AirVenture 2021 - Interesting Airplanes
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| A gorgeous 1949 Cessna 140 which has had 25 owners over 72 years. |
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An equally gorgeous 1929 Travel Air Model 6000.
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| An amazing one-third scale replica of a B-17 Flying Fortress. And it flies with a human being pilot inside! It is powered by four Hirth F-30 two-stroke, four cylinder engines. It took builder Jack Bally 18 years (40,000 man-hours) to build the "Bally Bomber". |
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The ultimate toy: a Stemme Grand Tourer S12-G two-place motorglider. The nose cone slides out and the variable pitch propeller unfolds. The engine is a turbocharged Rotax 914. The cockpit has dual 7" Garmin G3-X touch displays. It has an amazing glide ration of 53 to 1. The price? If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
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| A beautifully polished Ryan SCW-145. The first one flew in 1937; only 13 were ever built. It is powered by a 145hp Warner Super Scarab radial engine |
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| A plane polished this well deserves a second photo. |
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Bruce is now happily flying around Florida in a Champ with these same colors.
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| A Fokker D-7 replica made from a kit by Airdrome Aeroplanes. |
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This Mustant II has been rode hard and put away wet.
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| Kitfox seems to be doing well these days with a big booth. |
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| My friend Mark M. and "Chippy", his Super Chipmonk, was in the prime parking area (at left). |
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| Over in the Ultralight section was this Sky Pup, started by a young man from Texas when he was 16 years old. Now he's 18, he built the plane in a year after working at a chicken farm for two years to pay for the materials, and he plans to fly it when he gets his private pilot's license in a month. Good on ya! |
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A Twin Commanche. Back during my department head tour in VP-45, the Executive Officer (XO) had a Twin Commanche and I flew with him in it from Manassas, Virginia to Jacksonville, Florida. I had visions of flying down low over the Atlantic coast beaches, but we flew airways up high. Boring!
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| Wingfoot Three, the Goodyear Blimp. |
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| Another shot of Wingfoot Three from our campsite. |
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The Ford Trimotor taxiis by. This plane flew nonstop all day, every day, giving rides at AirVenture.
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| It's good to see a little Corben Baby Ace at Oshkosh. |
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This plane in front of the Garmin booth received a lot of attention. One of a kind "Scrappy" was built by pilot celebrity Mike Patey, previously famous for flying, and crashing, his Draco STOL plane. Patey modified a CubCrafters Carbon Cub EX3 bush airplane kit into this amazing plane.
Check out that four-blade prop.
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| Check out that panel! It's easy to see through the clear pexiglass doors. |
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Scrappy is powered by a Lycoming eight-cylinder engine modified to 600 horsepower. It has a “fully controllable suspension” with dual shock absorbers The apparatus can raise or lower the steep nose or the conventional-gear tail to ease taxiing. “You can articulate up, down, right, left—drop it down so you can see over the nose for safe taxiing—or raise it way up for takeoff,” says Patey.
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| If you have lots of money stop by the Cirrus Aircraft booth. |
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| The Cadillac of general aviation planes. |
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| Icon amphibians are still hanging around although their fancy booth is no longer on the main avenue. |
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Checking out a new 172 in the Cessna booth. Yawn.
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| Bruce in front of one of those newfangled eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle). I think this one is the BlackFly personal aerial vehicle. Its first ever public manned flight was this week at AirVenture. |
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| BlackFly flies! |
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Another eVTOL: the Volocity air taxi/freight vehicle which also flew at AirVenture. |
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The Boeing 747 has always been one of my favorite planes. I never get over how big they are. But they have been around a long time and manufacture is scheduled to end next year, after 54 years of production. This gleaming white UPS 747 was in Boeing Square and looked great.
I found out later when it took off that it is a brand spanking new 747-8 Freighter. The 747-8 uses the same engine and cockpit technology as the 787, hence the use of the "8". The 747-8's fuselage is lengthened from 232 to 251 feet marking the first stretch variant of the aircraft.
As of July 2019, there were 462 Boeing 747s in airline service, with Atlas Air and British Airways being the largest operators with 33 747-400s each. (In July 2020, British Airways announced that it was retiring its 747 fleet. The final British Airways 747 flights departed London Heathrow on 8 October 2020.) The last US passenger Boeing 747 was retired from Delta Air Lines in December 2017, after it flew for every American major carrier since its 1970 introduction.
As of June 2020, 1,556 aircraft had been built, with 15 747-8s remaining on order. 61 Boeing 747s have been lost in accidents although few crashes have been attributed to 747 design flaws.
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