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Indy 2011: Day 2

May 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment


This is a regular blog post. If you’re looking for show notes to audio or video episodes, they’re all here. Just keep scrolling!

The Airspeed crew vehicle likes to think of itself as Blue Angel Zero. There she is, parked next to CDR David Koss’s No. 1 ship. Waiting for the crew to top up her smoke oil for tomorrow’s demo.

Day 2 (Saturday) at Indy is complete. Worries about the weather were worth having, but – at the end of the day – not worth getting bunched up over. Ceilings started out high and gradually came down. The Blues flew a low or flat show, which was fine with me because I was on my way out to Indianapolis International to catch a photo op with CDR Koss and the pilots of two WWII-era predecessors of the F/A-18C. I opened up the sun roof so I could hear the jet noise better.

The shoot went well and I got a three-minute piece that I might release as an ultra-short video episode.


I love Dave Dacy’s big, honking 500-hp Super Stearman. It’s clean, it’s white, and it’s round. It makes the right noices. You can attach a human speed brake to the top wing. What more do you really need?


I hooked up with the Heavy Metal Jet Team in the late morning and got interviews with Snort and Slick for Acro Camp. The interviews look very crisp in HD. And they should. As long as the light doesn’t completely stink. you have an airplae that the team has gone to the trouble to paint with large areas of the three most useful background colors. Don’t like how the frame looks? Not popping? Take two steps to the left and you have a completely different contrast proposition. Three to choose from. No waiting.

Both Slick and Snort are very, very well-spoken. Great answers to the questions and a sincerity that you can’t fake. Having interviewed about a dozen airshow performers for the movie, I have begun hearing substantially the same answer from multiple performers to the same question. It’s to be expected. There’s probably a limited universe of answers to the same core four or five questions. But both Snort and Slick had new, different, and dead-nuts-on things to say. I had to remember that I was asking questions and not just sitting in my living room watching the movie.

I’m writing this at a Steak n Shake a couple of miles from Indianapolis International. I just offloaded the day’s still pictures from the camera and sent a couple off to the media folks at the airshow. Now it’s back on the road for Michigan. There’s an SR22 at Pontiac that needs to get to the Carolinas and Don Weaver and I are just the guys to take it there!
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Indy 2011: Friday – Part 2 – A Ride on Fat Albert Airlines

May 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

This is a regular blog post. If you’re looking for show notes to a video or audio episode, you’ve come to the right place. Just keep scrolling. It’s all here!
The Blue Angels are back again at the Indy Airshow. And that means that the ubiquitous blue and gold C-130, Fat Albert, is on the field supporting the Blues and thrilling spectators. And fanboys like me.
Fat Albert is operated by an all-Marine aircrew. I had the opportunity once again to ride on Fat Albert. The first time (2009) was great. But I learned a few things that allowed me to prepare much better for this ride.
For one thing, I showed up with five cameras. Four were small clampable models (two GoPro HD HEROes and two ContourHDs) and the fifth was the trusty Panasonic for handheld use. I checked in with GySgt Ben Chapman when we arrived at the aircraft staging area and he was kind enough to point out some good mount points. Two in the cockpit and two in the back.
The best footage is from the cockpit camera, a frame grab from which appears at the beginning of this post. There’s a fair amount of vibration, but what mount in a C-130 doesn’t vibrate when you’re yanking and banking as much as this one did during the demo? Have you ever wondered what it looks like in the cockpit during the demo? Yep, that’s GySgt Chapman floating at the top of the climb-out as Capt Edward Jorge pushes the yoke full forward after a 45-degree initial ascent.


I sat further aft than last time and I’m glad I did. The guys in the back do this all the time and are pretty good at knowing the flight profile and when they’re going to be at zero-G. And taking advantage of it. The shot above is not photoshopped. It’s the real deal. I got it from my seat with the hand-held. He has a good grip on the ladder and the ladder is firmly secured to the cargo deck. But it’s still pretty dramatic-looking.

The main camera for the rear compartment was up on the front bulkhead looking back. It’s rock-solid and doesn’t vibrate. I’ll pull some frame grabs from that one and post them soon.

And, because all of the cameras ran the entire time, I’m going to synch them up so that the video episode is able to cut among the camera angles to giver you a pretty good idea of what it’s like to be among the pax on Fat Albert Airlines.
Thanks much to the crew of Fat Albert and to the Blue Angels! Watch for the video episode coming soon!

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Indy 2011: Friday – Part 1

May 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

This is a regular blog entry. If you’re looking for show notes to a video or audio episode, just scroll around. You’re sure to find it!
Yeah, it’s my favorite time of year again. I’m a little blue as I find myself in mid-May and not out at the Aviation Station shooting a movie. I miss my Acro Camp crew more than I thought I might. But there’s nothing like an airshow to take the edge off of that particular blueness.
Indy is one of my favorite shows. This is my third year covering it. It’s at Indiana Regional Airport (formerly Mount Comfort) (KMQJ), which has excellent surroundings that offer performance lines that can accommodate almost anything you’d want to fly in the airspace. It’s reasonably accessible. Firebase Airspeed this year is at the Super 8 in Greefield, which is only a few miles to the east. But for the construction on the main highway that has things down to one lane for much of the going, it’s easy access. And I’m getting to the show around 0700 each morning, so it’s no big deal for me.
I spent most of the day shooting cameo interviews for Acro Camp. I re-shot the Billy Werth interview that I did last year (the audio was unusable) and added fellow Red Eagle Dan McClung, hang glider pilot Dan Buchanan, Super Stearman pilot Dave Dacy, and wingwalker Tony Kazian.
And I shot as much of the practice flying as I could. Most notable was Billy and Dave Werth’s Sibling Rivalry demo. Billy flies a Pitts S-2C (in which I’ve flown with him) and Dave rides a ridiculously powerful motorcycle. The act initially involved racing down the runway. But it has evolved since then.
Billy and Dave are now doing a lot of formation performing. In the lead shot to this entry, Billy heads down the runway and Dave reaches up and grabs the wing. And today, for the first time that anyone can think of, Billy flew inverted ahead of Dave and Dave was able to grab the tail of the Pitts. Pretty precise stuff on the part of both pilot and rider!


The Viper West F-16 Demo Team tore it up very nicely. Although ti wasn’t terribly hot, it was pretty humid. And that meant huge blankets of moisture cascading over the wings of the Viper at almost any positive angle of attack. The sky was pretty gray and the circumstances weren’t great for shooting either video or stills. And, let’s face it, I mostly do audio or close-up video. But the 200mm Nikon rig yields up competent images from time to time. The above wasn’t the best representation of the Viper that I’ve ever captured, but you can see the burner and there are huge clouds on the wings. Good enough for me!
Capt Garrett Dover cranked the aircraft around very convincingly. The tight-turning capability of the aircraft continues to amaze me. It just rolls over and cranks around at +9G for a full circle. You’re always sure that the Viper is going to bust the 1,500-foot line coming back around, but it never does. That’s just unbelievable pull!


I’m still chasing the Heavy Metal Jet Team for a couple of planeside interviews for Acro Camp and the podcast. I was close to Jive and Rook during the briefing in the morning, but had to leave early to interview Billy, then lost them. Heavy Metal does a lot for the Make-a-Wish Foundation and I understand that the team was engaged in taking care of some commitments along those lines. That’s fine. I still have tomorrow before heading back to Michigan.
I’m planning to ferry a Cirrus SR-22 from Pontiac down to the Carolinas for maintenance on Sunday and then drive back to Michigan on Monday. Then back to the office and my mild-mannered lawyer alter-ego until the next show. But, until then, it’s freshly-mown grass and the smell of 100LL and JP-8!
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Mike "Bloke" Robinson of the Starfighters

May 8, 2011 by Leave a Comment

These are the show notes for a video episode of Airspeed. You can watch the episode by subscribing to Airspeed through iTunes or your favorite other podcatcher or by watching the video on Vimeo by clicking above. Either way, it’s all free!
Mike “Bloke” Robinson – the Supervisor of Flying for the Starfighters – and I go back a few years. It turns out that Bloke was one of the links in a long and unlikely chain of events that culminated in my getting the Thunderbirds ride in 2008. Bloke happened to be confirming some details with the Battle Creek show’s director and mentioned that he had heard her on Airspeed in the preceding week. That apparently stick my name in her head at just the time at which the show was thinking about who might be a good alternate Thunderbirds rider. And the rest is history.
Bloke and I connected recently at ICAS in December and he was nice enough to invite me down to spend parts of the TICO Valiant Air Command airshow in Titusville, Florida in March. I spent Friday and Saturday on the ramp with The Starfighters, Heavy Metal, Scooter Yoak, Mark Sorenson, David Allen, and others.
When I could get Bloke to hold still for a few minutes (he’s an amazingly busy guy during a show, as you might imagine), he was gracious enough to do it in perfect light next to a gorgeous F-104 in front of a couple of cameras. We talked about the F-104 and his impressions of it and even went a little into acro and energy management for use in the Acro Camp movie.
Here’s the interview, along with other images from the two days at TICO.
The Starfighters use the F-104 Starfighter for suborbital flight training, flight test, threat simulation, photo chase, and – of course – airshows. The team is based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. More information is available at www.starfighters.net.
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Duckin’ Fark

April 24, 2011 by 4 Comments


This is a regular blog post. Looking for show notes or links to show audio or video? They’re all here. Keep on scrolling.

CAP captain, myTransponder co-founder, and friend Rod Rakic happened to be in town this weekend and we made it a point to try to get up in a CAP aircraft for some proficiency work and aircrew activities.

I’ve flown in the same aircraft with Rod on several occasions. The first was the Cessna Citation Mustang flight during AirVenture Oshkosh 2009 with me in the left seat and Rod in the back. Then Rod flew me in a C-182T Nav III to Marshall, Missouri and back to get some B-2A weapons system trainer time in our logbooks.

But I had not yet flown Rod under circumstances under which I was in the left seat and was in the right seat. Where he could reach the flight controls and make it a fair fight.

Saturday afternoon, the wind howled like hell. I’m talking 18 knots with gusts over 30. Even with the wind coming pretty close to right down the pipe, that’s a log of gust factor, especially considering that I hadn’t flown the C-182 since last October or so. And I’m a pretty typical non-primarily-182 driver inasmuch as it’s a very nose-heavy airplane that likes to sink quickly and I live in fear of whacking the nosewheel.

I have no problem with the G1000. I just don’t like seeing the nosewheel strut come through it.

I arrived early and preflighted the airplane like I was buying it. The wind howled around the hangar. Badly enough that I feared opening the hangar door and badly enough that I had a hard time being understood on the phone by my flight release officer because of the noise of all that sheet metal that wanted to depart the tee hangar.

But around 6:30, it magically calmed down to a steady 18 knots right down the runway. Rod arrived, I got my flight release, we stomped the ramp (a very abbreviated ritual along the lines of the Haka – you had to be there) and we launched about an hour before sunset.

We flew up to Yale, Michigan located my high school buddy’s place, descended to about 1,600 MSL, and did a mock photo mission over it. Flying at 90 KIAS in a 45-degree bank that low would have bothered me a lot just a year ago. But, after NESA MAS and flying as much tailwheel and acro as I have, it seemed really natural. And the C-182 is a really stable platform for those kinds of maneuvers. You can almost roll in and fly the maneuver on trim alone.

Takeoffs, as they say, are optional. Landings, as they also say, are mandatory. Aviation, unlike maritime pursuits, has a perfect safety record. We’ve never left one up there.

We went to St. Clair County Airport (KPHN), whose Runway 28 was within 20 degrees of a 15-knot steady wind. Rod had spent a lot of time there in his youth as a line guy and student pilot, so it was a bit of a trip down memory lane for him. I was reluctant to face my C-182 demons more than 40 nm from the airplane’s home base in case I yard-saled it across the TDZ. And I began by mistaking Runway 22 for Runway 28.

But I got her headed in the right direction (without entering Canadian airspace in the process) and turned a very nonstandard entry into a very stabilized approach. 70 over the numbers, then kissed it down. I taxied back and got another trip around the patch, this time getting it a little flat, but serviceable and most of the parts stayed in formation with the rest of the airframe.

Rod is getting ready to become a CFI. And the CFI manner is beginning to creep into his right-seat personality. I pointed out a couple of the things that he said or did and made that comment. He was a little taken aback, but admitted it. I assured him that there were no violations of Wheaton’s Law involved. In fact, it’s very cool to see one’s friends constantly evolving and challenging themselves.

Additionally, Rod is going to be a great instructor. He’s already a very precise and disciplined pilot. But he also has an excellent way of inspiring confidence and channeling knowledge without being imperious about it. As someone who has watched new student pilot starts fall off and student pilot completions plummet, it would be important to me that Rod become a CFi regardless of whether he was one of my bros. But having him as one of my bros as well? Bonus!

To be sure, Rod gave no “instruction” per se in the aircraft. He’s not a CFI. And, even if he were, he’s not authorized by CAP to give instruction in CAP birds. (Yet.) We even briefed our roles standing at the nose of the aircraft before leaving. As PIC, I told him that input was welcome. And expected. But I was PIC and any yard sale that I laid out on a runway was mine and mine alone. A good way to brief almost any flight, in fact.

We departed St. Clair and pointed the airplane at Ray Community Airport (57D). I have some plans for things this summer at Ray and I wanted to show the airport to Rod. Ray is the prettiest airport to which I have ever personally been. And Runway at Ray 9/27 is just under 2,500 feet, which I had just proved was a distance within which I could get a C-182T down and stopped. But it was a little dark to actually see anything there and I was reluctant to put my C-182 skills to the test on a shorter runway in the dark.

So back to Pontiac. We got the straight-in approach to Runway 27R. No excuses. I had the airspeed and configuration dialed in from five miles out. the only issue was that it was dark. I mean “duckin’ fark.” It was less than an hour after sunset, but not a lot less.

Last notch of flaps at a half mile. Yeah, a half mile is further than I could glide with the barn doors hanging out, but a stable approach coming over the fence was more important in this case with this pilot in this airplane than the much-lesser chance of being screwed by an engine failure on short final.

Airspeed 75 KIAS over the fence. 70 KIAS over the numbers. I had my attention way over the nose and off to the side. Rod was looking directly out the side at the ground.

He said “flare.”

It was a little earlier than I expected to flare. But I had five more knots of airspeed than I really needed and lots of power available. And Rod has lots of experience in the C-182. All of the input funneled through that high-speed pachinko machine that I’ve built in my head. I made the decision as PIC to accept the suggestion from my PNF and flare.

I flared. A moment or two of feeling the sink and beginning to think about pushing in the power. Then “doink.” Mains down. Yoke in my chest. Nosewheel down. Nice! Let her roll to Kilo and then taxi to Royal for gas.

I think that the landing would have come out safe either way. My way might have been flatter, but would likely have been okay. In any case, it’s good to have two sets of eyes and two brains focused on the issue. And it’s one of the most special things in all of aviation to have a PNF next to you that you know well and whose thoughts will accelerate through your pachinko machine and get quickly to the place where you make the right decisions.

We hit the Pontiac pilot watering hole (the Shark Club) for beers and dinner after. I think it bothered Rod slightly that I had noticed CFI noises coming out of him on the flight and he was concered that it had been bothersome and launched into a discussion that was part apology.

I cut him off. “Dude, you had me at ‘Flare.’”

Laughter, beer, food, and pilot talk, then the departure – me for home and and he for his family in Clawson. I a slightly better pilot. He with a little more time in the right seat trying out the view from there and really thinking about what it’s going to be like when he adds the rating and starts flying with people who need his counsel more than I do.

All epic. In a smaller way than Dick-Collins-ing through the yellow IMC over Chicagoland at 2:00 a.m. But in an important way nevertheless.

Up aircrew! Huah!

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