It was a close race in the voting, but it turned out that Grant McHerron from Australia (@Falcon124) came out on top this time around. Now he has the perfect reason to make the trip to Oshkosh again in 2012: to fetch up his bacon sandwich winnings! He's also part of the PlaneCrazyDownUnder podcast, so maybe you'll hear some sweet bacon talk there too... unless of course he doesn't like bacon. I remember someone at CampBacon this year at OSH didn't like bacon (#hardtobelieve), but I'm not sure who it was : )
Anyway, we made it thru another bit of avgeek fun with a crazy pic in the Caption Contest, and we'll probably do it again this next Monday morning - don't miss it!
So as it turns out, this Caption Contest was over in just a few minutes since the first submission wound up as the winner! Congrats to 'Don' for being fast in getting the definitive caption in just a few minutes after I posted the game. I hope you've got plans to be at Oshkosh 2012 to get your bacon sandwhich prize : )
I didn't see any info on what exactly is really going on in this pic. I assume it's real, but it seems a bit odd to have this hull sitting in such a wide open ramp area. It looks a lot like the A320 from the Hudson ditching (see 15 pix of Cactus 1549) but it's not. If anyone knows what the specific deal is, please let us know.
Watch next Monday for another Caption Contest. I found a great pic a couple days ago for more harmless avgeek fun!
I think there are more crazy pix from way back in the day of helicopters than anything else... and I've used quite a few of them in caption contests: (here, here, here, here, and here) - rotorheads and the people who design and build helos are just a little different breed!
This week's winner was 'Alan' with the wife-on-the-phone caption. Congrats for coming out on top! And of course thanx to everyone for playing along.
Next week I'll be at the Reno Air Races so there probably won't be any caption contest, but there's gonna be some awesome fastest-motorsport-in-the-world coverage - don't miss it!
We got a winner in the Caption Contest - and it wasn't even very close in the voting as this caption from 'Terence R' snagged 52% of your votes. Congrats on winning the first post OSH11 game!
If I wasn't so backed up with my day-job, I was planning to have a post ready to put up from my recent trip to Charlotte North Carolina where the actual A320 dubbed Miracle on the Hudson is now on display at the Carolina's Aviation Museum. I got some good pix of the fuselage that I'll hopefully have up for you to check out before long. They're working on eventually getting the wings back on the aircraft to have it represent the condition it was in right after the Hudson river landing.
It was very interesting to see the airplane for two reasons. First because the airplane represents a tremendous happy-ending story that really captured the nation's attention and joy. And secondly, it was a really great opportunity to see the wing structure and tail mounting structure of a commercial airliner up close and exposed. I've been around a lot of airliners in my day, but I've never had the chance to see the wing attach details (spars, skin & reinforcements, and systems components) out in the open where you can really see what's keeping everything all together. (the wings were sawn off the airplane revealing all the details just outside the root)
Watch for more avgeek captioning to come your way soon : )
The experienced and higly successful captioner known as 'airpigz lurker' has once again earned a bacon sandwich at OSH11 - congrats for stacking up so much bacon goodness!
And how about a nice round of applause for Billy Werth and his brother David from Grayout Aerosports for their amazing work battling the Pitts against a motorcycle! Please don't try this at home!
This winning caption from Folker Krentz is especially funny to me because the reference to Mr Sikorsky is actually out of place since this is really the Bell Model 30 helicopter. No worries tho, and there's no doubt it's a better caption using Sikorsky instead of Bell. So, it's a bacon sandwich at OSH11 for the winner! And, the amazing Oshkosh event will be here pretty soon (yay!) - so we'll probably only have one more caption contest before I'll have to start stocking up on the magical meat candy that will make so many people happy during the world's greatest aviation event. Details on the official AirPigz Bacon Parties at Oshkosh 2011 will be posted soon.
The caption picture this time around is pretty amazing. This is the third prototype of the Bell Model 30, and as you can see, it was a pretty impressive performer. My research indicates it was probably powered by a 160 hp Franklin engine, and it may have had solid-wood main and tail rotor blades like the first Model 30 did. And there's a total of seven people off the ground in this picture! Amazing stuff for 1945. The third version of the Model 30 was such a good flying machine that it soon morphed into the iconic Bell 47 introduced in 1946.
I also hope the insurance company for Bell Helicopters never saw what the guys were doing to test load carrying capacity!
It was the avgeek and caption expert 'Race 5' that came thru once again with this brilliant caption for the 5 person hang glider in contest #58. It's a truly inspired piece of work. So, it's another bacon sandwhich at OSH11 for Race 5!
And, just in case you don't get it... Burt Rutan's first really big success in the airplane design biz back in the mid 70's was called the VariEze (Very Easy) - but it's interesting to note that a lot of people were confused about how to say the name. It was common to see people calling it the 'Very Ease' instead of 'Easy', so this caption kinda pulls all of it together. It got my vote!
As always, there were a great batch of captions this time around... and of course, a big thank you goes out to everyone who submitted one (or two or three), and to all who voted in the poll. And since Monday was Memorial Day, we'll skip a week and then probably be back with another chance at Oshkosh bacon next week.
This Spock pic stirred up several great captions, and you might imagine that I really liked the bacon-oriented submission - however, the ‘airpigz lurker’ has come out on top once again and fetches up another bacon sandwich at OSH11. Congrats on another job well done!
Thanx again to everyone who got in on the caption side of the game, and to everyone who voted as well... it just wouldn’t any fun without you! If things go well we will do it all again next week : )
As it turned out, it was a pretty close race in the voting for the winner, but someone going by the name 'GPS_Direct' wound up on top - congrats! You had my vote too, it definitely made me laugh. You've got yourself a tasty bacon sandwhich at Oshkosh 2011 for your hard work too : )
It's actually kinda ironic because the airplane pictured, the late 1950's era Doak Model 16 (also known as the VZ-4) was powered by just one engine. Initially an 840 shp turbine and then later by a 1,000 shp turbine. And of course, even if it would have had two engines, some process would have to be in place to cross-shaft or otherwise allow for both ducted fans to continue to make air even if one of the engines quit. But regardless, the caption was still a perfect fit for some sweet avgeek fun.
I'm including quite a bit of additional info here on the Doak because it's a pretty amazing aircraft. First flown in 1958, the only Model 16 ever built was remarkably successful given the technology of the time. The video below shows that it actually looks completely under control in both the takeoff and landing phase, as well as the transition to forward flight. The VZ-4 was a two-place airplane that had a pretty simple basic airframe... those tilting ducted fans with vanes and stators kinda made things a little more complex tho! I find it interesting that the landing gear came from a Cessna 182.
After the jump are two more pictures of interest and some links that lead to additional websites with cool Doak VZ-4 info.
I still need to get some additional details on this unique hybrid, but I was told at Sun-n-Fun that it was very airworthy back in the day. I guess it actually looked essentially 'airworthy' went I got the picture, just maybe leaning really far over on the unconventional side of things : )
What I do know is that 'Eric B.' cast out a winning caption and has earned a bacon sandwich at Oshkosh 2011 - great job! It was a sweet batch of captions this time around - thanx to all who participated.
Look for more of this harmless avgeek fun to get hauled up into the boat next Monday morning...
Saturday, October 22, 2011 at 08:44AM 
