June 7, 2008 - AOPA Open House
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Despite being a card carrying member of the Airplane Owner and Pilot's
Association for many years, I've never been to AOPA's annual open house
fly-in at nearby Frederick, Maryland. Neither Bruce or I having an
airworthy powered plane at present, we disgraced ourselves by driving to
the fly-in. Actually, the flying conditions were poor -- hot
and hazy -- and very few pilots flew in. Also, President
Bush was spending the weekend at nearby Camp David which
supersized the P-40 restricted airspace close to Frederick.
I'm sure this also discouraged some aviators.
This is the AOPA Headquarters building. Nice, modern
facility.
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In front of the HQ building were the
vendor airplanes. All brand new, state-of-the-art, and undoubtedly
very expensive. Except for maybe one Light sport aircraft (LSA) that
was there, I don't think you could touch anything for less than
300K. Who has the money to buy this
stuff!!!???
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This Diamond twin
just oozes sleek and fast. |
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What a nice way to
travel!
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| The ultramodern,
composite Columbia/Lancair. |
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| Further down the
line, away from the Vendor airplanes, was this well-worm Navy T-44.
I know they used to use this plane for multi-engine training for future
P-3 Orion pilots. |
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Who says you have
to be rich to own your own plane? |
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A little Kitfox
action.
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A SkyRanger
kitplane. I could probably build something like this in less than a
year. |
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I've seen this AirCam many
times. It's home-based at nearby Martin State airport.
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| There were a couple
of RV's at the show. |
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Mitchell Lock, multiple repeat-offender and Van's Aircraft East Coast
rep, was at the show with his RV-8. Look what a nice job he did on
his spinner.
Each time I see an RV at an airshow, I focus on a different area,
depending on what building stage I'm on at the time. For this show,
I was interested in the cowling, cowling inlet and spinner
areas.
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This newly restored L-recon plane was
for sale. They did a beautiful job on the restoration.
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They won the show
award for biggest antenna. |
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Bruce spotted this Cub in a hangar and
was all over
it.
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| This airplane lift
allows them to keep two planes in one hangar. Hangar rents being
what they are, it probably only takes a couple of years to pay for
itself. |
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| Baby-blue ScareCoop
on the line. |
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My next
project? This poor Cessna 150 has seen better days. Wonder why
it's tied down on the line? I imagine it's next destination is
either the Boneyard or the aluminum recyling center. |
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Bruce spotted this Sonex in a hangar
and talked with the
owner.
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We
checked out the building with all the vendor booths. Maybe 1/10th of what you'd find
at Oshkosn or Sun 'N Fun. Ran into a few people we knew. The open
house was well organized, with frequent shuttle busses to the parking lot.
Plenty of food vendors as well. |
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