CoolPix: Precious Metal Shining In The Sun (Reno 2013)

(click pic for hi-res)  Precious Metal in the sunshine getting lots of TLC before more racing

 I was able to capture this unique CoolPix of Precious Metal in the pit getting some serious work done on the engine... no major problems there, just lots of fine tuning to get as much out of this 'spare' engine as possible. I decided this was a better pic than yesterday's pylon pix for right now, especially since it was taken about an hour ago, plus it's a lot easier to get one pic up during the day!

 Steve Hinton with Voodoo has been well collected after posting the fastest qualifying time this year, as has the Sea Fury 232 with Hoot Gibson who qualified faster than a Sea Fury ever has at just under 480 mph. The Rare Bear crew and pilot Stewart Dawson have been battling issues making all the power it should be able to, and Strega with Matt Jackson has been working its way up from the back of the pack after having the setback of losing the canopy several days ago and spending time making the repairs. Strega easily won its race earlier today tho and I believe will race tomorrow to try to earn its place in the big race.

 The Gold race for tomorrow is definitely shaping up!

OSH13: CoolPix - James Redmon And His Fabulous Berkut (Friday 8.2.13)

(click pic for hi-res)  James Redmon under the wing of his gorgeous Berkut homebuilt

 There's been some great press on James Redmon and his Berkut recently, including the July Sport Aviation magazine and this article in the July issue of EAA's Experimenter. I spent some time talking to James and looking over the Berkut on Friday, and I got several pix including this unique view of the airplane and its builder. Wow, this is one sweet homebuilt!

 This Berkut is also known as race #13 and competes in events run by the Sport Air Racing League (SARL) - this design has been tweaked to be able to compete at over 250 mph... and to look really good while doing it! I'm planning a more in-depth post in the future with lots of up-close detail pix, but for now I hope you enjoy this wide-angle CoolPix from under the Berkut that shows James enjoying OSH13 : )

OSH13: Tuesday Airshow Action - CoolPix Triple Play!

(click pic for hi-res)  Fascinating contrast of the Sea Harrier and Lockheed Electra

 You'll notice that my OSH13 coverage this year is scaled back from previous years... 18 hour days for a week straight just doesn't fit my life at the moment. So I'm sharing thinner slices of the activities taking place at the world's greatest aviation event, but hopefully they are still quite compelling. Today I've got three hi-res CoolPix images that come from the airshow on Tuesday.

 The contrast of the Sea Harrier in hover with the classic lines of the Lockheed Electra creates an amazing look at the diversity of aviation over the ages. Then I've got Sean Tucker making a ribbon cut pass as well as Skip Stewart doing knife-edge on takeoff. Biplanes are awesome and these two examples are two of the most incredible double wingers ever built! Be sure to click the px to see them fill your screen, and enjoy : )

(click pic for hi-res) Sean Tucker on a triple ribbon cut (I wanna be that guy on the right!)

(click pic for hi-res) Skip Stewart looking down the runway on his knife edge takeoff!

more pix coming soon!

CoolPix: The New Goodyear Blimp (Zeppelin) Is Taking Shape!

(click pic for hi-res) The first all-new Goodyear/Zeppelin airship coming together in Ohio

 Technically it's an airship and not a blimp (due to some internal support structure) but Goodyear is sticking with the blimp terminology even tho my small and highly unscientific poll from last fall is showing that about 45% of people say they shouldn't use the blimp term while 37% say it's a beloved term and totally acceptable... not surprising, almost 18% voted for: Really? Does anyone even care about this stuff?

 In a rare break with my desire for accuracy and proper detail, I'm ok with the blimp term being used going forward. I'm even more ok with the reality of what fabulous airships these new Zeppelins will be for Goodyear. This unique partnership between Goodyear and Germany's Zeppelin has its roots all the way back to early 1920's when they worked together before WWII on the huge military airships like the USS Macon and the USS Akron. So working together once again is actually a very interesting re-connection.

 I've been fascinated with airships since I was about 5 years old. In fact, in 1969 (when I was 8 years old) my dad and I got to ride in the Goodyear Blimp Columbia that was based near Los Angeles. My dad was flying 727's for UAL out of LAX at the time and lived in some apartments right next to the blimp mooring site in Carson California, so I was able to watch it come and go a lot. During our ride, the blimp pilot even let my dad hop in the pilot's seat and fly the blimp for a bit once he found out he was a 727 driver : )

(click pic for hi-res)  The Zeppelin Goodyear 'blimp' assembly in Akron Ohio 

 
 My only other airship ride was much more recent -- in 2011 when the Farmers Zeppelin NT stopped in Indianapolis on its tour around the country. It was shortly after Oshkosh 2011 where the Zeppelin had spent the week doing commercial rides and just generally filling the Oshkosh sky with pure airship awesomeness. My ride in Indy was fantastic... the Zeppelin NT is an amazing flying machine. It was everything I had hoped for, and more. Unfortunately, that particular Zeppelin NT, operated by Airship Ventures in California, has since been dismantled and returned to Germany after the company encountered financial difficulties.

 The new Zeppelins for Goodyear will be the best 'blimps' they've ever had, by far. The one being assembled in Akron Ohio in these pix will be flying in 2014 and two more are planned to join the fleet at some point in the future.

Why Oshkosh Matters (With CoolPix Marathon - 19 Hi-Res Images)

(click pic for hi-res)  Ray Hegy's El Chuparosa at Oshkosh 1970 (see original post)

 Oshkosh 2013 is fast approaching (July 29 - Aug 4), and I'm as excited as ever to be planning to attend. I was there in 1970 (as a 9 year old) when the very first Oshkosh took place at Wittman Field in beautiful Wisconsin. The annual EAA fly-in and convention was held in Rockford Illinois prior to Oshkosh and I was even at the last one of those in 1969. I've missed a handful of the events over the years, but I've attended well over 30 of them since that picture above of Ray Hegy's El Chuparosa was taken.

 Oshkosh has changed a lot over the years, but in the ways that really matter, it hasn't really changed at all. It's still people (lots and lots of people) who are in love with aviation gathering together to share that love with each other. It's goodness, discipline, ingenuity, and achievement all rolled into a week of learning, sharing, and enjoying. There's just nothing else like it... no other tool we have that does so much good for the world of general and sport aviation. That's why I believe that Oshkosh truly matters.

 I'm well aware that many people have frustrations at times with the EAA and the way Oshkosh is run, and while I've had the same kinds of frustrations going back even into the 1970's, I'm as convinced as ever that the EAA ultimately does a huge amount of good for those of us who love to fly. I can't imagine any other organization (or new group of people) who could, or would do better (or even as well) at fostering a genuine love for flying. So I hope you'll join me in being a big supporter of what Oshkosh does for us all... come to Oshkosh this year and be amazed, entertained, educated, and impressed. But please don't come expecting Oshkosh to do all that TO you, instead, come to Oshkosh and BE PART OF that process. Give, and share, and receive too. It's the human interactions that truly make Oshkosh the beautiful thing that it is.

 To celebrate some of the great avgeekery of Oshkosh, here's an extensive collection of CoolPix images I've captured since 2009 to get you primed and ready for the world's greatest aviation event. I hope you enjoy! Oh, and you might notice that I never ever call the event A**V******, it's Oshkosh to me and always will be. I look forward to the day when that ad agency concocted word is dropped from the EAA vocabulary. And hey, maybe they should go back to a logo that looks more like tho old one too : )

(click pic for hi-res)  Pitcairn Autogiro at Oshkosh 2009  (see original post)

(click pic for hi-res)  Airbus A380 preparing to depart Oshkosh 2009  (see original post)

Click to read more ...

CoolPix Triple Play: The Golden Glow Of Cubs At OSH12

(click pic for hi-res)  Camping Cubs in the evening sun at Oshkosh 2012

 The gathering of Piper Cubs at Oshkosh 2012 (and at Hartford Wisconsin the weekend before OSH - see great pix here and here) was a major highlight of my summer last year. A sea of Cub yellow to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the J-3 was most satisfying. And now that February has somehow turned into May, I'm just getting a handle on the idea that OSH13 will be here before you know it! (July 29-Aug 4)

 There probably won't be as many Cubs there this year, but there's no question that Oshkosh will once again be the greatest aviation gathering in the world. I look forward to Oshkosh more than any other event, year after year. I hope you've got plans to make it this year... and if you do, you better plan to attend an official AirPigz Bacon Party too! Details will be posted in June with the times and days of the two opportunities to have some crunch pig while hangar flying at CampBacon. Airplanes and bacon are definitely a perfect combo : )

 Below are two more great CoolPix images of Cubs that I captured at Oshkosh last year. I hope they give you a warm, glowing feeling inside for airplanes that drag their tail and are covered in fabric. Btw, Hartford Wisconsin will be the initial gathering and staging point for the 'round-engine rodeo' planned for OSH13. I enjoyed my time at Hartford so much last year that there's no way I'd miss this weekend gathering right before Oshkosh starts. I hope to see you there!

(click pic for hi-res)  A glorious sea of Cub yellow on the flightline at OSH12

(click pic for hi-res)  A tighter view of yellow Piper perfection

Video: Virgin Galactic And SpaceShipTwo Supersonic On First Powered Flight Test!

(click pic for hi-res) SpaceShipTwo first powered flight on 4.29.13 (photo: Virgin Galactic)

 Great success was achieved yesterday (April 29, 2013) in Mojave California as Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic flew SpaceShipTwo Enterprise on their first powered flight ever. After release from the mothership at 47,000 feet, the SS2 crew fired the rocket motor for 16 seconds propelling them up to 55,000 feet and Mach 1.2 - supersonic!

 The test flight appears to have been completely successful. Congratulations to all involved in achieving this major milestone!

read the full Virgin Galactic report here 

(click pic for hi-res)  Enterprise during first rocket burn test flight (photo: Virgin Galactic)  

CoolPix: Convair Ad Circa 1953 With B-36 (Orange Paint!)

(click pic for hi-res)  Awesome aerospace-diversity Convair ad circa 1953

 Fear not, AirPigz HAS NOT gone 'orange paint' for every post already... I just knew that today I'd be posting this sweet Convair ad from back in the day, and I figured preceding it yesterday with some extra Convair-related orange paint was gonna be a great lead-in. Be sure to open this CoolPix artwork up big and take it all in, and take note of the line drawing of the P5Y in the blue area at the top. That's an amazing airplane that I will tell you I knew nothing about. Never even heard of it before seeing this ad - I have sooo much to learn! I'll have a detailed post on the P5Y (aka R3Y Tradewind) before long with some amazing images.

 This fabulous ad from around 1953 definitely put Convair's extremely robust aerospace diversity on display! Wow, those post WWII years were pretty incredible! But it's not just the swanky retro graphics of amazing flying machines that make this image so retro to me, it's also the fact that the photoshop restoration of this image was done by a guy that I actually went to private school with in California back in the late 60's for 1st thru 3rd grades. It was my work on AirPigz that got us back in contact after not seeing each other since I left that school in the 3rd grade!

 Chris Bryan and I not only went to the same school, but we both had dad's who flew for United and we were both pretty hardcore avgeeks at a very young age. Chris runs the really cool website BoxArtDen that has an incredible collection of box art from old-school plastic models that have been digitally restored. So much of that old art is off-the-scale cool to look at... and Chris loves to focus on the avgeek aspect of it. Be sure to take some time and go check it all out.

 I also found out a few years back when Chris and I got back in contact that he has a younger brother Hal, who I had never met when we were kids. Turns out that Hal and I had been emailing each other right at that time concerning issues related to AirPigz and the EAA... Hal is the online community manager at the EAA! (wow, it really is a small world! But, as a comedian once said, "I'd hate to have to paint it!" : )

 Thanx Chris for sharing this sweet old Convair ad that includes some orange paint! 

CoolPix: Jimmy Doolittle And The Gee Bee R-1 Race Past The Bendix Pylon! (1932)

(click pic for hi-res)  The iconic Gee Bee R-1 at 1932 Cleveland National Air Races

 (check out the Gee Bee category on AirPigz)

 This is actually a picture of a picture... the enlarged photograph is on the wall at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and I captured a picture of that photograph during the NASM AirPigz MeetUp back in late January 2013. I was spending quite a bit of time channeling Howard Hughes in the presence of the Hughes H-1 racer, and this photograph was on the wall nearby along with other interesting items from the golden age of air racing. I went ahead and took the pic knowing that one day I'd wanna post it here. I really like how the off-center Gee Bee helps relate the speed that the racer was traveling - probably around 250 mph, but maybe more. Be sure to click this CoolPix to open it up hi-res.

 There's a similar picture viewable on the net (sample here) but it shows Jimmy and the Gee Bee going from left to right. After studying the two pix a bit I realized that the signboard in the pic here says 'Event L Lap' while the other pic says 'Event R Lap'. I haven't done the research to know for sure what that means, but I would assume that, for whatever reason, the airplane was flying the race course in opposite directions. One of these days I'll take the time to understand the meaning... but for now I'm content just imagining what it would have been like to be there in person (and in color) as this amazing aircraft and amazing pilot ripped a streak in the Cleveland sky. Seriously, if you do more than just look at this image, if you make a specific effort you can let your mind take you back to 1932 and a world that is so far away from the one we live in today. And yet there they were, less than 30 years after the Wright Brothers, and the Granville Brothers had a race airplane that could easily exceed 250 mph. (Jimmy set a world speed record in the Shell Speed Dash during the 1932 races of 296 mph!)

 So there you have it, my Gee Bee obsession remains intact. More to come : )

CoolPix: Closer Than You've Ever Been To The B-17 Yankee Lady!

(click pic for hi-res) Prop hub on #1 engine of the B-17 Yankee Lady at Oshkosh 2012

 I woke up to about 3 inches of snow in northern Indiana this Monday morning! Isn't it actually Spring now?? Hmm, global warming just isn't what it used to be (hehe) - no worries tho, I've got a couple unique CoolPix images from a warm and sunny day at Oshkosh 2012 for ya here. I admit that this ultra-close view is a little odd, but I thought being pulled in really close on the prop hub of the B-17 Yankee Lady (which I also got an amazing ride in back in 2010) was a nifty view of both the head on that bolt and the other aircraft parked on what we used to call AeroShell Square at Oshkosh. I think we call it ConocoPhillips Plaza, or Conoco Plaza, or Phillips Plaza, or something like that now. Anyway, in the reflection you can see the B-17, the Orbis DC-10, a C-5 Galaxy, the colorful stripes of a Southwest 737, and there's even a DC-3 in there but it's a little hard to make out.

 The image below is the one that I cropped from and it gives a little better perspective on the prop hub. This was a very happy moment for me when I captured this pic... I was both re-living my ride experience in Yankee Lady and I was on the best place on Earth, Oshkosh during Oshkosh. Wow : ) 

(click pic for hi-res)  The wider view of Yankee Lady's #1 engine prop hub