Copperstate 2017 photos and ...

[bruceh]

I spent 2 days at the Copperstate Fly-in and had a very nice time hanging out by the airplane and talking to a bunch of VAF folks. The weather was superb and the turn out was great.

Took a bunch of photos and put them in an album here.

Seems like the purple airplane was appreciated.


Ended up with this nice award, which was totally unexpected. Much thanks to Jonathan at PlaneSchemer.com for the awesome scheme design. Not quite another Grand Champion like at Oshkosh, but it really draws the crowds. Best comment was a nice lady telling me that my plane was "a total chick magnet". I told her to tell that to my wife, who picked the colors!

[RViter]

Bruce:

Great to meet you and glad you enjoyed CopperState 2017. Appreciated your insight on building issues, and RV-9A operation with SkyView and VP-X configurations. Thanks for including the photo ... one of the yet to be painted RV-6A's. Enough rattle-can primer to cover the pink cowl and accumulate some flight time.

If I get a chance to fly to Ramona, will let you know. Thanks for the recommendations.

[Dbro172]

Congrats Bruce, well deserved. I know your build log has helped many folks along the way.

[ArVeeNiner]

Congrats Bruce! I haven?t been to Copperstate in years. You?re now flying an award winner!

[DanH]

I like the purple. Weight aside, it's hard to beat base/clear pearls and metallics.

Minor photo comment...those Yaks are actually Chinese Nanchang CJ-6's. Spotter tips; squared fin, bent wings, side-folding gear, wrap windisheld = CJ.

At one time 08A was a hotbed of foreign air operations

[Scrabo]

So how were the crowds this year ? I didn't get a chance to go this year so I hope it was better than the first year at FFZ

[woxofswa]

It was nice to meet you there Bruce, and I enjoyed your photos. Congrats on the plaque, you have a beautiful airplane.

Crowds were okay but could have been better. Out at Casa Grande, a lot of ultralights, gyro?s, Flying parachutes, etc would come in and do demonstrations during the day. I think that class D under Class B scared them off along with a lot of the unique puddle jumpers that are fun to see.

The vendor hangar could have held a lot more. A lot of outfits that came in years past weren?t there. I would think that the hangar would be preferable to the old tent at Casa Grande. The FlyMart was non existent with just a few kibbles and bits.

The weather was great and the folks who did come out seemed to have a nice time.

I really hope they do more marketing in the years to come.

[Scrabo]

Shame. I was planning to go out to the hangar on that Saturday to drop some things off and have a walk around the planes, but Bronchitis kept me in bed.

I do agree that marketing needs to be better, I go to the Cactus fly-in to see the very things you mentioned were missing.

[Thierry A]

Congratulations Bruce on a great looking time machine and well deserved award. It was certainly one of the highlights of my visit.

Seems like Copperstate took a step back from previous years that I had attended in Casa Grande. I didn't attend in 2016 and I wouldn't pretend to know the number of vendors and aircraft but it appeared to me that the count was down.

[Bluelabel]

Bruce... good to see you again. Next time we'll have to fly together. We probably took the same route. (All those restricted areas theres really only 2 choices

It was a great event. Super happy to have our plane in the EFII booth. Great to meet Chris in his Long EZ as well.
Talked to a lot of folks about the new system. The response is pretty overwhelming. The EFII team has a busy 2018 ahead of them!!





Made good time getting there.. not 200kts but pretty close (I've had well over 200kts several times but never seem to remember to get a pic.)



Some pretty shiny things at the CAF museum. (Really nice museum btw)

This is one of only 34 built and only 16 left. I've always drooled over the one or two Executives that are at Oshkosh each year. This one is near mint.






Just kind of cool...