Taos (almost) blow out

The Taos fly-in was almost a blow out with 30 to 50 mph winds all weekend but several pilots got a chance to fly on Saturday morning before the winds kicked into high gear. Gary Wee was one of the first off the ground in his Mustang trike. Bryan Toepfer flew his Cosmos and Dan Gallaher his Sabre right behind him.

Our camp right at the bend in the taxiway

Lots of us stood around to watch Gary Leach take off in his Butterfly Gyro then Frank Dempsey started giving rides in his Apollo. Craig Ewing was also giving rides in his Revo all morning. I was his first passenger and he let me fly the trike from the back seat. That is a very nice machine. I wish I could afford one.

Playing with the wind

Playing with the Wind (HD) from aabz-imaging on Vimeo.

Here in another beautiful, graceful video from aabz-imaging. Playing with the wind.

Dave flying an epic journey

Who would think that someone who was confined to a wheelchair would have the nerve to fly across vast distances with virtually no support from England to Australia just for fun? OK so it is not only for fun but there is another purpose.

Follow the adventure here.

Surfing the clouds

If you fly for fun, this video is what it is all about. Surfing the clouds. If you don't fly but want to, watch this and dream.



Surfing the Clouds - Ningaloo Reef / Western Australia (HD) from aabz-imaging on Vimeo.

Here is the write up from aabz-imaging:

Clouds are a rare sight at Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia - we have about 330 days of sunshine with blue skies each year.
A good friend of mine, who owns a Microlight flight school up here, took me for a spin around some beautiful cloud formation in his Airborne XT912. Apart from a little bumpy take-off and landing, conditions were an absolute joy and we decided to go up to 10,000 feet.
The views of the cape and the reef were just spectacular, and with some cool tunes playing over the inter-com we could have stayed up forever.

This is my first real attempt to put the video of the 5D MkII to the test. I know, it is not the ideal use for it and the rolling shutter can be a pain in the a#%$!
Everything was hand held, no mounts, no rig, Deshaker in post.
(Update 06-02-11: Second cut online with optimised settings and re-sync of music track in higher quality)

I hope you enjoy the ride. Any comments - good or bad - are most appreciated.

Music by Alexander Mone / (Cafe Sessions: Midnight City) alexandermone.pdj.com
Track: OneWorld - Green Bay (High Motion Remix)
  :: Equipment: CANON 5DMkII, CANON 16-35 f/2.8 L II

:: Camera & Edit: Sascha Unger, aabz-imaging.com

:: Pilot: Gavin Penfold, ningaloomicrolights.com

Filmed at: North West Cape/Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia on 30-01-2011

Winning trikes

I am really getting anxious about getting back in the air soon. I am sure that I can get a back seat with someone this weekend at Taos during the fly-in. I would rather be flying my own trike. So now I have to decide whether to put a new engine on this one or part it out and  start over with something new.

What is new in the trike market runs the spectrum from the Revo I watched fly at Trikefest and Oshkosh last year to the just newly introduced T-lite.

Larry Mednick was awarded the Grand Champion Light Sport prize for his Evolution trike, otherwise known as the Revo, at Sun N Fun this April. If you have ever seen one fly it is an amazing machine. Unfortunately I haven't won the lottery yet and nothing short of that will get me into one.

The Revo.

The T-Lite trike from Airborne Australia also won the Grand Champion Ultralight award at Sun 'n' Fun. This is a single seat trike for around 18K so the price is agreeable but  I wonder what the performance would be like at my altitude. It is probably too small of an engine to tackle this thin air up here.

Anyway congratulations to Airborne and Tampa Bay Aerosport for keeping trikes evolving and a fun alternative to the spam cans. Something will come my way soon. I'll just buy another lottery ticket on the way home today.

New design for affordable flight

Have you ever heard of the Vortex VTOL? Take a look at this site explaining the flight characteristics of a new type of aircraft.

 

I want one! If these ever get off the drawing board I would love to fly one.

BLM cleanup and kite festival

Here is what I found in my in-box last week:

Bureau of Land Management --  New Mexico • Taos Field Office

JOIN BLM IN CLEANING UP BUCKMAN

Your public lands need your help! Illegal dumping and litter are a major problem in the outdoor recreation area. The cleanup will remove potential hazards to users.

When: Saturday, May 21, 2011
Time: 8 a.m. to 12 noon
Where: Buckman

Directions: Take 599 to the Camino La Tierra exit north to the Old Buckman Road (County Road 77) proceed on the Old Buckman Road approximately 1.5 miles to the staging area. Please bring a hat, sunscreen, gloves and water.

So naturally I had to go help with the cleanup. I think there were around 25 of us total, spread out over 4 main areas.

 

It always amazes me how much trash people can haul into the wilderness just to leave it there. I mean they hauled it in, why can't they haul it out?  This is a 50 ft long dumpster that stands 7 feet tall and we filled it halfway up with trash in just over 4 hours.

The BLM ranger (is that what they are called?) directed the volunteers to the work areas then started making runs with his truck bed filled to the dumpster every few minutes.

Everyone else either rode a dirt bike or drove a  pickup or SUV to the work site. I did not have much of a choice and had to take the Lexus. It survived just fine because the roads were in pretty decent shape.

 

It was great to see Jim, Jon, and Klaus there and I'm sure they were all really surprised to see me. I haven't been doing much trail riding or clearing and zero racing these past few years. I promised myself I would get back out on the bike this year and try to knock some of the fat and lazy off my body. I will give it my best effort.

After hauling trash for several hours it was off to the Kite-fest in White Rock. I watched a bunch of kids at the kite making workshop build their own paper kites.

 

Then it was off to the field to get them flying. I took several kites with me. The big delta wing flew twice but I could not get the para-foil or the box kite off the ground. Too little wind. 

The sky was littered with paper kites however and there were smiles on a lot of kids faces. It was fun and I will look forward to it again next year.

Beach flying

It is over halfway through May now and the winds will hopefully subside some as we put these crazy Spring winds of April and May behind us. Monster storms all across the US this Spring have wreaked havoc on the Midwest and Southeastern states. Here in the Southwest we have had a lot of wind but not too much damage from it.

Just a little farther south, in Rocky Point Mexico, however the flying looks great.

 

Someday I will get my trike down there to go fly with John and George along the beach.Ole keeps inviting all us trikers to come down and fly with him, but so many are put off by all the border violence. Maybe when things get a little quieter down there Becky and I can fly down the Baja coast to San Ignacio Lagoon where the baby whales spend their time preparing for the trip north to Alaska.

Burt Rutan - Scaled Composite years

This slide show is a tribute to Burt Rutan and his years at Scaled Composite in California. He is famous now for designing Space Ship One but has always been famous amongst the aviator crowd for his brilliant designs.

Burt is retiring this month. Maybe he will still continue to design exciting aircraft even if he is not chasing world records. Have a great retirement Burt!

Aerial photography best shots -- Part 2

Continuing with the theme of amazing aerial photographic pictures, here are some more that help explain why the pilots among us have the best view of the planet.

I am sure that my flying friends all think that their pictures are better than these posted here, and many of them are. Jeff makes a calendar every year featuring shots of local sights taken from trikes. Damien makes great videos of his flying adventures that contain stills of amazing scenery.

The point here is that the best view is a birds eye view from a trike,PPG, or PPC. I prefer a trike myself.

FAA Light Sport Approval Change

This just in from Terri Sipantzi:

In 2009 the FAA did a survey of Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) manufacturers and determined that while many manufacturers were doing their best to comply with ASTM standards and FAA requirements (see FAA recommendations) a lot of them were still falling short.  Most of the short-comings discovered had more to do with understanding or interpretation of the rules.

In the findings released there did not appear to be any safety of flight issues. Also, keep in mind that the industry was only a few years old when this survey was conducted.  Everyone, including the FAA (maybe especially the FAA) was playing catch-up.  Finally, the survey teams limited their surveys to US manufacturers and the distributors/dealers of foreign manufacturers (they tried to determine factory compliance based on distributor/dealer understanding of ASTM rules and manufacturing procedures -- a flawed approach at best since the ASTM doesn't apply to distributors/dealers and they may or may not know what steps the factory has taken to comply).  Based on incomplete data they have extrapolated with "93% confidence" the state of all manufacturers whether surveyed or not.

More extreme trike flying video

Here is Larry putting the Revo through its paces. I have flown with this guy. It is amazing what he can get a trike to do without crashing. At the time I was in Florida they were selling the Monsoon trike, an early version of the Revo. I missed my chance to fly this one in Oshkosh last year. I'll have to get down to Florida again and let Larry take me for a thrill ride in the new Revo.

Aerial photography best shots -- Part 1

I have several books that showcase aerial photography and I have taken a few great shots myself, so when I ran across this collection I just had to post a few here.

Before I began flying I would look at a picture shot from an aerial platform and think, "Well that is neat." Now I look at one and can feel the cold or heat of the air associated with the picture. I can remember the smell of the salty air above the water. I can remember the feeling of moisture on my face as I flew through puffy clouds. I can hear the engine roaring behind me and feel the surge as I add throttle. I can feel myself grinning ear to ear as I push out on the control bar and feel the lift jerking me higher up in the sky. And I am only looking at a picture. Have a look at these "pilots only" perspective pictures.

 

 

 

 

You have to wonder what is happening down under those clouds!

Happy flying everyone.

Happy Mother's day

I hope everyone had a good holiday. Mother's Day for us usually means a trip to the zoo. Danielle and Chris met us at The Albuquerque Zoo and we had a great morning.

Chris, Danielle, and Becky watching the Tamarin monkeys

A peacock strutting his stuff

This guy was really showing off

Chris, Danielle, Becky, and me taking a breather

Picnic at the zoo

We finished the zoo tour with a picnic in the grass and just had a wonderful day. There were lots of baby animals, the weather was perfect, and spending time with our daughter and son-in-law was as good as it gets.

Missle fin falls from sky

The Navy has confirmed that one fin from a captive air training missile came loose from its perch on the wing of an F/A-18C Hornet, fell from the sky, and embedded itself in the hood of an unoccupied truck in Virginia Beach, VA, Thursday. There were no injuries associated with the accident, which took place shortly before noon near an intersection by a shopping mall. The missile itself, which carries no live explosives, fuels or propellants, stayed with the aircraft, which landed safely at Naval Air Station Oceana. Local news outlets were quick to note the episode wasn't entirely unique.

Thursday's event sparked local news outlets to recall a 2007 incident in which a Hornet dropped an inert training bomb onto a wall near a warehouse in North Carolina. No one was hurt in that incident, either. The aircraft involved in Thursday's episode was returning from a training flight when the accident occurred. It is attached to Strike Fighter Squadron 131 and suffered no reported damage. The Navy is investigating.

Wallaby Ranch

Here is a video of hang gliding at Wallaby Ranch in Florida.



The female reporter who is doing the story on hang gliding compares it to her experience skydiving and much prefers the gliders to the chutes.The story is always the same for anyone who takes to the air in either a trike (powered hang glider) or just a regular hang glider. The feeling is incomparable to any other form of flight.

Fly Nano

This is the decade that a lot of new personal air vehicles are being introduced. Check out the Nano.

 

Go to their site and see what you think. I hope that some of these get off the ground and make it into marketing and sales. Weren't we all supposed to be flying these things by the turn of the last century?

Could this be my new engine?

I really like the looks of the BMW R-1200.

This might make a great trike engine. I should cal Mel in Albuquerque and ask him how his trike is flying with this motor.

 

Here is a trike ready to get this motor installed. 80 ponies on the back of a stick trike.  I doubt if I will have my trike flying before the next fly-in but you never know. 

Lately I have been busy with remodeling the cat kennel. I rototilled all the sod and leveled the soil. I will compact some sand as a base for the horse stall mats that will be the new flooring. I have to paint the base of the chain link panels before I install them. Then I can put the hammocks, perches, and posts back in. The poor cats sit at the closed door and wonder why they can't go outside. 

After a very productive Saturday I am stuck inside today watching the snow pile up. 2 inches so far and no sign of stopping yet. I thought winter was over!