Here’s a nice video of our Zenair CH-701 amphibian making a takeoff and landing during Oshkosh AirVenture 2008 at the Oshkosh seabase.

Our Zenair has the Rotax 912S 100HP engine with 3-blade Warp Drive propeller. We removed the fixed leading edge slats last year to improve cruise speed and glide performance (at a slight penalty to high-angle climb rate).

For an idea of the takeoff performance in the video, we were off the water in ~11 seconds and less than 1000′ with 1 pilot, normal water gear, 10 gallons of fuel in calm winds. For water takeoffs we use 1/2 flaps.

We captured a rare Piaggio Royal Gull amphibian on landing and taxi during at the Oshkosh seabase this year.

We’ve posted the first of many photos from Tuesday. As we get time to upload ones from our other cameras we’ll add more. We also have some video of the Albatross, Cessna Caravan, and Piaggio in action we’ll be posting after the show when we have our hi-speed internet connection back.

Yesterday has a day for flying boats with the arrival of an Grumman Albatross, the Piaggio twin pusher seaplane, and the new SeaMax experimental.

Bird strikes are an unescapable risk of aviation. Fortunately, most strikes result in only minor damage, but combine high speeds and large birds (or lots of them) and the outcomes deteriorate. We received a few pictures this week which show a close call between a Piper Arrow and turkey vulture which happily ended without human injury.
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We’ve posted a set of five videos showing the fun qualities of the Zenair CH-701 STOL aircraft. In this case, we are flying a kit-built CH-701 with Zenair 950 Amphibious Floats and the 80hp Rotax engine. We have since upgraded the engine to the 100hp Rotax 912S and performance is even more impressive. The videos demonstrate normal land takeoff, normal land landing, pilot’s eye view of a water landing, ‘hover’, and STOL takeoff and landing. Be sure to scroll down the page to see all 5 videos.

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One of the most distinctive jet fighters of all time, the F-14 Tomcat was officially retired in Navy ceremonies today. Its career spanned over 30 years since its inception in the mid-70’s. While not the 1st swing-wing US fighter, it outlived the Air Force F-111 (which at one time contented against the F-14 for Navy use) by quite a bit.

Distinctive bits of F-14 Lore:

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Aircraft designer Walter Extra and airshow legend Mike Goulian co-announced the Extra 300 SHP at a morning forum during AirVenture Oshkosh. The 300 SHP (Super High Performance) is an advanced version of the recent 300 HP.
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It was quite a treat to have a pair of F-22’s visit Oshkosh last week. They are still working at approving a full low-level airshow, so we were limited to impressive low passes, high-g turns and pull-ups, and a higher altitude demonstration of the F-22’s low-speed maneuvering prowess via vectored thrust. Besides our photo album, we put together 3 videos to better capture the power of seeing the F-22 up close.

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I had the distinct pleasure of taking an abreviated version of Sean D Tucker’s Tutima Academy of Aviation Safety Upset Recovery Training this week. It’s not often one gets the opportunity to put an Extra 300L through its paces in the process of gaining practical experience in the safe recovery from stalls, spins, and inverted attitudes. Every pilot owes it to himself and his passengers to get this training!
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Last spring we tested the service ceiling of our Zenair CH-701 with the Rotax 912S. Solo climb to 10,000 feet took approximately 25 minutes. The aircraft was still climbing about 200ft per minute at 10,000 when it was decided to level off and head home.

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