Ausflug 34

Oshkosh by Gosh

July 06

Day3: Seminars

Wednesday morning we spread our sleeping bags to dry and headed off for our first forum of the day on "LSA Certification and Repairman Training", potentially of use to folks that like me who would like to maintain their own aircraft. We followed that with a seminar in the FAA pavilion on "Why Engines REALLY Quit: The Top 10 Reasons". Bruce Edsten, the presenter, had a marvelous sense of humor that made what could have otherwise been a rather dry topic into a funny and memorable forum. He explained, for instance, why shock cooling on descents could seize air cooled engines and I had never really understood that before. The number 1 reason engines quit was running out of fuel. I listened very closely at that point because I had almost run out of fuel when flying down the Appalachians during my flight around the U.S.A. in 1986 (see "The Long Way to Oshkosh"). Contemplating running out of fuel in mountainous terrain with no options for a forced landing was definitely one of the scariest moments of my flying career. I have had engines stop on me twice, and sure enough both times it was fuel starvation but quickly cured by switching to a different fuel tank.

The next forum was on "When, What, and Why Do a Pre-Buy? Things to Look For When Buying", and that gave us some useful tips on what to watch out for when purchasing our next airplane. We followed that with a fascinating presentation on how Burt Rutan's team won the X-Prize for the first manned, commercial space flight. "2004--A Space Oddity" was presented by the one of the pilots of Space Ship 1 and he certainly gave us a pilot's eye view of the development, testing, and finally the space flights. Who knew, for example, that the middle third of the spaceship was nothing but a big tank of pressurized nitrous oxide! They bonded the pilot's cockpit to the front of the tank and bolted the rocket motor and wings on the back to make the space ship. Burt Rutan is one person whose ideas are often so visionary that they seem borderline crazy, but his success rate with these projects over several decades has substantiated that he really is a genius. The first space flight of Space Ship 1 involved a sequence of 39 snap rolls as it left the atmosphere, and I remember watching that live on TV with bated breath for the pilot's safety. It was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride for sure, but he did achieve the targeted altitude and returned safely. I was surprised that the rocket ship had about 40% of its fuel left when the pilot shut off the engine, but he explained that although they could easily have reached altitudes of around 400,000 feet the re-entry from those altitudes would have overstressed and probably destroyed the spaceship.

After that seminar we visited with Lloyd at Neil and Lee's tent in the fly-market, and there we were caught by an afternoon thunderstorm that also forced a postponement of some of the air show acts. We were safe and dry although the tent shook a bit for a while, and afterwards we said farewell to Lloyd and walked over to our next forum.

Our next forum was on "New Zealand Mountain Flying". That presentation focused on flying in the Alpine mountains on the south island of New Zealand, and the photographs were simply stunning. They also showed movies of flying in the mountains, and the landings on some of those valley strips looked rather challenging, to say the least. One thing they recommended for landing on a beach was to first "make wheel tracks" on the sand by essentially coming in for a long touch-and-go. By keeping up the speed you wouldn't get stuck in soft sandy spots and then, once you were sure of the surface, you could come in for the final approach and landing on the wheel tracks you had just made. It certainly made sense to me but I would have never thought of it on my own. Hoping to someday fly in the mountains of New Zealand, we returned to our tent for the evening.

Copyright 2008 by Robert W. Holt and Elsbeth Monika Holt
Prolog
Day1: The Fun starts Day2: Airplanes Everywhere Day3: Seminars Day4: Ultralights and a Raptor
Epilog

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