Author Archives: Albatros

Friday…

More updates coming later, with images from Wednesday and a couple from yesterday (morning full of interviews, then knocked out by pain later in day…not many pics). Today, I have a couple of interviews so far, then walking around time, and will end the day with Ron Borovec’s Roadable Aircraft Forum. Full report coming on that as soon as I’m able to post.

The Twitter stream (@FlyingCarNews, also seen to the right) has more frequent updates. I’ve been collecting information for longer blog posts covering some of the people and tech I’ve seen here.

Oshkosh Photos, Day 2

More details coming, but needed to start posting some pictures! Day started with interviews, including Morgan Sandercock of the Perlan Project (and extraordinary glider pilot with an almost poetic bent…a mesmerizing interview). The Perlan Project hopes to exploit a theoretical maximum height for mountain waves to soar to an altitude of 90,000 feet using a glider with a fully-pressurized cockpit. This will, hopefully, enable them to achieve several new records, including absolute height records for aircraft, powered or not, in sustained level flight at 90K, as well as provide a new tool for high atmospheric research for meteorology and climatology.

The afternoon started with Tracy Miller’s forum, “Towards an Oral History of Aviation”, with sparkling panel discussion by Mel Smith and other volunteers. We had a fairly good attendance, considering we were opposite Dick Rutan, and met several people who were interested in the program. Will post slides from talk when the annotations are complete.

Day 1: Oshkosh 2013, Part 2

More pictures from the rather quiet first day (almost all museum):

Terrafugia Flies at Oshkosh 2013!

It was a little less than 4 from when I did this interview with Carl Dietrich of Terrafugia in 2008 to the maiden flight of the Transition in 2012. In 2008, people were skeptical about the young kids who rolled into AirVenture with their mockup…MIT grads or not, many were convinced they’d never pull it off.

This year, we saw this:

Video from AVWeb

More details to follow, but congratulations to Terrafugia for their hardwork and perservance!

USAF Expecting Pilot Shortage by 2021

The LA Times reports the USAF is currently down by some 200 fighter pilots, resulting in new pay offers from the Pentagon, and, “if something isn’t done, the Air Force, which has about 3,000 fighter pilots, fears it may face a shortfall of 700 by 2021.”

Rumors about pilot concerns with salary and other job factors have been discussed in forums for several years, even back to 1998 fallout from Tailhook. Aggressive reports on how drones are replacing pilots (like this one) haven’t helped matters.

Furthermore, the LA Times points out:

There have been fighter pilot shortages in the past, but the competition promises to be fierce in the years to come as airlines hunt for young talent because of a surge in retirements.

Last year, passenger jet maker Boeing Co. released a report that estimated a global need for 460,000 new commercial pilots over the next two decades. There are currently more than 71,000 active airline pilots in the United States.

Read their full story…

Day 1: Oshkosh 2013, Part I

Day 1 dawned with a bit of overcast and a lot of pain…but what the heck, AIRPLANES!!! Parked at a museum lot, did some work at the table for a while, snapped a few pictures, then hobbled over to Innovations to scare people (I think my title is “EAA’s Quasimodo” this year).

Our booth is right by the Timeless Voices pavilion donated by the Wilson Family next to Hangar X and the flight simulator. We have a great view of Spaceship One.

Nice view, huh?

Despite lurching about the Innovations building like I was Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant looking for new acquisitions, I was able to land a few interviews for later in the week. Good to see John Nicol of MakerPlane was back:

As well as the fantastic electric Yuneec (“unique”) from China:

Will post a slideshow in a bit of the museum, for now, some more older Oshkosh images:

North to Oshkosh 2013

It’s early here, and the pre-Oshkosh scramble is on. Was up at 6:0o to try and wrap up some projects, including some more work on this blog. The previous iteration of the blog was on Posterous, and I’ll be migrating posts and pictures from there over the course of the next few days as well as doing more on the currently-bog-standard template.

Meanwhile, to get things started, some images from last year’s Oshkosh trip. With luck, will be hitting the road by 11:30, but I doubt that will happen.

More updates as the day progresses…