AIRBUS 380: FIRST VISIT TO OSHKOSH

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The arrival of the Airbus 380 at AirVenture on Tuesday afternoon drew huge crowds to the field, under bright blue skies and gusty winds, and even at its first appearance, far in the distance, it was clearly a much different kind of airliner. The airplane is so big that it appears to be moving very slowly, and as it gradually approached the field and grew bigger and bigger, then swept above the runway in a low pass, whisper quiet, the crowd cheered. After several fly-bys, including one with all the gear down, the A380 crabbed into a gusty crosswind, landed and rolled in to Aeroshell Square, the crowds following along behind. EAA President Tom Poberezny said it took three years of planning to bring the big airliner to Oshkosh. He and Jeffrey Skiles, first officer of the Airbus A320 that ditched in the Hudson River early this year, welcomed the crew to the show. Beaming officials from Airbus addressed the crowd, noting that the big airplane is fuel efficient and quiet, and very easy to fly. Tom Anders, chairman of Airbus, said he hopes that one of the A380 operators will begin to offer passenger flights to Oshkosh, like the Concorde used to do. More...

WHITEKNIGHTTWO FLIES, BRANSON WELCOMES NEW PARTNER

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Sir Richard Branson suited up on Tuesday for his first flight aboard WhiteKnightTwo, but before climbing aboard the big ship in Aeroshell Square -- and climbing is the right word -- he sat down to sign an agreement with Mohamed Badawy Al-Husseiny, CEO of Aabar Investments of Abu Dhabi. Under the deal, Aabar will invest $280 million and take about a one-third stake in Virgin Galactic. Will Wheaton, CEO of Virgin Galactic, said the new investment will help to develop a satellite launch system for WhiteKnightTwo. Branson added that there are now plans to build a spaceport in Abu Dhabi. After a quick signing ceremony, Branson boarded WhiteKnightTwo -- which entails grabbing the sides of a round hatch on the side of the fuselage of the starboard hull, about four feet off the ground, and jumping -- and strapped into the lone passenger seat, about 10 feet or so behind the two pilots, right next to a window. The one-of-a-kind ship was towed out to the end of Runway 27 at Oshkosh, where the crew spent close to an hour in preflight prep, then took off into the blue sky for its first public demo flight, before a packed Oshkosh gallery. Aircraft designer Burt Rutan, who hasn't yet flown aboard WK2, narrated the flight from the announcer's booth. More...

THIS WEEK, LIVE FROM OSHKOSH: THE AVWEBCAM (LIVE VIDEO FEED)
Watch for live video coverage of EAA AirVenture throughout the web, via our AVwebCam. We'll be broadcasting live from 9am to 6pm local (Oshkosh) time each day of the show. Look for the webcam player on our home page to enjoy the sights and sounds of the show — and maybe catch a glimpse of the AVweb team in action. More...

EAA AIRVENTURE 2009 GALLERIES: DAY THREE

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EAA AirVenture is now in full swing, which means a couple of things: (1) Our eyes are big as saucers at all the great airplanes and product announcements coming out of the show; (2) we're having a hard time remembering whether it's day two or day three of the show; and (3) there's even more cool stuff to see than yesterday. More...

PIPER LIKES FUTURE WITH IMPRIMIS
Piper Aircraft has been re-energized by what it says is a long-term commitment by its new owners to make the company a "formidable competitor" in the general aviation market. At a news conference Monday at AirVenture Oshkosh, company spokesmen said Piper has finally landed an owner/investor with a long-term interest in the storied planemaker instead of a quick-turn profit. "We are fully prepared to make Piper a formidable competitor in the general aviation market," said Steve Berger, managing director of Imprimis, the Singapore-based investment company who is representing the government of Brunei as the sole investor in the deal. "We invest for the long run." He said Brunei is anxious to diversify its economy (huge oil and gas reserves make it one of the richest countries in the world) and make better use of its well-developed aviation infrastructure. Neither Berger nor Piper officials would speculate on whether those future economic initiatives would involve manufacturing aircraft in Brunei. They did stress that Vero Beach would remain company headquarters. Berger said Piper's virtual absence in Asia is what made the purchase so attractive because of the future market potential in that part of the world. The company also announced the restart of production of the Piper Archer and updated reporters on a variable vectored-thrust design on the PiperJet that will simplify handling characteristics. More...

SOCATA STILL WORKING ON TWIN
Daher Socata will make a decision by the end of the year on whether to proceed with plans to build a twin-engine business aircraft. At a news conference Tuesday at AirVenture Oshkosh, CEO Nicholas Chabbert told reporters that advanced technical design is under way but the project will hinge on the availability of capital and market demand. Chabbert said that when the proposal was first floated, the company stressed that it would not rush into something that didn't make sense and the discussion about those factors is going on now. The company has also never specified whether the aircraft will have turboprop or pure jet engines. Meanwhile, the company is hoping to build 40 of its flagship TBM 850 turboprop singles this year. More...

CESSNA STILL SELLING CITATIONS
The big news from Cessna this week at AirVenture Oshkosh is obtaining ASTM approval for the Model 162 SkyCatcher LSA. But the company's presence here at OSH -- which is liberally sprinkled with Citation jets among the piston offerings -- emphasizes its status as one of the remaining full-line aircraft manufacturers. And despite the recently announced suspension of its Citation Columbus program, Cessna's jet business is doing about as well as can be expected, even with the double whammy of poor economic conditions and adverse publicity. "Even in this downturn, we're continuing to look at what keeps our products fresh," Gordon Vieth, Cessna's vice president, Citation domestic sales, told AVweb this week, emphasizing his company's commitment to all models, piston and turbine. More...

EMBRAER DEBUTS PHENOM 100 AT OSHKOSH
Brazilian airframer Embraer has a substantial presence at this week's AirVenture Oshkosh, with a production Phenom 100 light jet on display at its booth just off AeroSheel Square and a mockup of the 100's larger cousin, the Phenom 300, nearby. "The Phenom 100's debut at this year's EAA AirVenture is of particular significance, since its first flight occurred just two short years ago, at the same time as Oshkosh 2007," said Ernest Edwards, Embraer Vice President, Marketing and Sales. First deliveries of the Phenom 100 began in December 2008, immediately following FAA certification, with Brazilian customers initially receiving their new airplanes in late June. More...

HAWKER LAUNCHES KING AIR UPGRADE
A new model of the Beechcraft King Air, the C90GTx, was introduced Monday at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh. "The C90GTx is the latest example of our commitment to keeping the Beechcraft King Air family the most successful turboprop lineup in aviation history," said Bill Boisture, CEO of Hawker Beechcraft Corp. The new version of the airplane features new composite winglets and a 200nm range increase over the earlier GTi model. It will carry four people nonstop for 1,000 nm. The maximum takeoff weight of the airplane has been increased, allowing for a payload of 750 pounds with full fuel, almost double what it was for earlier models. The company is now taking orders and first deliveries will take place in 2010. More...

ADAM A500: PUSH ME, PULL ME, REVIVE ME?
One of the last decade's more heartbreaking stories for aviators involves Adam Aircraft, and programs for its A500 pressurized piston twin and the A700 very light jet (VLJ). Adam Aircraft Industries (AAI) brought its push me/pull you mockup to AirVenture in 1999, looking for investors and potential customers. Ten years later, after certifying and delivering a handful of A500s, the company is no more, having ceased operations and filed for liquidation in February 2008. But there may be a new saviour on the horizon: The A500 FAA type certificate recently became property of Triton America LLC, an Anacortes, WA-based company. According to Gerard Kenney of the A500 Owners Association, Triton America representative Thomas Hsueh is attending AirVenture Oshkosh 2009, and may restart A500 production. More...

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"NUMBER ONE" REMOS' LARGER AMBITION
REMOS is 2009's leader in Light Sport Aircraft sales, CEO Corvin Huber said Tuesday at Oshkosh, and the company now plans to use a "low double-digit" investment (in millions) to create an "experiential marketing" program and do what almost no one before has done. Huber's vision is a "total solution" approach that begins with flight schools, engages REMOS owners, and reaches out to provide a realistic path to ownership for potential new owners. These programs will be made manifest later this year in the first REMOS Pilot Center. REMOS plans to use in-depth market research to further define the motives of buyers in using their aircraft as well as how those buyers approach life. It will then create products intended to prove for that segment the utility of aviation and facilitate aircraft ownership. Huber purposely avoided terms like "shared ownership" and "flying club" because the customer products he envisions will go beyond that to create a REMOS cultural experience. (Think ownership models and brand-specific franchises and a country club-like, family-friendly aircraft ownership experience, yet to be defined.) "Buying an aircraft is easy ... getting insurance, finding a hangar and maintenance that live up to customer expectations can be very hard," said Huber. REMOS Pilot Centers aim to change that, and more. More...

YUNEEC ELECTRIC LSA HOPEFUL DEBUTS AT AIRVENTURE
Addressing a news conference at Aeroshell Square at Oshkosh on Tuesday morning, Clive Coote, the chairman and president of Yuneec International, noted a hopeful precedent for the potential growth of electric flight -- when electric motors were introduced in the remote-control market, that market quadrupled, he said, attracting many new enthusiasts, and today, 80 percent of the RC market is electric-powered. Coote said the Yuneec LSA prototype that his company brought to AirVenture is the result of an "extremely aggressive production schedule," driven by the goal to fly it this week. "We had 20 engineers working around the clock for three months," he said, to meet that deadline. They built it in China, test flew it for 20 minutes, then packed it up and sent it to Camarillo, Calif., where it flew for 22 hours and got an Experimental certificate from the FAA. So far it has not worked out for the aircraft to fly here at Oshkosh, but Coote said "we will fly as much as we are allowed to this week," and he expects it to definitely fly on Saturday. The projected price for the production LSA version of the aircraft is $89,000, he said. More...

EAA AIRVENTURE 2009 VIDEO SERIES: AIRBUS A380 HARD LANDING
The Airbus A380, the world's largest airliner, made quite a dramatic arrival at Oshkosh on Tuesday. Dan Gryder, a Boeing 777 pilot, analyzes what went wrong.

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EAA AIRVENTURE 2009 VIDEO SERIES: DAN GRYDER'S FORD TRIMOTOR TOUR
Golden Wing's historic Ford Trimotor is at AirVenture in Oshkosh this week. Dan Gryder gives us a tour.

This video is brought to you by Lightspeed Aviation and WxWorx XM WX Satellite Weather. More...

EAA AIRVENTURE 2009 VIDEO SERIES: PRODUCT MINUTES
How can we squeeze in all the news and announcements from AirVenture? To be honest, we're not sure — but one thing that may help are some of our patent-pending Product Minutes, bringing you the skinny on some of the new products and services we encountered at the show. Watch them all here. More...

EAA AIRVENTURE 2009 PODCAST SERIES: NEW LIFE FOR PIPER
Piper Aircraft has been through tough times in the last few decades, and a series of owners have, for better or worse, left their stamp on the company. There are, however, high hopes for the latest owner — Imprimis. Backed by the very wealthy government of Brunei, the company says it intends to make Piper a major player in general aviation, especially in Asia. AVweb's Russ Niles spoke with Imprimis Managing Director Steve Berger about his plans.

This podcast is brought to you by Lightspeed Aviation and WxWorx XM WX Satellite Weather. More...

EAA AIRVENTURE 2009 PODCAST SERIES: FLYING FOR GOOD — LINDY KIRKLAND
One of the themes of this year's AirVenture show is public-benefit flying, and as president of the Air Care Alliance, Lindy Kirkland is working to bring pilots together with opportunities to serve the greater good. He took a break from setting up the Fly4Life exhibit at AirVenture on Sunday afternoon to sit down with AVweb's Mary Grady and talk about the importance of public-benefit flying, and explain how easy — and rewarding — it is for any pilot to get involved.

This podcast is brought to you by Bose Corporation. More...

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HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT GLASS PANEL? TAKE AVIATION CONSUMER'S USER SURVEY
Virtually every new airplane these days has an electronic flight display system of some kind. Our sister publication Aviation Consumer would like to hear from users of these systems. Click here to take the survey.

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MEET THE AVWEBFLASH TEAM

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