Oshkosh 2015

By Ed Wischmeyer

The enormous Airbus A350 between flying displays. (Ed Wischmeyer)This year, I drove from Georgia. I made eight stops in Atlanta, all on the freeway. I drove 13 hours and 550 miles the first day, 12 and 660 the next. Uff, da! But I’m here. I’ll go home a different route.

A few press releases came out on the way north. Garmin’s avionics now talks to ForeFlight, and Jeppesen Mobile Flight Deck, and that’s good news on several fronts. One is that ForeFlight is rather well done, an IMHO, and now Garmin avionics owners can get the best of both worlds. The other good news is that this is the first crack in Garmin’s closed system approach.

BeLite has a new ultralight, this one looking like a low wing version of their Cub series but with the fuselage chopped off at the base of the windshield and the top of the seat back. Electric power is planned.

On the way in Sunday morning, my first stop was to get press credentials. The obligatory magic trick is to show the good folks how to cut your IQ in half – and then you put the press pass around your neck.

Next stop was non-denominational chapel, but Fergus Chapel was full and then some – people were standing in the back all the way to the door. 

Cockpit of a Hatz biplane. (Ed Wischmeyer)Epic Aircraft had four customer aircraft (kit) at the show, but the big announcement was that the program is fully funded for production and certification by a Russian investor whose Epic is based in Moscow. The last seven kits are being finished at the factory, but after that, all the planes will be certified. Avionics will be Garmin G1000.

After that was a brief visit to RockwellCollins and their new touchscreen interface is nice but quite a contrast to the legacy King Air toggles switches on the side panel and lower panel.

The day finished with the Garmin presentations, and they have lots of new software plus a new autopilot control panel with heading and altitude knobs for the G3X system. I bought my A Pietenpol in the classic tradition. (Ed Wischmeyer)autopilot control panel without the knobs two months ago. Grrr…

Arrivals include a new Airbus A350, a huge beast of a twin engine jet; a Lancaster bomber, and the four Merlin engines create a unique sound; a DeHavilland Mosquito; and a gaggle of Ercoupes, or maybe the correct term is giggle, that flew in the airshow one afternoon. That flew slowly in the airshow. Not quite like the pair of F-22s that arrived, one of them marshaled in by the pilot’s father as a surprise.

The Airbus was parked in by a FedEx Airbus but managed to escape and fly its demonstration routine a second time. On the ground, the A350s engines seem to have a diameter greater than the B-52’s fuselage.

Icon is delivering their light sport amphibian, and it looks really cThe F-35 in its first public appearance. (Ed Wischmeyer)ool on its custom trailer. Curiously, though, it has vortex generators atop the leading edge cuffs on the outboard part of the wing. Similarly curious, the Cirrus Jet with two rows of what look like turbulators on the outboard half of each wing to trip the airflow ahead of the ailerons. 

Continental is now in the service business big time and will do diesel engine conversions and Lycoming overhauls, plus they bought ECI engines, which make Lycoming clones. Over at DeltaHawk, they now have funding at the eight-figure level to take the engine to certification and production, and they’re hiring. Even better, not only is the funding from a U.S. source, it’s from a local Racine source.

In the air was the ever-amazing Sean D. Tucker, also a biplane with a helper jet engine, and a sailplane aerobatic act that didn’t The Gemini Diesel, to be available for$24,900 in the 100 HP version. (Ed Wischmeyer)seem to me to live up to the hype. There were also a number of monoplanes doing high energy, high G, high skill aerobatics, but with the high roll rates and abrupt starts and stops, they seem to me to be more like model airplane aerobatics. Then again, the last time I saw a Jungmeister aerobatic demonstration, it seemed lethargic.

Also at the airshow were a twin-engine biplane, one piston engine up front, and a jet between the landing gear legs. It seriously disrespected the law of gravity. Another jet was the SubSonex jet, much quieter. On the noisier front, two F-22s and two F-35s flew in. The F-22 disrespects both gravity and aerodynamics, and I can’t wait to see its demonstration flights at the end of the week.

The tailwheel RV-14 made its first appearance, and the elevator The latest from Belite with an electric motor installed. (Ed Wischmeyer)control linkages have been slightly tweaked from those in the RV-14A prototype to improve control harmony.

Over in the ultralight area was a replica of the Santos Dumont Demoiselle, an interesting high wing plane with the pilot seated between the wheels and the engine at the leading edge of the wing. Built by the Winchester Skonkworks 20 miles from Oshkosh, the plane is advertised at the 23 bis, using the terminology to denote that this was Santos Dumont’s 23 aircraft design. History isn’t clear, but the joke is –  Santos Dumont built 21 aircraft, according to some historians. And his aircraft started with balloons, then airships, then airplanes.

And then there are the people – old friends, new friends, seminar presenters. At the Van’s Aircraft booth, I had the opportunity to talk with Van himself for 15 minutes about cooling problems in Folks do get tired at Oshkosh. (Ed Wischmeyer)my RV-9A. In his estimation, I may be seeing normal engine temperatures in my RV-9A, but they do seem high to me.

Not here this year was Avery tools, due to family commitments. This is Jerry’s last year with his one-man band, including computer logic with discrete transistors. His repertoire isn’t all that exciting, but he plays the oldies with lots of feeling.

Overhead were the obligatory airshows, the new Goodyear blimp with ducted fans, and more airplanes than you can shake a stick at. It’s Oshkosh.