Search Results for : MG 21

After nearly a year of precious few such events, trying to plan for airshows you wish to attend in 2021 remains complicated by a variety of factors.
You’ve heard about vaccines and lockdowns and executive orders until you are thoroughly exhausted by it all. Some TV networks unrelentingly tell you virus numbers that can discourage even the most ardent of optimists.
We’re pilots! We want to fly! Doing so productively means keeping up with the latest hardware and software and hearing from experts on a variety of topics from kit aircraft assembly to weather to regulations. Much of this we can learn quickly, efficiently — and this is very important — enjoyably at airshows.
Aero in July
Since its beginning in 1992, Aero Friedrichshafen has always occurred in April, a wonderful time of year in the southern German region of Bavaria. Along with nearly every other aviation event, Aero was scrubbed in 2020.

As 2020 nears its end, I have news about the first airshow of the new year. It was supposed to be the last airshow of this year but that was scuttled amid all the cancellations due to Covid. …sigh… What’s new?
DeLand Showcase 2020 — once hopefully pushed back a couple months, rescheduled for January 2021 — is officially postponed. Like many other events that were dropped from the calendar this troubled year, DeLand’s event made a valiant effort but lost out.
DeLand Showcase 2021 will instead go back on the slate for the time period used for all its prior years. Except for a yearlong wait, this may be the best plan as November is actually a great month in Florida. Weather is usually wonderful (still in the 70s or 80s but without the hot, humid summer temperatures). Plus, lodging, rental cars, airfare, and more are usually plentiful as this is considered the “off-season” in Florida.

OK, let me admit right up front that I am something of an “airshow junkie.” I just gotta go.
Some of you may feel the same, I suspect. I don’t suggest you need to go to them all, but if people who do what I do don’t have airshows to attend, you get less cool news about great aircraft and flight gear.
That said, I’ve been able to keep a good flow of recreational aviation news that you readers find interesting. April 2020 set an all-time record. That was eclipsed in July 2020 and August kept the growth going to another record. While pleased about the increasing number of visitors — and while everyone being isolated probably drove more pilots to this website — it nonetheless illustrates the value of journalists attending shows and bringing you the latest and greatest.
Welcome 2021!
Given my obsession with airshows (that hopefully delivers to you the aircraft news and video you seek), it is a great pleasure to announce two new dates.

Delay, postpone, or cancel — that seems to be the question organizers of events faced in the current pandemic scare.
Some, like the Twelve Hours of Sebring endurance auto race (not the former Sebring Sport Aviation Expo) or the Sun ‘n Fun airshow, elected to postpone and announce alternative dates in 2020.
Sebring quickly checked for a calendar opening and rescheduled for November, which presently looks safe.
Sun ‘n Fun postponed until May 5-10, which everyone hopes will be post-coronavirus. Seeing that China’s infection rates are now rapidly declining gives hope that the American situation could start to improve in the weeks ahead (I write hopefully).
No Aero Until Next Year
“Our world has been turned upside down,” stated longtime Aero Friedrichshafen lead organizer, Roland Bosch.
“Nevertheless,” he continued, “it is still imperative for Messe Friedrichshafen (the exhibit operator’s business name) to look to the future.
“Since the coronavirus forced us to postpone the Aero Friedrichshafen scheduled for April 1 to 4, 2020, we have considered many possible options for rescheduling the event to take place at a later date,” Bosch explained. 

It’s premature if not off the point to say this exotic, beautiful prototype will be the death of the helicopter. I will flat out make a prediction: a whole new type of flight is here … and it will change everything … and I mean everything about how we fly.
I was musing the other day, while catching up on the latest multi-rotor RC model technology with which to populate my Christmas wish list, about how long it would take before we saw a serious effort to build a human-carrying version. Clearly I was way behind the buzz curve: talk about instant gratification! E-volo of Karlsruhe, Germany has just made a lightspeed leapfrog over pretty much every other vertical takeoff/landing design or project I’ve heard about. The gamechanger: the just-maidened VC200 Volocopter. Watch the video, then read on. This project and others like it is going to change flight as we know it, make no mistake.

SuperStol: Able to leap tall RVs at a single bound. Drawing lots of attention is the Just Aircraft SuperStol LSA kitplane (soon to be an SLSA) that has self-deploying leading edge slats, oleo main gear shock-absorbing struts (with humongous tires), even a shock absorber for the tailwheel. I found out later I was the first flywriter to get some time in the critter. Whether true or not, I felt like a kid on his first flight again: what a fun airplane! True — and amazing — STOL performance befitting a Helio Courier-style plane. My report will be out soon in Plane & Pilot magazine.
It’s the third day at Sun ‘n Fun. Breezy, hottish (high 80s), humid: in other words, classic Florida Spring weather. The attendance seems steady if not overwhelming. I’ve been hanging out a lot in the new Paradise City Light Sport/Ultralight area and grass landing strip in the southeast corner of Lakeland Linder Airport, and enthusiastically report it is vastly improved over previous years.