“The [economic] malaise has dampened sales [in the United States], but European and African customers are beating our doors down,” said Peter F. Bowers, the new owner of Waco Classic Aircraft Corp. in Battle Creek, Michigan. Bowers, formerly the owner of an aluminum extrusion company, sold two Waco aircraft to a Kenyan sight-seeing company. “Our delivery pilot saw tribesmen with a blackberry in one hand and a spear in the other,” Bowers said.
Here is a video of one of the new Wacos at play in Kenya.
Want a commercially available personal jetpack to loft you into the heavens like a hovercraft on steroids? It will be flown Tuesday, July 29, at EAA AirVenture before a no-doubt astonished crowd. But right now it’s a secret. Rocket man/person? Piston-engine man/person?
I think I know what it is. In September of 2006 Glenn Neil Martin of Christchurch, New Zealand, patented a backpack featuring rotatable, belt-driven ducted fans–one off each shoulder–powered by a gas or turbine engine. (Shrouded propellers can be used, too, but Martin didn’t seem to think much of them in his patent papers.) That’s the same guy who is giving the demo. It may look something like the Milennium Jet Solo Trek .
It can’t really be called a jetpack, because that implies a standard James Bond rocket-power jetpack that typically only gives you 26 seconds of flight. Martin is reportedly promising 30 minutes of duration, so he must be thinking avgas or Jet A fuel, not rocket fuel. But if Martin’s unit uses a small jet engine to power the ducted fans, maybe it can still be called a jetpack. Bet it makes the Neiman Marcus Christmas Catalog.
Take a close look at Cirrus Design’s prototype SJ-50 “Vision” jet–and then glance at Alan and Dale Klapmeier’s original VK-30 from the 1980s and the similarities are impossible to miss.
The sleek, five-seat, low-wing, composite airplanes are true to the same design philosophy with technology that’s 20 years apart.
“This is the natural maturation of the same exact idea,” said Mike Van Staggen, Cirrus Design’s vice president for advanced development, a leader in Vision design and testing. “Both airplanes were meant to be the ultimate in personal transportation machines.”
There are plenty of differences in the planes, too.
The Narwhal-like Vision has wider curves for more interior space, a thicker wing with greater area for a slower, 61-knot stall speed, and a distinctive V-tail to accommodate the biggest difference: a single, top-mounted, Williams FJ-33 jet engine.
Cirrus CEO Alan Klapmeier said he and brother Dale first met with engine designer Sam Williams in 1989 seeking a jet to power their kit-built VK-30. But nothing was commercially available at the time that was small or fuel efficient enough to fit their airplane. Read the rest of this entry »
Recently, I noticed a large bird ahead of me on downwind. I was flying a twin and wondered if the bird could distinguish the difference between an aircraft with an engine on each wing versus an aircraft with one engine on the nose. I figured local birds get to become savvy about those things, especially flying around at our busy field (FDK).
Not trusting the bird, however, I had to think about the best strategy: Do birds dive or climb when they see an aircraft? Turned out the bird was no longer a factor by the time I concluded it might dive. Luckily I’ve never had a fowl foil my flight. I’ve seen pictures, though, of bird-strikes–not a pretty sight.
I’m curious if the bird-diving theory has been verified.
XM datalink weather is really cool. You only have to look at the amount of Garmin 496s that have been sold to realize that. And the subscription isn’t cheap, which further confirms its value to pilots. But I think there’s an even better on board weather tool, and chances are you’ve already heard of it.
The Stormscope is my new friend. Yesterday AOPA Photographer Chris Rose, another adventurous staffer, and I flew the Association’s Bonanza to Penn Yan, New York, to shoot some photos for an upcoming issue of the magazine. There was a warm front in central New York that was pushing some significant storms through central Pennsylvania. In fact, Harrisburg tracon (a fantastic, helpful facility) said they were painting the precip as extreme. The Bonanza has a Garmin GMX200 with XM weather that includes datalink lightning. It was nice seeing the rain and lightning hits, but my new friend really carried us through.
It has me wondering why we think datalink info is so much better. Yes, it offers METARS, TAFS, and other great stuff, but there is no replacement for a display of real-time electrical discharge. Combine the eyes, the Stormscope, ATC, and datalink, and you have one potent package of weather awareness.
Not too long ago, ok, 26 years ago, $30,000 would buy a new Cessna 152 and $60,000 would buy a new Cessna 172. Things got more expensive but then the light sport airplanes promised to bring back a $60,000 new airplane. Most light sport aircraft are generally $90,000 to $140,000. Now comes the X-Air at that goes out the door with all the options (transponder, handheld GPS) for $51,000. It could be called “minimalist.”
The Diamond Aircraft dealer for states from Delaware to Kentucky has a new approach last seen in the 1950s–the traveling salesman. John Armstrong of Dominion Aircraft Sales came up with a list during the June AOPA Fly-In of people that wanted a demonstration, then followed up in July.
He is seen here as he made a stop for customers in the Frederick, Maryland, area, demonstrating enhanced vision in the Garmin G1000 aboard a DA40 Diamond Star.
July 16, 2008 by Thomas B. Haines, Editor in Chief
I laughed when I saw the sign for Gibson Boulevard, which runs just north of Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ). It’s a real place! After 16 hours in the simulator at Eclipse Aviation earning a type rating in the Eclipse 500, I was very familiar with the simulated Gibson Boulevard, but it hadn’t really sunk in that it was real.
A circling approach is one of the requirements for a type rating. At Eclipse, it’s usually done as an approach to ABQ’s Runway 8, circling to 17. One of the tricks you learn is that once you turn north for circling, you quickly cross Gibson Boulevard (with its simulated cars and trucks zipping by)–then count to about 8 and then make a left base leg turn and the end of Runway 17 will magically appear.
Author at the controls of the Eclipse 500 simulator.
So by the time I was driving to ABQ to airline it home after the checkride I had flown the circling approach a half dozen times. And there was the sign announcing the exit for Gibson Boulevard–it was a weird moment of realization of just how real the Level D simulator is.
It was a surreal moment a few weeks later when I touched a real Eclipse 500 for the first time. Sitting in the cockpit in Maryland, I expected to see only ABQ’s taxiways through the windshield.
Check out the video to see what it’s like to move from the high-zoot full-motion simulator and its spectacular visual system, all of which costs tens of millions of dollars, to the real thing, priced at a seemingly reasonable $2.15 million. For more on the Eclipse 500, see the August cover story of AOPA Pilot and my previous blog and video“Think you can fly the Eclipse 500?”
July 16, 2008 by Thomas B. Haines, Editor in Chief
My short attention span proves my undoing when I have to leaf through a back issue of AOPA Pilot for some tidbit of information. I needed some info from the December 1990 issue and in looking for it I found myself perusing all of the pages, amused at how different things are from even 18 years ago. One particularly interesting nugget was what we used to call the “Fuel Watch” report. We reported that 100LL avgas hit $2 per gallon in August 1990. 80-octane was just $1.94–remember that? Adjusted for inflation, that gallon of 100LL ought to cost $3 now. Instead, the average price of avgas is $5.72, according to data from 100LL.com in AOPA’s Airport Directory Online. You can see regional averages online and do a radius search of any airport for nearby fuel prices–great for planning your fuel stops.
Good luck finding that gallon of 80-octane at any price.
July 15, 2008 by Jill W. Tallman, Associate Editor
Riding on a Seattle city bus headed downtown, I saw a huge expanse of hangars and other aviation-type buildings, and realized I was in the heart of Boeing country. And there it was, practically yanking me out of my seat: the Museum of Flight. After paying the $14 admission, I spent a happy two hours wandering around the exhibits, which include the modified GeeBee pictured here, and a Concorde that you can climb into. (Did you know that AOPA Pilot Editor in Chief Tom Haines flew in the Concorde?)
Then it was off to the gift shop, where I plunked down $49 for a coffee mug, a mousepad emblazed with the Seattle sectional, and an aviation shirt (hey, you can never have too many). But the best part of the day didn’t cost me one thin dime. That’s the time I spent on the patio at the museum’s Wings Cafe, which overlooks Runways 13L/31R and 13R/31L at Boeing Field/King County. Here I got to watch a steady stream of commercial jets play nicely with the ceaseless GA traffic, which included a pair of 172s doing pattern work, a biplane, and the occasional floatplane.
