The Very Best (And Worst) of Oshkosh 2005! (Part One)
Compiled By The Staff and Readership of the Aero-News
Network
For quite a while, we have recognized the highs and lows
inherent in the general and sport aviation community. There are but
a few places where that is more a propos than at a major event like
the Oshkosh Fly-In.
It's hard to know what really is going to make a difference and
what really qualifies as exceptional unless you've been watching
this industry carefully for several years... as we have.
Unlike past years, ANN readers remarks were heavily incorporated
into ALL aspects of this report, and not just the Aircraft awards
and such. Their contributions are specifically noted when a
particular attribute is based primarily on an individual's
report.
Our Annual Best Plane of the Year Selections (tentatively
announced after Oshkosh and finalized at year's end) will await the
end of the year but we will announce the nominees at this point,
with the proviso that our opinions may change as the year
develops.
So; here are our picks for the Best and Worst of this
year's Oshkosh... and why we think so...
Best Aircraft of Show (Overall)
SpaceShipOne/White Knight: No contest...
not even by any scale imaginable. No other birds got the attention,
no other birds attracted the crowds and it is possible that much of
this year's amazing Oshkosh attendance can be tracked directly to
the sight of these amazing constructs. (Jim Campbell, ANN E-I-C;
Staff)
Runner(s)-Up: The VLJ Wars: With Eclipses, a
Mustang, and even an A700 running through the skies of Oshkosh, the
advancements in GA have never been more apparent... or more
exciting.
Best Ultralight/Ultralight Trainer
No Award: Nothing really stands out at this
point as the Ultralight community searches for meaning in a
post-LSA world.
Best "Affordable Flyer"
Flight Design CT: NICE flyer, great looks,
excellent company support here in the USA and a good value make
this a bird that deserves SERIOUS consideration for your flying
dollar. (Jim Campbell, ANN E-I-C; Staff)
Best "LSA"
CubCrafter SportCub. Yup... it's a Cub,
alright... but with some excellent 2000 era twists that bring this
delightful design fully into the 21st Century.
Runner(s)-Up: Indus Aviation's Thorpedo: Now
coupled with innovative financing, we gotta wonder why you're
sitting there reading this... Put down the computer and go buy one.
(Kevin O'Brien)
Best High Performance Kit Aircraft
Velocity XL Series: A well-proven design from a
well-proven company continues to gain adherents in an industry that
is enjoying new popularity with the advent of new engines and
avionics to further increase the already impressive utility of a
number of exciting aerial hot-rods.
Best Rotorcraft
Hard call. It was a thin year for rotors at
Oshkosh. Next year, we'll try to get to Homer Bell's and
Mentone, two events before Oshkosh where helicopter and gyro
innovation (respectively) are still happening. The most interesting
new developments were Tim Blackwell's ultralight tractor Jyro Deer,
which we shall cover in depth shortly, and Larry Neal's Super Sky
Cycle, which we have covered before but we'll update you on when we
can get to it. Canadian Home Rotors' Safari now has a stablemate in
the Interceptor, but it's really just a new skin on the old Safari
-- me, I like the visibility of the bubble better than the Darth
Vader look of the new version. (Kevin O'Brien)
Best Certified Aircraft (At Oshkosh)
No Award... Yet: ANN has decided to reserve our
selection for the year's best aircraft until we complete the year.
Look for our final selection as part of our Annual End-Of-Year
Coverage. (Jim Campbell, ANN E-I-C; Staff)
Nominee: Cirrus SR-22 GTS. A flight last June
from the Cirrus factory in MN to the Diamond Factory in Ontario was
an eye opener. 540 NM, 2:40 enroute (takeoff to landing), climbs to
14.5K, autopilot off (simply because the hand-flying was SO sweet),
was an eye-opener... if there is a more mature and accomplished S/E
GA Piston transport, we have yet to fly it.
Nominee: Columbia Aircraft Columbia 400. T'aint
nothing faster. T'aint much that can even compare and the
increasing maturity of both the aircraft and the company is
impressive. If they ever pressurize this airplane (for a reasonable
price), this company may be unbeatable.
Nominee: Diamond DA42. Finally... a light twin
that meets the potential that this industry desperately needs...
and with strong technological improvements in the three critical
categories intrinsic to our birds... Airframe, Avionics and
Powerplant. No aircraft boasts as much technological sophistication
and for a first outing, the bird is strikingly complete. We are
very impressed.
Nominee: Piper Aircraft Meridian. Wow...
Piper's hot-rod is a real workhorse. The new Three-screen Avidyne
panel is beautifully designed, the bird handles beautifully and
squirts along REALLY fast... but darned if it doesn't slow down
REALLY well, to boot. In the midst of a swarm of birds (we were
behind a Pacer for quite the while, fer God's sake...) trying to
crowd into Oshkosh one evening after the airshow, our respect for
the Meridian was drastically upgraded... what a great flying
airplane.
I Gotta Get Me One Of These
Columbia Aircraft Climate Control
System: Remember when you had to sweat through those
first 10-20 minutes of a summer start-up, run-up and taxi before
takeoff... remember when a "Hold Short" command was pure torture on
a hot August day? Well, Columbia's exquisitely engineered CCS is
rocking new owners' worlds ... in a VERY cool way. Reports are
ecstatic. Flight test upcoming.
Best Construction
Neal Obert's Griffon Lionheart: This aircraft
featured impeccable workmanship and nifty features like aerodynamic
upgrades and -- is this the future of all long-nosed taildraggers?
-- taxiing cameras. Neal designed his own printed circuit boards
for his onboard electronics. Unfortunately, this, and two other
Lionhearts nearing completion by their builders are the end of the
line (Aero-News will tell you why in an upcoming feature). (Kevin
O'Brien)
Best Panel
No contest -- Piper/Avidyne Meridian: Among
certified birds, there is no panel with this kind of capability,
usability and system maturity... though the coming advent of the
VLJs and the attendant trickle-down, will spice things up next
year, to be sure. (Jim Campbell, ANN E-I-C; Staff)
Best Upgrade
Cirrus Adoption of TAWS As Standard Equipment:
Too many of the Oshkosh press releases are simple opportunities for
cheap advertising, with some slight news value, but Cirrus'
announcement that they were incorporating TAWS as STANDARD
equipment on all their new birds was setting the bar WAY high...
from the company that has been setting the bar, pretty much, for
the GA biz for several years now. We are impressed. (Jim Campbell,
ANN E-I-C; Staff)
Runner(s)-Up: Diamond's receiving FAA TCs for the DA42
Twinstar... a long time coming.
Funkiest Aircraft
The Samara Elitar-Sigma from Russia. It not
only has an awkward name, but a very strange look ("if it's weird
it's Russian," isn't that how the old saw goes?). But the more you
look at it, the better it looks. It's funky in a positive way; a
lot of the detail design was really interesting. It has a BRS
firing through one of the back windows.
Runner(s)-Up: Barr 6. I was fascinated by the Barr
Six, which redefines high performance as carrying a ridiculous
amount of stuff or six large people at an impressive speed -- and
does it by a combination of aerodynamic ingenuity, and brute force.
Unfortunately the prototype experienced a fire enroute home from
Oshkosh -- no one was injured, but extent of the damage is unknown
at this time.
Runner-up: Larry Neal's Super Sky Cycle. First
seen with the new jump-takeoff rotor system at Airventure, it has
flown but not in this configuration. I gotta get me one of these,
but first I gotta move to a state with some personal freedom -- it
would never get past our Registry of Motor Vehicles here in the
People's Republic of Massachusetts. (Kevin O'Brien)
Best Warbird
Don Rhynalds’ HU-16 Albatross N226GR.
Unusual, historic, amazing work.
Best Display Aircraft
Dornier Do-24 ATT: An imposing presence to say
the least, this 1930s vintage amphibian, updated with three PT-6
turboprops centrally mounted on the high wing, manages to look both
anachronistic and futuristic at once. Squint at it long enough, and
it starts to look a bit like a Klingon "bird-of-prey" from "Star
Trek." Way cool.
Seeing (and hearing) the Dornier fly 30 feet overhead while on
short final for 27 on that first Sunday - while Mike and I were
driving back from the Sonex factory - was a properly awe-inspiring
introduction for me to Oshkosh. I only wish my camera would have
worked!!! (Rob Finfrock)
Runner(s)-Up: Glacier Girl. What an extraordinary
piece of history... with an amazing restoration story to go with
it.
Best Restoration
A rare "polished" Comanche 400: Rich Mascari,
Iowa City, Iowa's N64400. This bird takes the blue ribbon.
Although it isn't exactly "restored" -- nothing ever left Lock
Haven looking this good. I wonder if all that polishing makes it go
even faster?
Runners-up: Staggerwing Row. There was a whole row
of Beech Staggerwings, some of them painted in incredibly
attractive colors that I hadn't seen combined on an airplane
before. (Kevin O'Brien)
Best Research Aircraft
Hondajet: New engines, new think laminar
flow wing section, new engine mount location, and a 3d laminar flow
forward fuselage give this plane a claimed 40% increase in
efficient and 30% increase in interior volume. (Chris
Armstrong)
Hottest Prospect (not yet evaluated)
Innodyn (Formerly ATP) Turbine: Is this thing
going to be the revolution it promises to be in the experimental
market? Or is it going to suffer from the kind of tough luck that
turbine conversions have generally done? It has roots as an APU,
and APUs are designed for duty cycles totally unlike aircraft power
turbines -- but that's probably why the Innodyn people went back to
the drawing board. Is the light-experimental world ready for an
engine that burns more of a cheaper fuel (31 cents a gallon cheaper
at my FBO as of yesterday, or about eight percent)? And what's it
going to FLY like? (Kevin O'Brien)
Best Airshow Performance
No Award Possible: In honor of our dear
friend Jimmy Franklin and his able cohort, Bobby Younkin, (both
lost in a tragic airshow accident just days earlier) we feel that
awarding a "best" performance is a fruitless endeavor... believe
us, if they'd been at Oshkosh, they'd have given us a helluva show.
Godspeed, guys!
Runner(s)-Up: Aeroshell Aerobatic team. Great
noises. Great Flying. Great birds.
Runner(s)-Up: Sean Tucker. Aviation's wildman
still wows the crowds wherever he goes... but he's never better
than when he's flying over Oshkosh.
To Be Continued...