Just as children eagerly await Christmas, I can’t wait each year to wake up and find that I’m in Oshkosh. If you’ve never been to Oshkosh, and you wonder how busy people manage to squeeze it into their schedule each year, let me explain how simple it is. Just start planning for it immediately. Mark if off the calendar for 2009 and then guard the time, as there will be at least a dozen activities that will compete for that time. Just keep saying no and then do what I’m doing now–smile because you’re in Oshkosh! Here’s a quick sampling of the past few weeks and my first full day at Oshkosh.
Friends and blog readers will note that I’ve been invisible…
for the last six weeks. That’s because I was developing a new training course for the Perspective glass cockpit, now shipping in the Cirrus SR22. It was finished around midnight before I left for Oshkosh, which is about par for most companies in the aviation business. Development was pure fun, though a lot of other activities suffered (like trips to the gym!). Best of all, ours is the first training course available for this exciting new glass cockpit.
I’ll post soon on the fun I’ve had flying this amazing new glass cockpit. However, in the meantime, if you want to learn all of the details of how to fly the Perspective, take our online course. All you need is a computer and a high speed internet connection. The course is $79, and you’ll find it at http://pilotlearning.coursehost.com
My Day 1 at Oshkosh has been full of renewed acquaintances with friends and chance encounters with a variety of people. Just inside the front gate, we ran into Juice Welch, a Cirrus demo pilot that I wrote about 2 months ago. She’s looking well and proudly showed the many aircraft–several of them equipped with the new Perspective glass cockpit, on display at Cirrus. One of them is the new Cirrus jet that features the L3 SmartDeck glass cockpit, which I’ll talk more about in a minute.
Moments later, we were at the AOPA tent to score a hat for my mother who arrived hatless from Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, unlike past years where they had zillions of hats to give away, they weren’t available this year. Fortunately, a friend behind the desk “found” one for me (and yes he swore us to secrecy–which is why I’m not mentioning his or her name).
Just outside the AOPA tent, I saw Paul Poberezny sitting in a golf cart and we talked for a few minutes. Paul is of course the gentleman who started EAA more than 50 years ago, initially maintaining the membership list using index cards on the kitchen table. It’s hard to say enough good things about a man responsible for AirVenture, which, for one week a year, is the greatest convocation of aviation aficionados on the planet.
As we talked, Paul told me a story which conveys a little of the impact AirVenture makes in the lives of people. He said a man once came up to him and told him how, as a child, his family went to AirVenture every year and that Paul had been an inspiration to him throughout his life. It turns out that the man was a 2-star general. Great story.
We also talked about the Young Eagles, which is a great program that’s exposed around 1.4 million kids to aviation through free flights held by local EAA chapters around the country. As good as the program is, most anything can be improved, so I brought up one of my hot buttons about it and discovered that Paul has frustration over the same issue. As a high tech industry marketer, I learned the value of closed-loop marketing programs that follow-up on leads so that one can analyze the outcome of programs. Without that, you really have no idea of how effective a program is and what kind of return you’re getting on your efforts. We’re doing a great job of flying teenagers, but there’s no follow-up to find out if these kids want to take flying lessons, have an interest in an aviation career or have joined a local EAA chapter. I hope Paul keeps pushing to make this happen, as we need lots of new pilots if we’re going to keep General Aviation alive and available for future generations.
As an an aside, I asked Paul if I could sit in his golf cart and get my picture taken with him. A woman standing nearby immediately piped up and offered to take the picture. We’d never met, and I should have introduced myself to her as I instantly recognized her. You might think that an Executive President from AOPA (one of the half dozen people below the President) might be too engaged to offer to take the picture of a stranger, but not so for Karen Gebhart who runs the Communications department, which includes all of the magazines and ePublishing activities. You’ll notice that she also takes great pictures. Thanks for offering Karen–and I promise to introduce myself the next time our paths cross!
We then walked past the largest cargo jet in the world—Boeing’s Dreamlifter. One of the cool things about Oshkosh is that companies are smart enough to know that if they happen to be in the area, they should stop by and show off their wares. In this case, the DreamLifter was only in town for 24 hours, so we were happy to have arrived in time to see it. I had never even heard of this airplane before, but apparently Boeing built three of them to help fly parts in for the production of their Dreamliner aircraft.
Next it was off to the National Association of Flight Instructors or NAFI tent. Rod Machado wrote two years ago about this being the “secret tent” at Oshkosh where one finds all kind of interesting people. That’s totally true, and I consider it my “home away from home” when I’m at AirVenture and Sun ‘n Fun. We ran into Mike Lorden, general manager of ASA, who’s become a good friend over the years. We swapped stories about his recent drive across the U.S. and a recent flight of mine over Mt. Rushmore. We had lots of good laughs, which is part of the fun!
In the afternoon, I went to the Appleton airport at the invitation of the L3 corporation to test fly one of three airplanes in the world outfitted with the new L3 SmartDeck glass cockpit. One of those planes is the new Cirrus Design jet, which just underwent its first test flights in recent weeks. The other two are Cirrus SR22’s which are flying test beds for the new system and I flew one of these planes. After about a half hour briefing we jumped in the plane and flew for 1.2 hours. We flew a LNAV+V approach into the Green Bay airport and maneuvered North of Appleton so that I could play with each of the many features.
I’ll write up a separate post later with more details, but I’ll let you know that this system has many very nice features. Best of all, it has many small tiny things that simplify the way were used to doing things. I’ll tantalize you with a couple of these. Garmin G1000 and 430/530 users know that to go direct to a waypoint, you press the Direct-to key followed by two pushes of the ENT key. On the SmartDeck, you just push the Direct-to key once and that’s it. Subtle, simple and effective.
A very common error on G1000 and Perspective systems is that when completing an operation, people press the FMS knob rather than the ENT key. Sadly, this totally eliminates all of the key presses up to that point, and people have to start all over. I see this error almost every single day I teach in these aircraft. Many SmartDeck operations don’t require a completion operation (like pushing the ENT key), but for those that do, you push the FMS knob, which is what people seem to be doing instinctively—though incorrectly–on the G1000. Kudos to SmartDeck on great human factors work on some of these pitfalls. More on SmartDeck soon.
While flying, I heard Cessna 400 demo pilot and friend Emily on the air, and the tower let me say a quick hello. She provided lots of help identifying differences in this plane for multiple editions of my Max Trescott’s G1000 Glass Cockpit Handbook, so I’m always in her debt. She was also my instructor when I was certified at the factory two years ago. Hours later, while reading my notes from the SmartDeck flight, I bumped into her in the parking lot. That’s one of great things about AirVenture. You always bump into people you know, which is at least half of the fun of the show
The big news at the show was that Vern Raburn stepped down as the CEO from Eclipse as part of a deal to secure additional financing. Living in Silicon Valley as I do, one learns quickly that there’s no shame in this. Some people are the visionaries that start companies, as Vern did eleven years ago, and others are the operational experts that take companies to the next level. Apparently the board felt that it was time to change jockeys, but this takes nothing away from Vern’s amazing accomplishments at Eclipse. Job well done Vern and we cannot wait to hear of your next venture. Hopefully it too will be in aviation and we’ll all benefit from your remarkable talents.
Dinner was with a dozen Northern California friends, some of whom are working at the show and others who flew out to attend the show. Two quick stories. My mother flew in commercially from a small regional airport, but before the flight left, it was delayed because the aircraft was 100 pounds overweight. The solution? The crew sat on the ground running the engines until they’d burned off the extra weight. No one at the table had heard of that before.
Another friend of ours who works for the FAA is delayed in reaching the show. Apparently–and this is second hand because he hasn’t arrived yet– he flew in the jump seat of a commercial jet, and when doing that (even to come to AirVenture) has to do so in an official capacity. Apparently there was a pilot deviation in flight and our friend had to write up the crew! He got off at the hub airport and went to the local FSDO to complete the paperwork, which has delayed him considerably in getting here. I’m sure he wished he hadn’t seen whatever happened as this was a huge inconvenience to him. But I’m glad that this FAA inspector doesn’t look the other way when a major error occurs. We’re all safer when errors are known, reported and talked about. Even if the process is sometimes a little painful.
Speaking of the FAA, tomorrow night I’ll be meeting Acting Administrator Bobby Sturgell and I hear that he’s giving me an award. Is Oshkosh a cool place or what? Right now, there’s no other place in the world I’d rather be.