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Saturday, I got to go to the local Piper Saratoga Owners' Group fly-in! Well, ok, there's no OFFICIAL Saratoga owner's group. But there is a local e-mail list, and the guys organized a fly-in and barbecue about 45 minutes away in the Sierra foothills. It was small but fun. I enjoyed talking to pilots about flying stuff. Since I thought I might be left out a bit, being neither a Saratoga pilot myself nor even a straight white male, I wore my Pitts shirt. So I got to talk a little bit about the kind of flying I like best. :-)
We got back to Palo Alto Airport jussssst in time to beat an hour-long midafternoon airport closure for the Moffett Air Expo. Naturally, that meant that while we were tying down the airplane, some really loud fast-moving stuff came out of Moffett straight over our heads...
The next day, of course, I just HAD to go to the airshow. Yayyyy! I went with Rob, Chris, and Chris's friend Jeremy. I got to see Sean Tucker in the Challenger. It is VERY weird to see Sean Tucker flying an "Oracle" plane. He got Wayne Handley's sponsor, apparently, after Wayne's injury and subsequent retirement from the airshow circuit. So the Challenger is RED now. It used to be deep blue, painted with the 10-10-220 logo. I am too used to the Oracle Turbo Raven and the dark blue Challenger... Well anyway. Got to see Sean Tucker. That dude is amazing. Then someone else, Mark somebody, flying a Zivko Edge. I will have to learn that man's name. He too is amazing. And some very impressive duo work by the two Smirnoff MiGs. Both MiG pilots have day jobs as 747 captains for United. I'm sure they promise that they won't fly in inverted close formation while carrying passengers. Never. Well, hardly ever. ;-)
There were some stunts done there that I'd never seen done before. Some were combinations of maneuvers that I did understand. Others, though... Both the Challenger and the Edge can do a weird thing that LOOKS, from the spectator's point of view, like the plane is pointed straight up but moving on a nice crisp 45degree upline. I don't know HOW they do that. It doesn't help that the few seconds immediately preceding were sufficiently complex that I don't know what the setup really is. I will be puzzling on that one for a while. And I've got to figure out the aerodynamics of the "Harrier Pass". The aircraft gets going very slowly - doing 25 knots or so, the announcer says, keeping in mind that the wings stall at 60 - and it basically sits in the air, wallowing, tail way down, like some giant hummingbird. Well. If the wings aren't developing lift, then by golly the fuselage has too high an angle of attack to develop any lift either... doesn't it? But it can't be all thrust... can it? I wish I could ask someone I'd trust to give the right answer. I also cannot imagine the courage required to be the first guy to try this at an altitude of sixty feet. The recovery seems to require every inch of that vertical space.
Got to crawl around inside a C5 "Galaxy" military transport plane. I have never seen one of those up close before. They are BIG. They make a C-130 look small. They can load from either end (the nose cone folds up, the tail opens down into a ramp) and they are capable of air-dropping paratroopers and equipment (Jeeps, tanks!!). I've seen that last. Drop troops. Troops set up a perimeter. Drop machines. Machines make bigger perimeter. When the Army wants to say "this patch of ground is MINE," that is one heckuva quick way to do it.
I got a bit sunburned, and Rob & I left. As we were leaving, lots of explosions happened in the background. Apparently one of the military jets was doing some pyrotechnic display. It set off car alarms all down Ellis Street, and I got to watch some plate glass windows flex pretty far without breaking. I wondered briefly who'd pay the bill if all the windows fell out of nearby office buildings.
All in all, that was a fun weekend. I now wish I could get back into flying more. Darn this stock market anyway. I want to buy a Pitts. Or even keep the plane I have! :-/ Oh well, time to start saving... the slow but reliable way to earn something I really want. 1/2 :-)
And I did get to be upside down. Very briefly. There was a carnival-ride-like thing where people would jump up and down on an inflatable base while being partially suspended by bungee cords hooked into a harness. I jumped a bit until I learned to control it, and then did several flips. 8-) Wheeeeeee!
We got back to Palo Alto Airport jussssst in time to beat an hour-long midafternoon airport closure for the Moffett Air Expo. Naturally, that meant that while we were tying down the airplane, some really loud fast-moving stuff came out of Moffett straight over our heads...
The next day, of course, I just HAD to go to the airshow. Yayyyy! I went with Rob, Chris, and Chris's friend Jeremy. I got to see Sean Tucker in the Challenger. It is VERY weird to see Sean Tucker flying an "Oracle" plane. He got Wayne Handley's sponsor, apparently, after Wayne's injury and subsequent retirement from the airshow circuit. So the Challenger is RED now. It used to be deep blue, painted with the 10-10-220 logo. I am too used to the Oracle Turbo Raven and the dark blue Challenger... Well anyway. Got to see Sean Tucker. That dude is amazing. Then someone else, Mark somebody, flying a Zivko Edge. I will have to learn that man's name. He too is amazing. And some very impressive duo work by the two Smirnoff MiGs. Both MiG pilots have day jobs as 747 captains for United. I'm sure they promise that they won't fly in inverted close formation while carrying passengers. Never. Well, hardly ever. ;-)
There were some stunts done there that I'd never seen done before. Some were combinations of maneuvers that I did understand. Others, though... Both the Challenger and the Edge can do a weird thing that LOOKS, from the spectator's point of view, like the plane is pointed straight up but moving on a nice crisp 45degree upline. I don't know HOW they do that. It doesn't help that the few seconds immediately preceding were sufficiently complex that I don't know what the setup really is. I will be puzzling on that one for a while. And I've got to figure out the aerodynamics of the "Harrier Pass". The aircraft gets going very slowly - doing 25 knots or so, the announcer says, keeping in mind that the wings stall at 60 - and it basically sits in the air, wallowing, tail way down, like some giant hummingbird. Well. If the wings aren't developing lift, then by golly the fuselage has too high an angle of attack to develop any lift either... doesn't it? But it can't be all thrust... can it? I wish I could ask someone I'd trust to give the right answer. I also cannot imagine the courage required to be the first guy to try this at an altitude of sixty feet. The recovery seems to require every inch of that vertical space.
Got to crawl around inside a C5 "Galaxy" military transport plane. I have never seen one of those up close before. They are BIG. They make a C-130 look small. They can load from either end (the nose cone folds up, the tail opens down into a ramp) and they are capable of air-dropping paratroopers and equipment (Jeeps, tanks!!). I've seen that last. Drop troops. Troops set up a perimeter. Drop machines. Machines make bigger perimeter. When the Army wants to say "this patch of ground is MINE," that is one heckuva quick way to do it.
I got a bit sunburned, and Rob & I left. As we were leaving, lots of explosions happened in the background. Apparently one of the military jets was doing some pyrotechnic display. It set off car alarms all down Ellis Street, and I got to watch some plate glass windows flex pretty far without breaking. I wondered briefly who'd pay the bill if all the windows fell out of nearby office buildings.
All in all, that was a fun weekend. I now wish I could get back into flying more. Darn this stock market anyway. I want to buy a Pitts. Or even keep the plane I have! :-/ Oh well, time to start saving... the slow but reliable way to earn something I really want. 1/2 :-)
And I did get to be upside down. Very briefly. There was a carnival-ride-like thing where people would jump up and down on an inflatable base while being partially suspended by bungee cords hooked into a harness. I jumped a bit until I learned to control it, and then did several flips. 8-) Wheeeeeee!
