Not Surprising – The sUAS NPRM Release Date has been Pushed Back Again

According to the May update on DOT’s Rulemaking Webpage the projected publication date for the small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) has been pushed back to October 2012. Sources close to the project speculate that we may not see the somewhat contentious proposed rule until after the 2012 Presidential campaign. My money is on the later…

See more at AMA Government Relations Blog.

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Dayton marks 100 year anniversary of Wright death Friday May 30, 2012

Wilbur Wright
Bells will toll and a moment of silence will be held across the Dayton area on Friday in honor of the 100th anniversary of the death of Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912)……..

Read the full story here.


Film was taken in Italy on April 24, 1907. It is the first time a motion picture was ever shot from a plane in flight. The footage shows what it was like to fly on one of the early Wright craft, with Wilbur at the helm. The clip opens with the launching, then the plane climbs, levels off, and passes over the flight grounds.

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VJ Day, Honolulu Hawaii


Great video worth sharing. Perhaps you have a veteran of WWII in the family. I plan to show this to my father in-law who was stationed on Hawaii although not at the time of Pearl Harbor. Freedom is not free.

Visit Vimeo and read about this video.

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Seeing To Fly

Peter A. Van Houten, MD
Peter A. Van Houten, MD

Some of you who know me are aware I gave up soda pop because I wanted to avoid all artificial sweeteners and particularly Fructose.  These products have been out of my life for a couple of years now. I may post about the reasons why in the future. At Joe Nal this past week, I met Dr. Peter Van Houton who is an avid modeler and practices at East Carolina Retina Consultants.  While we spoke the subject of soda came up and he told me of his long study of it’s effects on the retina.   He can see how many soda’s you consume each day by examining the specific type of damage on your retina.  This information is imporant to consider for all those wishing to extend quality of vision as long as possible.  He explained to me that he felt it is the primary driver of diabetic eye problems.  Check out his posting on this subject here: Drink Water Not Sodas.

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Dayton Hamvention 2012 May 18-20

Hamvention Aerial View
Hamvention Aerial View

Yes, everything you see in the lot is a vendor booth with the exception of the left most triangle. The entire building is full. Several RC vendors with cross-over products attend this event.

Audio Commercial for Hamvention

Hamvention Home Page

I had a ball here one year ago. Not exactly modeling, however, it’s a tinker’s delight. You need to attend this event once in your lifetime. Lots of radio, computer, antenna and misc here. You can see it in one day if you keep those feet moving fast all day.

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$400 Flash Bulb Seen At SEFF 2012, Cool Video

Tanken By WildBill at SEFF 2012. Get a load of how big this event is and the 5 flight lines. A large portion of the field was locked out due to Mac leveling the grade of the runway and building the pond. Still plenty of room for 5 flight lines. Will there be 6 next year? Yikes! Oh yea, did I say carbon is conductive?

And the Aftermath Video includes a closer shot of the perps:

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Night Bowling at SEFF 2012

This had to be the biggest hoot ever at a night fly. Heard the cheering from across the field, went to investigate and found alot of foam crunching fun going on. Had to be 200 spectators. It looked easier than it was, how could these guys miss so often?

Come to SEFF, learn that you can have more fun that you thought you could take. Stretch yourself.

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SEFF 2012

What a great time it was! I’m always quite exhausted with show responsibilities having to go to SEFF only 1 week after returning from Toledo. I have to say however, the salve of SEFF hath soothed my fatigue. A few days into it I was feeling more rested and looking forward to flying. We arrived Monday evening. It was quite windy with substantial flying only in the evening with night flyers, By Thursday it was much better and improving hour by hour. The last 2 days were perfect flying weather. Got to fly the 1905 Wright Flyer in a big space for the first time. I really enjoyed it and look forward to another opportunity. We met and renewed friendships with many. The field now has a lake for float flying and it was active. A large portion of the field was off limits due to containing all the soil removed from the lake being used to bring it up to grade improving the runway. By next year the grass will be in and it will all be usable. Even with this project in mid stream, there was plenty of room for 5 flight lines. Can’t wait to see it and attend again next year. If your thinking of attending SEFF let me warn you up front. It will become a yearly trip for you. It’s nothing but fun from sunrise until you give up each evening night flying. thanks to Mac Hodges for hosting SEFF again at his phenominal flying sight again this year. Thanks to all the Feyetteville Flyers and other volunteers that make the event possible. See you there next year!

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B-25 Flight Complete At Last

I was cooler today but the ceiling was high and visibiliity was good.  Mostly cloudy, nice that some blue was showing.  I was in the second flight of the day so the engines were already warmed up, didn’t take long from strapping into to engine start and down the taxi way.   It was a great flight.  I tool lots of pictures and video.  I hope it all comes out well.   Soon as I have it processed, I’ll stick it up here.

I have to go to the shop and finish packing for SEFF which is running at this time.  We plan to be open in the vendor area Wednesday through Saturday.  Not sure how well my tether from laptop to phone will work there.  If it works well, I should be able to get some shots uploaded.

Our flight was the last one of a long week of flights the Barbie III crew put in.  It was a great time.   I heard they were anxious to head for home.   After disembarking, I asked one of the crew if he remembered his first warbird flight?  He said oh yes!  I told him that I just had mine.

Eddy Noble and son Curtis (remember Nikitis Aircraft) were on the same flight.  What a surprise to ride with people I knew.  They were kind enough to show thier 1946 Cub to my family.  It is in excellent condition.   Well over 100 youth have gotton a ride in Eddy’s Cub. Meeting Ed’s son, I can tell you he’ll be a successful postive force in the world. What a gentleman.

I’ll try to stick up photo’s and more details about the experience later in the week. I noticed a big uptick in visitors since I put the post up yesterday. Thanks for following!

Happy Flying All!
Dave

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