I arrived at Stead Field in Reno before the sun came up this morning (Thursday) and I had a feeling that there'd be some good stuff to see as the sun was rising. As the pic above shows, Strega was out in the smooth morning air making some beautiful music. I assume it was just a test flight, but it sure made for a great way to see the start of my first day at Reno 2011.
The low-morning-sun lit the airplane up in a special way as it rolled out after landing.
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The first racers up in the morning a heat of biplanes and a heat of Formula One. It's a cool sight to see the teams push or pull their aircraft out of the hangars and down to the ramp. The golden morning sun makes this extra special in the mornings.
Ok, it's true that you'll see a few trikes in this video, but c'mon, the sweetest STOL performers drag their tails! This past weekend was the Valdez (Alaska) May Day Fly-In & Air Show and once again they had a pretty exciting short takeoff and landing competition. It's the good ole pioneering spirit of America mixed in with pure avgeek fun!
You also get some stunning Alaska scenery at the start of the video while the nice people who put the video together were on the way to Valdez. I think I really like Alaska.
My Saturday morning at Sun-n-Fun 2011 started at the commercial exhibits not far from the camping area. This yellow and white biplane stood out right away as something special. Obviously not 'Pitts' special, but very cool nonetheless. It's the Fk12 Comet, a Rotax 912 LSA that promises fun in a way pretty much no other LSA could even dream about. The wings are fabric covered, but the structure underneath is all composite, and the fuselage is mostly welded steel tube with aluminum tube for the aft section. Lots of interesting and innovative thinking in this light, sporty, aircraft!
The American Legend display of modern Cubs included one with no fabric on it so all of the structure was visible. The use of modern materials and a variety of interesting design changes takes the timeless original Cub design even closer to perfection. I'm still dreaming about the one from yesterday on amphibious floats!
After being hit so hard by the tornado on Thursday, the Air Cam display was looking almost back together. I was glad to see they hadn't given up after losing 4 airplanes... hopefully they'll head back home with several new orders on the books to take some of the sting out of a really rough year at SNF11.
With the damaging storm of Thursday over and gone, Friday began with a lot of mud on the Sun-n-Fun grounds. This scene above is oddly reminiscent of Oshkosh 2010 where muddy roads like this were all over. In another similarity to Oshkosh, wet grounds and mud weren't about to dampen the spirit of the event, and Friday wound up being a great day at SNF11.
A quick run thru the commercial exhibit area first thing Friday morning revealed several vendors still in the process of cleaning up after the storm. Many of the temporary structures had collapsed as you would expect in such high winds. Some vendors were fortunate to only have displays damaged. Others, like the Air Cam people were left with a tremendous amount of damage to their aircraft.
Three different Air Cam's can be seen in these pictures with devastating damage. A fourth airplane had been blown backward across the display area and also wound up with significant damage. Reports are indicating that the storm was possibly a tornado, and the very localized damage as seen here would seem to support that idea.
Click this Piper Cub screenshot to see an awesome video of aviation perfection
I got an email today from a friend with a link to this Piper Cub video from Sleeping Dog Productions... wow, these guys have done a really great job capturing the essence of the Cub. So it was an easy decision to let y'all know about their work. Click either of these two screenshots to go directly to the video on their website. (lots of other great vids there too)
This video does a lot to help explain the kinds of things I've shared over the last two years about what makes the Cub so special. All of my Cub time is actually in a 90hp Clip Wing version, but everything that makes a full span Cub so fabulous is still there in the short wing conversion... and then some in my estimation.
Seeing the joy that people experience in the Cub is exactly why I think we need a real Cub revolution in America. We need lots of flight schools all over the country teaching people to fly in simple, cheap-to-operate original J-3 Cubs that cost $50,000 or less, and that's in good enough shape to work their tail off. With super-low operating costs and more smiles-to-the-hour than any Cessna 150 could ever deliver, a Cub revolution could inject the big missing element in modern General Aviation... pure passion for the simple beauty of flight.
Maybe it's just me, but modern LSA's just can't inspire the same love for flying that a 1940's yellow Cub can. So I'm still hoping someone will spark a nostalgic revolution of authentic Cubs that are affordable, beautiful, and most of all - a perfect joy to fly.
Click this Piper Cub screenshot to see an awesome video of aviation perfection
With the snow storm in full swing across quite a bit of the country, I figured we could use a quick look at some airplanes-on-skis videos. Nothing incredible here, but still a lot of fun to watch. I flew a Champ on skis back in the day and I remember it really was a ton-o-fun... I'm looking forward to the day when I get to do some ski flying again : )
It's true, my heart rate might increase more than yours at the sight of this gorgeous looking Clip Wing CUBy, but c'mon, what could be more fun than sweet 100 hp taildragger that can fly all day with the door open and costs less than half of a Cessna Skycatcher? Yeah I know, the Skycatcher would be new, and this is a used homebuilt. Whatever. This thing is awesome! If I had some bucks in the bank or a credit score that wasn't in a flat spin, I'd be hopping in the car right now to go check this little gem out. Ultimately, in my opinion, it's the clipped wings that really make this airplane special... more on that in a minute.
If you check out the listing for this airplane you'll see it called a 'Cubby', but to be accurate it's really a CUBy, by Wag-Aero. It's pretty interesting that Dick Wagner was on the cutting edge way back in 1975 when he introduced the homebuilt Cub clone that he named CUBy. There's quite a bit of story that goes with all the CUBy development, and hopefully one of these days I'll research it up and post the details. But for now it's good to note that while the Cub clone frenzy has been booming in the last dozen years or so, it really had its beginning with Dick Wagner and the CUBy back in the 70's.
But the real story here to me, is in this next picture!
The high temp in northern Indiana today was right around the freezing mark, and with the clear knowledge that winter is on the way I found myself aching for some pure summer feelings... and that of course left me thinking about Oshkosh! It's pretty hard to beat a video (or two) from youtuber slickhutto for getting that OSH feeling stirred up, so here ya go! The 2009 Oshkosh video from Slick is above - I figured if you've already seen it, it's probably been a while, so it should feel pretty fresh...
...and this video is the one from 2010. Slick does a great job of capturing the real feel of Oshkosh, while also doing a fab job of editing. If you're a purist and would rather watch some Oshkosh without it bering a music video, check out Slick's youtube page for the more recent uploads that run 10 minutes and feature airplanes with all their natural (beautiful) sounds.
I hope watching these videos inspires you to push ahead with whatever aviation project you're into. Whether you're building an airplane, learning to fly, upgrading your ratings, or maybe needing to fall in love with flying again (or just soaking up all the aviation knowledge you can find), watching moments from Oshkosh is one of the best ways to be motivated. I know it sure helps keep me going - thanx Slick : )
(click pic for hi-res) A perfect Piper Cub at Oshkosh 2010
I've been spoutin' off about the near-perfection status of the good ole original Piper J-3 Cub for a long time now, but my post the other day about Sonex Aircraft's Onex and how it might be able to fix the desperate condition of General Aviation gave me a chance to suggest something fairly radical. What if we took a giant step backward and made a hardcore effort to put 200 or more original Cubs to work all across America teaching people how to fly? Why would we wanna do this? Well, a fully certified Cub in good condition can be bought for under $40,000, which means you can get about THREE of these antique airplanes for the cost of one of those supposed-to-be-really-affordable LSA's. And while I admit that I haven't flown any of the new LSA aircraft, I do have a lot of time flying a clip-wing Cub around with the window down and the doors open... I know there's no way any of the modern LSA's can be more 'fun' than a Cub.
In my estimation, the 'fun' factor is essential in getting people into the amazing world of aviation. But we desperately need to find ways to make it more affordable too. The much lower initial investment of the Cub helps right away, and then the daily operating costs should be able to compete directly with an LSA, or maybe even beat it. Possibly most important is the idea that we NEED to make this kind of a solution happen. To me, this means that we need people passionate about flying that will dive in and make this work without the idea that it's all about money. I'm not suggesting they shouldn't make, sure they should! But if making money is priority number 1, then most likely the cost structure will be built in a way that makes it all cost too much.
I'm also thinking that we probably need to strategically place these Cub Training Centers at just the right spots around the country to be sure that they have enough activity going on to make the operations profitable. Ultimately, I think we need some benevolent, trusted group of people or organization to oversee this plan. With a bit of centralization, I would think the operations could be streamlined and standardized to make it all work very successfully.
About now is when some of you are shaking your head at all this crazy dreaming. Well, it is a bit crazy, but it's way past time we get some sort of active 'pilot producing' plan into action. With the buying power of the average American shrinking a lot over the last 10 years and the cost of avgas over $4 a gallon, what are we gonna do? We can give up and watch it all dwindle down to nothing, but you and I both know that's not really an option here.
So, the real point to this post is just to soak in a little Piper Cub imagery. The CoolPix pic above should stir up a little passion in you, and the video clip from One Six Right below should really get your grass-roots blood pumping. You can be sure I'll be back on this subject soon with more of my ideas on how to make Cub Training Centers a reality. Til then, feel free to leave a comment... even if you think I'm crazy : )
Some people drool over a Piper Malibu, Beech Bonanza, or a Cirrus SR22, but if I was able to have any airplane that could take a few friends along and get there kinda quick, I'd want this Mr Mulligan replica! I'm assuming this is the one from the Arkansas Air Museum as I'm not aware of any other replicas of this most amazing aircraft from the mid 1930's. 550 hp hangin' off the nose and room for four... I'm likes it!
I got this pic while on the way to help my friend @adamcanfly get his camping stuff moved from Camp Scholler to the far south end of the airport so we could load it into the Cherokee he had flown in from Kansas. We had to stop and let Mr Mulligan taxi by in front of us, and it's hard to catch me at Oshkosh without my camera. Mr Mulligan looked to be all loaded up and blasting off for home on this morning, the the last day of Oshkosh.
Once we got down past the south end of 18-36 where the Cherokee was parked, which btw, Adam claims is actually far enuf south to be considered part of Fond du Lac and not Oshkosh(!), I realized that some of the departing aircraft were going right overhead. Another great time to grab the camera! This pic is a modern WACO with the nifty FlyWACO.com web address on the underside : )
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 08:53PM 
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