WEBVTT 00:00:15.620 --> 00:00:17.370 PHILIP GREENSPUN: There is no pizza for me 00:00:17.370 --> 00:00:19.037 because I'm going to talk about Oshkosh. 00:00:23.700 --> 00:00:25.800 So what is it? 00:00:25.800 --> 00:00:29.430 It's end of July every year at a big, a physically big, 00:00:29.430 --> 00:00:33.030 but otherwise not very busy airport in Wisconsin. 00:00:33.030 --> 00:00:36.900 And about 10,000 airplanes come in. 00:00:36.900 --> 00:00:37.980 People camp out. 00:00:37.980 --> 00:00:42.450 People hang out, usually at least 100,000 people a day. 00:00:42.450 --> 00:00:43.710 There's a Boeing. 00:00:43.710 --> 00:00:46.500 There's a C-17 cargo plane. 00:00:46.500 --> 00:00:48.960 A lot of experimental-- it's founded by the Experimental 00:00:48.960 --> 00:00:50.123 Aircraft Association. 00:00:50.123 --> 00:00:51.540 So there's a lot of people who are 00:00:51.540 --> 00:00:53.082 passionate about home-building there. 00:00:55.890 --> 00:00:57.810 You can see all the airplanes parked. 00:01:03.580 --> 00:01:06.970 There's 12,000 camping sites, 40,000 campers. 00:01:06.970 --> 00:01:09.490 There's 1,500 workshops and seminars 00:01:09.490 --> 00:01:10.720 that you can take to learn. 00:01:10.720 --> 00:01:13.450 Or you can just walk around and talk to people, and hang out. 00:01:13.450 --> 00:01:16.420 So I planned this trip for me and my friend Ray. 00:01:16.420 --> 00:01:20.560 He's a helicopter pilot from Ireland. 00:01:20.560 --> 00:01:23.530 And the idea was to fly to Niagara Falls 00:01:23.530 --> 00:01:25.540 and show him Niagara Falls, and on the way 00:01:25.540 --> 00:01:27.430 back go up to Mackinac Island. 00:01:27.430 --> 00:01:30.710 They saw automobiles about 120 years ago and they said, 00:01:30.710 --> 00:01:31.970 this is a terrible technology. 00:01:31.970 --> 00:01:33.370 It'll ruin everything. 00:01:33.370 --> 00:01:34.240 They banned cars. 00:01:34.240 --> 00:01:35.440 The only powered air-- 00:01:35.440 --> 00:01:39.670 the only powered vehicle you can legally have on Mackinac Island 00:01:39.670 --> 00:01:41.530 is an aircraft. 00:01:41.530 --> 00:01:42.910 They do have an airport. 00:01:42.910 --> 00:01:47.080 Anyway, on the back, we were going to go to Toronto as well. 00:01:47.080 --> 00:01:50.620 So we had to get all this stuff ready for international flying. 00:01:50.620 --> 00:01:53.620 I had it all carefully planned out 00:01:53.620 --> 00:01:56.710 where we were going to have 540 pounds of stuff, 00:01:56.710 --> 00:02:00.280 which is right at the payload of the airplane with full fuel. 00:02:00.280 --> 00:02:04.490 But then Oxana, who was just here-- 00:02:04.490 --> 00:02:07.790 she's an aerobatic pilot at East Coast Aero Club-- she 00:02:07.790 --> 00:02:09.590 said she wanted to come too. 00:02:09.590 --> 00:02:12.620 So then we had to add a fuel stop. 00:02:12.620 --> 00:02:15.438 There's our merry band of three people. 00:02:15.438 --> 00:02:17.480 There's a whole bunch of camping gear in the back 00:02:17.480 --> 00:02:19.490 that you can't quite see. 00:02:19.490 --> 00:02:23.960 Oshkosh becomes temporarily the busiest airport in the world. 00:02:23.960 --> 00:02:25.940 And you might say, well, how can that be? 00:02:25.940 --> 00:02:27.110 O'Hare has more flights. 00:02:27.110 --> 00:02:28.250 But they are only-- 00:02:28.250 --> 00:02:30.530 Oshkosh is only open about 10 hours a day 00:02:30.530 --> 00:02:33.470 because they close the airport at night. 00:02:33.470 --> 00:02:37.040 And they close it also for a few hours every afternoon 00:02:37.040 --> 00:02:39.620 for an airshow. 00:02:39.620 --> 00:02:46.920 This is somebody's iPad, I think, a screen capture 00:02:46.920 --> 00:02:49.680 of airplanes flying in and around Oshkosh. 00:02:49.680 --> 00:02:51.810 And these are only the ones with the newest 00:02:51.810 --> 00:02:54.460 ADS-B out transponders. 00:02:54.460 --> 00:02:56.940 So it doesn't show, probably-- 00:02:56.940 --> 00:03:00.682 this is probably only 20% of the total airplanes. 00:03:04.380 --> 00:03:06.030 You have special arrival rules. 00:03:06.030 --> 00:03:10.170 If you're not a sissy, then you have 00:03:10.170 --> 00:03:13.405 to fly in visually, circle around until it's your turn. 00:03:13.405 --> 00:03:15.780 And then they'll tell you you can't use the whole runway. 00:03:15.780 --> 00:03:17.363 You have to land on one of these dots. 00:03:17.363 --> 00:03:20.540 They'll say, land on the green dot. 00:03:20.540 --> 00:03:24.500 If you are a sissy, you file IFR, get your IFR reservation 00:03:24.500 --> 00:03:26.600 with this DOS grade computer system, 00:03:26.600 --> 00:03:29.110 confirm it with this DOS grade computer system 00:03:29.110 --> 00:03:31.070 that nobody else wants to deal with, 00:03:31.070 --> 00:03:33.590 and then you get the whole runway, and you just land. 00:03:33.590 --> 00:03:34.090 All right. 00:03:34.090 --> 00:03:37.630 Here's a picture of the multifunction display. 00:03:37.630 --> 00:03:40.040 No, actually, I guess this was in FlightAware later. 00:03:40.040 --> 00:03:42.380 This shows that we diverted a bit. 00:03:42.380 --> 00:03:45.170 From Bedford, we ended up going up to Watertown, New York, 00:03:45.170 --> 00:03:45.920 so we didn't-- 00:03:45.920 --> 00:03:47.965 we could have-- legally, we're instrument rated 00:03:47.965 --> 00:03:48.590 and everything. 00:03:48.590 --> 00:03:52.550 We could have flown through these rain showers. 00:03:52.550 --> 00:03:56.160 But it's always smarter just to go around if you can. 00:03:56.160 --> 00:03:56.750 OK. 00:03:56.750 --> 00:03:58.340 So we flew over Niagara Falls. 00:03:58.340 --> 00:03:59.630 We landed. 00:03:59.630 --> 00:04:01.430 We had that whole runway to ourself, 00:04:01.430 --> 00:04:03.920 about 10,000-foot runway. 00:04:03.920 --> 00:04:06.580 And it's actually oriented east-west. 00:04:06.580 --> 00:04:07.730 So we actually just-- 00:04:07.730 --> 00:04:10.280 essentially, we could have done the same heading basically 00:04:10.280 --> 00:04:12.860 from Hanscom Field all the way to the end of the runway 00:04:12.860 --> 00:04:14.630 and where we turned off. 00:04:14.630 --> 00:04:15.230 You get there. 00:04:15.230 --> 00:04:16.215 And there's just-- 00:04:16.215 --> 00:04:20.180 I don't know-- 30 P-51 Mustangs right next to your tent. 00:04:20.180 --> 00:04:24.830 There are people building this One Week Wonder, an RV kit, 00:04:24.830 --> 00:04:26.060 where you get to pull rivets. 00:04:26.060 --> 00:04:27.230 Oxana is actually here. 00:04:27.230 --> 00:04:30.890 And she can tell you about her experience 00:04:30.890 --> 00:04:32.380 helping to build that airplane. 00:04:32.380 --> 00:04:35.830 There you see your B1 bomber. 00:04:35.830 --> 00:04:37.990 I love the antiques. 00:04:37.990 --> 00:04:41.320 Here's one from the late '20s, a Lincoln-Page airplane that 00:04:41.320 --> 00:04:43.600 has been recently restored and flying. 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:48.310 There's that replica autogyro, a beautiful Cessna 170. 00:04:48.310 --> 00:04:52.065 That's an old Piper Comanche there on the right. 00:04:52.065 --> 00:04:53.940 There's not a whole lot of helicopter action. 00:04:53.940 --> 00:04:54.880 There's a little bit. 00:04:54.880 --> 00:04:57.905 This is what's called a Safari Helicopter Kit. 00:04:57.905 --> 00:04:59.280 That's how you know that you have 00:04:59.280 --> 00:05:01.870 real confidence in your mechanical abilities 00:05:01.870 --> 00:05:05.160 if you build and then fly your own helicopter. 00:05:05.160 --> 00:05:06.180 Piper Cub. 00:05:06.180 --> 00:05:09.390 This is a guy who stuck a Pratt and Whitney-- 00:05:09.390 --> 00:05:10.560 I think it's a Pratt-- 00:05:10.560 --> 00:05:16.230 PT6 engine into a Polish Wilga, a short field landing airplane. 00:05:16.230 --> 00:05:17.360 He added fuel tanks. 00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:19.410 It's such a fuel hog now that he had 00:05:19.410 --> 00:05:22.770 to add extra fuel capacity in the struts 00:05:22.770 --> 00:05:27.730 and flies all around the west, going camping with his family. 00:05:27.730 --> 00:05:28.230 All right. 00:05:28.230 --> 00:05:29.725 And that's called a Travel Air. 00:05:29.725 --> 00:05:30.850 There are a bunch of these. 00:05:30.850 --> 00:05:32.730 So these are airplanes from the '20s. 00:05:32.730 --> 00:05:35.310 People were just using them for transportation, 00:05:35.310 --> 00:05:38.520 throwing a friend in the back maybe and a tent 00:05:38.520 --> 00:05:40.530 and going and camping out at Oshkosh. 00:05:40.530 --> 00:05:43.470 So I think that's pretty cool. 00:05:43.470 --> 00:05:49.140 There are only five of these Piaggio seaplanes, P136s, 00:05:49.140 --> 00:05:55.530 that still exist out of 63 that were built from 1948 to 1961. 00:05:55.530 --> 00:05:58.050 I saw two of them parked next to each other at Oshkosh. 00:05:58.050 --> 00:06:02.550 That's what makes it a unique experience. 00:06:02.550 --> 00:06:06.270 Here's some kind of airplane doing a simulated bombing run. 00:06:06.270 --> 00:06:09.390 Meanwhile, a family is there in their personal DC-3 00:06:09.390 --> 00:06:12.110 camping out. 00:06:12.110 --> 00:06:16.260 Here's our little plane and the $99 tent from Costco. 00:06:16.260 --> 00:06:20.960 It seemed like a great idea at the time. 00:06:20.960 --> 00:06:22.530 I think we have a slide on that. 00:06:22.530 --> 00:06:23.030 OK. 00:06:23.030 --> 00:06:24.440 This kind of summarizes it. 00:06:24.440 --> 00:06:27.470 This is the unfortunate state of general aviation now. 00:06:27.470 --> 00:06:29.690 So we have the innovation showcase. 00:06:29.690 --> 00:06:32.480 And right in front of it, a Piper Seminole, which I think 00:06:32.480 --> 00:06:37.640 was certified in the 1970s and certainly a derivative 00:06:37.640 --> 00:06:40.370 of things going back a lot farther than that. 00:06:40.370 --> 00:06:42.980 There were some interesting talks there, 00:06:42.980 --> 00:06:45.050 some heavy hitters. 00:06:45.050 --> 00:06:48.110 This guy Pat Anderson is a professor at Embry-Riddle. 00:06:48.110 --> 00:06:50.360 And he said actually that we haven't really 00:06:50.360 --> 00:06:52.340 seen anything in the electric aircraft world 00:06:52.340 --> 00:06:54.440 because in the early days of jets, 00:06:54.440 --> 00:06:57.205 they just took these piston airframes and stuck a jet 00:06:57.205 --> 00:06:57.830 engine in them. 00:06:57.830 --> 00:06:59.600 And they didn't perform that differently 00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:01.130 from the piston fighters. 00:07:01.130 --> 00:07:03.680 But then five years later, they had the swept wings 00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:06.710 and what we would recognize as the modern fighter jet. 00:07:06.710 --> 00:07:08.630 So it completely-- it was the jet 00:07:08.630 --> 00:07:11.120 engine did completely transform the aircraft, 00:07:11.120 --> 00:07:12.380 but not immediately. 00:07:12.380 --> 00:07:14.200 So he said, you're seeing some of this now, 00:07:14.200 --> 00:07:16.430 where people take a little two-seat trainer 00:07:16.430 --> 00:07:18.740 and they remove the piston engine 00:07:18.740 --> 00:07:20.780 and put an electric motor with the propeller. 00:07:20.780 --> 00:07:22.792 But that's not really-- 00:07:22.792 --> 00:07:24.500 what we're really going to see are things 00:07:24.500 --> 00:07:25.792 that are much more like drones. 00:07:28.010 --> 00:07:29.293 There is an Uber. 00:07:29.293 --> 00:07:31.460 There was a guy from Uber that was very interesting. 00:07:31.460 --> 00:07:35.810 Uber has aeronautical engineers working for them, 00:07:35.810 --> 00:07:38.540 designing aircraft, and then releasing the designs for free, 00:07:38.540 --> 00:07:40.550 hoping that people will make them. 00:07:40.550 --> 00:07:42.240 They're claiming that they're going to-- 00:07:42.240 --> 00:07:43.250 I don't know. 00:07:43.250 --> 00:07:45.380 They've got to pay somebody off in the government 00:07:45.380 --> 00:07:46.310 to make this happen. 00:07:46.310 --> 00:07:49.680 2023 they say they're going to be operating in Los Angeles. 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:51.630 Their idea is that the world is going 00:07:51.630 --> 00:07:55.190 to be so congested that people will pay up happily 00:07:55.190 --> 00:07:59.310 to hop over the congestion in relatively short hops. 00:07:59.310 --> 00:08:01.730 So Uber is putting a lot of money into this. 00:08:01.730 --> 00:08:04.220 They have some partners like Airbus, Pipistrel, 00:08:04.220 --> 00:08:06.140 the Slovenian company. 00:08:06.140 --> 00:08:08.100 We'll see what happens. 00:08:08.100 --> 00:08:10.360 So some round-the-world pilots were there. 00:08:10.360 --> 00:08:12.860 Actually, I don't know how many you guys know this, but Matt 00:08:12.860 --> 00:08:14.690 Guthmiller, who was an MIT-- 00:08:14.690 --> 00:08:16.250 between freshman and sophomore years 00:08:16.250 --> 00:08:18.350 became the youngest person ever to fly around 00:08:18.350 --> 00:08:21.560 the world in a Beechcraft Bonanza. 00:08:21.560 --> 00:08:24.000 I mean, he was in a Beechcraft Bonanza 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:28.800 and he was the youngest person to fly around the world. 00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:32.260 But there's also-- at Oshkosh, we met this guy 00:08:32.260 --> 00:08:39.470 Dick Rutan who flew around the world non-stop unrefueled 00:08:39.470 --> 00:08:44.400 in a plane designed by his brother Burt Rutan. 00:08:44.400 --> 00:08:48.360 What else is Burt Rutan famous for besides designing aircraft? 00:08:48.360 --> 00:08:49.650 Does anybody know? 00:08:49.650 --> 00:08:50.870 AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] 00:08:50.870 --> 00:08:52.650 PHILIP GREENSPUN: What? 00:08:52.650 --> 00:08:54.740 AUDIENCE: Wasn't he on like a spacecraft? 00:08:54.740 --> 00:08:56.490 PHILIP GREENSPUN: Spacecraft, that's true. 00:08:56.490 --> 00:08:58.702 But yeah, spacecraft and aircraft, but what else? 00:08:58.702 --> 00:09:00.670 AUDIENCE: Canard planes. 00:09:00.670 --> 00:09:03.370 PHILIP GREENSPUN: Canard planes, those are airplanes. 00:09:03.370 --> 00:09:05.320 Climate change denial. 00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:06.430 Look it up. 00:09:06.430 --> 00:09:10.600 He's got like a 100-page book about the scientific fraud 00:09:10.600 --> 00:09:11.550 of climate change. 00:09:11.550 --> 00:09:12.508 But anyway, Dick Rutan. 00:09:12.508 --> 00:09:16.150 And the other interesting thing is before this nine-day flight, 00:09:16.150 --> 00:09:20.020 he was engaged to be married to Jeana Yeager 00:09:20.020 --> 00:09:25.120 and supposedly what I heard at Oshkosh 00:09:25.120 --> 00:09:29.650 was that they have not spoken since they landed in 1986. 00:09:29.650 --> 00:09:31.570 So in nine days, there can be quite a change 00:09:31.570 --> 00:09:33.940 in a relationship apparently. 00:09:33.940 --> 00:09:37.178 We met this pilot Shaesta Waiz. 00:09:37.178 --> 00:09:39.220 I don't know if that's the correct pronunciation. 00:09:39.220 --> 00:09:41.410 She grew up in California and learned 00:09:41.410 --> 00:09:42.950 to fly relatively recently. 00:09:42.950 --> 00:09:45.310 And she also flew a Bonanza all the way 00:09:45.310 --> 00:09:48.390 around the world over 145 days. 00:09:48.390 --> 00:09:49.390 So that was interesting. 00:09:49.390 --> 00:09:52.010 She actually said it gets a little bit easier once you're 00:09:52.010 --> 00:09:54.010 out over the ocean from a weather point of view. 00:09:54.010 --> 00:09:56.980 She said except for the Intertropical Convergence 00:09:56.980 --> 00:09:58.990 of the Equator, most weather is kind 00:09:58.990 --> 00:10:00.970 of a phenomenon of being over land. 00:10:00.970 --> 00:10:03.370 To me, the most impressive round the world pilot, 00:10:03.370 --> 00:10:06.550 though, was actually an Italian guy that I met. 00:10:06.550 --> 00:10:08.620 He was in a Cirrus SR22. 00:10:08.620 --> 00:10:11.700 And he just flies to Oshkosh every year. 00:10:11.700 --> 00:10:15.370 He just loads up in Italy, turns the key, and goes. 00:10:15.370 --> 00:10:18.040 Every year, flies over the Atlantic, and then 00:10:18.040 --> 00:10:20.140 flies back to Italy when it's over. 00:10:20.140 --> 00:10:23.260 So I thought that is actually the coolest thing, when 00:10:23.260 --> 00:10:24.862 it's not even an adventure. 00:10:24.862 --> 00:10:26.320 You're not going to write about it. 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:27.862 You're not going to build a web page. 00:10:27.862 --> 00:10:30.490 You're not going to say you're changing the world 00:10:30.490 --> 00:10:31.990 or helping to achieve something. 00:10:31.990 --> 00:10:33.365 You're not going to set a record. 00:10:33.365 --> 00:10:35.530 You're just using your airplane for transportation. 00:10:35.530 --> 00:10:36.970 You want to get to Oshkosh. 00:10:36.970 --> 00:10:38.410 You have an airplane. 00:10:38.410 --> 00:10:41.320 So why should the fact that you're on a different continent 00:10:41.320 --> 00:10:43.510 stop you from doing it? 00:10:43.510 --> 00:10:47.020 A lot of people have stopped doing home projects, home 00:10:47.020 --> 00:10:48.010 repairs. 00:10:48.010 --> 00:10:51.730 So Oshkosh, they actually have people that teach kids 00:10:51.730 --> 00:10:54.850 how to hammer, how to drill, how to cut sheet metal. 00:10:54.850 --> 00:10:58.460 There's a lot of great workshops there for kids. 00:10:58.460 --> 00:11:02.670 We were over by the Pioneer Airport and the Museum. 00:11:02.670 --> 00:11:05.600 Here is the museum. 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:08.140 They have a replica Wright Flyer, a whole area 00:11:08.140 --> 00:11:11.770 devoted to the Rutan designs. 00:11:11.770 --> 00:11:13.718 I don't know how many-- 00:11:13.718 --> 00:11:15.760 I don't know how many of you know the MIT spinoff 00:11:15.760 --> 00:11:16.870 Terrafugia. 00:11:16.870 --> 00:11:20.170 I guess-- I think it was 12-- at least 12 years ago, 00:11:20.170 --> 00:11:22.420 they said they were going to build a flying car. 00:11:22.420 --> 00:11:26.320 So I took a picture of this 1949 Taylor Aerocar, which 00:11:26.320 --> 00:11:30.560 is actually a certificated flying car 00:11:30.560 --> 00:11:36.600 and unfairly associated with Terrafugia. 00:11:36.600 --> 00:11:41.010 So this guy is kind of an inspiration, I think-- 00:11:41.010 --> 00:11:43.590 Paul Poberezny, the founder of the Experimental Aircraft 00:11:43.590 --> 00:11:44.760 Association. 00:11:44.760 --> 00:11:47.790 He flew the most expensive and highest-performance aircraft 00:11:47.790 --> 00:11:48.930 of the day. 00:11:48.930 --> 00:11:53.520 He flew the P-51 Mustang, the P-38 Lightning. 00:11:53.520 --> 00:11:55.480 And then he came home and said, well, 00:11:55.480 --> 00:12:02.340 what's cool to do after flying a 12,000-pound-plus P-51 Mustang? 00:12:02.340 --> 00:12:05.790 Why not just go to the basement, get some plywood, 00:12:05.790 --> 00:12:09.872 nail it together, and build a really crummy plywood airplane? 00:12:09.872 --> 00:12:10.830 And that's what he did. 00:12:10.830 --> 00:12:12.775 So it just shows the joy. 00:12:12.775 --> 00:12:14.775 You don't have to have a high-performance, state 00:12:14.775 --> 00:12:16.157 of the art airplane. 00:12:16.157 --> 00:12:18.240 If you build it yourself or you're goofing around, 00:12:18.240 --> 00:12:18.960 you can have fun. 00:12:18.960 --> 00:12:19.500 And he did. 00:12:19.500 --> 00:12:24.570 And he was a better pilot than [INAUDIBLE],, 00:12:24.570 --> 00:12:26.490 I'm sure, in his P-51. 00:12:26.490 --> 00:12:31.610 So that made me think maybe we shouldn't be snobby about these 00:12:31.610 --> 00:12:34.370 home-built airplanes, because if it was good enough-- 00:12:34.370 --> 00:12:35.770 Poberezny had fun with it. 00:12:35.770 --> 00:12:36.270 All right. 00:12:36.270 --> 00:12:38.460 So here's some examples of home-builts. 00:12:38.460 --> 00:12:42.490 Up on the left there, there's some kind of canard velocity. 00:12:42.490 --> 00:12:47.180 These folks spent 15 years building this helicopter. 00:12:47.180 --> 00:12:49.500 And they had about 40 hours of flight time on it. 00:12:49.500 --> 00:12:53.640 So to me, in a good month at a flight school, 00:12:53.640 --> 00:12:58.070 a Robinson helicopter might fly 90 hours or 100 hours 00:12:58.070 --> 00:12:58.800 in just a month. 00:12:58.800 --> 00:13:03.390 So it's taken them 15 years plus to get to where a flight 00:13:03.390 --> 00:13:05.580 school would get in a month. 00:13:05.580 --> 00:13:07.350 But that's kind of not the point. 00:13:07.350 --> 00:13:09.060 It's not about efficiency apparently. 00:13:09.060 --> 00:13:10.525 That's Rotorway kit, I bet. 00:13:10.525 --> 00:13:12.900 And they modified it by sticking in a little tiny turbine 00:13:12.900 --> 00:13:13.640 engine. 00:13:13.640 --> 00:13:14.920 This is another modification. 00:13:14.920 --> 00:13:18.240 This is an old Rutan design that became the Berkut 00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:19.740 with a big piston engine. 00:13:19.740 --> 00:13:23.620 This guy stuck a turbo jet engine in it. 00:13:23.620 --> 00:13:25.470 Here's the company-- yeah, 42,000-- 00:13:25.470 --> 00:13:27.990 I think that doesn't include the engine, which is under 50. 00:13:27.990 --> 00:13:31.360 You can build your own little single-seat jet. 00:13:31.360 --> 00:13:32.310 Cirrus was there. 00:13:32.310 --> 00:13:37.510 Cirrus actually has been kind of an industry-changing company. 00:13:37.510 --> 00:13:39.010 It didn't seem that way at the time, 00:13:39.010 --> 00:13:40.990 because it's very similar in performance 00:13:40.990 --> 00:13:43.720 to Mooneys and Pipers, and Cessnas. 00:13:43.720 --> 00:13:46.360 But they really have revolutionized the way 00:13:46.360 --> 00:13:49.030 that families buy airplanes now. 00:13:49.030 --> 00:13:51.210 And they've got over 7,000 of them. 00:13:51.210 --> 00:13:54.820 The parachute is, I think, critical to getting 00:13:54.820 --> 00:13:57.760 modern people to accept this design. 00:13:57.760 --> 00:13:59.920 And also the glass cockpit does make life easier. 00:13:59.920 --> 00:14:01.930 Although, everybody else has caught up there. 00:14:01.930 --> 00:14:03.250 Here's the Icon A5. 00:14:03.250 --> 00:14:04.750 They have the same booth every year. 00:14:04.750 --> 00:14:05.955 A huge amount of excitement. 00:14:05.955 --> 00:14:06.580 People love it. 00:14:06.580 --> 00:14:08.050 A lot of people have ordered it. 00:14:08.050 --> 00:14:10.480 They haven't figured out how to build it. 00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:12.730 The price has gone up to the point where 00:14:12.730 --> 00:14:15.970 you can almost by a Cessna Caravan on floats with a jet 00:14:15.970 --> 00:14:18.600 engine for the same price. 00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:21.310 Here is a retired Air Force and Southwest Airlines 00:14:21.310 --> 00:14:24.170 pilot with his electric self-launching Pipistrel 00:14:24.170 --> 00:14:24.680 glider. 00:14:24.680 --> 00:14:26.530 Pipistrel is the company to watch. 00:14:26.530 --> 00:14:28.570 They do a lot of interesting stuff 00:14:28.570 --> 00:14:32.998 in Slovenia, especially with electrics. 00:14:32.998 --> 00:14:34.540 This is not the kind of radar picture 00:14:34.540 --> 00:14:39.040 you want to see when you're in a $99 tent. 00:14:39.040 --> 00:14:44.110 I will say to Costco that it did hold up remarkably well. 00:14:44.110 --> 00:14:46.280 But it was scary. 00:14:46.280 --> 00:14:48.940 The seaplane base a few miles away from Oshkosh. 00:14:48.940 --> 00:14:51.670 They have the Oshkosh seaplane base. 00:14:51.670 --> 00:14:54.428 I think it's on Lake Winnebago. 00:14:54.428 --> 00:14:56.470 So you take a shuttle bus or you drive over there 00:14:56.470 --> 00:14:59.860 if you have a rental car. 00:14:59.860 --> 00:15:03.230 So you'll see-- they call it the quiet part of Oshkosh. 00:15:03.230 --> 00:15:06.290 It's quiet because you only hear about three or four aircraft 00:15:06.290 --> 00:15:08.810 engines running at any one time and maybe two 00:15:08.810 --> 00:15:10.790 takeoffs or landings. 00:15:10.790 --> 00:15:13.130 They have four hangars, vendors. 00:15:13.130 --> 00:15:16.880 If you want to take your dog in an unpressurized airplane up 00:15:16.880 --> 00:15:20.090 to 18,000 feet, you can buy this kit. 00:15:20.090 --> 00:15:24.220 I don't know what our golden retriever would say about that. 00:15:24.220 --> 00:15:28.460 There's affinity groups for different slices. 00:15:28.460 --> 00:15:31.300 Here's a woman who just like-- just for female pilots 00:15:31.300 --> 00:15:33.260 to Mooneys. 00:15:33.260 --> 00:15:35.510 Air shows every day. 00:15:35.510 --> 00:15:38.480 My favorite acts actually were-- 00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:39.620 I did like the GameBird. 00:15:39.620 --> 00:15:40.380 That was cool. 00:15:40.380 --> 00:15:42.350 But I also liked these first two were 00:15:42.350 --> 00:15:44.480 kind of regular family airplanes just 00:15:44.480 --> 00:15:45.950 being pushed to their limits. 00:15:45.950 --> 00:15:48.727 It wouldn't be legal just to go out and do that in a Baron, 00:15:48.727 --> 00:15:50.060 because you can't do acrobatics. 00:15:50.060 --> 00:15:53.045 But he'll put it into experimental category, 00:15:53.045 --> 00:15:54.920 and then just fly it right up to the G limits 00:15:54.920 --> 00:15:56.600 for which it was designed. 00:15:56.600 --> 00:15:59.630 And it's amazing to see what these ordinary family 00:15:59.630 --> 00:16:03.020 or business airplanes can do when pushed. 00:16:03.020 --> 00:16:05.750 There were-- one thing that's interesting, 00:16:05.750 --> 00:16:08.942 about 150 Beechcraft aerobatic Bonanzas were built. 00:16:08.942 --> 00:16:09.900 They were strengthened. 00:16:09.900 --> 00:16:15.030 And it is legal to do aerobatics in your four-seat Bonanza. 00:16:15.030 --> 00:16:16.920 Night airshow. 00:16:16.920 --> 00:16:18.660 I guess that's worth showing. 00:16:18.660 --> 00:16:21.360 It is so unusual. 00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:24.720 They had explosives and fireworks mounted on aircraft. 00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:28.370 They fly around at night, shooting fireworks off. 00:16:28.370 --> 00:16:31.770 I guess you may have to view that on your own, 00:16:31.770 --> 00:16:33.940 which isn't so bad. 00:16:33.940 --> 00:16:36.160 A lot of warbirds. 00:16:36.160 --> 00:16:38.470 Everything from World War II is still 00:16:38.470 --> 00:16:39.760 flying pretty much at Oshkosh. 00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:43.988 That Grumman Tigercat on the right, 00:16:43.988 --> 00:16:45.530 I'd never even heard of that airplane 00:16:45.530 --> 00:16:46.613 until I saw it at Oshkosh. 00:16:49.260 --> 00:16:51.490 That's-- I think this is EAA's own B-17, 00:16:51.490 --> 00:16:54.890 which they fly around and sell rides in and stuff. 00:16:54.890 --> 00:16:59.840 Oh, and up on the top right is a flying 1/3 Scale B-17 00:16:59.840 --> 00:17:06.520 that some crazy guy spent 15 years building or more. 00:17:06.520 --> 00:17:07.244 That's EAA. 00:17:07.244 --> 00:17:09.619 Also, they have a B-29. 00:17:09.619 --> 00:17:12.547 Up there at the top right is my friend Eric with his personal-- 00:17:12.547 --> 00:17:14.839 I guess he's in the foundation with a few other people, 00:17:14.839 --> 00:17:17.960 but essentially a personal DC-3. 00:17:17.960 --> 00:17:19.550 Oh, and he's flying that to Europe 00:17:19.550 --> 00:17:23.826 this year for the 50th Anniversary of D-day. 00:17:23.826 --> 00:17:25.810 Is it the 50th? 00:17:25.810 --> 00:17:27.330 No, it can't be. 00:17:27.330 --> 00:17:28.190 AUDIENCE: 75th. 00:17:28.190 --> 00:17:28.569 PHILIP GREENSPUN: What? 00:17:28.569 --> 00:17:29.310 75th. 00:17:29.310 --> 00:17:30.130 Sorry. 00:17:30.130 --> 00:17:30.640 Thank you. 00:17:30.640 --> 00:17:33.670 I was a math undergrad. 00:17:33.670 --> 00:17:36.587 Good illustration of the value of a Course 18 degree. 00:17:36.587 --> 00:17:38.170 And actually, when I was an undergrad, 00:17:38.170 --> 00:17:39.587 people said, how will you ever get 00:17:39.587 --> 00:17:41.170 a job if you're a math major? 00:17:41.170 --> 00:17:42.540 The engineers all said that. 00:17:42.540 --> 00:17:44.810 Well, we said, well, we can become actuaries. 00:17:44.810 --> 00:17:47.390 We can become actuaries. 00:17:47.390 --> 00:17:52.030 There was a group of folks who were passionate about warbirds 00:17:52.030 --> 00:17:53.380 down in the south. 00:17:53.380 --> 00:17:55.900 And they called their organization 00:17:55.900 --> 00:17:58.098 the Confederate Air Force. 00:17:58.098 --> 00:17:59.640 Well, they've had to change that now. 00:17:59.640 --> 00:18:01.980 Now they're the Commemorative Air Force. 00:18:01.980 --> 00:18:03.550 And they're big into-- 00:18:03.550 --> 00:18:05.320 they brought the Tuskegee Airmen, 00:18:05.320 --> 00:18:09.010 some of the remaining P-51 guys from World War II there. 00:18:09.010 --> 00:18:11.860 I gave a talk with NOAA. 00:18:11.860 --> 00:18:15.130 That's Kate from NOAA trying to get volunteer pilots to fly sea 00:18:15.130 --> 00:18:18.250 turtles back from Cape Cod and other northern places 00:18:18.250 --> 00:18:20.333 to Florida. 00:18:20.333 --> 00:18:21.875 Sunday morning, it was time to leave. 00:18:25.120 --> 00:18:28.820 For me, I saw 30% of what we'd hoped to see 00:18:28.820 --> 00:18:31.190 and 1% of what there was to see. 00:18:31.190 --> 00:18:34.093 As you can see from the right, that One Week Wonder's 00:18:34.093 --> 00:18:34.760 coming together. 00:18:34.760 --> 00:18:36.800 It actually did fly, I believe, on Sunday. 00:18:36.800 --> 00:18:40.270 So they got it built in seven or eight days. 00:18:40.270 --> 00:18:43.390 We went to Mackinac Island, beautiful place up 00:18:43.390 --> 00:18:46.340 near the Canadian border. 00:18:46.340 --> 00:18:48.050 Everything's horse-drawn or a bicycle. 00:18:52.433 --> 00:18:53.850 A fun place to go in the airplane. 00:18:53.850 --> 00:18:56.010 We went and landed in the Toronto City Island 00:18:56.010 --> 00:18:58.890 Airport, which is right in front of the downtown. 00:18:58.890 --> 00:19:02.910 We had Chinese food, saw the aquarium, 00:19:02.910 --> 00:19:04.110 landed back in Bedford. 00:19:04.110 --> 00:19:07.800 So we burned off 15 hours of Hobbs time. 00:19:07.800 --> 00:19:10.340 Split by three people, that wouldn't be too horrible. 00:19:10.340 --> 00:19:12.720 It was about $3,000 at retail. 00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:16.710 Next year, I think it might be time to go JetBlue. 00:19:16.710 --> 00:19:22.260 So the summary is that even as the regulation 00:19:22.260 --> 00:19:26.850 has made light aircraft almost as expensive to operate 00:19:26.850 --> 00:19:31.590 commercially at least or for charter as the big aircraft, 00:19:31.590 --> 00:19:33.450 but Oshkosh keeps growing every year. 00:19:33.450 --> 00:19:34.950 More people are passionate about it. 00:19:34.950 --> 00:19:37.110 So what you're seeing in the aircraft world 00:19:37.110 --> 00:19:39.070 is like the very high end and the very low end 00:19:39.070 --> 00:19:42.050 are kind of prospering. 00:19:42.050 --> 00:19:43.482 This is Oxana's thing. 00:19:43.482 --> 00:19:45.690 She asked everybody like, what brings you to Oshkosh? 00:19:45.690 --> 00:19:47.860 And they always said, the people, 00:19:47.860 --> 00:19:49.620 I love talking to the people here. 00:19:49.620 --> 00:19:51.690 And I feel that way, too. 00:19:51.690 --> 00:19:54.230 People go year after year. 00:19:54.230 --> 00:19:56.670 There's a whole bunch of links here in the presentation. 00:19:56.670 --> 00:19:59.340 And finally, what I like most about it is-- 00:19:59.340 --> 00:20:03.210 and the reason I'm going back, I think, is it's my safe space. 00:20:03.210 --> 00:20:05.050 Outside of this room if I tell people 00:20:05.050 --> 00:20:07.260 I like to go over to Hanscom Field 00:20:07.260 --> 00:20:10.950 and fly this little four-seat airplane with a piston engine, 00:20:10.950 --> 00:20:11.730 they're horrified. 00:20:11.730 --> 00:20:13.660 They think that that's just so dumb. 00:20:13.660 --> 00:20:16.140 You could just drive in New York in your Honda. 00:20:16.140 --> 00:20:18.105 You could get a ticket on JetBlue for no money. 00:20:18.105 --> 00:20:19.230 Like why would you do that? 00:20:19.230 --> 00:20:20.190 It's dumb. 00:20:20.190 --> 00:20:24.710 But Oshkosh is the one place where nobody will say that.