Oshkosh 2018 - BullockAir-A-Palooze

[bullojm1]

It's difficult to hide from my celebrity status at Oshkosh. Dave from Jamestown, NY is a big fan of RVPlane.com.




The AirCam always catches my eye.


I did a quick run through the vendor booths and caught up with my good friend Andre at Aerotronics.


And onto one of my favorite Monday events - the RV Beer Social. Always good to see Jeff with Vertical Power.


Frank Smidler and I wondering where his son Derek is? Hope to see you next year, Derek!


The RV Social was fun as always, with a great showing of RV'ers.




I've never partaken in the Monday night concert at Oshkosh. Maddie & Tay and Dustin Lynch were performing tonight. I figured I'd check them out.

[bullojm1]

Best seats in the house??? Watching the concert on the wing off the B-1B!


Dustin Lynch put on an excellent show!






While the concert was going on, behind us the hot air balloons were being inflated.


The key to surviving Oshkosh is to stay hydrated! the 1.5L bladder in my Osprey backpack worked great. Oh, and so did the free hat I scored at Mike Goulian's both!


The evening is still young, and there's one last party that I wanted to hit up - SOS Brothers with some live music.


I was trying my best to be on good behavior this year. Last year I succeeded in avoiding any beer bongs. However, this year I jumped right back into my old ways as I couldn't resist the lovely Kim.


What can I say, I'm a bad influence on the new blood. Mitch is getting psyched for his first SOS Bikini Beer Bong.


Cheers to my New England friends - Captain John, Derek and Marc!

[bullojm1]

Hyde never disappoints! Great band to open the Oshkosh week with!


An incredible first full day at Oshkosh. I love this place.




Another night at SOS means another attempt to squeeze through the locked gate.


SUCCESS!

[bullojm1]

Next to the Draco, the second coolest airplane at Oshkosh had to be the Yak-110. Sure...why not put two Yak-55's together and add a jet engine?!?!!?


I rarely get allured into the non-aviation side-shows, but the Ford drift demonstration was pretty cool. I couldn't help but feel, however, that the little concrete barrier wasn't enough protection between me and those cars if something went awry.


I took my GTX327 transponder in to get upgraded to the latest firmware. It was a piece of cake and took only 10 minutes. Thanks, Garmin for doing this!


It was really cool to stop by the One Week Wonder every day to see the progress the team of builders was making.


Well this is unique - a tri-engine 757 - with a turbofan. Pretty cool test platform from Honeywell.


The Boeing B-1B is where it's supposed to be - in the middle of Aeroshell Square.


the 310kts Jet-EZ.




Today was overall a relaxing day. I continued on the relaxation with my friend Jeff in camp Scholler. He caught a rare pic of me - consuming a non-alcoholic beverage at Osh!


Great to catch up with Jeff!

[bullojm1]

Jeff calls Captain John and I "Beavis and Butthead". Can't really argue with him after I reflect upon my Oshkosh behavior!


While at Jeff's camp, we saw the T6 Texan flyover commemorating the T6's 80th anniversary.


"Beavis" and I were clearly having too much fun as we were interrupted by the neighboring local Sheriff. His complaint was we needed to drink better quality booze than what Jeff was offering us! So off to his RV I went to sample some fine single malt scotch.


Besides catching up with Jeff, the main reason for meeting up with him was to catch a ride to the best prime rib joint - The Black Otter Supper Club in Hortonville, WI. Jeff was kind enough to offer us a ride in his Chevy Suburban - the "Queen of the Fleet". This is the most comfort Captain John and I have experienced since we got to Oshkosh. CJ quickly took advantage of the best sleep he'll have all week.


Meanwhile, Mitch decided to skip out of the best meal of his life to assist his friend Pablo arriving to help tie down the One Design he helped get flying.


Mitch also got a pic of the Lockheed Martin C-5M Super Galaxy arriving. What can I say, my photographer is dedicated to staying behind to do his job while all of us get ready for our meat coma!


And now onto the official 2018 "Meating" of RivetBangers.com. Yes, I know no one uses this forum except for one exceptional reason to keep it alive - 20-30 of us getting together and eating mass quantities of prime rib. Mike C took the gold medal with his 72 oz King Cut!


We had quite the showing this year - 23 of us!

[bullojm1]

I've learned from past mistakes, and was wise this year and kept with the reasonable 32oz Queen Cut.


BOOM! This is what I am most proud of....for the second year in a row we have single-handedly cleaned out the Black Otter of Prime Rib!


The lax security made it possible for us to restock our depleted beer supply at camp.

[bullojm1]

I ran into my South African friends at Whisper again this year and checked out their X350 Gen II. This is a REALLY SLICK KIT AIRPLANE! The interior is very wide and comfortable. There is a TON of baggage space behind the seats. It's quick also - 175 kts (200 MPH!) cruise speed at 80%. And, 538 lbs of useful load with full fuel (63G - 1000nm worth!).


These guys love talking about their airplane. It's almost the complete opposite of the Van's booth

Christiaan at Whisper forwarded me more information on their airplane to share.

Spec Sheet:
http://www.rvplane.com/pdf/WhisperOs...en-II-Info.pdf


Pricing Sheet:
http://www.rvplane.com/pdf/WhisperOs...G2-Pricing.pdf


Inflight Article:
http://www.rvplane.com/pdf/WhisperOs...ht-Article.pdf



Hmmm, this looks like a new prop.


Sure is! The AXSport Aviation (http://www.axsport.co.za/)AXL3 3-blade Constant Speed / Adjustable Pitch prop (electrically actuated). I didn't see the weight on their site, but I recall the Whisper guys saying it was around 40 lbs. Pricing seems great too - 75,000 South African Rand, which today equals about $5,200 USD. If I was building a RV-7/8 now, I'd seriously consider this prop!


Last plug for Whisper - their plenum is AMAZING! It's very strong and extremely well made. They sell it separate from their airframe kit. I think it would work out very nicely on any RV model.

[bullojm1]

I felt like getting some walking in so I walked down to the ultralight field. These guys seem to be having the most fun at Oshkosh.


I'm usually not a Helo type of person, but the Mosquito XET Turbine is pretty slick.


Maybe I'm just a sucker for anything that burns Jet-A the fun way!


So this is one of the craziest things that happened at Oshkosh. When I left Wautoma, I was convinced I would probably never see my friends from Lubbock, TX again. Turns out I saw them all 6 days at Oshkosh. Here I ran into Trey and his son randomly while walking around from the ultralight field to Aeroshell Square. Just as in the past, when I went my own way I told them ...."See ya tomorrow!".


This is one of the nicest paint schemes I've seen on an AirCam yet. While gawking at it, someone walked up and started asking me a bunch of questions about AirCam's, which I happily answered. I must of been convincing, because at one point he asked me "what year did you finish this??". I reluctantly needed to tell him I was just a fan of the airplane, and where the AirCam booth was. He said they should have me on their payroll (Robert Meyers at Lockwood - ya listening????).

[bullojm1]

The fuselage was making good progress today at the One Week Wonder.


One of the more unique AirCam paint jobs. It's name, "Road Runner" and painted colors were inspired by the 1970's Plymouth Superbird.


When I got back to HBC a new neighbor had arrived - Tom Savrda from Vero Beach, FL. His RV-7 won the Grand Champion Kit Homebuilt award at Sun 'N Fun this year. I didn't get a chance to see it at SNF, so I was happy it was in close proximity to me.


THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR MY WHOLE LIFE! Someone figured out how to do the front tip-up canopy seam right!


Tom had one of the cleanest firewall forwards I've ever seen. In fact, everything about his airplane was just perfect. A&P Mitch quickly found one fault - 0.032" safety wire instead of 0.040" wasa used to secure the prop bolts! Now THAT'S an A&P I would want doing a pre-buy for me!!


Off on another adventure. We utilized the Welcome Wagon to take us to the Red Barn to stock up on beer and dinner supplies, and Mitch and I had a Media Golf Cart reservation to get to.


Just as Mitch and I were being dropped off at the Media Center, the Blue Angels made a flyby.


Mitch and I had a few minutes to burn waiting for our cart to return, so we got an obligatory picture in front of the Brown Arch.


When Mitch and I grabbed our cart, we realized the fuel quantity was **** near empty. A visual look at the gas tank verified what the gauge was telling us. Off to a new Oshkosh experience - figuring out where to fuel the golf cart! Oshkosh is truly it's own self contained town for this week. Grocery store, maintenance shed, gas station, etc.. Everything you could ever need within a couple square miles. Gassed up, Mitch and I used the remainder of our hour to haul-*** from the most southern portion of GA parking to the extreme end of North 40. THANKS EAA FOR THE MEDIA PASSES!!!!


When we got back to HBC, we found some people were in the middle of a Siesta.

[bullojm1]

And this is what Oshkosh is all about for me -- the friends, both new and old. We enjoyed a couple of brews while Marie was kind enough to cook us dinner.


Next up was the night air show. The walk over to the sideline of runway 18/36 was very picturesque.


Of course we had VIP access to Mike Goulian's tent to watch the airshow from.


The Boeing B-1B departed in style before the night airshow began.


I don't know if the C5 Galaxy left and came back, or whether it just got out of the way for the B-1B to depart. In any event, we got to see it taxi back in to Aeroshell Square.


So bad news - a dangerous line of thunderstorms was heading our way. Good news - We're under cover at the Whelen tent with free food and booze.


A small rain storm passed through and then stopped before a large thunderstorm was about to roll through. Our options were limited, and we had a truncated time schedule to figure out what to do next -- go back to HBC, or wait out the thunderstorm in the protection of the SOS Brothers tent? Walking through Aeroshell Square was eerily peaceful. Not a soul around and every airplane looked pristine, glistening in a fresh coat of rain. It was almost like a ghost town.






Speaking of ghost towns, so was the SOS Brothers tent...or at least the main stage. Or perhaps that has to do with their music choice for tonight.