OK all you metal haters.............hide your wife, protect your children or run for the hills.....Dana is getting ready to pop his head out of the flame trench and come up firing:-)
For all you guys looking for the LSA in future years, this may be time for you to start aquiring instruments and metal working tools. For those not at Oshkosh, Van's brought out their RV-12 prototype LSA. http://www.vansairforce.net/delete_eventually/12.jpg.JPG http://www.vansairforce.net/delete_eventually/IMG_1674.JPG If interested here is the pdf file: http://www.vansaircraft.com/pdf/12.pdf For the forum: http://www.vansaircraft.com/pdf/12.pdf NOW, this is just way too cool or just someone with WAY too much time on their hands. Shows you the process of building an R^ (see I didn't say it:-) Below is too good to miss, even if you are just a couch potato. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfUikuSd694 Notes from Oshkosh: I got in on Weds morning only to find three KRs there. If was nice to see that five made it in. I still like the KR. I did notice Richard's KR-1 always had people around it looking it over and what a nice choice to put in the Showcase. It did the KR community proud. I camped in my "mobile" RV (see I can say it here:-) in Camp Schooler at the corner of Stits and Elm. We, Elaine and I along with Adam and Megan, immediately made our way to the flightline. Made a start at Aero Square then through homebuilts only to end up in R* parking, then homebuilt camping. Ran into Ken coming out of camping, his KR was parked mighty and proud with the metal gang:). Not much to report on other than "we're here". Had a great time. One the metal heads had a barbeque two streets down that he had organized on the R# List. He had a turnout of something like 250 people with beer, burgers and lies. Thursday morning..........well.........I think I had a case of the flu........that's it.......the flu. Thursday was the day to "do the show". We walked from home sweet home to Aero Square north to Warbird Parking, North Forty, east to the bend in Warbird, south back through homebuilt showcase, Antique, Ultralight, South Forty, tram to furthest south and Floatplane parking, back to ultra north to past showcase and grab a bite. We found a "Master Chef" (yea right at Oshkosh) cooking whole turkey legs. My thought was, "it's 92 degrees out here, I want ice cream", Elaine looked at me and I immediate grew back up and became an adult, "sure turkey sounds good". Next year at Oshkosh, I am looking this guy back up...........FABULOUS. Back we go to the camper to rest and pick up our chairs for something I haven't done in years, Flightline Airshow. Show was great but I can only handle so many loops and rolls. Still, Elaine, Adam and Magen loved it. Back to the camper for good ol Hamburger helper with corn on the cob thrown on the grill. Early turnin, big day on Friday. We rented bikes Friday morning to really do the rounds. Headed down Elm past the main side gate, right turn on some city street then down to the gate in the woods past ultralight. Hopped the bus to Lake Winny to see the Floatplanes. If you have not ever been to the floatplane base you are missing the most laid back part of Oshkosh and far and away the best food. I have fresh eggs, bacon and hash browns along with a danish and orange juice for something like $4.00. Friday night they were having fresh a Walleye cookout with beer for something like $9.00. While there we heard on the loudspeaker an annoucement a new TFR was issued for an hour at something like 11:45. I told Elaine, something big was coming in. We found out on the bus, on the way back to Oshkosh Main, the Blue Angels were going to do a flyby. To make a long (I know, the whole email is long) story short, the Angels got finished practicing for the Dayton Airshow and immediately headed north to Oshkosh for this flyby. They needed tanked above Oshkosh so they hooked up with a tanker form a WI National Guard Unit. Could you imagine the phone call to the tanker pilot. "Yes, get out of bed we need to tank a few warbirds", "It's 6AM what the @#$%#$" "you will be tanking the Blue Angels" "Show me the money, I'm IN". I always wondered why the Angels never performed at Oshkosh, well I know now.........the airshow box is too small. Anyway, it was still cool. During the airshow I got to do the hanger, vendor walkthrough. Really not much new just more and better of the same. The big two, Grand Rapids and Dynon just keep adding stuff to there units. I was allowed to shop and ended up buying the new Dynon 7" engine monitering system, Trio Avionics autopilot with altitude hold and vertical speed along with a Garmin 106A ILS/GPS approach head. To go along with the Vetterman exhaust I found at the flymart for $325 less than new I now have everything to finish this ol black airplane. (I sold an overhauled Constant Speed Prop I hauled to Oshkosh) Doug Steen called and he and his flight party of 3 just got in. Had lunch with Doug and his wife then off to do some flymart stuff with Elaine. Smart, fat and happy and broke we went back to the camper for a great steak, mushroom, onions, pepper Kbob's on the grill. After that it was off to the nightime theater. They had a new five story blowup screen with high def. projection and surround sound. We watched Squadron 633. Cool time. Saturday morning, I was able to spend some time and walked back through R% parking to just do a laxy walkthrough looking for any last minute things to do on my airplane. The parking was pretty cleaned out. I did buy a CD I have walked by for years. Surround sound of big ol round engines doing flybys.........totally useless but still cool:-) Pulled out about noon for an 1am arrival back home. Great time and it was fun using the camper RV (I can say RV here again) for what it was made for rather than mine and Elaine's home for 8 months while we built to log home. I believe this will be mine and Elaine's last drive to Sun and Fun or Oshkosh. I'll save you from more metal talk and wait untill official "Fun Friday" next Friday to show you the current status only suffice to say.......it looks a lot more finished than it really is but is sure is fun to look at. Next novel.............will be a book signing:-) Sorry, I am not going to do a spell check.........way too long. Flog me iffa ya wantta. Dana Overall 1999 & 2000 National KR Gathering host Richmond, KY i39 RV-7 slider, Imron black, "Black Magic" O 360 A1A, C/S C2YK-1BF/F7666A4 http://rvflying.tripod.com/id30.html do not archive _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! 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