CoolPix - Airshow: Inside Matt Younkin's Twin Beech

(click pic for hi-res)

 Sure, this CoolPix would more interesting if it was taken when Matt Younkin was sitting up front and the airplane was upside-down like the pic below, but first I'd have to figure out how to get that picture! I still think it's pretty sweet taking a look inside the beautiful ole Twin Beech that Matt does his fabulous airshows in.

 I got the pic recently at the Indy Air Show. I had never seen inside his airplane before, and I was a little surprised by how nicely it's finished off. That gorgeous headliner kinda seals the deal for me... really helps to give it that golden-age-of-aviation feel. I was also pleased with the way the pic turned out since I wasn't actually inside the airplane. I just held the camera inside and had the self-timer set so I could try to get things centered and framed well. It's almost right down the middle!

 Matt will be up at Oshkosh in July flying the Twin Beech in both the day and night shows. Between the sound, the massive smoke, and the graceful flying, it's pretty hard to beat what Matt brings to the airshow world!

Check out my podcast with Matt Younkin to learn about flying Twin Beech aerobatics

Video: Everyone Loves The Goodyear Blimp!

 I'm a really big fan of the Goodyear Blimp, so I'm pretty happy that the EAA has announced that one of them will be at Oshkosh 2010.  There's something very good and peaceful that happens when a blimp is in the air around Oshkosh... I can hardly wait!

 This video from AeroChannel.com does a great job of showing why the blimp is so easy to love : )

CoolPix - Modern Military: Incredible View Of The V-22 Osprey

(click pic for hi-res)

 The Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey has had a long and difficult journey to get where it is today. But as this hi-res CoolPix shows, an aircraft as unique as this, with the capabilities that it has, is really a pretty stunning sight in the air, especially from this view!

 For now, this pic should stir your thoughts and emotions on the Osprey... and you can expect more detailed info to come before long as it would seem this incredibly unique flying machine will need a week of AirPigz posts dedicated to it before long. Until then, roll those rotors forward and push this tiltrotor up to about 280 mph. YeeHaw!

Video: Red Bull Air Race In New York! Big Race Tomorrow!

Watch the New York race live Sunday 6-20-10 starting at 2:10pm EDT via
the free web feed at RedBullAirRace.com (click 'live' button under logo)

 3 great Red Bull Air Race videos for you to check out as the first ever race in New York got under way today. This first video has Michael Goulian taking you on a ride thru the Hudson River track so you can see what the guys are up against. (Check out my Michael Goulian podcast interview for more info on what it's like racing Red Bull style!)

 This video is pure action from today's qualifying. I watched all this live today on the free web feed that comes from the official race website - and you can watch tomorrow's race there too starting at 2:10pm EDT. Just click the 'live' button under the RBAR logo at RedBullAirRace.com. The coverage is amazing, really. Fantastic video, great commentary, perfect graphics & effects and an excellent fast pace. Please check it out if you can, you'll be very impressed.

 And this video gives a detailed breakdown of how the racers did in this qualifying day. The weather forecast looks really good for racing on Sunday, tho it's probably gonna be pretty hot... hopefully the racing is too!

Why Hasn’t Somebody Built A 3/4 Scale OV-10? Hmmm?

 Unless you’re some kind of weirdo, you probably like the 1960’s era North American OV-10 Bronco almost as much as I do. It’s kinda insect-like while being a bit of a brute, and when you consider that awesome visibility from the front seat, it would have to be ear-to-ear grin inducing. So, I’m wondering; why hasn’t someone snagged a couple really tired, and cheap, Garrett TPE331 turboprops off an old Turbo Commander or Mitsubishi MU-2 and built a really sweet 3/4 scale, 2-place OV-10?

 Seems like a guy could build a stunning replica for a couple or maybe three hundred thousand bucks. OK, true, he wouldn’t be a guy with a regular bank account, but there’s a lot of people out there with more money than that wrapped up in homebuilt Lancair IV. And if you’re interested in stirring up a little attention when you arrive at an airport, I’m thinking a 3/4 scale 2 seat turbine powered OV-10 is gonna be pretty hard to beat!

 I can also see it being almost practical. You can figure about 1,000 high-time horsepower pulling around a nice sized airframe with a pretty roomy cockpit. Let’s say it has a fabulous rate of climb and a 250mph max cruise speed. You could easily keep the power back then and run with a 200mph economy cruise. And then you’ve got that awesome hinged cap at the back end of the fuselage that opens up so you can put all your camping gear, an extra 55 gallons of Jet A, and food for a week inside when you’re heading out to central Alaska... and then, the camping gear and a dead moose for the trip back. I figure about 1,500 pounds of cargo nicely positioned right where you want it, on the CG. Nice. Better not get too big a moose though. Lastly, enough fuel in the wing to run for a good solid 6 hours.

 So, there you have it. I’ve done my part by giving you the idea, cuz that’s all I can afford on this project. Now, someone NEEDS to build this dreamy 3/4 scale OV-10!

 Can I have a ride? Puleeeze! Must. Have. Ride.

 : )

CoolPix - Vintage Military: B-36 Tank Track Landing Gear... Really?

(click pic for hi-res)

Probably the most unusual looking CoolPix so far.

 Looking a lot like something out of a really bad 1950’s sci-fi movie, this tank style ‘track’ landing gear was actually tried on the massive Convair B-36 Peacemaker around 1950. Originally the B-36 was configured with a huge, single main wheel and tire on each main gear leg as the pic below shows. These were the largest tires ever built at the time with a diameter of 9 ft 2 in! The single tire idea was soon changed to a 4-wheel bogie configuration because the single tire concentrated the over 400,000 pound gross weight into too small of an area. Very few runways could support the weight.  It also increased the risk of loss of control of the aircraft in the event of a tire failure.

 This tank track idea is both interesting and bizarre. It certainly makes sense to try to increase the contact patch of the gear, but seeing it installed here feels a bit disturbing. Wikipedia says the system was heavy and made a lot of noise, but I’m intrigued enuf to continue to look for more info on how it performed. The pic above seems to show the tracks sunk down into the ground quite a bit, but there’s no way to know how soft that terrain was. I did see a page from a 1950 magazine article for sale on eBay that shows the airplane in flight with these wild things hanging off the gear legs.

 A couple interesting items about those huge single tires originally used on the B-36. I remember going to the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio when I was 8 years old (1969) and seeing one of the gear legs with the massive tire attached. I haven’t been to the museum for several years (gonna fix that before long), but I’m guessing it’s still on display. It’s pretty amazing to see for sure. And, just 35 miles east of me in Fort Wayne, Indiana, an automotive maintenance business called Fox & Fox has one of the wheel and tire assemblies on display in front of the store… how weird is that?! (click Fox & Fox to see their store front)

 The original B-36 single-tire main landing gear: that's some big tires!

Geronimo! Cool 360 Panoramic Skydive Image

Free Fly Skydiving in Péronne in France

 I stumbled onto this pan/tilt/zoom 360 panoramic image over at the Hangar Talk forum at Oshkosh365.com this morning. When you go full screen and play around, it's almost like being there!

 And if you aren't kinda old like I am, you might not know how 'Geronimo' fits in here. Geronimo was a Native American who once escaped capture by courageously jumping off of a cliff into a creek below. In 1940, many years after Geronimo's passing, a U.S. paratrooper yelled Geronimo's name as he exited the airplane in his first mass-exit jump to show he wasn't afraid. The practice soon caught on and also became common in the sport skydive world that began to emerge in the late 50's and early 60's.

 So, the next time you jump out of an airplane, be sure to yell 'Geronimo-o-o-o-o-o' : )

Video: Soyuz TMA-17 Terra Firma Dustdown!

 This short video is pretty interesting to watch as the Soyuz TMA-17 mission returned to Earth on June 2nd 2010.  Onboard was Russian Cosmonaut and mission commander Oleg Kotov, along with NASA Astronaut and flight engineer Timothy Creamer and Japanese JAXA Astronaut and flight engineer Soichi Noguchi.  They were returning from over 5 months at the International Space Station.

 What I really like about the video is you can clearly see the retro blast that takes place just before the capsule impacts the ground.  A little research indicated that this blast decreases the rate of descent significantly before the actual earth impact brings the journey to a full and complete stop.  This breaks the overall impact into two separate jolts that are much easier on the body.

 I can't help but wonder how hard the impact is tho if the retro fails to fire... looks like I need to do a liitle more research : )

2010 Indy Air Show Pic Stream #4 - Super Sunday Airshow!

 The media and practice day at the Indy Air Show on Friday June 11th went great, but heavy rains that fell in a short amount of time very early Saturday morning caused the car-parking fields to flood.  The inability to safely park cars along with some additional weather issues caused the Saturday airshow to be cancelled.

 The hard working volunteer crews at IAS developed a plan to use the second runway and taxiway for car parking on Sunday.  This involved building a road along with loads of other logistical changes that all took place thru the day on Saturday.  By Sunday morning the weather had improved and the Mt. Comfort Airport was ready for an airshow!

 I've picked some of the better pix that I took of Sunday's airshow, and while they are shown in order, they don't represent anywhere near all of the acts that performed.  I wasn't able to catch everything, and my telephoto lens isn't strong enough to do well with the smaller akro airplanes.  You shouldn't have any trouble telling tho that the Indy Air Show is a big-time event.    

 Fortunately it hadn't rained any on Sunday morning, but the day started with the clouds just barely high enuf to get the airshow started.  As a result, the opening flag jump was not able to use the mega flag as planned, and instead this 'little' one had to be used... that is if you consider a flag several times bigger than a parachute to be 'little'!  After the struggles of Saturday, this airshow-opening flag jump was a really beautiful sight no matter what the flag size : )

  Here's Kent Pietsch in his little Interstate Cadet doing his comedy routine.  Like we talked about in my podcast with Kent a few weeks back, he drops the right aileron off the airplane early in the flight and then flies aerobatics with just the left aileron.  It's all very well done, and very entertaining.  It works especially well since the announcer stand has Kent patched thru and a funny convo takes place as he goes wacko in the sky.

 A big black Waco with smoke pouring out the exhaust would have to be Kyle Franklin!  Between the smoke, the huge radial engine sound, and the way Kyle pushes the airplane around the sky, it's modern akro with a heavy dose of early barnstorming.  The airplane looks really cool here with the sun reflecting off the lower surfaces.

 I guess Matt Younkin wanted to be sure he could make more smoke than his brother-in-law Kyle Franklin by having two big round engines!  The Twin Beech airshow is always a crowd favorite.

 Wow, that's a lot of smoke!  I did a podcast interview with both Kyle Franklin and Matt Younkin several months back and got some great insight into what it's like for them flying these big ole airplanes.  These guys are doing some of the best work on the airshow circuit.

  More Kent Pietsch... this time doing act #2: landing the Cadet on the moving platform.  I watched him do this several times at the event, and I gotta say he's really really good at it!  I've also got a post coming in the future with some behind-the-scenes pix I took of him doing this that are extremely awesome, I think you'll like 'em a lot.

 This was pretty cool... after successfully landing on the RV, They drove it right in front of the crowd on the taxiway with Kent outside the airplane and the engine still running on the Cadet.  It made a nifty way to show it off to the crowd, especially since the airplane is up high where everyone can see it.  Shortly after, they pulled back on to the runway and he made a takeoff from the RV so the airplane would be on the ground again for his deadstick routine a little later.

  I think this picture of Amanda Franklin on top of Kyle's Waco is amazing... partly because of all the smoke, but mostly because Amanda looks so comfortable and 'into it' even as the airplane begins to slide backward!  They do a fantastic wingwalking act, and it's just extra sweet that they are husband and wife.

 The 'Pirated Skies' fly-by!  How cool is that?!

 As I mentioned in a post a few days ago, Kyle and Amanda take the wings and tail off of the big black Waco and put it in a trailer to get to the next airshow.  I had the cool opportunity yesterday to get pix after the show of the entire disassembly procedure.  Watch for a detailed post coming about that before long.

  This gorgeous B-17 Flying Fortress (Yankee Lady) was rebuilt and is operated and maintained by the Yankee Air Museum in Michigan.

  Yankee Lady is very special to me because I got to go for an incredible ride on Friday evening over downtown Indianapolis.  I got some amazing pictures during the ride, check out at this link: B-17 'Yankee Lady' Ride!

  The F-18 Super Hornet taxiing by on the way to the end of the runway for a hardcore aerial demonstration.  I like to feel the ground shake!

 This was the first time I've ever caught the shockwave vapor in a pic.  Not too bad for the first time : )

 And then a couple minutes later I got this one!  If I had a better lens, this would have been my best pic ever.  It's still pretty cool because the light was hitting it all just right to create a bit of a rainbow effect, and a sparkle off the windshield.  It's really interesting looking at the way the moisture forms on the top of the wing as well.  Super Hornet!

  These three P-51's are the Horsemen Aerobatic Team.  Authentic WWII Mustangs flying close formation aerobatics to a musical score done by James Horner, the composer who did the music for films like Avatar, Titanic, Braveheart, Apollo 13 and more.  I posted the video with the story and the music here: Video: Horsemen Aerobatic Team - Why We Love The P-51 Mustang.

 They had just strated up and were heading out to take off and loiter as the A-10 flew its demo.

 The A-10 followed them out shortly after and then went right into his demo.  The pilot is Major Johnnie "Dusty' Green from the Air Combat Command's A-10 East Demo Team based at Moody AFB in Georgia.  I talked with Major Green shortly before his demo about doing a podcast interview, and it looks like we'll get that done in the next week or two!  I'm really looking forward to learning more about the Warthog from the pilot's perspective.

  Here's the A-10 in the midst of a high speed roll maneuver.  The A-10 has a unique split-aileron design that allows them to function in several different ways.  You can tell just a bit in this pic that they aren't positioned as they would be in a normal aircraft.  It'll be interesting to talk with Major Green to learn more about how these unusual control surfaces work.

  There really isn't much that needs to be said about being able to see three perfect P-51 Mustangs in tight aerobatic formation.  The sight, the sound, and the history that it represents is astonishing.  If you ever have the chance to see the Horsemen fly, do it.

 Two of the Horsemen then joined up on the A-10 to do an Air Force Heritage Flight to wrap up the 2010 Indy Air Show.  It was a beautiful way to end a beautiful day.

 Even tho the event had some serious challenges due to the weather on Saturday, it was a great success on Sunday, and best of all it raised money to support children's charities in central Indiana.  I met a lot of wonderful and interesting people this weekend and I'm already looking forward to 2011 IAS : )

2010 Indy Air Show Pic Stream #3 - B-17 'Yankee Lady' Ride!

 This near-perfect B-17 sitting on the ramp at the Indy Air Show is 'Yankee Lady' from the Yankee Air Museum in Belleville, Michigan, just outside of Ypsilanti.  In addition to being on display, this WWII bomber was scheduled to do a fly-over of Victory Field, the home of the Indianapolis Indians minor-league baseball team on Friday evening June 11th.  I found out on Thursday that I was given the golden opportunity to be one of the people INSIDE the airplane for the fly-over!

 This picture is from earlier in the day on Friday, the opening media and practice day of the Indy Air Show.  After the scheduled airshow flying ended for the day, the weather got windy and it looked liked some storms might pass thru.  It was a little uncertain for being able to make the fly-over flight.  Fortunately, better skies arrived well ahead of the approximate 6:30pm departure time.  I was really glad to see that : )

 
 The crew had all of the riders collected and gathered around the airplane as we waited to board.  Since it was plenty warm outside, and would have been very hot inside sitting on the ramp, they had us stay outside, close to the airplane.  It made for another good chance to get more pix.  I've never looked at a B-17 like I did in that next few minutes.  Knowing I'd soon be riding inside changed my perspective... the history and meaning of an airplane like this became more real than it ever has before.

  The pilots were getting things squared away in the cockpit... first for the airplane in general, and second for the details of this specific flight which had us also sharing the sky over the stadium with 3 of the aerobatic airplanes from the airshow.  They were gonna fly a circle of smoke around the park and then they'd clear out and we'd make a pass right overhead.

 I like using my still camera on a monopod to get a very different perspective on airplanes.  I simply use the self timer to release the shutter, and the pix come out really nice!  It's a very poor-man's way to add a lot of punch to the photos.

 This pic shows how the monopod can be put to use.  You get a great view of the nose turret which I thought was kinda cool to see from this angle.  I had no idea that about 30 minutes later I would be sitting right on the other side of that plexi as the guy they decided to put in the only spot on the airplane that's actually in front of the cockpit.  Honestly, I'm still having a hard time believing that I a rode in a B-17, and even more that I was sitting in the nose!

 Here's the view out one of the left side windows in the bombardier area where I was seated.  BTW, I kept shaking my head at this point wondering if this was really happening!  I also had a small video camera with me but unfortunately I don't think there's gonna be much usable from it.  More on that later when I put together a second and much more detailed post about riding in Yankee Lady.

  Here we are in the air, heading over the edge of Indianapolis on our way to downtown.  This is a good time to say: if this had just been a simple ride around the pattern in a B-17, it would have been awesome.  But this ride was so much more than that!  Not only was I riding up front where I could see EVERYTHING, but we were flying about 1,500 feet above the ground heading right for downtown Indianapolis... again I'm wondering if this is all a dream : )

 While I was the only one sitting in the nose for take off and landing, we were allowed to move all around once in the air.  That gave others the chance to see out the front, but it also gave me a chance to move all over finding good places to point a camera thru.  There were several.

 This picture is from the large blister over the gunner station right behind the cockpit.  You have to climb up a bit to see out of it, so you get a little different view of looking 'down' onto the wing from here.  You can also tell that we have some bank angle here.  We made quite a few turns as the fly-over timing was worked out, and a couple of those turns were pretty tight ones too.  We spent about 10 minutes flying just outside of downtown as the akro guys were over the baseball field.  During this time I was able to move around to several different locations for fresh camera perspectives.

 Here we're looking over the arm and shoulder of flight engineer Norm Elleckson at pilot Dave Cobaugh and co-pilot Ray Hunter.  The cockpit layout is a little unusual for several reasons, but I'm gonna save those details for an extended post on this ride in the near future.  I will say that they did a fabulous job of flying the airplane and the whole crew made us all feel right at home.  They all represented the Yankee Air Museum really well.  Thank you men.

 This pic isn't the sharpest view of the pilot and co-pilot, but we had overcast skies, I was shooting thru a small plexi blister on the top of the fuselage, and they were in a somewhat dark cockpit.  Having said all that, this is essentially my favorite picture from the whole trip.  It's in seeing this picture that my strongest thoughts about the men who fought in WWII are brought to life.  To be looking right into the faces of men guiding a crew off to do battle is a very powerful experience for me.  While it's easy for us today to look at an airplane like this and think it's 'cool', it's far more important to understand the fear, pain, death and courage that was experienced by the people who did battle.

Here's another amazing view to see.  There's a plexi hatch about half way back the airplane, right in front of where the vertical fin starts.  They had decided that the chance of rain was small so they removed the hatch to give us some better cabin airflow.  The hole the hatch covers is pretty large, so it has some bars that run across it to keep you from climbing out, falling out, or doing anything else undesirable.  It made an incredible place to stick your head out of and look around.  It was especially stunning to be looking right down the vertical fin at the world moving away from us.  It was even more stunning to have that world be downtown Indianapolis as this pic shows : )

 And here's a fabulous view of downtown where you can see Victory Field in the lower left and Lucas Oil Stadium, where the Colts play, on the right.  This picture was also taken thru the hatch opening.  How cool (and crazy) is it that I'm riding in a B-17 looking at downtown Indy with my head stuck out a hole on the top of the airplane?  Wow.  

 After we had completed the fly-over, we headed straight back to the Mt. Comfort Airport.  I was back up in the nose as we made a pass over the airshow grounds.  We were also flying formation at this time with two of John Klatt's airplanes and Billy Werth in his Pitts... the akro guys who had been over the ballpark with us.  I'll have more info and pix of all that in the extended post yet to come.

 I'll also have a lot more details to share about the entire experience.  It was all such a huge blessing to me, and I'd like to thank Roger Bishop and all of the Indy Air Show staff and volunteers for the opportunity.  And of course, the Yankee Air Museum and the dedicated crew of people that keep this important part of American history flying.  You're all the best!