn’t immediately grasp what they were for, so I told her they were stools that you could sit and rest on. She didn’t believe. It would appear that those halcyon days of easy gullibility are long lost. Or, perhaps in this case it’s because even the most cursory examination of the device would show how distinctly uncomfortable such a seating arrangement would be. Either way, I took the picture because I liked the old guy sitting there out of the heavy traffic zones planning out his day:

Once I had dropped her off at work, I backtracked back to the shuttle bus area to catch a ride to the seaplane base. It’s probably obvious to you all that seaplanes are far more functional when they are on or near water, and it should come as no surprise that water (other than the pricey potable $2.75 stuff) is not very abundant on the Oshkosh airport grounds. Instead they have a spot over on the banks of Lake Winnebago that they use for the seaplanes. It’s only a 10 minute ride, but it’s like rolling back the clock 30 or more years. The bus drops you at the foot of a nice nature trail that ambles down through the woods to the edge of the lake. And by ‘nature’, I mean all of it. Up to and including wonderful flora such as poison ivy. The EAA has conscientiously gone to great effort to alert city folk to the danger:

I was at the lead of the 30 or so people walking down the trail, so I courteously stepped aside in order to take this picture. As I was standing on the side of the trail, I had to take a few steps backwards to stay out of the way. As is my wont, I took one step too many. I stepped right into the patch of poison ivy on the other side of the trail. Brilliant! Hopefully my shower tonight will be soon enough to wash the poison ivy oil off before it takes hold. Or not. Time will tell.

Once I got down to the edge of the lake, I was quite taken with the laid back atmosphere and the pleasant aesthetics of the whole thing. I wandered around just soaking it all up and taking pictures:

Up at the far end of the bank, there was a dock where they were loading folks onto pontoon boats for a tour around the harbor. That looked like a great opportunity to soak up (you see what I’m doing here, right? Soak? Water? Heh.) even more of the ambiance so I leapt at the chance. The guy driving the boat was very gregarious and did some of the standard tour guide schtick such as “Where’s everyone from?” and the old stand-by, “Who’s from the furthest away?”

“Lake Tahoe,” from a guy up near the bow.

“New Zealand,” from the bearded guy right across from me.

“Well, I think we have a winner!” said the boat driver.

Me, adopting my best faux Aussie accent: “Wait a minute! North or South New Zealand?”

That cracked them all up!

Tell me that this isn’t just the quaintest thing you’ve seen today:

Ok, here’s an easy one. Look at this and see if you can guess what my reaction was:

Yep. I simply must have a seaplane. Now I know what you’re thinking: just yesterday I simply had to have a fabric covered plane. Well, it’s possible to do both:

That’s a Sea Rey. It has an aluminum frame, fiberglass hull, and fabric covered wings and tail surfaces. It’s an LSA plane, and it’s available either already factory built or as a kit. They were offering (for a price) demo rides and I signed up for one as soon as I could get my Visa out of my pocket. I figured that I’ve never been in a seaplane and a half hour ride around Oshkosh in one would be just the coolest thing ever! I squeezed onto the schedule for a 2:30 ride. That was perfect as it gave me time to go back to the airport and have lunch with Egg.

As I was waiting for the shuttle bus, a sky writer started creating a message in the azure sky above. It started well enough:

But then he followed it with this:

Look, as much as I admire the guy’s moxie, persistence, courage, and tenacity in trying to overcome his affliction, sky writing is just not a good career choice for a dyslexic. I never did figure out what he was trying to write.

As long as we’re looking skyward, I got a few better pictures of the big RV formation today:

After lunch, I bussed my way back over to the lake for my ride. It wasn’t to be, though, as the winds had kicked up and made the water too choppy for a comfortable flight. The last thing a plane vendor wants to do is give you and unsafe and/or uncomfortable ride, so they had to cancel on me. They were very apologetic but as I told them, I’m no stranger to wind-related cancellations! I do have an RV-6, after all.

But because this is the other Oshkosh, we filled the half hour sitting on the side of an inflatable boat shooting the breeze (so to speak). It was the most relaxing half hour that I’ve ever spent at Oshkosh.

All this picture needs is a bottle of Corona&trade:

Oh, and I got to sit in the plane too:

It’s very, very comfortable. And the pilot says you can open those big sliding canopies in flight! How tremendously cool is that?? Well, hopefully I’ll be able to answer that on Friday after I’ve had my rescheduled ride.

It was getting late and it was time to go retrieve Egg from work. I treated her to some delicious Wisconsin ice cream on the way home (these people really know their dairy products!!) and later we picked up some cheese curds. For those unfamiliar, ‘curds’ sound horrible. People seem to equate ‘curd’ with ‘cod liver oil’ or something equally unpalatable. Nothing could be further from the truth; curds are cheese at its freshest.

Unfortunately, they come in a sealed bag that is very difficult to open without scissors and we. of course, haven’t a pair. Egg asked me how we were going to get the bag open without having scissors.

I, sage and wise old man that I am, replied, “Well, where there’s a curd, there’s a whey!”

To which she said, “Huh?”

Oh well, at least I have “North or South” to my credit!

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Oshkosh: Day 2 – The Fabric of our Lives

Since we didn’t have the tightly scheduled morning rendezvous that we had yesterday, I let the tired Co-pilot sleep in until 0645. I know that sounds cruel, but keep in mind that we crossed a time zone demarcation on the way up here so that was really more like 0745 to our EDT calibrated circadian rhythms. Not that Egg feels that way about it – early is early to her, and anything else is simply an argument over semantics.

I tried to duplicate my eminently successful parking coup of yesterday but managed to botch the job. I turned into the first available $5 parking, failing to realize the that lot that I had used yesterday was still a good quarter mile down the road and thereby that much closer to the destination. I won’t let that happen again tomorrow!

There actually was a little bit of time pressure on me. I wanted to attend the 0830 gas welding workshop. I’ve always wanted to try welding and this seemed a perfect opportunity. Additionally, I needed a hard and fast excuse to not be walking back and forth to the GWW booth to deliver things to Egg the Booth Babe and/or hiking back to the car to engage in the Oshkosh version of indecent exposure. Sure, I know what you’re thinking: what are the odds of getting caught with my pants down (figuratively and literally) in the car two days in a row? Well, here’s what I’m thinking: what were the odds of it happening yesterday?? I rest my case.

My feet were killing me after all of that walking yesterday so I decided to lighten my load by carrying only one camera. I also decided to just wear cool clothes from the get-go. That meant I wouldn’t need to bring the extra bag. You know, the extra bag that also carried such luxury items as sun screen. For me, forgetting the sun screen is no big deal. I rarely burn. Egg, however, is a different story. She can get sunburn simply by standing in front of an open refrigerator too long. (Sigh. Because of the little light bulb. It’s a joke, see?)

I dropped Egg at the exhibition building at 0815. She has an exhibitor badge so she can just stroll right in. I do not. I explained to the volunteer at the door that she is a minor and I wanted to make sure there was an adult at the booth before leaving her there. He couldn’t have cared less and just waved me through. After all, why would I lie about something like that? Well, because I didn’t want to confess to my actual agenda. I had seen something in there yesterday that I really wanted to get a picture of, and I wanted to do it before the crowds arrived. What could possibly be so compelling you ask?

This:

The idea behind that goofy little gizmo is that you can provide supplemental oxygen to your dog when flying at high altitudes in an unpressurized airplane. It is my firmly held belief that they are completely missing a huge business opportunity by concentrating and what most certainly is a very small niche market. No, I think they should make a human sized version. Why? Have you ever used a week-ripe Port-O-Let? I’d wear one of those things in a heartbeat in a situation like that!

I got my picture and ran off to the welding workshop. The only problem was that it was very nearly 0830 and I couldn’t find it! I found the Tig welding demonstration, but I was very much in a hands-on mood; I didn’t want to watch someone else weld. As I paged through the handout and saw a grim two hour seminar talking about exciting things like Argon and other inert gases, I saw that right next door they were getting ready to start the fabric covering workshop. I had a picture of that here yesterday – it was those old guys learning how to iron. Good enough for me! I’ve long thought that I’d like to know how to cover a fabric plane. It was one of the A&P school classes that I was looking forward to taking but they never seemed to offer it.

It was actually quite fun. We started with a bare metal flight surface (probably assembled in the gosh darn gas welding workshop that I couldn’t find):

I commented to the older couple next to me that that part must have been covered more times than Michael Jackson’s funeral, but got nothing but a grunt. I swear, some people just have no sense of humor. Maybe it was another “No English” couple.

In any event, we spent the next two hours putting Poly-Fiber covering on the metal frame:

It was quite a bit of fun, and my regular readers will know what comes next: I decided right then and there that I absolutely must build or restore an airplane with fabric covering! Right after we finished with the workshop I headed out to look at fabric covered airplanes. These are Pietenpol Campers:

I don’t know why they’re called ‘campers’, but if I were to hazard a guess I’d say it’s because they do something like 75 mph straight down. You’re in the air so long, you might as well be camping up there! Ok, that’s just a guess. I’m sure there’s a better, less insulting reason.

Being at Oshkosh is a lot like what it must have been like to be stationed at an airbase in England during WWII. You get somewhat inured to the sound of deep, throaty piston airplanes flying overhead. Some folks (not me, of course) even get to the point where they don’t even look up to see what’s flying over. Fortunately, I still look up. As I was looking at the Pietenpols, a deep rumbling formation flew overhead. Lo and behold, it was the world record setting 37 ship RV formation, led by none other than Stu McCurdy who you may remember from yesterday’s lunch. He was sitting right behind Popeye the Co-pilot as she ate her spinach salad. (Caesar salad, actually, but just look at that face and tell me you don’t think ‘Popeye’)

From a different angle:

Photo also from a different, unknown source. I shamelessly purloined it from VansAirForce.NET

Right around that time I received a text message from a hungry booth babe. As I was walking over to the GWW booth to retrieve her, I was reminded of the old joke that held that ‘Ford’ was actually an acronym for Fix Or Repair Daily, or as others would say, Found On Road Dead. See, they were pushing this old broken down Ford:

As I was limping along lamenting the poor state of my tired feet, I got a glimpse of how the other half live:

Ha! And I get called a wimp for staying in a hotel! Geez, that kid has it made!

When I arrived at the Girls With Wings booth, Lynda caught me to tell me that she was thrilled with all of the help she was getting from my Co-pilot. In fact, she said that Egg was very good at everything, with the exception of folding T-shirts properly. I figure that she comes by that deficiency naturally, though. It’s probably one of those genetic traits that she got from me.

Egg and I then headed over to the food tent, only to be confronted with a line that looked to be at least an hour long. I sent her ahead to reconnoiter the menu and was actually somewhat happy when she returned with the message that there was nothing she wanted. She’d wait and have McDonald’s on the way back to the hotel. Fine by me! I suggested that we instead go look at Warbirds. Here’s a very spiffy P-40:

While we were wandering around, I received a text message from home notifying me that the Co-owner’s cousin the airline pilot just happened to be at Oshkosh too, and that we were welcome to go visit him at his booth over in the Fly Market. He sells airplane tugs as a little bit of side work. As we were walking over, the Airbus A380 arrived. Since cousin Bill recently moved from the venerable Boeing 737 into the Airbus A320 (I think he got tired of thinking for himself and decided to just let the Electric Jet do all the work instead) I figured he’d have some interesting observations about the massive A380. Pretty impressed with it, he was.

And since I finally had someone knowledgeable to ask, I finally got around to learning what that horrible noise that Airbus jets make as they taxi from the jetway to the runway: it’s a PTU, or Power Transfer Unit. The PTU is mechanical pump that links the yellow and the green hydraulic systems. It is energized when either system has been turned off (ex: when one engine is off which they sometimes do to save fuel while taxiing) and it produces a loud high frequency noise when it turns and produces 3000 psi hydraulic pressure for the opposite system. Basically it means that a single engine can’t always produce the full 3000psi hydraulic pressure, so the PTU starts itself up to make up the difference.

Or something like that. It’s a French thing – you wouldn’t understand.

We finally found Bill and Mary Jane deep in the rows of the Fly Market:

We socialized for awhile before heading back to the car for our return to the West Bend data center:

Then, of course, there was dinner. Egg and I are getting to the point where our solvency is being challenged by eating at cash-only fast food joints. We desperately needed a meal that could be paid for with a Visa card. Lucky for us, Jim and Lisa were in town for their annual Oshkosh visit. Regular readers might remember them from the time they flew their gorgeous Mooney down to Columbus to partake in some JP’s ribs. Tonight we went to the Riverside Restaurant in downtown West Bend. It was fantastic! I had a blackened Angus (are there any other kind of Angus? Aren’t all Angus assumed to be black??) Prime Rib sandwich and a Dizzy Blond Weissen beer to accompany it. Delicious! We also shared a basket of beer battered deep fried cheese curds. Only in Wisconsin! Were they ever amazing!

If anyone is still wondering why I stay in a hotel rather than camp, let this be my final answer: when we got back to the hotel, we changed clothes and went down to the heated whirlpool to relax our aching muscles. Try that in Camp Scholler!

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Oshkosh: Day 1 – The First Day

So yeah, that’s a fairly unimaginative title. The problem is that it’s nearly impossible to distill a day at Oshkosh down into a single salient point. There’s just too much going on!

The day started auspiciously with a friendly Weather-out-the-Window™ forecast. Clear blue sky and a sun throwing a benevolent light across the pastoral scene outside the hotel window:

Yes, that’s a Wal-Mart. The vaunted rural views of vast dairy farms and rolling pastures in Wisconsin are not all that the Chamber of Commerce would have you believe.

Egg dragged herself out of bed at the appointed hour of oh-six-really-farking-early in order to prepare for her first day of working in the Girls With Wings booth. We had no idea how long it would take to get to Oshkosh from our palatial hotel in West Bend or what the traffic would be like at the airport, so we were in a bit of a rush. We had to meet Lynda at the front gate by 0745. The traffic turned out to be very manageable, and I shaved a few minutes off of the time that it took to get into the parking lot by bailing out of the long line for the $8 parking in favor of no line at all for the $5 parking. It remains unclear to me why no one else was doing that. I guess there are sometimes benefits inherent in parking to the beat of a different drummer.

We found a nice parking spot where the car would be in shade for the day. That’s always nice, isn’t it? It was a fairly lengthy walk (a walk that I would ultimately make half a dozen times throughout the day as I took things to the car to be dropped off and picked up other things that would also eventually be dropped off again) to the front gate, but we made it to the rendezvous point with time to spare.

We were in the exhibition building by 0800 where I was treated to a scene seldom seen by the ordinary pedestrian Oshkosh attendee: a completely empty building. I’ve never been in one of the exhibition buildings without encountering a massive crowd. What a rare treat it was to see this:

Co-pilot Egg underwent a quick training session with Lynda during which her duties of the day were described:

She had a laminated cheat sheet that she could refer to if she ran into trouble. She’s also quite proud of her Exhibitor badge which is rumored to provide access to a non-public restroom:

Those sell for well into four figures on the black market, or so I’ve been told. Anyone that has used a well-ripened Port-O-Let will understand why!

With the Co-pilot suitably ensconced under the protective wing of Lynda, I started walking around. Oshkosh in the morning is very relaxing, at least if you’re not working. The vendors, on the other hand, are getting ready for the onslaught of prospective customers by spiffying up their wares:

There was a heavy dew on most every horizontal surface, although the rising sun was doing a good job of drying off the eastern side of things:

The hordes of EAA volunteers that would spend their days driving shuttle buses, guiding traffic, and generally providing the service and hospitality that Oshkosh is renowned for were getting ready to start their days too:

And here it is! The first potential customer! These two were getting the dime tour of a fine looking LSA sea plane:

I ambled over to the Sea of RVs to see if there was anyone around that I knew. There wasn’t, but I always enjoy seeing row after row after row of RVs:

It’s always nice to see how the other half lives:

I catch a lot of grief for staying in a hotel rather than camping. There are those that say that it’s a cop-out, or that I’m missing out on the “true Oshkosh Experience,” but I reject the false choice between living like a caveman or being completely out of touch with what makes Oshkosh so special. I respect what those camping folks are doing, but I want no part of it. I like my air conditioning, running water, soft bed, etc. I like it a LOT!

I eventually did run into someone I know. This is Rick Gray:

Rick was instrumental in helping me decide that the RV-6 was the plane for me. Well, that’s not entirely true; I was pretty sure of that already. What he did do, though, was give Co-pilot Egg her very first ever ride in an RV-6 and won her over to my side. It’s always helpful to have a willing ally in these kinds of things.

Rick is very well known for the extremely high quality of the planes he builds. Frankly, they’re works of art and are superior to just about any airplane you could buy from a factory. His latest, this beautiful, award winning F1 Rocket, has a huge spread in the most recent EAA Sport Aviation magazine:

Of course, that didn’t stop me from telling him that if he kept cranking these things out he might end up actually building a nice one someday. Seriously, I crack myself up sometimes. Well, often actually.

After gratuitously insulting Mr. Gray, I wandered over to the EAA Workshop area. These workshops are one of the absolute best things about Oshkosh and are actually one of the closest things to the roots of the Oshkosh annual event. These workshops give introductory lessons in airplane building topics such as sheet metal work, welding, fabric covering, building with wood or composite materials, etc. There’s even one for teaching old bachelors how to iron their shirts:

Ok, not really. That was the fabric covering workshop. And no, this next guy isn’t learning the finer points of quilting. He’s learning how to do rib stitching:

It’s often a family thing, too. This family is building a wooden wing rib:

There’s a funny story about that picture. Just as I finished shooting it and was moving away, a woman stepped into the spot where I had taken the picture and started to take one of her own. I said, “You don’t need to take that picture, I already took one.”

Her reply? “No English.”

I’m not sure I believe her.

It was getting pretty hot by that time, so I trekked back to the car to change out of blue jeans and into more comfortable shorts. I was pretty proud of myself for thinking ahead far enough to realize that I might want to swap my warmer morning clothes for cooler afternoon clothes, but I failed to consider just where I would make the change. When I got to the car, there was no one else around so I figured I’d just go ahead and change in the car. I mean, really, what are the odds of that guy in the car next to me choosing that exact moment to come back to his car? Well, statistically I don’t know. Anecdotally? 100%. Awkward!!

I kind of slunk down and waited for him to leave, then walked back up to the show. As I was walking around near the Federal building, I happened across this Army fellow taking a nap:

I think he was supposed to be guarding his helicopter. Ever the opportunist, I took advantage of his negligence:

That guy on the left? I think he’s getting ready to tattle on me:

Here’s the obligatory shot of the welcome arch. I thought it was pretty funny that they had to drop the ‘ion’ from International:

It reminds me of the days of my youth when I’d have to do posters for school. I’d never plan my spacing very well, and the poster would inevitably end up with the last few letters crammed in with an ever-decreasing font size.

I was famished by that time so I sat down with a two piece chicken and one piece of fish combo lunch:

To be honest, it was more like a 1.1 piece chicken lunch. There was a nice breast, but the second piece was a tiny little meatless wing. Not to worry, though. I had plenty to fill me up.

While I was there, I bought a Caesar salad to take over to Egg. As I was delivering it to her, I walked past this:

You know, sometimes the Sarah Palin jokes just write themselves.

I also noticed that EAA has added some paths that restrict the UDGCs (ubiquitous damn golf carts) that I hate so very, very much. They’re loud, smelly, and often times driven by people that feel that they have some kind of exclusive right to the roads. As much as I feared for my life while circling over Ripon four years ago (obligatory “Over Ripon? No I don’t think I will ever get over Ripon”), the cruel fact is that it is far more likely that I would meet an Oshkosh demise under the wheels of a golf cart.

Egg and I grabbed a seat at a picnic table and she worked her way through her salad. The guy in the background on the left is Col. Stu McCurdy, a retired F-4 pilot. I flew (poorly) on his wing when I was down in Parkersburg a few years ago for a formation flying clinic. He doesn’t remember that, of course, most likely because of the post-traumatic stress syndrome caused by my antics while flying just a few feet from is wing. Still, it was pretty cool to run into him. Today, I mean, not at the clinic:

Stu and his companion finished up their meals and their vacated seats were soon occupied by a couple of older women who were engrossed on their conversation about the Flying 99s, an international organization of women pilots. They had apparently met only recently as they were still going through the dance us pilots go through:

“What do you fly?”

“Oh, I fly a Stearman biplane.”

“Oh, really? How nice.”

“And you?”

“Oh, my husband owns a Lear Jet. It requires two pilots, so he keeps a full time pilot on staff.”

I think I showed amazing restraint in not butting in and saying, “Lady, you don’t fly. You travel.“

Egg needed to get back to work, so I escorted her back to the booth. They were desperately in need of her help when we got back:

She was pretty tired by the time I picked her up to take her to the air show. The plan was to watch the show and then enjoy the music of the octogenarian Doobie Brothers as they played what surely must be one of their last concerts. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Egg was bone tired and the weather was threatening to break out into thunderstorms. I decided to get her back to the hotel for some rest. Oshkosh is a marathon, not a sprint, and having her worn out on the first day was not the recipe for a successful week. Once back in the hotel, she was asleep within five minutes.

I think it was the right decision. Particularly since it rained all the way back to the hotel.

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Oshkosh: Day 0 – The Drive

I started waking co-pilot Egg up at 0630 as planned. I say ‘started’ because it is a lengthy process. One of the (few) perks of aging is that it gets much easier to wake up in the morning. I haven’t forgotten my own teen years, though, when it was routine to sleep in until late, late morning. Trying to get up at 0630 on those rare occasions when I had to was like trying to shake a wet blanket off the inside of my head. It’s normal, but it does beg the question of exactly how teenagers survived in the wild, way back when. It seems to me they’d have been pretty easy prey. Seriously, why would a lion waste hours lying in wait for a careless gazelle at the local watering hole when he could just grab the nearest sleeping teenager?

She finally emerged and we went through our last minute checks to make sure we had everything we will need for the full week of Oshkosh. My normal practice is to start a few days ahead of the departure date by setting out the things that I know I wouldn’t forget anyway. That also lets me get an early start on forgetting the things that I will forget. I also double checked the driving directions I had diligently acquired and printed from Google Maps. These are wonderful maps – each major turn has a Streetview color picture next to it so I can see exactly what the intersection or exit looks like. I carefully collated each package and labeled them ‘Home to Hotel’, ‘Hotel to Oshkosh,’ etc. Things of beauty, they are. All in the interest of redundancy, mind you, in case the GPS in the car flakes out or gets stolen. Trust me, it’s a pilot thing. Always have a fallback plan.

Once in the car I pointed the trusty Garmin GPS at the street address of the hotel. I had entered the address into the GPS a few days prior just to be ready. Of course, I did that in the garage where the GPS couldn’t see any satellites, so I didn’t have the opportunity to look at the calculated route. This morning I hit the magic Go button and waited while the clever little gal with the sexy voice who lives in the GPS box planned the optimal route to the hotel. Which, as it turns out, was significantly different than the route provided by Google. Which, as you can imagine, completely obsolesced fully half of the lovingly crafted emergency Google maps. Que sera, sera.

On the plus side, all indications were that the Garmin route was far superior to the Google route. Rather than allow Google to force us into the I-70 to Indianapolis route that I hate hate hate so well, Garmin had us going northwest from Columbus towards Marysville, Lima, Fort Wayne, and South Bend. We’d meet the Google route somewhere near Gary. As it was still pretty early on a Sunday morning, the wide open route 33 proved a perfect opportunity to let Egg, she that is currently undergoing driver’s training under the tutelage of Yours Truly, gather up some loggable time and miles on a divided highway. We pulled off the highway and made a quick driver change. It worked out very well – for quite a while we were the only car on the road. Well, at least during the sporadic times that we were actually on the road.

Ok, just kidding: she did fine.

I took over the duty as we approached Lima. From there we headed northwest until we intercepted I-80. This is where I learned what the biggest difference was between the Google and the Garmin routes. Google route: free. Garmin route: $6.00 in toll.

Still, the drive went very well and traffic was wonderfully light. Until, that is, we reached Gary, Indiana. Gary did its usual fine job of reminding me why no one wants to live in Gary. Gary is the last waypoint before Chicago and its legendarily bad traffic and aggressive drivers. In other words, Chicago did its normally fine job of reminding why people do live in Gary.

After the typical stop & stop traffic jam in Chicago, we broke out into what is normally a far more sedate ride up I-94. Normally, yes. Today? No. It’s a torn up mess. Signs proudly proclaimed that a worn out 50 year old highway was being fixed up. As if that was a good thing. Which, were I a frequent traveler on that stretch of road, it might be. I am not a frequent traveler on that stretch of road so I was left asking myself why they couldn’t have waited a few more years. You know, for my personal convenience.

Some traffic engineer had what must have been viewed in whatever meeting he was in as a terrific idea: they had moved a separate lane off to the left side that would have no access to the normal exits. They named this the ‘Express’ lane. I have since learned that ‘Express’ is Chicago-speak for ‘An Absolute Mess.’ I can see the thinking behind it, though. They must have thought that without entering and exiting traffic to muck things up, that solitary lane should be able to maintain a pretty decent pace. They.Were.Wrong.

I’m not sure what caused the traffic to repeatedly come to a stand still. Actually, I was able to identify the cause of one of the incidents when we came to a van parked halfway off of the relatively narrow lane, thereby blocking traffic, while a young girl squatted by the concrete retaining wall relieving herself. While I was a little peeved at the delay, I have to think that this was a pretty uncomfortable moment for all involved, truth be told.

After sitting in the so-called express lane watching the traffic in the (by implication) slow lanes whistle on by unabated by defecating youngsters, I decided to avail myself of the very next opportunity to get out of the express lane and go back to the “slow” lanes. Surprisingly, I was not the only one that had that idea. As an entire line of cars bailed out of the express lane, the slow lanes bogged down to a stop. Those that remained in the express lane? They drove off into the distance, never to be seen again.

Once we got past the construction, I told Egg that she was in for a treat. You see, When I was a kid I made this trip every summer when the whole family would travel to Milwaukee to visit my maternal grandparents. There were three of us kids, and the big thing for us was to be the one to toss the coins into the big metal basket at the toll stops. The coins would jingle their way down into the guts of the machine, mechanical calculations would ensue, and as long as you didn’t commit the mortal sin of missing the basket, the gate would rise and off we would go. It was so very, very cool. It was probably the most memorable part of the drive, although I did see an old restaurant today that brought back the memory of me getting my behind swatted in the parking lot after throwing a tantrum of some sort. A tantrum that I’m sure was justified, of course, but my memory is hazy on that.

Anyway, the baskets are gone. The tolls have risen to the level where a humorless human automaton can sit in a booth and collect paper money.

In the name of progress, I’m sure.

Still, we arrived at the hotel and we’re quite pleased with it. It’s only a little more than a year old and the service has been exemplary. I’ve paid twice as much for half the quality, so we’re happy as clams. It’s early evening and we’ve already had dinner and a swim in the indoor pool, and I’m just about ready to wrap this up and hit the shower. We’ll be getting up early again tomorrow in order to make the 55 minute drive up to Oshkosh early enough to meet Lynda and get Egg to work in the Girls With Wings booth.

Well, I’ll be getting up early. Egg? Probably only if I can find a lion to help roust her out of bed.

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Why it’s oh-so-cool to live by an airport….

From my front porch:

And how cool is this? Here’s the opposite picture taken from that little door just in front of the tailwheel:

In unrelated news, we have house guests for the weekend. They brought their dog Mookie with them, news that I initially thought foreshadowed a weekend of trying to keep Brave Sir Hogarth, he who remains convinced that he should be the only dog on the planet, from killing the interloper. As it turns out, Hogarth has met the only dog that he has ever liked. They’ve spent the weekend playing with each other and having a grand time!

Mookie is a Chihuahua/some-kind-of-brindle dog like a boxer or pit bull. I’ve taken to referring to him as either a Chibrindle or a Brindlehuahua. He’s a tiny little guy, but he stands up to Hogarth, and that seems to make all the difference. In fact, the funniest thing I’ve ever seen is that little dog launching himself off of the sofa and onto Hogarth. It’s been quite enjoyable to watch Hogarth come to the realization that he could have been having a great time with other dogs instead of constantly being, well… an asshole about the whole thing. Pardon the somewhat harsh vernacular; sometimes the situation just insists on a forthright description.

So, here’s Mookie:

And check out this awesome self portrait:

Hint: it’s all in the eyes…

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IFR for under $10,000? You betcha!

I must be missing something, but it seems that I could get Papa set up for non-precision GPS IFR with a 2-axis autopilot for under $10,000. Interesting, yes, but it still ignores the issue of where the $10,000 is going to come from. Let’s just wish that little problem away for the sake of argument, though.

So here’s what I’m thinking:

A Dynon D-6 for attitude.
A Dynon D-10A for navigation display and autopilot control
A Garmin GNC 300XL TSO for IFR GPS and Comm.

The prices break down thusly:

– D-6: $1,600
– D-10A: $2,200
– GNC 300 XL: $3,150
– Heated Pitot: $450
– OAT Probe: $ 65
– Backup batteries for D-6, D-10A: $260
– Roll servo and mounting kit: $825
– Pitch servo and mounting kit: $825

Total: $9,375

You’d have to add some dollars for wiring, etc. but that shouldn’t exceed $500. And because it pains me to do it, I’m not including sales tax. That would probably put me over the magical, mythical $10,000, but literary license allows me to ignore that for now.

Here’s kinda-sorta what it would look like:

And what would I get for that? Well, the IFR minimums for a GPS non-precision approach into Bolton are right around 500(AGL) and 1/2 mile visibility. An ILS set-up would add thousands of dollars and only get me 300 feet lower, so I deem that to be “not worth it.”

IFR aside, just the 2-axis autopilot would make it worth the money. It’s hard to quantify safety-of-flight value, but the value of an autopilot is pretty easy to understand.

So, here I am back to Dynon. How long have I been stuck here? Since four days after I took delivery of Papa, as it turns out:

If I were to do it now, though, I’d move the Dynon units one row to the right on the panel. They’d be closer to the GPS/Comm that way.

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Mondays that feel like Sundays

My generous employer gave us both Friday and Monday off for the Fourth O’ July weekend, so yesterday morning found me following an extra-relaxed weekend regimen. As my internal alarm clock stridently announces that it’s 0530 and TIME TO GET UP without any respect to weekends or holidays, I quite often find myself sitting out on the front porch enjoying a cuppa java, a book, and the companionship of Brave (yet groggy) Sir Hogarth. Hogarth’s a bit odd when it comes to these early morning sabbaticals on the porch.

On one hand, he’s mortally offended if I don’t invite him out with me; he will sit at the storm door and pout. But if I do bring him out, he goes to pains to demonstrate that he thinks we’re getting an entirely too early start on the day. This can take the form of ostentatious stretching, sprawled out power-napping, or a wide, wide yawn:

Once the rest of the house begins to stir, we head inside and begin the next phase of the day. That phase mostly entails the finding of a means of escape. That often takes the form of flying somewhere, but yesterday it worked out such that I was able to get out of the house for some nature communing by inviting Brandon to fly down from Lima and do a little kayaking. The weather was great for both as it turns out. Brandon wouldn’t arrive until a little after 11:30, but that was fine with me. Not only was the porch still comfortable and appealing, but there was also the rumor going around that a B-17 would be landing sometime around 11am. Bolton was using runway 4, so if the B-17 actually showed up it would be flying right past the front of my house on final approach to the runway. And that’s exactly what happened:

I got some close-ups after Brandon arrived:

After a few minutes of poking around the Flying Fortress, we loaded up the boats and headed for the lake. Brandon had never been in a kayak and I’ve found that it’s much easier to learn how to do it on a calm lake than it is to learn the way I did. My first time was going down a river and there are memories of struggling to avoid hitting trees, rocks, and other immovable objects that convince me that it’s not friendly to either the boat or the person to try that again.

The lake was nice and quiet, probably because just about everybody else was back at work. I briefly explained to Brandon that the kayak would feel a lot “tippier” than a canoe, but to not worry too much about it as it takes a deliberate effort to get one to flip over.

As explained to me at the kayak clinic I attended, there’s a thing called “secondary stability.” As the boat tips to one side, more of the hull comes into contact with the surface of the water and stabilizes the boat. I remember the clinic instructor describing it as if it was a universally applicable fact. I now believe otherwise. Brandon climbed into the boat, I gave him a push away from the ramp, and I turned around to get into my boat. That’s when I heard:

“Hey, you’re right. These are pretty stab…..” Kersplash!

I turned around to see what had happened and saw no sign of Brandon, although there was an upside-down kayak where I had last seen him. I was just getting ready to run into the lake to see if he was stuck under the boat when he popped to the surface. It’s a good thing I had told him to wear shoes that he didn’t mind getting wet, but I suppose one could argue that perhaps that advice could have been expanded to include outerwear as well, should one choose to that uncharitable to your host.

Still, once you’re wet there’s not mush else to lose so we loaded up for another try. The second attempt went swimmingly, so to speak. We paddled up to the top of the lake and back. The wildlife was out in abundance, and I even ran across some Blue Herons that weren’t nearly as skittish as those I see on the Big Darby. I was able to paddle up to within just a couple of feet without them flying away. Figures. I didn’t have my camera with me. I know, right? I can’t believe I did that again!

After boating, it was back to Bolton for a lunch at JP’s BBQ. Having the luxury of not having to fly home, I was able to treat myself to two items I would never consider consuming before flying. I had the King Bull sandwich, which is deep fried polish sausage, chili, and onions on a bun. And a beer. Yummy!

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I go through this now and then

Every now and then, I sit back and ask myself what’s next for me with regards to flying. Would I, for example, like to move up to a more capable airplane, perhaps one offering more power or additional seats? ‘Tis certain that if that were the case, I’d also want an upgrade in avionics to allow for more predictable travel on longer trips. Which is to say, I’d want IFR capability. And a two-axis autopilot. And I’d want to stay at least in the neighborhood of the 150 knots I get from Papa. It gets thorny quickly when thinking along these lines because it doesn’t take very long at all to populate a minimum requirement list that equates to a six-figure cost.

Or would I prefer to move down into a simpler plane, perhaps one of the spiffy new LSA types popping up on the market from such trusted sources as Cessna and Cirrus? Well, those are brand new airplanes and as such also quickly exceed the six-figure plateau. And the result should I take this path? A small two-seat airplane that can’t fly at night or in IMC conditions and can only (by law!) cruise at speeds less than 120.1 knots. There are also benefits, of course, but they are of the nature that they won’t be beneficial to me until I begin to get concerned about passing the FAA Class 3 physical.

There’s nothing magical about a six-figure price tag; with the proper financing I could swing it. But there’s the rub: debt sucks. Debt on things like, oh, houses makes sense. Debt on heavily depreciating things like cars? Not so much. Debt on a pure luxury item like an airplane? Really, out of the question. There’s also the issue of ongoing costs. Insurance would surely be higher as the hull value climbed. In the case of a store-bought plane, maintenance costs would also become more burdensome. These are hard increases to live with in the absence of some serious increase in needed capability.

So, what is it I need? As I look out the window this morning, I see moderately low clouds and the promise of afternoon haze. Let’s say that I wanted to fly somewhere today, or in a more typical scenario, let’s say that I flew somewhere yesterday and spent the night. I’m looking at maybe 1,000′ ceiling and three miles visibility today and I’m not going to be able to fly home. This is light IFR and is exactly the kind of weather I’d like to be able to deal with when it arises. I don’t need the capability to make an ILS approach to 1 mile and 200′ minimums; I’d be satisfied with being able to make approaches to the typical GPS or non-precision minimums of 800 and 1.

With that in mind, I always circle back to the question of whether I need a new airplane to do that. The answer is no. With the right avionics, Papa could do that. Note that this is by no means a revelation – I’ve noodled my way down this path many times. The problem, as you can imagine, comes down to cost and effort. I haven’t quite figured out what it would cost, but I know it would be a lot of effort. I figure I’d need at least:

– a glass panel six-pack replacement such as the Blue Mountain Sport EFIS ($6,995!!) or something from Dynon
– an ICOM A-210 ($1,500) to replace the quirky A-200 I have now
– a two-axis autopilot ($2,500 – $3,000)
– a better pitot tube (I could buy this today)

This is the Blue Mountain EFIS:

It’s amazing technology and at $7,000 is a relative bargain. The problem there, though, is the “relative” qualifier. Relative to, say, a Garmin 600 or a full-blown Chelton/Dynon/Grand Rapids set up, it’s dirt cheap. Relative to home enhancements, food, clothing, a vacation, or any number of non-aviation related items, it’s pretty expensive. It would provide an increase in the market value of the plane should I ever decide to sell it, but those boosts are never anywhere near the cost of the enhancements. You just can’t bank on intangibles like that. There might be something to be said for increased safety-of-flight, but I have something similar to that already: I don’t fly in marginal weather. Can’t get a whole lot safer than that!

I’m guessing at a $10,000 – $13,000 price tag just for the hardware. The installation would take either months for me to do, or a couple of thousand dollars more to pay someone to do it for me. And get ready for the recurring costs! Database updates, XM NEXRAD subscription, and the IFR pitot-static/transponder check every two years. Well, I already have to do the transponder check, so I guess I’m already paying for at least that part of the recurring stuff. Still, do I need another $100/month in recurring costs?

I used to think that it would be more cost effective to sell Papa and just buy a plane that already has all that stuff, but now I’m not so sure. First, I’m no longer confident that the depressed market would value Papa as highly as I do, although the replacement plane might be had at a bargain rate as well. The second (and larger) problem is that I don’t think it would be easy to find a plane that has the ramp presence of Papa. And, well, we’ve developed a bit of a sentimental bonding too.

For anyone that’s read this far, I’m sorry to say that there’s no conclusion to be had here. This has been an on-going debate for a couple of years now, and it will continue as such. But here’s the cool thing: Oshkosh is less than a month away, and there is no better data-gathering/daydreaming-emporium on the face of this planet than Oshkosh.

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