July 30, 2008

By The AVweb Editorial Staff

Discover the Thrill of a Family Getaway Discover that the best family vacation photos aren't taken through the window of a minivan. In a brand-new Cessna Stationair, every single weekend becomes your chance for a family getaway. Without ever hearing the dreaded words "Are we there yet?" Call 1 (800) 4-CESSNA. Or visit CessnaYouAreHere.com. » Discover the thrill of Cessna Single-Engine for yourself at booths 143-156 at EAA AirVenture Top News: Strap On Your Jet-Packs! back to top  Sort-of Jetpack Sort-of Flies The Tuesday morning throngs at EAA AirVenture seemed simultaneously amazed and disappointed -- hoping that their George Jetson, or James Bond, dreams were about to be realized, the modest and safety-conscious demo by the Martin Jetpack team was noisy and blustery, but not quite up to the futuristic zip-and-zoom show that most seemed to expect. But for the most part, the crowd seemed to recognize that while the Martin Jetpack might not be a leap into the future, it is nonetheless a promising start. New Zealander Glenn Martin, who designed the jetpack, said he has been working on it for 30 years. It is not jet-powered, but uses a small two-stroke piston engine that Martin developed expressly for this use. The engine powers two ducted fans, which the flyer can control with two joysticks. The vehicle is built mainly from carbon fiber composite materials. It weighs about 250 pounds empty, and can be flown as an ultralight. It carries about 5 gallons of fuel, and could fly about 30 miles at 63 mph, the company says. (Click here to see AVweb's exclusive video of the jetpack in flight.) The vehicle has been flight-tested in New Zealand, but hasn't reached more than 6 feet above the ground. Martin said the vehicle should be able to fly up to 8,000 feet in altitude, and he plans to fly it up to about 500 feet within the next six months. Copies are for sale as of this week, prices start at $100,000. Martin said he sees it as a recreational sport vehicle and expects he might sell 10 to 20 by this time next year. Related Content: Video of the demo Zulu and Relentless. Game, Set, Match! Kevin Eldredge has parked his racing plane Relentless in the Lightspeed booth and is telling everyone about why he owns a Zulu. "It is amazing. I haven't found anything that's as quiet or nearly as comfortable. The audio quality is better than anything I've ever heard through any headset." If you're sitting at home reading this, take a look at Kevin's plane on Lightspeed's web site. » Try Lightspeed's Zulu and compare it to other premium brands at booths 2019-2020 & 2023 at EAA AirVenture Rockets Fill the Skies at Oshkosh back to top  Rocket Racing Debuts To Oshkosh Crowds The aviation world got its first live look on Tuesday afternoon at what hopes to be the next big air sport -- rocket racing. With a huge EAA AirVenture audience gathered to watch under cloudy skies, a single ship from the Rocket Racing League lined up on the runway, lit its rocket engine for a noisy and abrupt takeoff, climbed straight into the sky, then turned off the rocket, glided back to position above the field, and did it again. The demo may not have quite rocked the world, but it did show that the concept works and the thing will fly. Essentially a single-seat Velocity homebuilt with a 1,500-pound-thrust rocket engine attached, the ship can reach speeds above 300 knots. The League plans to stage competitions with large video screens that depict a race course and make use of cameras mounted on the wings and in the cockpit to engage the audience with the action. The league had hoped to debut its actual racing competition at Oshkosh this week, but was unable to get FAA approval in time. Now the first race is set for Reno in September. More demo flights are scheduled for Oshkosh later in the week. Related Content: Video of the first demo flight at AirVenture AV8OR™ Vision 3D AV8OR Vision 3D represents the most advanced portable cockpit information system to offer 3-D Synthetic Vision. The crystal-clear, glass remote touch-screen display is designed with the latest avionics-style buttons and dials and offers unprecedented graphics capabilities. The Modular Mobile Computing Platform includes a state-of-the-art ARS/GPS for a completely independent, advanced situational awareness display. For more information, go online. For more information, go online. » Register to win a Bendix/King AV8OR by Honeywell at booths 2081-2086 at EAA AirVenture And Beyond the Skies? Well, There's These Guys ... back to top  Rutan, Branson Update EAA'ers On Space Plans EAA reserved its largest pavilion, and every seat was filled, with more crowding in around the edges, when Burt Rutan, Sir Richard Branson, and Will Whitehorn arrived at AirVenture on Tuesday afternoon -- and the crowd rose to a thundering, standing ovation to welcome the virtual rock stars of the experimental world. Rutan has been coming to Oshkosh every year since 1971, he said, missing only last year due to health issues, and he looked fit and tan and delighted to be back in front of his favorite audience. Whitehorn, CEO of Virgin Galactic, showed a brief video of the unveiling of WhiteKnightTwo at Mojave on Monday (click here to see that event via AVweb video), and after a few brief remarks the forum was turned over to questions from the audience. Rutan said he expects that within his lifetime, tourists will not only be routinely flying into space, they will also be visiting orbiting resort hotels and taking a loop around the moon. Whitehorn said that he plans to fly space trips from many venues besides the New Mexico spaceport now under construction, and he hopes that the first place they will launch from will be Oshkosh -- and Rutan added that he hopes to sell $5 raffle tickets to fill those six seats. Whitehorn emphasized the practical uses of the technology that is being developed, and said he envisions a future when suborbital trajectories will be used for point-to-point travel -- for example, hopping from Sydney to Oshkosh in three hours or less. Rutan also made his usual pitch inviting young, passionate engineers in the audience to send their resumes to him at Scaled Composites -- but added that Mojave is just about the ugliest and worst place to live in the world. That's an asset, he said, when you want to work on projects without a lot of outside interference. Fly With Bose® Aviation Headset X™ Enjoy an unmatched combination of full-spectrum noise reduction, clearer audio, and comfortable fit. Voted the #1 headset for the seventh consecutive year in Professional Pilot's 2007 Headset Preference Survey. Also rated "Best ANR Headset: The Aviation Consumer Product of the Year" by Aviation Consumer. Purchase by August 16, 2008 and receive a complimentary pair of Bose in-ear headphones ($99.95 value). Learn more and order. Quotes reprinted with permission: Professional Pilot, 2007 Headset Preference Survey, 12/07; Aviation Consumer, 8/07. » Try out the Headset X™ and other Bose Corporation products at booths 171-176 at EAA AirVenture More Down-to-Earth Discoveries at Oshkosh back to top  Garmin Retro Glass Available Two years after Garmin announced it was going after the glass-panel retrofit market with its G600, the system is now certified and approved on 785 aircraft. For $29,995, the system gives you two 6.5-inch LCD screens set up with a PFD and MFD. The installation is designed to fit in the same basic area as a standard aircraft six-pack. Garmin contends—and we agree—that the unique plus of the setup is that the MFD is closer to the pilot’s scan and hands that a conventional MFD on the audio stack. The G600 will integrate with the usual suspects—XM datalink weather, various traffic-awareness systems, a variety of autopilots and several flight directors—and be compatible with TAWS, ADS-B, and on-board radar in the future. Garmin introduced other products and services as well. The GMA 240 is an audio panel aimed squarely at experimental and LSA aircraft with a built-in intercom, support for two external music inputs (which auto-mute when ATC calls on the radio), support for XM radio from a Garmin 396/496, and a 2.5 mm jack on the front for connecting a cell phone. The GMA 240 will sell for $895. Garmin also announced a new website for Garmin GPS users called flygarmin.com. The site streamlines the process for updating databases for Garmin handheld and panel-mount data. Users should be able to connect their Garmin device or datacard and get the right databases with just a few clicks. They can also see at a glance what databases are current, changing soon, or out of date. Jeppesen-derived data still must come from Jeppesen.com, but Garmin hopes the site well eventually be a one-stop update center. Rolls Royce Unveils New GA Turboprop Engine The folks at Rolls Royce introduced their brand-new GA turboprop at EAA AirVenture on Tuesday morning, complete with flashing lights, a puff of smoke, and a couple of tough-looking guys in dark glasses to shout "Clear prop!" as the curtains parted and the new engine rolled out. The RR 500 TP aims to "capture a significant market share in the light, fixed-wing general aviation segment," the company said. It's multi-fuel-capable and will deliver 350 to 450 shaft horsepower at half the weight of equivalent pistons, the company said. Other features include low pilot workload, reduced cabin noise, unimpeded climb-to-altitude performance, and a 2,000-hour shop visit interval. More information will be available later in a podcast interview with Rolls Royce staff, by AVweb editor Russ Niles. The engine will be produced at a Rolls Royce facility in Indianapolis, Ind., where a new small-engine assembly line is already producing the RR300 engine. More info about the new engine is available online at the company Web site. If you are on the field at Oshkosh, the engine is on display at the Rolls Royce exhibit near Aeroshell Square, and technical talks about it will take place Tuesday and Wednesday at 2 p.m. Announcing: First-Ever, Zero-Down Factory Engine Financing! Air Power, Inc. — the World's Largest Factory Engine Distributor — announces an industry first: long-term, low-interest, no-money-down financing on all Continental and Lycoming Genuine Factory Engines: New, Remanufactured, and Overhauled, always sold at just $300 over factory invoice. Offering 20-year 6.9% simple interest Factory Engine Loans with no prepayment penalty and payments as low as $129.79 for a Cessna Skyhawk Factory Engine. For details, call Air Power at (888) 759-4295, or go online to FactoryEngines.com. Daily Blogs from AirVenture: Thoughts on Eclipse back to top  AVweb Insider Blog: Vern Raburn Never Saw It Coming? Vern Raburn was shown the door at the company he created. Why did things go so horribly wrong, and didn't Raburn see the axe before it fell? In our latest installment of live blogs from EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Paul Bertorelli shares some ideas on what it might take shore up confidence in Eclipe and deliver that really cool jet we keep hearing about. Read more. Inflight. Every Flight. XM WX Satellite Weather has quickly become the leading way to fly for pilots across the country. And now, with Aviator Pro, the brand-new weather data package from XM WX, pilots have an even better reason to fly with the datalink weather leader — inflight and every flight. See the new suite of weather data at AirVenture 2008, or click here to learn more about XM WX and Aviator Pro. » See why XM WX Satellite Weather is the official weather provider of EAA AirVenture when you visit WxWorx at booths 3030-3032 AVweb Audio — Are You Listening? back to top  AVweb's AirVenture 2008 Podcast #12: Photo Preview of New Cockpit Gear from True Flight File Size 9.7 MB / Running Time 10:33 Podcast Index | How to Listen | Subscribe Via RSS Rob Kalberer gives us a preview of several new must-have cockpit devices from True Flight in this photo-enhanced podcast. You can listen to the MP3 file as usual and hear about these products, or you can click the Photo Podcast graphic at right (or here if you aren't reading this on AVweb) to view photos as you listen. This podcast is brought to you by WxWorx XM WX Satellite Weather, official weather provider of EAA AirVenture ... Click here to listen. (9.7 MB, 10:33) AVweb's AirVenture 2008 Podcast #8: FAA's New Kit-Building Rules Draw Fire File Size 11.3 MB / Running Time 12:24 Podcast Index | How to Listen | Subscribe Via RSS Why? The agency tried to simplify questions about the 51 percent rule, but actually ended up punishing the entire industry for the sins of a few. Kitplanes Editor-in-Chief Marc Cook has blogged about it here on AVweb and written about the new rules elsewhere. Hear more in this podcast interview with Marc, the first of a series. This podcast is brought to you by Bose Corporation's Aviation Headset X™ ... Click here to listen. (11.3 MB, 12:24) AVweb's AirVenture 2008 Podcast #9: Want a Free Zulu Headset? See Aircraft Spruce File Size 3.9 MB / Running Time 4:16 Podcast Index | How to Listen | Subscribe Via RSS During AirVenture 2008, our friends at Aircraft Spruce and Specialty are giving away a Lightspeed Zulu headset and a Garmin GPSMap 496. Aviation Safety Editor-in-Chief Jeb Burnside spoke with Jim Irwin of Aircraft Spruce about how you can get your name into the pot here at Oshkosh. This podcast is brought to you by Lightspeed Aviation, makers of the Zulu ANR headset ... Click here to listen. (3.9 MB, 4:16) Dual Antenna Traffic Systems Simply Perform Better Avidyne's dual-antenna TAS600 Systems detect other aircraft sooner and more accurately, avoiding the shadowing effects inherent with single-antenna systems. TAS600 actively interrogate other aircraft, providing timely alerts and precise locations of conflicting traffic. Starting at just $9,990, the dual-antenna TAS600 provides full-time protection and higher performance. When it comes to safety, you want to see the whole picture. Click here for more information. » See Avidyne's state-of-the-art technologies in action at booths 2098-2101 (Combo E) at EAA AirVenture AVweb Media: Look, Listen, Laugh and Learn back to top  AVweb's AirVenture 2008 Video #5: Martin Jet Pack Flies at Oshkosh Original, Exclusive Videos from AVweb | Reader-Submitted & Viral Videos The Martin ducted-fan-powered "JetPack" debuted at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2008, and AVweb Video Editor Glenn Pew was on hand to see how well it flew. Or hovered. However you describe its behavior, it certainly drew a crowd. This video is brought to you by Bose Corporation and WxWorx XM WX Satellite Weather ... Don't see a video screen? Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page. If that doesn't work, click here to download the video directly. AVweb's AirVenture 2008 Video #6: Rocket Racing League Debuts in Oshkosh Original, Exclusive Videos from AVweb | Reader-Submitted & Viral Videos Rocket-powered homebuilt Velocity aircraft made a public debut at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2008, and the words "Rocket Racing League" were on everyone's lips throughout the afternoon. AVweb Video Editor Glenn Pew brought back a taste of the action ... . This video is brought to you by Lightspeed Aviation and WxWorx XM WX Satellite Weather ... Don't see a video screen? Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page. If that doesn't work, click here to download the video directly. Ever Wish You Could Flip a Switch and Turn IFR Visibility into VFR? To find out more, go to True Flight. EAA AirVenture Daily Gallery back to top  AVweb's AirVenture 2008 Galleries: Day Three Between rocket racing and rocket packs, it was a noisy day at EAA AirVenture — but somehow, no one seemed to mind. Take a few moments to wander the grounds with photographer Mariano Rosales (but don't expect him to buy you a bratwurst). Click here to view photos. one | two | THREE CLICK FOR LARGER INDIVIDUAL IMAGES EACH IMAGE WILL OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW Air Traffic Controllers bring in the arriving aircraft from their new control tower. Show attendees learn the techniques of fabric covering at the EAA Workshops. The Martin Jetpack shows its hovering capabilities. Due to restrictions multiple safety personnel were required to help stabilize and monitor the flight. Thousands gathered on AeroShell Square to watch the public flight of the Martin Jetpack. Piper has their PiperJet fuselage mock up on display showing the cabin and interior. The Diamond Aircraft booth is a popular display for those who wish to stay in the shade. Looking to buy some stuff? Check out the Fly Market. Pick your level of authenticity. Riveting techniques are taught and practiced in the EAA Workshop pavilions. The Boeing Dreamliner sits silently at show center. Instrument panel of a 1931 Waco QCF-2. For aircraft buyers (and sellers) AirVenture is a popular venue for making a deal. Sometimes you just need to find a tree and relax. Chris and Stan Kuprianczyk of northwestern Chicago take a break to plan their next route of action. Many random airplane parts and artifacts can be found roaming the convention grounds. The big, the small, and the tall. The EAA's Ford Tri-Motor returns from another flight. Rides in the Breezy are available all day by the flightline. The gaggle of RVs return from flying their formation display on Tuesday. The main display area as seen from the new FAA control tower. Team Oracle Photo Pilot Brian Norris and the members of The Collaborators do a run through of their photo flight in the Kermit Weeks Hangar. The Collaborators. The Collaborators. The Collaborators. one | two | THREE // --> JA Air Center, Your Garmin Source GPSMap 495 and 496 have AOPA Directory and terrain. 496 includes automotive directions and XM weather and music. Have an old GPS? Do not let it lose its value! Call (800) 323-5966 for the current value. JA Air Center [Dupage Airport (KDPA), West Chicago, IL] provides the finest avionics installations, turbine/piston maintenance, avionics/instrument service, mail order, and aircraft sales. Call (800) 323-5966, or click for more information. » Sell your used portable GPS to JA Air Center at booths 2088-2089 at EAA AirVenture The Top Reporter on Our Crack Staff ... Is You! back to top  AVweb's Newstips Address ... Our best stories start with you. If you've heard something 200,000 pilots might want to know about, tell us. Submit news tips via email to newstips@avweb.com. You're a part of our team ... often, the best part. Precise Flight: Hidden in Plain Sight With design capabilities as varied as the number of aircraft models available, it's easy to find at least one device manufactured by Precise Flight in the cabin, cockpit, or body of any aircraft on the market. In fact, integration is a key characteristic of Precise Flight's operating code. So when attending EAA AirVenture, be sure to fly into Precise Flight's booth and check them out. After all, they're hidden in plain sight. Learn more online. » You'll find Precise Flight "hiding in plain sight" at booth 2090 at EAA AirVenture More AVweb for Your Inbox back to top  AVwebBiz: AVweb's Business Aviation Newsletter HAVE YOU SIGNED UP yet for AVweb's NO-COST weekly business aviation newsletter, AVwebBiz? Reporting on breaking news, Business AVflash focuses on the companies, the products and the industry leaders that make headlines in the business aviation industry. Business AVflash is a must read. Sign up today at http://www.avweb.com/profile/. Names Behind the News back to top  Meet the AVwebFlash Team AVwebFlash is a weekly summary of the latest news, articles, products, features, and events featured on AVweb, the internet's aviation magazine and news service. The AVwebFlash team is: Publisher Timothy Cole Editorial Director, Aviation Publications Paul Bertorelli Editor-in-Chief Russ Niles Contributing Editors Mary Grady Glenn Pew Features Editor Kevin Lane-Cummings Click here to send a letter to the editor. (Please let us know if your letter is not intended for publication.) Comments or questions about the news should be sent here. Have a product or service to advertise on AVweb? A question on marketing? Send it to AVweb's sales team. If you're having trouble reading this newsletter in its HTML-rich format (or if you'd prefer a lighter, simpler format for your PDA or handheld device), there's also a text-only version of AVwebFlash. For complete instructions on making the switch, click here. Aviate. Navigate. Communicate.