AirVenture 2004

July 31, 2004 - AirVenture 2004 Day Two continued
The only Messerschmidt 109 I've seen before is the one in the Smithsonian. I've never seen one at a fly-in. People were all over this one. My only complaint is that I didn't get to see it fly. The Warbirds always fly during the airshow but for some reason this one didn't. Both times I went by the ME-109 the owner was there answering questions about his rare bird. The famous Reno air racer Skip Holm piloted the plane for him.

I was down by the Warbirds waiting for the C-5 to take off when the funky looking little plane on the right taxiied by. You see all kinds at AirVenture! That's one of the things that makes it great.

This gorgeous Bearcat taxiied by while the C-5 -- see just above and behind the Bearcat canopy -- came around for a low pass. I'm probably going to paint my RV in the Bearcat paint scheme: glossy dark blue with white U.S. Navy insignia and a little bit of color.

Here comes the C-5. This picture doesn't come close to doing what we saw justice. The C-5 just kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until it seemed to fill the sky. After it passed, the thousands of people were absolutely silent. Stunned.

Wow. One of the the highlights of AirVenture, at least for me.

A shot of some of the forum pavilions. They have 10 pavilions and each one has a different speaker every hour, speaking on every aspect of aviation. You could profitably spend all your time at AirVenture just going to the forums. Burt Rutan of recent spaceship fame was probably the biggest speaker. Bruce and I went to Rod Machado's "Hangar Flying" session. Rod Machado is well-known as writer of aviation training books and columns, but he is also what I would call an aviation comedian. The Hangar Flying is a standup comedy routine with an aviation theme and it is grea! Highly recommended. I need to buy his IFR book one of these days.

This doesn't have anything to do aviation but I got a kick out of it. The Land Rover people built this big dirt mountain and demoed their vehicles on it.

Check out the tires on this American Champion Scout. This airplane is definately ready for the bush.

My boss at work is an avid sports fisherman. I'm going to suggest he buy this plane. Who would fly it? If asked, I would serve.

I give this plane the AirVenture Best Paintjob award.



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July 31, 2004 - AirVenture 2004 Day Two continued