|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
Sun-N-Fun 2009
This year Patrick came with us for a couple of days of Sun-N-Fun. The parking was much easier since the ground was dry and firm. Patrick and I arrived on Thursday afternoon, so that is where the pictures start.
Here's another corvair conversion that seems to be a separate process from William Wynne. It must be easy to make a new conversion process if WW has already done everything that he's done. Patrick wanted to see the autopilot offered by Trio, and it was worth sitting through the sales pitch. The box that mounts in the panel has its own sensors to determine how to guide the airplane, much like a Dynon EFIS without the screen. This was an interesting selling point, since it would essentially provide an independent AHRS and ADC for the autopilot, so if you were in the clouds and lost the output of your other instruments, the autopilot might still work. The other interesting selling point was that the servos were connected with clutches that could be overpowered in case the autopilot did not discconnect properly. It also had a half-disconnect mode that would allow you to temporarily disconnect the servos by holding a button, then it would reconnect when you let go of the button. That would be nice for going around cumulus clouds or something like that. The only trouble is that the whole setup is close to $4,000, which for me would just not be worth spending. You can see a picture of it at the end of the next row.
We went to visit Eric's Bearhawk since it was the one on display at the Avipro booth. Then we just watched the airshow for a little while.
As the airshow was winding down, we just walked around the lines to see the airplanes.
On the second day Tabitha joined us, and we headed right for the workshops.
We stopped by the sheet metal workshop and found it to be totally overwhelmed. I guess that is one downside to the popularity of the Vans aircraft- everyone wants to learn sheet metal. We wandered around for a little while but weren't really able to practice any hands-on work simply because there was not enough room, tools, or volunteers to support the crowd. As you can see from the picture, the entirety of the sheet metal workshop was just the one table to the right. I think they only had one air hose to go around, which didn't make things any easier. We figured we'd come back later, so we went to the welding tent. Tabitha tried a little welding with the Oxy-Acetylene torch, and she did pretty well.
One of the volunteers offered to let me try welding some aluminum with the Oxy-Acetylene torch, so I tried some. It is much more difficult than steel, since Aluminum doesn't change colors with temperature the way that steel does. This lack of color based cues makes it hard to know when the metal is hot enough to weld, or more importantly when it is too hot. You can see the result, which Tabitha liked to call "mouse holes." Oxy-Acetylene is definitely not the best way to weld Aluminum.
We spent some time checking out the exhibitors, and eventually we made our way over to the helicopter section.
We left the show and drove into town for some dinner at a nice little greek restaurant, then we came back for the night show. The evening was very nice as the sun started to set.
Click here to see the pictures of the night show.
| Home | Contact Me | Copyright © 2009 Jared Yates - All Rights Reserved |
|
|
|
| This page last modified 09/08/09 | |||||