We interrupt our series on Oshkosh Elements to highlight the upcoming Zenith Open Hangar Day. The event taking place on Saturday, September 21, 2013 is the company’s 22nd annual such event and it draws a large crowd as you can see in last year’s photo. Normally, one company opening its doors to customers and visitors is not big news but Zenith has done particularly well with their open house. For many recent years, Zenith has steadily been delivering kits at the rate of about 200 units per year, a volume most airframe makers would love to match and one that puts Zenith near the top of the list (if not the alphabet). It means the company has developed a large following and, when invited, they turn out. Given the focus on the Midwest LSA Expo at the beginning of September, one could say the Midwest will be active region for LSA and light kit enthusiasts.
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Oshkosh 2013 Elements: Groundloop-Proof Tailwheel
Elements are basic components of nature. As in our first part, I see Oshkosh Elements as fascinating ideas other than airframes or engines. One such worthy idea is Beringer’s new anti-groundloop tailwheel. Before we talk about their innovation, though, let’s take a quick glance at tailwheel design popularity. Cub-like models and other taildraggers account for more than 20% of the LSA fleet today. Tricycle gear may dominate but lots of pilots believe a tailwheel aircraft is the “proper” gear for an airplane with more machismo, more bush-capability, more aerodynamic efficiency (less drag) … you name it, many pilots just love taildraggers. Tricycle gear pilots, however, not so much. The reason? Trigear landings tend to self correct regarding keeping the airplane straight on the runway. Tailwheel aircraft threaten the dreaded ground loop. Since this sounds — and can be — scary, lots of Cessna or Piper-trained pilots avoid flying taildraggers.
Several other reporters covered Beringer‘s press conference and reported on the company’s tailwheel offering but none fully explained it, in my opinion.
Freakish Oshkosh Weather Continues!
Yes, Airventure fans, it’s been fair, mild, low humidity, refreshing, beautiful weather…all descriptors none of us is used to using in the same sentence with the words Oshkosh and summer. *** It’s been a delight not to drop with exhaustion at the end of a long day slogging around the miles of paths and thousands of exhibits, planes and aviation sundry. *** Here’s some more cool stuff from my travels across the great cement/grass/asphalt immensity known simply as “Oshkosh.”
The Big O Photo Jam
In the wee and foot-throbbing hours after wandering the highways and byways of the vast Oshkosh Airventure showgrounds all day, here’s a taste of some of the cool things encountered so far from my abbreviated visit – my 32nd year in attendance since 1981…and every year brings new wonders and old friends: threads of gold and silver. *** *** ***
Icon Gets Its Weight Exemption
Important FAA-related message at end of this article.
Opening day at AirVenture Oshkosh 2013 and the very first announcement before exhibit spaces even opened was a press conference from Icon Aircraft. To a media-only group of perhaps 30 or 40 media personalities, CEO Kirk Hawkins began, “Is there anyone here who doesn’t know what this about?” No one responded; everyone knew what the rumor mill had begun spewing. Icon is in good company. Even premiere new product secret-keeper, Apple Inc., has trouble announcing something that no one expected. Yet a few comments from the top gun at Icon were of special interest. One other observation first: it was a media event, but if even a single FAA person was in attendance, they were under cover. No FAA shirts or badges could be spotted. Thus Icon made their announcement without any active FAA participation.
Icon received Grant of Exemption No. 10829 for a weight increase with FAA stating,”The combined features and SRA (Spin Resistant Airframe) incorporated into the Icon A5 design … are recognized by the FAA as significant safety enhancements.” FAA also referenced that the agency felt an exemption was “in the public’s interest.” Kirk Hawkins added that his engineers “put safety ahead of arbitrary weight limits” and forged ahead with enhancements to include a more crashworthy cockpit, the airframe parachute (about which they’d already talked but with which the weight increase became more possible), and of course, the wing cuffs, “a synthesis of several known ideas put together in a way that finally worked” to provide a Part 23-worthy stall resistant airframe.
Fantasy in Paris — Electric Twin & More
“How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm … after they’ve seen Paree?” That’s a timely reprise of an old show tune to bring our attention to the Paris Air Show, which is sending out some ripples in the “What’s New” Dept. Chances look better every year that electric flight will be a major player in how we take the air. And for those of you who think that’s just a bunch of hot air, you could be right, too! Read on.
Jason Paur who writes for Wired magazine gets to do all the fun stuff I just get to fantasize about … specifically, electric flight. He’s at Le Bourget Field in Paris and filed this report on an exciting new electric prototype that fits nicely into the Light Sport Aircraft specification. Here are some highlights and you can read the rest first hand at the link above.
Summer’s Coming; Cool It, Fellow Pilots!
Across the northern U.S. states and across much of Europe it was a lousy, cold, snowy winter. It seemed everyone I spoke to at Aero in Friedrichshafen, Germany complained about the crappy winter and their laments mirrored those from America’s northlands. However, the weather appears to be going directly from winter to summer. It was warm in Slovenia when we visited Pipistrel and it’s now getting hot across much of the USA. That’s great, perhaps, as it foretells an active flying season. However, as the weather warms, it can get mighty hot in the cockpit and not only because you’re on short final on a gusty day in a responsive LSA.
US Aviation previewed their integration of the AMT FlyCool air conditioning system in the Flight Design CTLS at Sun ‘n Fun 2013. The Dallas-area, Texas company partnered with FlyCool to develop an installation for the Flight Design CTLS.
The Iceman Goeth … to the South Pole
Matevz Lenarcic, a Slovenian pilot I met briefly when I was at the Pipistrel factory last fall, has raised the bar to ridiculous heights from his previous long distance exploits (including his around-the-worlder in a Pipistrel Sinus motorglider in 2004), by landing in Antarctica! *** He’s making another globe-circling, solo marathon — that’s right, the entire trip, east to west — all by himself, in a modified Pipistrel Virus SW 914 Turbo. The engine has an Intercooler unit but at least for Antarctica as well as some high-altitude reaches he has planned, engine cooling will be the lesser of his challenges. *** The epic flight in the SW (for Short Wing) began last January from Ljubljana, Slovenia where Pipistrel has its state-of-the-art sustainable energy factory (it actually sells surplus energy back to the Slovenian grid.) *** The route Matevz mapped out is by no means intended to be a short haul either, even by globe-circling standards.
Pilot Demographics for LSA Enthusiasts?
Thanks to a credible survey effort at Sebring 2013, we have some demographic information that is difficult to obtain. We also found out how Sebring Expo’s 20,000 LSA enthusiast attendees felt about the event. On Friday and Saturday, TouchPoll South Florida used six iPad stations to survey 540 respondents, a sample size yielding a 95% confidence factor. TouchPoll reported that only fully completed surveys were used to collect data on 25 questions, which they said took three minutes to complete.
The starting question will surprise few with 74% of respondents between the ages of 42 and 71; the biggest single decadelong age group was 62-71 years of age at 32%, again not particularly surprising. However, one unexpected fact was that nearly 23% of respondents were female (perhaps attending with a male but nonetheless willing to participate in the survey). Another revelation was that the largest single income group was $50,000 and under at about 21% although 46% reported incomes north of $100,000.
Getting With The (Tower) Program
Pilot Workshops of Nashua, NH is getting with the program to help ease pilot anxiety about the transition. The company just put out three free videos that are aimed to help us all refresh our memories about Non-Towered Airport operations.
PilotWorkshops founder Mark Robidoux had this to say: “With the recent announcement of 149 tower closures, there will suddenly be thousands of pilots flying into and out of airports that had ATC services one day, and none the next. While all of us are trained in these procedures, it’s easy to become rusty if you aren’t using a skill. We wanted to make this refresher available to all pilots for free in the hopes that it makes flying a bit safer for all of us.”
PilotWorkshops.com LLC was founded in 2005 and is best-known for its free ”Pilot’s Tip of the Week” emails received by over 100,000 pilots each week.
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