CoolPix - Homebuilt: The 'Back To The Future' Dyke Delta

(click pic for hi-res)   Dave Williams' homebuilt Dyke Delta at Oshkosh 2010

 There's quite a story to go with this Dyke Delta (N18DW) built and owned by Dave Williams. In fact, after you click on this CoolPix image (so you can see it really big) you should go read this EAA Sport Aviation story about Dave's Dyke Delta experience - originally completing the airplane way back in 1972, and then rebuilding it about 25 years later.

 I find the Dyke Delta to be one of the most amazing aviation accomplishments (homebuilt or otherwise) that still doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves. I also think this proven design is aching for a carbon fiber version that would be lighter and substantially more low-drag. It's already a great performer, so a plastic version would really scoot! Plus, I think that seating arrangement of pilot up front and 2 or 3 in the back on a bench seat is really slick. Maybe that's one of the things that keeps people away tho... I dunno, but I sure think it's a magnificent flying machine.

 You can definitely put a Dyke Delta in my fantasy hangar : )

Video: 747-8F - Heaviest AND Lightest 747, All In The Same Day!

 This recent Boeing video shows the 747-8F (F for 'freighter') going thru 'flight load survey' tests to make sure it's all up to the task of encountering any extreme flight condition, even at gross weight. So, with a load of flight test engineers on board, the 8F is flown rollercoaster fashion for hours, putting both the airframe, and the FTE's stomachs to the test.

 When you consider that essentially every 747 flying on that day around the world was probably pretty far from '0' g at the one end, and 2 to 2-1/2 g's at the other end, it's pretty safe to say this 747 was both the heaviest and lightest all in the same flight! Pretty amazing actually since the tests are flown at gross weight... image the stresses of twice the force of gravity on an airframe weighing almost 1 million pounds!

Caption Contest #55 - Ends Wednesday 4.13.11 At 9PM EDT

 The Caption Contest took a couple weeks off for me to squeeze Sun-n-Fun into the works, but today it's back... and this is a pic I took while there. I'll try to dig up some history on this amazing (?) creation, but til then it's your chance to pair it up with a great caption. And as is the practice of late, the person who comes out on top in this friendly avgeek competition 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 4-16-11. So c'mon, grab a deck chair and let's go flying : )

Mystery Vortex Generators Identified - It's A T-45 Goshawk

 Here's the uncropped pic of the T-45 Goshawk wing from yesterday's Name The Plane game. Normally I would have had this posted sooner but I just had too much going on! There was also a little confusion as I had a semi correct answer show up overnight but it didn't include the 'MAKE' as the directions state. Turns out the 'make' on a T-45 is sort of a multiple choice answer... BAE and McDonnell Douglas partnered to build them, but now that MD is really Boeing, any of those three makers would have been correct enough to win.

 In the end it was Luke C that was the first to provide the correct make and model. So, it's bacon sandwich winnings at Oshkosh 2011 (if he's able to get there)  - that's a pretty sweet prize for figuring out what those vortex generators belong to. The picture below from Sun-n-Fun 2011 gives a little better idea of what this particular T-45 looked like. Sure looks like it would be fun to fly : )

BAE/McDonnell Douglas/Boeing T-45 Goshawk at Sun-n-Fun 2011

'Name The Plane' - ID Make And Model For Free Bacon! (4.9.11)

(correct answer is now in the comments - follow up post later on 4.10.11)

 Finally! Here's another Name The Plane game for y'all to see who can fetch up a bacon sandwich at Oshkosh 2011 by using their sharp aircraft ID skills. All you gotta do is be the first person to ID both MAKE and MODEL of this aircraft.

 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! Either way, I hope you have fun with it : )

Video: One Piece At A Time... Man Builds 747?

 I was just 9 years old when I got my first tour of a Boeing 747, and it was a pretty big deal because the airplane hadn't been in service very long at all. My dad was flying co-pilot on DC-8's for United out of San Francisco when he decided we really needed to go over to Pan Am's side of the airport and see if they'd let a guy who flies for brand x (and his kid) walk thru the airplane. Wow, I can hardly describe what it was like, especially in the cockpit. In 1970, the 747 was just about as cool as an Apollo space capsule to me.

 By the time my dad retired from United in 1987 he had over 10,000 hours of flight time on the 747 alone. He flew it as copilot until he had enough senority to slide over to the big seat. He was a big kid when it came to flying machines, and that night we toured the Pan Am 747 at SFO ignited a fire in him for the 747 that burned for the rest of his life. 

 The guy in this video has taken his childhood experience with a Pan Am 747 to a pretty extreme conclusion, and I think it's off-the-scale cool. The video is actually a couple years old, but it's still awesome. If you only enjoy it half as much as I did, you're gonna be really happy : )

 Thanx to @adamcanfly for the video tip.

 Want more Pan Am 747? Watch this - Video: The Mesmerizing Beauty Of The Boeing 747... it made my eyes misty.

CoolPix: Sun-n-Fun Heat Wave - F-22 Raptor Style!

(click pic for hi-res)

 I posted this F-22 Raptor pic as a small version just a few days back in a Sun-n-Fun pic stream, but it's so awesome that I just had to let you see it in a big CoolPix version. The heat waves not only represent the power of the two big Pratt & Whitney F119 engines, they also do some cool things distortion wise with the fuselage and the background off in the distance. The best part to me tho is looking up inside the tailpipes and actually seeing the engines inside. 

 I must admit that the standard camera exposure didn't cause this to happen naturally, it took a tiny tweak in photoshop to bring out the shadowy area, but it's all real, no trickery here. This is also the start up of the F-22 flight that was cut short on Saturday due to some sort of systems failure. I wasn't able to find any definitive info on what actually happened, but fortunately the Raptor was able to land without trouble. The flight demo on Sunday went as planned, but I'm pretty sure it was the other of the two F-22's that made the trip to SNF. 

 Once the damaging storm of Thursday past, the weather for Friday, Saturday and Sunday was actually very nice. No heat wave tho, temps were just about perfect... you had to turn to the F-22 tailpipe for the real heat wave!

Video: First Run On A Pratt & Whitney R-4360 28 Cylinder Beast!

 First we went off the gold standard in America, and then we stopped building monster radial engines. No wonder this country is so messed up! So what if the turbine is light and powerful and burns kerosene, it sure doesn't sound like this engine. I know it's a hard sell trying to convince people that radial engines are where it's at, but I'm still a believer in the inspiring power of the sound that comes out of a radial's exhaust stacks.

 As it turns out, the sound on this first run of a rebuilt Pratt & Whitney R-4360 isn't the best part of the video due to the sound inside the test structure, but seeing four rows of 7 cylinders for 28 total (with 56 spark plugs!) and that huge prop is just pure awesome. It's hard to imagine that the post WWII Convair B-36 had six of these engines buried in the wings turning pusher props. In fact it's even more interesting to me because unlike almost all other radial installations, you get the feel for the roundness of the engine, but the way they were built into the B-36 as pushers sorta disguises that fact. And can you even imagine and airplane with 336 spark plugs?!

 I still think it would be very interesting to build a modern beast of a radial engine applying the design technologies that now make everyday oil leaks a thing of the past in automotive engines... along with the power-to-weight increases that computer-controlled fuel injection systems provide. Seems like a potentially viable concept to me. That was the fantasy idea behind my retro-wild Empress 400 airliner concept - big, powerful and efficient modern radial engines.

 Anyway, the good news is that massive engines like this R-4360 can still be rebuilt, which means that for now we can still produce the best mechanical sound man has ever produced. Rock on.

Sun, And Fun, Bring #SNF11 To A Close (16 Pix)

 Like I mentioned yesterday, I'm just a tad obsessed with the Pitts Model 12. Here are two more nearly perfect examples to check out. The blue one being refueled belongs to Greg Connell, and the red one is Kendal Simpson's with the cowling off showing the fab M-14 radial engine that makes the 12 the beast that it is. Wow.

 This STOL Zenith CH 750 was getting ready to head back home to Georgia. It was on display at the Zenith booth to replace the one that had been blown over in the big storm on Thursday. Several vendors faced some serious challenges in trying to do business in the storms aftermath.

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#SNF11 - A Great And Sunny Saturday (16 Pix)

 My Saturday morning at Sun-n-Fun 2011 started at the commercial exhibits not far from the camping area. This yellow and white biplane stood out right away as something special. Obviously not 'Pitts' special, but very cool nonetheless. It's the Fk12 Comet, a Rotax 912 LSA that promises fun in a way pretty much no other LSA could even dream about. The wings are fabric covered, but the structure underneath is all composite, and the fuselage is mostly welded steel tube with aluminum tube for the aft section. Lots of interesting and innovative thinking in this light, sporty, aircraft! 

 The American Legend display of modern Cubs included one with no fabric on it so all of the structure was visible. The use of modern materials and a variety of interesting design changes takes the timeless original Cub design even closer to perfection. I'm still dreaming about the one from yesterday on amphibious floats!

 After being hit so hard by the tornado on Thursday, the Air Cam display was looking almost back together. I was glad to see they hadn't given up after losing 4 airplanes... hopefully they'll head back home with several new orders on the books to take some of the sting out of a really rough year at SNF11.

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