I said in the last post that there was no way I could make Oshkosh this year because neither I nor the plane were quite ready. I made arrangements to fly along in a friend's RV8, but he had to cancel out the Thursday before the show due to business commitments.
I decided to guts it up and try to make it. I took Friday off to work on the plane. I figured I had 3 days left to fix, test and fly to get ready.
I decided to blog the trip to try to give some sense to what it was like. Here goes....
I fixed the winglets, sorted the autopilot and throttle issues with the help of my great A&P Dennis Glick (Thanks Dennis!)
By Sunday, I had made several cross country flights, including that trip to Ocean City. Everything was working well and I had gotten comfortable in the plane.
I decided to launch Monday at dawn. I packed and fueled the plane. Then I learned that Oshkosh was flooded out and closed. I went to work Monday and continuously monitored the web site for conditions at Oshkosh.
Finally, it announced in the afternoon that it would be open to new arrivals starting Tuesday morning. I decided to leave at dawn Tuesday. That left me flight planning in the home office for the new weather forecast as depicted above, then trying to sleep.
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Now this is an early start. The moon is still out, but the sun will be rising by the time I finish my preflight and taxi to the runway. I want to be wheels up at dawn.
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The day grows brighter as I fly away from the rising sun. I look back to see the sun silhouetted behind my right winglet. Below me, fog flows like a river through the mountain passes. Gorgeous.
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Humming along at 8,500 feet at 190 knots. The autopilot is working well and I'm a happy camper. Oshkosh here I come.
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Time for a quick fuel stop in Goshen, Indiana. Nice folks.
Now, on to Oshkosh. Less than an hour to go!
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I made it! Parked at row 358 right next to the flight line. What a prime spot. I can sit next to my pilot side door in the shade and watch the airshow. Countless friends and curious pilots stop by to talk. It was really nice.
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As usual, I'm joined by my old flying buddy Scott, with his wife Glema and son, Alex. Scott landed his Lancair IV within 30 minutes of my arrival and we were parked only 50 yards apart.
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Lunch at the chicken tent, then the obligatory group Eagle One pose with Andy and Brett.
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It was great having the plane at airshow center. No more lugging the literature and chair - just pop them into the plane.
On the bus over from the dorm, an Aussie pilot noticed my Velocity logo and asked if the green plane on the flight line was mine. He said he'd sat near it during the previous day's show and had chuckled about how people criticized what they thought was a hideous final paint scheme.
As fellow builders told me when I was trying to decide whether to fly to OSH in primer, "Builders will get it, and for those who don't get it, who cares?" Still, I look forward to final paint.
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Brett and Andy check out the cockpit. It's a lot of fun to finally show your plane to all of your airplane nut buddies.
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Elizabeth camps out under the wing while we poke around in the cockpit.
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For many in the Velocity contingent, the day started with food and gourmet coffee with the Millins. That was some fine pound cake guys. Thanks for contributing to my forward CG issues.
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The Velocity cookout was well attended and was a lot of fun.
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I made several treks to the Millin camp site, home of the Velocity dinner. Here Teresa shows off the Andy Millin Eagle One bobble head doll that is sweeping the nation. She obviously loves this gag.
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The ground was too soft for the fuel trucks so you had to go to hard surface staging areas to meet the fuel truck. No problem. I asked the guy on the scooter and before you knew it, 6 volunteers had appeared to quickly push the plane 50 feet to the hard surface and back. Nice Oshkosh flavor with the Trimotor taxiing past. in the top picture, you can see Dave Bertram had the same idea.
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Velocity people are a great community, always sharing ideas, innovations, help and tips. Here two friends improve my rudder handling by shortening the return springs. Thanks guys- I owe you one.
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Andy and Darryl check out the plane. Andy looks happy in a Velocity doesn't he?
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Darryl and Norah Kufalk with their beautiful new paint job. Nice work and thanks for showing me all the cool innovations you added. Love the quick release seat mounts!
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This is it, time to head home. I taxi down to the departure end of 36 and wait for my turn. The top picture is the view back 18 toward show center. The bottom picture is the controller on the temporary "tower". He calls "Green Cozy, position and hold on the left side of the runway next to the RV".
I pull out, get the clearance to go and I'm off! Accelerate, lift off, gear up, rock the wings to the show and depart to the right, then head 150 degrees to clear the airspace.
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As I skirted Chicago, the weather got kind of iffy. I ended up cruising through light rain at 8,500. Above is a shot of the Chicago skyline from the edge of the O'Hare airspace. Then I had to descend to get under weather around Toledo. After my stop in Goshen, Indiana for fuel, I had to climb over more weather.
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I got a chance to use the great performance of the Velocity to get over and around weather on the way home. Over Indiana and western Pennsylvania I climbed to 11,000 feet to get over the clouds. As forecast, it opened up again about 100 miles before home so that I could do a gradual let down and approach.
It was gorgeous flying above the clouds. One highlight was when I came upon a Cessna 182 on the same flight path. I literally passed him like he was standing still. Eat my dust, Spam can!
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Here is a screen shot of the GRT. Yup, that's 208 knots over the ground!
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1:15 and safely back at the hangar at Chester County. All told it was about 750 nm in 4 hours with a fuel stop included.
How was it? It was a great trip. I got to finally take a long trip solo and explore the performance the Velocity has to offer. I got to catch up with old friends and make some new ones. It was satisfying to finally fly into the show in my second Velocity. It seems crazy that it was 10 years to the day since I'd done it with my first plane. A lot has changed since then.
The trip has given me a comfort level with the plane that I didn't have before. Really, after flying into Oshkosh, a typical trip sounds pretty straight forward. Two more months before she goes in for final paint, then no more Hulk, Green Hornet, Green Machine, etc.
I put a quick clip from the flight home below just to give a feel for tooling along in your Velocity at 250 mph.
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This video is from about 10,000 feet over Indiana on the way home on Friday.
More trips to come......
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