Peter Garrison's Melmoth 2 homebuilt with snazzy fowler flaps and tracks
As it sometimes happens, someone popped the correct answer out in this Name The Plane contest almost immediately... congrats to @FiveFs for knowing that the tighter cropped picture of those unique flaps belong to Peter Garrison's Melmoth 2. Both Peter and the airplane are very interesting, and I encourage you to follow along his often detailed journey in the life of this pretty unusual airplane at his website melmoth2.com.
Melmoth 2 and Peter Garrison at Oshkosh 2010 - preparing to head home
I'm planning to do a full post on the airplane before long, and I figured having this little ID contest would be a nice segue. Lots of unusual features, especially for a one-of-kind homebuilt. Check out the short video below showing the flaps running down and back up the tracks. It's pretty slick stuff!
I figure it's time to give away another bacon sandwich at Oshkosh 2011 to someone with some sharp aircraft ID skills. We've played this modified version of the Name The Plane game a few times now as the new NTP category will attest, but this time it's a little different. I'd say it's not as hard as the last one where only the shadow of the mystery airplane was shown, but this one has its own difficulties to offer up. It's difficult because it's not a normal or common aircraft. And that's as much of a hint as I'm gonna give.
If you are the first person to correctly ID this aircraft by MAKE and MODEL, you'll win a bacon sandwich at OSH11. Your answers go in the 'comments' area, 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. And hey, have some fun. Whatever you do, don't let it keep you up tonight trying to figure out what it is!
"Fly For FREE!" - sounds like a trick, or too good to be true... but it really is free flying. Sure, you have to buy the hang glider first and you need to be somewhere that the air is going up, like on a sweet mountain slope or on a sunny thermal-filled day, but if being off the ground without spending an arm and a leg is your goal, then hang gliders are pretty hard to beat. A $5,000 to $20,000 investment will get you into a brand new hang glider that can easily keep you in the air for hours on end when the conditions are right. And if all you have is flatland thermals to chase around, a small power pod for launching is a fairly simple accessory on many of the gliders.
Whether you'd ever seriously consider this very pure form of flying for real or not, watching youtuber jimsteele33 enjoy a beautiful fall day of flying with another hang glider definitely won't cost you anything... and it might just light a fire for one of the most natural ways man has ever found to fly like a bird. This is also one of the few aviation videos where the music actually makes it better. It's just good stuff.
(check out flightstuff.net for more videos and hang gliding info)
2011 is shaping up to be an amazing year for the United States Navy Blue Angels flight demonstration team. Several of the events that they will be performing at are also special Centennial of Naval Aviation events. You may have seen my post the other day showing several of the extremely cool retro painted Navy aircraft that will be on display at many locations around the country... and if you do a little cross reference work, you'll be able to find airshows where some of those aircraft will be on display AND the Blue Angels will be performing too. I'm thinking an airshow can't get any better than that!
The U.S. Navy Blue Angels performing at the Reno Air Races in 2009
If you've never seen the Blue Angels, or haven't seen them lately, then I highly suggest you start planning your opportunity to see them right now. In my opinion, this is the absolute pinnacle of jet demonstration teams... few things on earth can impress you as much as these men and their airplanes.
If there's any doubt in your mind as to the extreme awesomeness of the Blues, watch this video below from youtube user jimboking. It's shot with a flip video camera from the back seat of one of the F-18's during an aerobatic routine. These guys are unbelievable!
Sometimes you get the feeling that airline pilots are just bus drivers with little passion for the wonder of flight and the intricate relationship between man and machine when the bonds of gravity are broken. But then you see a video like this one that screams as loud as possible: I Love To Fly! Wow.
First, thanx to youtuber 1970sPlaneSpotter for being at the right place at the right time, and for capturing it beautifully. But mostly, I tip my hat to whoever had their hand on the stick and throttles for this landing. I have several observations to share - see if you agree. First is the fact that they nearly perfectly arrested the rate of descent without having to hunt for where the runway is. In reality, it's not all that hard to reduce the rate of sink to a trickle, but to do it pretty much exactly when and where you want (as in close the the approach end of the runway) is actually rather difficult. But if you look closely, the point of touchdown is not very far down the runway at all. In fact, by my estimation, the point of touchdown was perfectly placed... not too close the the approach end, risking winding up short, and not too far down the runway so as to have wasted valuable rollout room.
Ok, the point of touchdown is excellent. Then, watch how long
The AirPigz Bacon Bitz newsletter is nothing special... just a nice way to get a little inside scoop on upcoming projects or items of interest while you also get reminded of hot recent posts that you might have missed. You've got nothing to lose, and you can opt out of the twice-a-month html email that I produce thru MailChimp.com at anytime.
So sign up today,... it'll help you have a better life (hehe)
Click the pic above and then just hit send to sign up.
I can only think of one other airplane-in-a-tree pic that has been used in an AirPigz Caption Contest, so I thought maybe it was time to go down that road once again. I'm kinda hoping for some fresh creative ideas to go with the old standard ones here. It always helps when you have people looking on that you can 'quote'... anyway, here's your chance to trade avgeek humor for a bacon sandwich at Oshkosh 2011!
As usual, you've got til Wednesday evening at 9pm EST 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 that bacon lovin' winner.
The Rules:
1) Max of 3 submissions per person
2) Submissions go in the 'comments' area
3) Game ends Wednesday at 9pm EST
4) Keep it clean!
Then, anyone can cast their vote starting Thursday morning and running thru til 9pm EST Friday. The winner will be posted Saturday morning 1-29-11. And please remember... a tree is not the best place to park your airplane!
(click pic for hi-res) Liberty Parachute Team opening the airshow at Oshkosh 2010
It’s a measly little single digit temperature with light snow in northern Indiana right now, and while I’m ok with winter, these kind of days typically drive me to wish it was summertime. So I decided maybe it was a good time to post a very summery picture from Oshkosh 2010. This one seemed to be a good fit, and if you click it to open it up big I think it’ll make you feel good to be alive.
It was kind of funny when I took this pic of the Liberty Parachute Team opening up the airshow on Wednesday July 28th because I didn’t really like the kinda boring all-white parachute being used for this mega flag jump. But the sky was a perfect blue and it’s always good to have some good skydiver-with-a-flag pix for future use. What I hadn’t considered was that with the wind mostly out of the west that day, the skydivers would be passing over the crowd as they set up to land out in front of the flightline. While tracking the jumper thru the viewfinder this awesome view suddenly presented itself and I knew right away that something wonderful was happening.
All of a sudden, that boring white parachute became the perfect companion to the deep blue sky and that awesome stars and stripes flag. I think a multi colored canopy would only distract from what I think is a very powerful image.
So if you’re in a chilly part of the world like I am, hang in there - summer will be back soon! And if you haven’t already made plans to experience the greatest aviation event on planet earth, I highly encourage you to do so now. It’s the closest thing to heaven on earth I’ve ever found : )
Short and sweet is usually the best approach in great captioneering, and this one from Mrs. 'seerjfly' cleaned the competition this time around. Congrats to an avgeek's wife for getting this one right! If you're able to make it to Oshkosh 2011, there'll be a tasty bacon sandwich waitin' to reward you for your great work... and if you can't make it, you can still bask in the glow of being a champion : )
I gotta say this was a tough contest with so many good captions to choose from. Thanx again to everyone who submitted and to all who voted. It's always best to keep in mind that the real goal here is just good ole harmless avgeek fun, so even if your caption doesn't get picked for the poll, you're still a cool part of the process. Plus, my official 'bacon parties' that will take place in the campgrounds at Oshkosh (more info later) will include free bacon for anyone... everyone wins with free bacon! It's just that contest winners will be getting specially designed, meticulously hand crafted sandwiches of fabulous bacon greatness in recognition of their stellar accomplishments.
Watch for more caption fun next week. Now I'm off the feed the pig... we're gonna need a lot of bacon!
Relax, Boeing still plans to deliver the first 747-8F (Freighter) to Cargolux in mid 2011, and while that is well behind the original schedule, the variety of nagging issues seems to be clearing up pretty fast. They've got several 747-8F's in the air now for the flight test phase, and as this video shows, the 'stalling' and the 'dragging behind' are actually real elements of the testing process - so they're a really good sign.
It's pretty cool to see Boeing's biggest airplane ever going thru stall tests! They're actually pretty uneventful, but if you watch closely, it's interesting to see how far and how rapidly the cockpit drops during the stall. Being way out front on a pretty long arm means there's some significant movement there... probably about as wild a ride you'll ever get in a 747. And it's always awesome to see VMU tests with the tail of these huge airplanes dragging down the runway. If you missed the 787 VMU video, check it out now.
Back in June 2010, Boeing finally entered the 'million pound club' when the 747-8F took off at 1,005,000 pounds. Since then, they've upped it a bit to 1,010,000 pounds. And while weight milestones like this really don't mean much, it is good to see that this latest version of one of the greatest airplanes ever built is definitely adding new levels of performance and capability. I'm thinking it's gonna be very sucessful.
Lastly, I really like how the Freighter differs from the passenger model (named the 747-8I or Intercontinental) in that the hump on the Freighter is the old shorter version like we used to see on all 747's way back in the day. The now common extended upper deck makes great sense for added pax capacity but it's not the most beautiful shape ever made. The almost nostalgic look of the Freighter hump not only makes this version easy to distinguish, but it looks gorgeous! BTW, the Intercontinental version should be ready for its first flight before long - stay tuned.
One of the flight test 747-8F's in launch-customer Cargolux livery (photo: wiki)
Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 10:58PM 
Peter Garrison's Melmoth 2 homebuilt with snazzy fowler flaps and tracks
Melmoth 2 and Peter Garrison at Oshkosh 2010 - preparing to head home
