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An AeroGeek Enters the Hall of Kings
by Bob "Groucho" MarksI have wanted to come back to OSH since I started working for Burt Rutan in ’91. I had been to Oshkosh with my father back in ’89 as a pure aviation junkie, but after nine years in the industry I’m still an av-junkie, but with a healthy dose of cynicism. So when I got the chance to ride with Burt to Airventure this year in the Boomerang . . . well . . . I didn’t have to think about it very hard. And I, for one, am very well practiced at not thinking hard.
I didn’t believe it when one my Oshkosh veteran companion on the eastbound Boomerang flight told me that five days were not going to be enough time to see everything I’d like to see . . . in fact, I thought he was crazy. Either that, or his oxygen cannula hose was kinked, and his brain was dimming. How big an airshow could it be?
I obviously did not take into account falling madly in love with a cute little French kit plane, the MCR01, and spending / wasting far too much time on it. Damn those people for wringing so much performance out of a little 85hp Rotax engine! Or drooling over Corsairs that look far better than they ever did in the service of Uncle Sam.
It didn’t help my efficiency by hanging out too long at the ViperJet turbojet kit plane booth, lusting over a machine that I couldn’t afford to fly around the pattern, let alone own. You get a gnarly case of target fixation that is tough to shake. Seeing the whole show can be done, but it’s tough with all the trick things to look at.
The object of my yet-unrequited lust, the AGA MCR01
And, oh yeah, there is a sim presence. You’ve gotta keep this in mind, however: This is E3 for airplanes. Looking back over the last couple of days, it’s a difficult call to say what impressed me the most. If someone threatened to jab bamboo teriyaki skewers under my fingernails I would have to say that it was Chuck Yeager and his ace WWII squadron mate Bud Anderson flying their authentically painted P-51Ds together. Watching Glamorous Glen III and Old Crow on a high-speed flyby, driven by their famous masters in a close formation, really made you feel that you were seeing history.
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