I was fortunate enough to talk Tami into attending Airventure again for two days.  Two days was not enough time to wade through tools, equipment, and probe vendors for information on their products.  However, two days was better than not going at all.

The two days we were there were kind of crappy weather wise.  We had to dive under tents on more than one occasion to stay dry.  That kind of stunk as it made it real hard to look into airplanes as they were closed up and most had canopy covers on so you couldn't even look inside.  Needless to say, I didn't get a lot of pictures this year.

Advice to the married builder set on taking his wife to the airshow.  Your wife probably won't be real thrilled to attend an airshow.  That was Tami's story again this year.  She tolerates attending the airshow as I usually agree to go up to her folks for a couple of days after the show.  She had the added bonus this year as she found out that the EAA has a "crafting tent" set up for those people who are not all that interested in looking at airplane engines.  Tami found 1/2 day sessions on each day we were there for making baskets.  This made the whole experience a whole lot more pleasant for me to. 

She enjoyed the basket activities so much, she was considering to volunteer to teach some activities next year if I decide to attend more than 2 days.  Woohoo, it sounds like she is open to the idea of spending more time at Osh next year.

After I dropped Tami off at the crafting tent, I was walking past the Honda forums and Van's was putting on their presentation.  I stopped for a few minutes to listen to Van talk about the RV's.  They didn't ever talk about the -7's during this lecture.  Van's had a pretty good complement of people filling the chairs.

I spent some time watching the flight line.  It is just amazing the planes that come into and out of Osh.  I managed to catch this RV-8 taxiing in.

Right behind him was this Harmon Rocket.  COOL!!!  An RV on steroids...

Right next to where I was watching the flight line,  I took a gander of this Lancair IV.  What a beautiful plane.  I REALLY like the Lancairs, but they were out of my price range and way out in excess of my flying skill level.

The builder had a little write up on the plane "Illusion".  It is hard to read on this picture, but he spent 11,000 hours completing this Lancair IV.  2,000 hours were spent on block sanding alone.  Holy crap!!!!  That is alot of sanding.  He spend another 3,000 hours working on modifications to the airframe and customization.  He has a lot more drive than I do for building a plane!!!

This Lancair was out behind the Lancair tent.  That is one heck of a set of pipes on this turboprop. 

While I was out walking the flight line, this F-16 came down the runway and then did an afterburner takeoff.  Oh my god, my ears still ring a week later.  It was very cool.  I got into the wrong line of work.  They actually pay those guys to do this.

I later got a close-up look of another F-16.  What particularly caught my attention this time around was how thin and small the wings were.  It is phenomenal when you think of the weight they have to lift and the G-loads they can handle.

More low approaches over the flight line.

Then there was the afternoon airshow.  Masters of Disaster, I believe.  What an overload of aerial chaos.  It was great...  They also have a jet powered semi that throws flame-farts.  Quite a display, but if you had to listen to it all week, you might be slightly annoyed at the sheer noise this show produces.

Let the aerial chaos continue...

Counting airplanes 1, 2, 3.....  screw that, there is just lot of airplanes.

A C-5 Galaxy transport.  An absolutely huge aircraft.  They said that it was actually bigger than the Airbus Beluga that was at the show last year.

More military aircraft...

The P-51's are my favorite to look at and watch and I got the opportunity to see 2 taxi in.  Do you think this guy is doing the "happy dance" in the cockpit (I would be if I had the means to own/fly one)???  Nah, he was trying to tell the ground personnel where he wanted to go.

This guy came in right behind the other P-51.  I can't hardly imagine how expensive it is to own/fly one of these things.  I bet you don't do it on an hourly wage.

P-51's coming and going....  The EAA staff was trying to keep this taxiway clear of people, but can you believe that I saw people trying to dart out in front of these planes.  I saw the staff on more than one occasion chase people back behind the fences.  I'll bet the over the nose visibility isn't real great on these.

Yeehew, another Harmon Rocket.  I would sure like to catch a ride in one of these!!!  Hey, this one had a for sale sign in the window.  I think the guy was asking $135,000.  I wonder if he would take Visa or Mastercard???

Tami liked the paint job on this plane.  I am not big into flames, but for some reason Tami really liked them on this particular plane. 

I liked the airbrushing on the rudder.  I would like to do some type of airbrushing on the paint for the plane, but I don't have the talent to do this well.  Tami is pretty talented at drawing and painting (wood things).  I am trying to get her interested in learning to airbrush so I can have a fancy paint job.  She likes the planes with the nice airbrush paint jobs too, so maybe I will be able to talk her into learning to do this. 

The other thing that was nice about this plane (and others) was that he glassed in all of his fiberglass tips.  They looked really good.  We had walked past numerous planes that just riveted the fiberglass tips on.  They looked cheap.  Hey that is how Cessna does it....  Even Tami made comments about that cosmetic difference.

SMILE if you are a Harmon Rocket!!!  While we were taking a rest on one of the park benches, Tami pointed out that the front cowling looks like the plane is "smiling".  Wouldn't you if you were a Rocket???

Last, but not least, I ran across this lone RV-7A....  Almost like it got lost when parking.  Hey Roberta, the RV's are at the other end of the airfield.  This RV belongs to Roberta Hegy.  Didn't see them, but I was able to pick out this RV from some distance.

Believe it or not, while walking around in the exhibition hangars, Tami and I ran into Kevin Faris.  Kevin is a local builder here out of Plattsmouth.  He is hoping to have his -7 done by the fall of 2005.  Anyway, we got to talking about good finds at the show and he had found some Tefzel wire dies for the automatic wire strippers.  So among other things, we walked over where I rummaged through the vendors stock.  The dies for Tefzel wire are mil-spec dies and have unique serial numbers stamped into both dies.  i.e.: 4285 for the die in the picture below.

I got two sets of dies.  One is for 10-14 AWG wire and the other is 16-22 AWG wire.  The vendor only had a couple of sets of each size.  Some were rusted out, but I was able to find one set of each that were in great condition.  Once set was still even sealed in the "green" dipped coating.  I got both sets of dies for $16.

The tefzel dies are slightly different than your generic automatic strip tool dies.  The edge of the die is not very sharp so as not to nick or cut strands of wire when stripping the insulation.  Instead of cutting the insulation off, it appears to just "pinch" it off.   Your standard electrical dies for the automatic strip tool at Home Depot, Radio Shack, etc, are sharp.  They cut through the insulation (and can also cut through the wire strands).  Cutting even a couple of strands on 16 AWG wire can be a big deal.  At work, cutting even a single strand requires us to redo the connection.

Aeroelectric Bob has a web page that talks about the benefits of this type of die for the automatic strippers.  It wasn't until I got back from OshKosh that I even found this.  I am glad Kevin hooked me up with these dies.  I have never seen them before.  I was surprised to see what Aeroelectric Bob had to say about cost for these so-called tefzel strippers and dies.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of $140-160.  I already had the strippers and I spent $16 on the dies.  Cha-ching$$$$

If you think that it is acceptable to use your run of the mill pliers, strippers, or crimpers to do electrical work on an aircraft, you should read the August 2004 issue of Sport Aviation.  Page 52 has an article on "Wired for Disaster".  Makes me stop and think and I do electrical work for a living at a nuclear plant...

This was a throttle quadrant I was hoping to catch a glance of from Infinity Aerospace.  This was just one of their prototypes so it is not totally match what the final product will be, but it gave me an idea of what to expect.

Infinity Aerospace will have a center mount throttle quadrant and a side mount quadrant.  The side quadrant will have a slightly angled throttle so that it does not rub up against the fuselage.  The center mount quadrant is pictured below.

The throttle handle has 2 4-way rocker switches on each side.  This allows functions to be mirrored between the pilot and co-pilot should you be willing to let the co-pilot (passenger) take the controls.  As it was explained to me, the intended function of these 4-way switches were for your nav/com channel selection and preselects.

On the front side of the throttle, there are three pushbutton switches.  The two outboard switches can be mirrored for the radio mic.  The center switch has a distinct feel and it heavier duty.  Its intended function was to run the starter.

The 4-aft switches could be used for anything you want and I don't remember what the vendor said his intention was here.

There is a center toggle switch between the 2 4-way switches for an additional function.  This is an optional switch and if you preferred a "smaller" throttle handle, this switch is removed.  Tami liked the smaller throttle handle.  She said it felt better in her hands.

The handles for prop, mixture and throttle have numerous functions as well.

• When you advance the throttle, it drags the mixture and prop levers forward for you (of course you can push them up yourself).   You can still pull the mixture aft for leaning and engine un-flooding, and pull the prop lever aft to exercise the prop and set cruise RPM at altitude.

• Set the mixture lever with the mixture set thumb screw for higher altitude take-off's.

 

• Mixture lever has a cut-off safety feature to keep the pilot from inadvertently shutting the engine off.
  
• If you don't have a constant speed prop, you can remove the prop lever, or use it as a trim lever or carb heat lever.
  
• Each lever has it's own friction adjustment with a clicking / ratcheting effect.  The adjustment for the levers is a setscrew and nut on the back side of the quadrant below the faceplate.  I don't quite know how you would adjust the friction adjustment screws after it was installed.  Maybe an access plate???
  

The faceplate for the quadrant will have all the labels laser cutout and will be backlit with LED's on a dimmer circuit (supplied).  Additionally, he was going to mount 4 LED's on the bottom of the throttle handle that would also be dimmable that could be used for reading charts, facility directories, etc.  These would also be dimmable separately from the faceplate.

The BAD part about this throttle quadrant is that Infinity Aerospace is going to be offering this for $750 (he thought, kind of spendy $$$) and should be available in under 2 months.  He was waiting for some final forms to come back for the throttle handle.

I also had a chance to talk with Grand Rapids Technologies on their EFIS displays.  I still think I need to find a way to put them in the plane.  Those EFIS displays just tell you so much more than the standard steam gauges.

I didn't get a chance to talk to half of the vendors I wanted to.  There is just to much to see and do to catch it all in two days.  In some cases, it may just be easier to call the vendors directly.  Vendors like Garmin and Dynon had lines of people waiting to get a close up their latest offerings.

Even with bottled water at $3.50 a shot, I am planning on going again next year.  Length of stay to be determined.  Maybe it won't rain and I can get some good pictures...