Ahh, the hang glider craze of the 70's... now those were the days. No pesky FAA intervention, and apparently no fear of death! Oh well, if these guys were gonna do this, at least someone was smart enough to get a picture of it so we could have a great Caption Contest 30+ years later. So here ya go, follow the rules below to play, and the best captioner of all will win a bacon sandwich at Oshkosh 2011!
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 5-28-11. Have fun, and if you haven't won at this game yet, hang in there!
(click pic for hi-res) Camp Scholler at Oshkosh 2010 - do you see my car?!
Do you see my little red Chevy HHR in the middle of this CoolPix? Click the pic to make it big, it's easier to find it! It's parked next to the larger road and is not far from a little blue 10x10 sun shade. That's where my campsite was at the very wet Oshkosh 2010. I got the pic while riding in one of the Bell 47 helicopters that are flying almost all the time over the grounds - what a great view! This was also later in the week when the grounds were finally getting somewhat dried out.
Last year was my 33rd or 34th Oshkosh. I've lost the exact count, but the bottom line: I believe I'm fairly well qualified to give commentary on the quality of the experience at the annual EAA convention. I can say without any doubt in my mind, the week of Oshkosh each year is the best place on earth!
It's not just because of the amazing mix of airplanes, the fab airshow or the excellent opportunities to learn how to build an airplane... it really has so much to do with the people. And this picture, which shows just a small portion of the camping area, is a great example. I don't know of any other place on the planet where 40,000+ people gather in such a peaceful, clean, family safe, and overall happy environment. It's as perfect as humanity gets this side of Heaven. I feel so blessed to have experienced it so many times in my 50 years, and I can't wait to get back there again in July!
I hope to see you soon at the best place on earth : )
With the great big 'O' of Oshkosh just beginning to pop over the distant horizon, I figure it's time to slide in the first of a few more Name The Plane challenges so y'all can try to fetch up a bacon sandwhich prize at OSH11 in late July. This one could go either way... too easy or maybe too hard - I never know how it's gonna go. If you've got sharp aircraft ID skills, all you gotta do is be the first person to ID both MAKE and MODEL of this aircraft to wind up the winner!
Your answers must go in the 'comments' area in this post, and as always, please don't use the shotgun approach to answers - only put up truly educated guesses that you've arrived at via really thinking it thru. Some of these NTP games last 15 minutes, and others go on for a day or two... I really hope this one isn't too easy! But either way, I hope you have fun with it : )
Here's the full pic of the Sorrell Hiperbipe. The unusual full width fuselage and somewhat unusual stab and elevator make a really good challange if you aren't familiar with the airplane, but not too hard if you are. The first correct answer was received via email from Matthew, who appearantly had trouble getting the site to take his answer. Since he was the first to provide both MAKE and MODEL, he's the bacon winner.
I can't take any credit for finding this sweet little piece of fun... it's actually some trickle-down from the fine folks over at the Flight Blog at Flightglobal, but you can definitely quote me as saying: "I'm likes it!" : )
So, was the F-15 originally intended to land on skids? Well of course not. But then what's going on in this NASA pic from the mid 70's? It's actually an unmanned, Remotely Piloted Research Vehicle (RPRV) that's an un-powered, mostly fiberglass 3/8 scale model of the F-15. The RPRV was used to test the aerodynamics of the design at high angles of attack, as well as in stalls and in spins. The airplanes were launched from a B-52 similar to how the X-1 and X-15 were launched.
Three of these 3/8 sized F-15 models were built, and as you can imagine, they were an extremely cheap and safe way to expand the design's flight envelope and to examine the extreme aerodynamic behavior with very little risk. It's really interesting to me that the early flight tests were recovered in-the-air by some sort of helicopter capture system, after a parachute deployed on the RPRV (wish we had pix of that!), but later in the test phase they had fitted these toy F-15's with skids and landed them as seen in the pic above.
Be sure to click the pic to check it out in the big CoolPix size. I think it looks pretty cool with its shadow fast approaching. And I wonder where these baby F-15's are today... I sure don't know, but I did find this pic from 1978 of the airplane mounted on a B-52 when it was on display during an open house at Edwards. If you're interested in seeing more B-52 launch platform pix, check out this page from the Goleta Air and Space Museum, and you can get the NASA details on the F-15 RPRV on this page. It's all pretty cool stuff : )
The bittersweet days of the Space Shuttle program resurfaced in a big way this morning as Endeavour lifted off on her final mission. For mission details, check out the NASA STS-134 overview page, and you might also like this NASA Endeavour tribute image gallery. Today's launch leaves just one more to go: STS-135 with Shuttle Atlantis.
I've also included two other launch videos from the past that are well worth seeing. The first one below is from April 12 1981 - the very first Shuttle launch ever with the orbiter Columbia. It's interesting to me how similar this first launch and the one this morning are. In the broadest sense, it appears little has changed in the launch process.
STS-1 is also interesting to me in that it carried only 2 crew members: John Young as commander and Robert Crippen as pilot. John Young has always been special to me - when I was 11 years old, I watched the Apollo 16 launch on April 16, 1972 with my dad from as close as we could get to the launch pad. I'll never forget the names of the 3-man crew... Young, Mattingly and Duke. John Young was the commander of Apollo 16 and the 9th man to walk on the moon. I also just located the 8mm movie my dad shot that day. If it turns out to have anything interesting on it, I'll post it to youtube.
STS-1 launch on April 12, 1981 with Columbia
And the last video below is from December 9, 2006 as Discovery launched at night. It's in HD, and while you don't see as much in a night launch, the view of the rocket on top of the massive fireball as it approaches and then passes thru the cloud layer is truly spectacular.
STS-116 night launch on December 9, 2006 with Discovery
For the mission currently underway, I say Godspeed to Endeavour and crew... as we also begin to look toward the final Shuttle mission ever, STS-135 scheduled for July 2011.
This Spock pic stirred up several great captions, and you might imagine that I really liked the bacon-oriented submission - however, the ‘airpigz lurker’ has come out on top once again and fetches up another bacon sandwich at OSH11. Congrats on another job well done!
Thanx again to everyone who got in on the caption side of the game, and to everyone who voted as well... it just wouldn’t any fun without you! If things go well we will do it all again next week : )
Here's the youtube version of the successful flight on Thursday 5-12-11 of the University of Maryland 'Gamera' human powered helicopter. It's an impressive accomplishment no matter how you look at it.
Congratulations to the entire Gamera team and to pilot/powerplant Judy Wexler - first woman to fly a human powered helicopter!
After unsuccessfully attempting to fly their human powered helicopter name 'Gamera' on Wednesday May 11th (2011), the group of 50 graduate and undergraduate students from the University of Maryland gave it another go on Thursday… and all of this was streamed live on the internet! The screenshot above shows that they did indeed get off the ground with female pilot Judy Wexler providing the power - which regardless of the duration creates a record flight since no woman has flown the other two successful human powered helicopters from the past. The flight appears to have lasted several seconds and got somewhere near a foot off the gym floor, so their first major milestone of getting off the ground has been reached!
At this point the flight record is still unofficial, but at approximately 5:25pm EDT, the human powered helicopter Gamera appears to have flown!
'Gamera' pilot/powerplant Judy Wexler - first female to fly a human powered helicopter
Ultimately they hope to be able win the $250,000 Sikorsky Prize by flying for a duration of 60 seconds and reaching an altitude of 3 meters while remaining in a 10 meter square. The Sikorsky Prize was established in 1980 and so far no one has been able to achieve the requirements. The existing endurance record is just 19.46 seconds set by 'Yuri l' back in 1994 in Japan.
The Gamera empty weight is just 101 pounds, and the gross weight with the pilot onboard is just 208 pounds, so you know the structure is extremely light, which also makes it very fragile. The challenge of creating a mechanical system that can turn four rotors without failing at that weight is very difficult and is the primary reason that the goals of the Sikorsky Prize have not yet been met.
Congratulations to the University of Maryland Gamera team for their great success so far… and watch for more details on this flight coming soon.
Gamera's 4x42' rotor system and framework - empty weight: 101 pounds
Monday, May 23, 2011 at 07:26AM 
