Day2: Airplanes Everywhere.

We were again awakened by a thunderstorm coming through in the middle of the night, which began to seem like a regular occurrence. We survived the storm fine, but the next morning we found that the plastic bag we had used for our collection of aviation literature had collected a pool of water inside. All the stuff was soaked, some of it beyond salvaging, but we spread out the remainder to dry while we drove off to have breakfast at a nearby IHOP with Lloyd, who had walked over early that morning from the aircraft camping area.

After breakfast we drove back to camp and hiked over to the airplane display area. Like other hard core folks, each morning I marked off all the forums I wanted to listen to and when we had a gap during the day we went out to look at the airshow, the airplanes, or shop. I didn't have any seminars marked on my schedule that morning and it seemed like a good idea to look at airplanes while it was relatively cool. Monika and I focused on the Light Sport Aircraft area, which featured around 15 Sport-LSA aircraft currently in production. I particularly enjoyed the "Eurofox" aircraft, essentially a Kitfox built in Germany, that cost about 40,000 Euros as I recall. Several of the other LSAs looked very nice, but most were made in foreign countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Italy, Germany) and had price tags in the $75,000 to $105,000, which was too steep for me. Lloyd wasn't as interested in LSAs as I was since he already had three aircraft and didn't really need another one. He was, however, quite fascinated by the small helicopters that were offered by several other vendors.

Lloyd kept looking while Monika and I peeled off to the forum area to catch a seminar on "Buying a LSA--Ask the Right Question" presented by the EAA folks who had originated the LSA idea with the FAA several years back. After that just for fun we attended a forum on "Ultralight Hot Air Balloon Construction Techniques and Materials", which showed the gung-ho willingness to try new things for which the group of homebuilders that make up the EAA is justly famous. It is, however, often difficult to decide when sheer genius crosses the line into sheer craziness, and this was one of those forums. The guy had carefully built an ultralight balloon, but to keep it light he simply sat on a big propane cylinder while directing a huge flame-thrower into the balloon above him to give him lift. He didn't fly if the wind exceeded 5 mph, which I thought was a wise decision especially as landing the rig could get pretty challenging in higher winds. All together it seemed fun and exciting, something like the guys who strap engines on their backs and fly off under parafoils, but I seem to prefer a little more control and a little less excitement in my flying. Getting old (smart?), I guess.

Shortly after the seminar ended we got a call from Lois, Patience, and Greg who had driven up for the day. Together we all walked up the flight line past the LSAs and Warbirds to the antiques and homebuilts. In the antique section we saw an entire line of Stearman biplanes, all dressed in the pretty blue and yellow colors of the Army Air Corps trainers of the 1930s. The homebuilts were, as I had seen on previous visits, a wild variety of designs, usually beautifully finished. Many of the proud owners were taking advantage of the shade provided by the wings to get some respite from the sun baking down on our heads.

Not having an airplane, we retired to the shade of one of the cafes and had a nice cool drink while we watched the airshow. It started off with flyovers from formations of the warbirds like the AT-6 military trainers. The big modern military jets also buzzed the field with low altitude passes and they were of course the noisiest performers. The ability of fighter jets like the F 22 Raptor to shoot straight up into the air with afterburners roaring was nothing short of amazing (as well as being ear-splitting!).

But on the whole I rather preferred the biplane aerobatic acts. They were not as dramatic as the military jets but rather offered a graceful and balanced aerial ballet. One pair of Christian Eagles performed what amounted to an aerial pas de deux that was very pretty indeed. Patty Wagstaff performed a solo routine near the end of the program that was extremely crisp and exact. I could easily see why she was an aerobatic champion.

At the end of the aerobatics we all walked back to Greg's rental car and drove out to Perkins for dinner, after which we said farewell to our relatives and returned to our tent for the night. Unfortunately, we hit the jackpot that night for thunderstorms, being pounded by at least three distinct storms that made the tent shake and water mist down from our rain fly. The tent leaked enough overnight that we had puddles in the low points on the floor by morning, but even though our sleeping bags became damp they kept us warm enough to sleep whenever it stopped raining. Fortunately I had put the plastic bag with our growing collection of mementos up on the table so that all survived intact.