Oshkosh 2003

		Page 1 of 3 click any picture to see a big hi-rez version
I flew to Minnesota and visited my parents. Here's their cabin.			My dad's super-grill. It has every feature for cooking all things.

This dock used to be a diving board.

Theta axis stabilizer unit.

Main buoyancy chamber.

"Lake Inferior" is perfectly round, edged with a floating bog.

I built this windsurfer a long time ago before I saw a real one. The rounded bottom of the tail is draggy. Real shapes are better.

It's pretty good to sit on and paddle with a kayak paddle. 12'x12'x4" blue styrofoam. Cut with a hotwire, glued on the offcut to make the upturned tip and sanded to shape. Painted with epoxy to keep the foam from dissolving and fiberglassed with polyester resin. The deck got compression wrinkles because it's too flat.

This paddle used to be a goalie stick.

This paddle used to be a 2x4. It's Aleut with flat faces. I also made a greenlander with rounded faces. They work the same.


I always wanted to see the Mega-Mall.	This is Camp Snoopy. An indoor amusement park.	With rides so frightening children leap to their deaths.	To escape the terror.


Drove to Wisconsin. Cousin Jo makes fried pumpkin blossoms.	Pull off the green thing and coat with flour.	Fry in hot butter. Raccoons won't touch a pumpkin plant.	Turn it over. One year there was a path through the pumpkin vines


surrounding the sweet corn patch. The raccoons got through and ate all the corn.	It's delicious. Daryl struggles with the addiction.	Chatty Belle, the worlds largest talking cow. $.25 per utterance.	She can only say "Visit our gift shop."


Going to submit our complaint.	It's an architectural marvel from a sixties world fair.	Homage to the noble red man.	A nice roof truss.

Outside is a glass reefer trailer that once held the world's largest cheese. Now contains a large cardboard box labeled "cheese".


Lots of Amish in the area. I'd love to chat, but I'm in a hurry.	I'm driving while shooting pictures and listening to five electronic machines.	Amish success drives up land prices and they settle in new areas.

More driving, and I get to
OSHKOSH!


A vast field with thousands of homemade airplanes and people camping under the wings.	Cute amphibians. The scale of the event is vast. Very well organized and more than you could ever see.


	very slick folding wings	bet your life	it'll work


There are dozens of these classrooms with hundreds of	classes, lectures, movies	and shelter from rain storms

At night Chuck Yeager and friends reminisce. "So I dropped my wing tanks on top of Mont Blanc, you strafed them and set them on fire..."


another rain storm. A good time	to see the EAA museum	Tiny airplanes. 6' wingspan. Carried an adult.


The future got here already.	Flying car.	pusher design built from a pair of scrap wings

An air-racer.

I think it's a naked Curtiss Jenny

The BD-5, legendary homebuilt. Thousands sold, a handful completed. Designed around an engine that never materialized. This example has a pusher prop instead of the jet engine. Tiny.

Took the bus out to the seaplane base on lake Winnebago. Watched the kids splashing and the float planes taking off and landing. Hard to believe an ultralight could take off with a dinghy like that bolted to it.

The star of the show was a big new Russian amphibian. Just certified that day. Interesting design with no pontoons. Beautiful finish. You could fly it home for a mere half-million. Which is more than a Russian engineer earns in um, 300 years. These Russian engineers are very careful with their plane.

Oshkosh 2003 photos continued

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