Another beautiful day in Oshkosh.

I spent most of the morning with Z and the Guys from the Microsoft Flight Sim group... what a fun job they must have.  Even took a little flight in a couple Sport Pilot Class planes... real cool.  The CT is a nice little plane!  Really liked that little EuroFox... and for only $52,000 complete... that's a fantastic price.  The fit/finish on that plane was aboutely fantastic... and the attention to details really impressed us.  (Z, Myself and one of the other guys were thinking about buying them right then and there... alas... we didn't have the money.)

I also got a chance to talk with Mike Melville, of SpaceShipOne fame.  He's a real "down to Earth" kind of guy... (pun completely intended)... and funny too!  We chatted about his trip and he discribed to me (and about 350 of my closest friends) how his flight was... you remember the one where he "rolled it a few times."  Well, he actually described that experience to us... those of us who fly know what a "departure" is, right... well that's exactly what he had... Departure From Controlled Flight (DFCF)  meaning he basically lost control of that little aircraft and was just along for the ride.  He even made jokes then, describing how in the video, you could see his hand move to the "engine cutoff" switch... hesitate, and then move back to the controls... he said that he was thinking to himself... "Mike, if you do that, Burt (Rutan) is going to fire you!"

Oh... you might be wondering about the little storm we had last night... we'll we didn't get out of it unscratched... apparently my RV got struck by lightening in the night... as all my power outlets are inoperative now.  Thankfully, I didn't have anything but a TV plugged in... the amazing thing is that everything else is still working... even the lights.  It's just the power outlets that failed.  (The one for the microwave is on a separate circuit and it still works, so I've been using it.)  All the others are on a seperate GFCI circuit... and with nothing else plugged in, it keeps popping.  So hopefully it's just a simple replacement of that GFC outlet... I'll know when I get home.

I also talked to a bunch of guys who developed Aircraft Engine Monitors... if you remember, in my panel I won't have any, so I'm going to buy someone elses... well... I found the one.  It's made by a company called Xerion Avionix.  "Xerion" is the alchemists term for the "Magic Dust" that you could sprinkle on any metal and turn it into gold.  Their system had literally 100% of my requirements in a single package.  Very nice.

Well... until Tomorrow...

Bill