Caption Contest #84 - Ends Wed 10.9.13 At 9PM EDT (Win An Avgeek Book!)

 We haven't had Caption Contest fun here since before Oshkosh so I figure it's time to give it another go. Everything is the same as before except for the prize for the winner... since I didn't have anyone claim their bacon sandwich prize at OSH this year I thought maybe I'd go back to the early prize idea of an avgeek book from my collection. The 'media rate' for mailing books is really low so it's easy for me to send out a little piece of aviation publishing history to the person with the sharpest wit. The actual book being sent will be announced after we find that best captioner.

 So... you've got til Wednesday evening at 9pm EDT to submit your clever/funny/cool captions. Then, I’ll pick the best 5 and put ’em in a poll for everyone to vote on for all day Thursday and Friday so we can find the winner. 

 The Rules: 

1) Max of 3 submissions per person

2) Submissions go in the 'comments' area 

3) Game ends Wednesday at 9pm EDT 

4) Keep it clean!

 Then, anyone can cast their vote starting Thursday morning and running thru til 9pm EDT Friday. The winner will be posted Saturday morning 10-12-13. Pedal fast my avgeek friends and have some fun!

Video: Sean D. Tucker - The Man, Living With Passion

 I've watched Sean Tucker fly airshows since the early 80's but it's only been recently that I've really been paying attention. I got a little disinterested back in old days when it seemed that he was on a path that wouldn't be ending well... and I learned in a presentation he did at Oshkosh on Sunday evening before the big week started that Bob Hoover felt much the same way back in those days. But Bob was a friend of Sean's and he made his feelings known, and it seemed to be a wake-up call to Sean to integrate a realistic level of margin into his routines.

 Sean has proven in these last 15 years that you can have the safety margins needed and still put on a world-class extreme airshow that'll leave the audience just as impressed as they were in the old days. I like that, I like that a lot. I also learned in that presentation that there's a lot of depth, passion, discipline and all around kindness in Sean Tucker. And I think this recently uploaded video does a great job of sharing all that.

 At 61 years of age, Sean D. Tucker appears to be at the top of his game.

Sean D. Tucker Named Young Eagles Honorary Chairman

 (click pic to enlarge)  Video screenshot of Sean D. Tucker 'Living With Passion'

Video Triple Play: Twin Beech On Floats! #seaplanes #nostalgia

 I just needed a radical break from the things I've been posting about the last month or so, and for some reason tonight I found myself immensely pleased with these Twin Beech on floats videos. Seaplanes are extra-cool to begin with, but a Twin Beech on floats is magical to me. It's about as close to the nostalgia of the old flying boats as you can get with what really amounts to a modern-era airplane (never mind that most all of the Beech 18's are at least 50 years old!)

 So here are two takeoff sequences and one landing that all made me really happy... I hope they do something for you too : )

Video: Ride Along With Steven Hinton In Voodoo As He Wins Reno Gold! (2013)

 We call Reno Air Racing the World's Fastest Motorsport for good reason. Check out this awesome video inside the P-51 Voodoo with Steven Hinton winning Reno Gold once again (after winning four years in the P-51 Strega) and note the airspeed info as it shows Voodoo racing at over twice the record qualifying speed at Indy! Steven averaged 482.074 mph for this race and the record Indy qualifying speed is a poky 237.498 mph. Go Reno! Go Fast!

 Keep in mind, as the video decription on the Vimeo page states, the GPS speed readout at the top left of the screen is probably not accurate if it's showing over 510 mph... G loading may be the cause of the slightly inaccurate numbers there. The 482.074 mph average speed is based on the time required to cover the 8 Laps and 64.1845 miles of the course.

(click pic to enlarge) Video screenshot inside the cockpit of Voodoo winning Reno 2013!

 I enjoyed this video for the amazing opportunity to see the race course view from the cockpit of Voodoo, but I also enjoyed it because the screenshot I provided for you (directly above) shows pylon 2 ahead and to the left, and I'm down there just to the left of the pylon judge's parked cars getting pictures like the one below! Pylon access is one of the most incredible opportunities on planet Earth and I'm so thankful for the experience. It's a special privilege only for people with Reno Air Race media credentials, and honestly it's the number 1 avgeek experience in my life if you don't count the ones that occurred in the air : )

 Low. Fast. Left. Reno!

(click pic for hi-res) CoolPix of Steven Hinton & Voodoo from this same Gold winning race!

Video Proof Of Why Oshkosh Is The World's Greatest Aviation Event!

 This 4 minute 11 second video gives you just a small slice of what took place at Oshkosh 2013, and yet the avgeekery seen in this just-released FlyWithEAA video is crazy huge. Try to imagine the other 95% that you aren't seeing here. Oshkosh is simply incredible.

 If you've been making excuses of why you shouldn't or can't be there, stop it. Stop it now. It's time to get serious about OSH14. You've got 10 months to get your plans in place, which translates to: there are no excuses. Rich or poor, near or far, there's always a way to make this trip work out if the desire is truly there. If you need help or have questions, send me an email. I'm here to help any way I can.

See you in Oshkosh... the World's Greatest Aviation Event!

(check out AirPigz OSH13 posts) 

 Video screenshot: one of about a million awesome Oshkosh 2013 moments!

Early Morning Rainbow Over Antique Airfield During 2013 AAA Fly-In

(click pic to enlarge)  A rainbow over antiques at Antique Airfield on September 1, 2013

 The weather back on Sunday September 1st, toward the end of the Antique Airplane Association fly-in in Blakesburg Iowa, started out overcast and a bit rainy. But I happened to be in the right spot once the sun broke out to capture a really pretty picture! Sure seems fitting that this rainbow settles into a fine collection of beautiful old flying machines.

 I meant to get this posted in my coverage of the event but just didn't get it done... I figure now that the weather is really beginning to feel Fall-like already, a quick look back into the latter part of the summer just feels good. I hope you enjoy : )

(click for more pix from the 2013 AAA fly-in)

2 Videos: Recap Of The Bombardier CSeries First Flight (Sept 16, 2013)

 I was on the road driving back from Reno on Monday September 16, 2013 when the Bombardier CSeries narrow-body airliner made its first ever flight from Mirabel Airport near Montreal, Quebec. Between the road travel and the few days after recovering from white-line-fever, I didn't even know the flight had taken place until the end of the week. I'm a fan of this Canadian clean-sheet airliner so the first flight is a great thing to see... I hope you can watch these videos and respect the amazing amount of design, engineering, and construction effort that went into putting this great looking airplane into the sky.

 If you're interested in some of the first flight ceremony and the opportunity to hear several people speak in both English and French, then the video above that recaps the first flight is a good one. If your more interested in seeing some great in-flight views and no talking, then the just released video below is the way to go.

 Congratulations to everyone involved in getting the CSeries off the ground... Bravo Bombardier!

Screenshot from the first video showing the very first CSeries takeoff on 9-16-13

Screenshot from the second video... Bombardier CSeries first flight thumbs up!

CoolPix: Strega Passed Everyone But Voodoo In The Race For Reno Gold (2013)

(click pic for hi-res) Matt Jackson passing pylon 2 in the Unlimited Gold championship race

 Between recovering from the long drive to Reno and back (4,100 miles), plus getting back to my day-job, trying to keep my FLY Energy Bar project moving forward AND having some form of a life, it's been a challenge to keep AirPigz posts coming this last week. So today I'm taking the easy way out again and just posting one CoolPix image. It's Matt Jackson in Strega from pylon 2 during the big race for the Gold between the fastest Unlimiteds on Sunday September 15, 2013.

 Matt made it look pretty easy getting around everyone in the pack, except for that purple and yellow P-51 called Voodoo, the P-51 with the pilot that knows more about how Strega flies than probably anyone else, Steven Hinton. It was a great race on a perfect day and this picture seems to show that off pretty well. I was also happy to catch at least one Unlimited pic that included the pylon.

 I was having trouble getting the images to come out crisp with the more desirable slow shutter speed, so this one is cranked up a bit, and of course the prop isn't as blurred as we'd all like. I made some real progress on the quality of my images for this year, but wow, there's so much more practice to be done... plus money needs to be spent on one of those crazy huge lenses that look a lot like a megaphone! Still, this pic makes for a nice reminder of my time at pylon 2 during the Unlimited Gold Race at Reno 2013 : )

CoolPix: Midnight Miss III Up-Close As She Wins T-6 Gold At Reno 2013

(click pic for hi-res)  Dennis Buehn and pylon 2 on the last lap of his T-6 Gold Race win

 Way back in the late 60's my dad took me to the Reno Air Races (1967 thru 1970) when I was just a wee lad (born in 1961) and I still have memories of watching the Formula One racers, the Biplanes and the Unlimiteds... but when the T-6's raced in those days I mostly just thought hmmm, those guys are sure noisy and don't really go very fast! Well, now that I'm a lot older and a little wiser, I have more respect for the T-6's and their race efforts.

 I'll still have to admit that I don't pay close attention to the details of the T-6 Class, but that's mostly because there's only so much me to go around. I really don't do a very good job of following the details of the other classes either. There's so many racers and six different classes these days, it's easy to just pay attention to the biggest news. Anyway, the big news last Sunday in the T-6 Class was that Midnight Miss III and Dennis Buehn won the Gold. Given that this T-6 has placed first, second, or third in each year since 2009, I guess maybe 'big news' isn't exactly the right term, but I'm sure the victory was great news for the whole team! Congratulations!

 This CoolPix from the Gold Race on Sunday turned out pretty nice, tho I have so much room for improvement. I'd like to see a sharper image and a slower shutter speed for more prop blur. Those words are so easy to say but getting that done is sure a lot of work. However, the images I captured this year are a vast improvement over the last two years, so I feel pretty good overall. Getting the pylon in the picture adds to the image too, and that was my desire with where I chose to stand.

 I hope you enjoy the pylon view of the 2013 T-6 Class winner, Midnight Miss III.

R2-D2 Racing Jet Class At Reno 2013 - Gets 2nd Place! (CoolPix 2Fer)

(click pic for hi-res)  Rick Vandam and R2-D2 racing in the Gold Jet race on Sunday

 Normally I should show you some of the great pix I captured of Pete Zaccagnino in the L-29 'Just Lucky' winning the Gold Jet Class race on last Sunday at Reno, and I will before long, but my goal for this race was to fetch up some good images of R2-D2 in the back seat with Rick Vandam in the L-39 'American Spirit'. Well, I think these two CoolPix here show I did a pretty good job! Plus, since I just drove 2,100 miles back from Reno (at a rather leisurely 47 hours total elapsed time compared to the 35 hours going west), I figure I can show you whatever pix I want!

(Jet Class Gold race results from Sunday)

 Rick Vandam and R2-D2 are going a tad over 500mph in this pic and at somewhere around 100 feet off the ground! Wow, it's amazing stuff to see from this close to be sure. I was out at pylon 2 for the Sunday afternoon races which included the Gold race for the T-6 Class, the Sport Class, the Jets, and the Unlimiteds. Even better, I was using a demo camera and lens from Nikon who is both a sponsor of Reno and provides a support-team from Nikon Professional Services during the event, just like they do at Oshkosh these days. They take care of Nikon shooters thru the week as well as attempt to convert others... I'm one of the 'others' but after using a Nikon D7100 with an 80-400 zoom lens, I'm quickly re-thinking my camera equipment future. Thanx Nikon for the excellent gear to be able to get pix like these two and the one of Steven Hinton winning Gold Unlimited in Voodoo.

 (click pic for hi-res) Cropped in on the same pix for a closer look at Rick and R2-D2!

 I've got loads more Reno 2013 pix to share once I recover from white-line-fever, but I'll say right now that the 50th anniversary of the National Championship Air Races at Reno Stead Airport were safe, exciting, and fantastic... can't wait til next year!