Oshkosh AirVenture 2007 - July 24-27, 2007

Oshkosh -- the Disneyland of Aviation.

Time stands still when you're at Oshkosh. I can honestly say I didn't think about work the entire four days I was there.

Ray, Alex, Rob (Maule Man) and Bruce in our luxurious Camp Scholler campsite. It rained hard one night but our tents performed well.

Despite the large area and masses of people, I ran into three Trunk Monkeys, Diana from Missouri, and some Pilot of America posters.

I went to the gas welding workshop Friday morning. My understanding of welding improved about 1000%. With riveting one can be productive after about five minutes. Welding is a whole different ball game. It would take me hours and hours of practice before I could every weld anything airworthy.

I checked out the Nuvite booth because my RV is going to be polished aluminum with gloss cowl, wingtips and empennage. They were polishing a 172 under the tent. The head guy sat down with me and explained everything. They had a show special kit so I ended ordering that.

This is what my RV is going to look like. I don't know where I got this photo from but I liked it from the start. If anybody knows this airplane shoot me an email.

I stopped by the Cleaveland Tools booth and picked up a wire stripper. They had a Main Squeeze with the side off so you could see how the gearing worked inside.

Outside of the NASA pavilion was this scale model of the Ares I rocket, which will shoot 4-6 astronauts and crew capsule module into space for the moon landing scheduled around 2020 -- called the Constellation Program. I was fascinated. I hadn't realized they are so far along in the project. The Ares I will be able to lift 55,000 pounds into low Earth orbit and is scheduled for first flight in 2009. It will be used to take astronauts to the space station in 2015.

The Ares V is the big cargo rocket that will carry the lunar lander into orbit. It will be able to heft 286,000 pounds to low Earth orbit. First test flight is around 2018.

Forums are one of my favorite things at Oshkosh and Sun 'N Fun although I never go to as many as I would like. I did catch Bob Nuckolls electrical system forum. Mostly he covered what's in his book, although he did bring us up to speed in battery technology. I enjoyed seeing him in person.

I also went to a forum on maintaining two-stroke Rotax engines, since my Kitfox project has a Rotax 582. The forum was given by Phil Lockwood who is an authority on the subject. The forum was perfect for me. I filled up two sheets of paper with notes. Phil had to stop talking for a few minutes while two F-22 Raptors beat up the field.

Of course I walked through the four big vendor buildings, and the flymarket. I looked at all the RVs, showplanes, vintage, homebuilts and ultralights. I didn't make it to the North 40. I didn't make it to the Museum this year unfortunately since I always enjoy it. Unlike Sun 'N Fun, I wasn't able to spend time in the morning close to the runway just watching airplanes coming and going. I don't even know if there's a good place to do that. The problem is Oshkosh is so big. You only have a finite amount of energy. Distance is a big factor in deciding what you are going to do. Don't get me wrong, though, I had a great time overall. Hopefully next year I'll be arriving via RV-7!

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Oshkosh AirVenture 2007 - July 24-27, 2007
Oshkosh -- the Disneyland of Aviation. Time stands still when you're at Oshkosh. I can honestly say I didn't think about work the entire four days I was there.

Ray, Alex, Rob (Maule Man) and Bruce in our luxurious Camp Scholler campsite. It rained hard one night but our tents performed well.

Despite the large area and masses of people, I ran into three Trunk Monkeys, Diana from Missouri, and some Pilot of America posters.

I went to the gas welding workshop Friday morning. My understanding of welding improved about 1000%. With riveting one can be productive after about five minutes. Welding is a whole different ball game. It would take me hours and hours of practice before I could every weld anything airworthy.

I checked out the Nuvite booth because my RV is going to be polished aluminum with gloss cowl, wingtips and empennage. They were polishing a 172 under the tent. The head guy sat down with me and explained everything. They had a show special kit so I ended ordering that.

This is what my RV is going to look like. I don't know where I got this photo from but I liked it from the start. If anybody knows this airplane shoot me an email.

I stopped by the Cleaveland Tools booth and picked up a wire stripper. They had a Main Squeeze with the side off so you could see how the gearing worked inside.

Outside of the NASA pavilion was this scale model of the Ares I rocket, which will shoot 4-6 astronauts and crew capsule module into space for the moon landing scheduled around 2020 -- called the Constellation Program. I was fascinated. I hadn't realized they are so far along in the project. The Ares I will be able to lift 55,000 pounds into low Earth orbit and is scheduled for first flight in 2009. It will be used to take astronauts to the space station in 2015.

The Ares V is the big cargo rocket that will carry the lunar lander into orbit. It will be able to heft 286,000 pounds to low Earth orbit. First test flight is around 2018.

Forums are one of my favorite things at Oshkosh and Sun 'N Fun although I never go to as many as I would like. I did catch Bob Nuckolls electrical system forum. Mostly he covered what's in his book, although he did bring us up to speed in battery technology. I enjoyed seeing him in person. I also went to a forum on maintaining two-stroke Rotax engines, since my Kitfox project has a Rotax 582. The forum was given by Phil Lockwood who is an authority on the subject. The forum was perfect for me. I filled up two sheets of paper with notes. Phil had to stop talking for a few minutes while two F-22 Raptors beat up the field. Of course I walked through the four big vendor buildings, and the flymarket. I looked at all the RVs, showplanes, vintage, homebuilts and ultralights. I didn't make it to the North 40. I didn't make it to the Museum this year unfortunately since I always enjoy it. Unlike Sun 'N Fun, I wasn't able to spend time in the morning close to the runway just watching airplanes coming and going. I don't even know if there's a good place to do that. The problem is Oshkosh is so big. You only have a finite amount of energy. Distance is a big factor in deciding what you are going to do. Don't get me wrong, though, I had a great time overall. Hopefully next year I'll be arriving via RV-7!
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