My 1946 Cessna 140
My dad bought this 1946 140 in 1988. I flew it out of Manassas,
Hilton Head, and College
Park.
I last flew it in 1991. It was a great airplane and I hope it is still flying.
Dads Cessna 177
He had a part ownership of this Cardinal. I last flew it in 1991. I ran across
a repaint of the
dreamflight 177 as this airplane. I use it as my default airplane in FS2004.
Grumman Widgeon
One of my favorite planes growing up was the Grumman Goose. I have flown its
smaller sibling the Widgeon
and now I am a big Widgeon fan. My friend Randy
has a G-44A Super
Widgeon and he has given me
a few lessons. It is a great plane to fly but I am struggling with the landings.
(water and land)
L-29 Delphin
I took an hour of dual instruction in an Aero
Vodochody L-29 Delphin.
I was in the front cockpit.
We did rolls, loops and a Cuban 8. It was very exciting. I really enjoyed the
power and smoothness
of the jet. It is very different than flying behind a prop. We flew out of Livermore
Airport.
L-39 Albatros
Since then I found that the only civilian
jet aerobatics team in the US is based at Byron
Airport.
They fly the L-39 Albatros.
It is also by Aero Vodochody but is faster and more powerful than the L-29.
My neighbor is their mechanic and I got to take a flight in his plane. It was
my first time in a plane with hot
ejection seats. This airplane was sold and is currently in San Diego.
I am in the back and my neighbor is in the front.
Nellis Ferry
After the nellis airshow I got to fly in the backseat of the #3 airplane. It
was the longest
jet flight I have made and it was incredible. We flew formation all the way
from Nellis
to Byron. Here are some of the pictures I got when I was not on the stick.
Our lead plane. My instructor was flying at this point so we are in the right place ;)
Our next door neighbor, #2. Beautiful countryside between Nellis and Byron.
The view from the backseat. The camera is for recording the back seater when
they fly
reporters and VIPs, and the coiled wire is the canopy block for the front ejection
seat.
You can see the stabilizing chute packed into the top tray of the front headrest.
I love Jets.
Vlady wanted to show us the spacing for the airshow formation. That was a little
too
close for us so we just stayed out and took pictures.
This L-39 has an awesome paintjob. There is not a single square inch of it
that is not
perfect. It is a real beauty. I did not get to fly it but it was fun to watch.
I just tossed it
in here because it is pretty.
Smoke system controller
The Patriots jets have a custom smoke system installed. This is what their colored smoke looks like.
Between the 2004 and 2005 seasons they redesigned the system to include additional
tank volume to carry more smoke oil. During that redesign we replaced the exisiting
motor control system which consisted of a relay and a large variable resistor
with a
custom designed speed controller with additional functions.
I designed the controller based on the Microchip
PIC processor.It uses a 3 digit LED
display for daylight readability and 3 buttons to configure the controller.
Here is the
original prototype mounted on foam board to try out the configuration in the
plane.
After flight testing the prototype I had production quality boards fabricated
by
PCB Fab Express. This is the unpopulated
pcb.
This is the board with the components installed. The things that are more likely
to be
damaged are in sockets but most things are soldered directly on. The blue screw
header
is for the thermocouple connection. I needed all the pins so there is no in
circuit
programming ability. The PIC is removed, flashed and re-installed.
The final assembly is faced with plexiglass so the buttons, direction switch,
and circuit
breaker are accessable yet the status LEDs and display are visible and protected.
The board on the right is an MC7
Motorcontroller from Diverse Electronics.
It is driven by a PWM signal from the custom board on the left. The entire unit
is quickly
replaceable in the aircraft with 2 screws and 2 plugs.
The board opens and closes the 2 solenoid valves that prevent leakage, controls
the speed of
the smoke oil pump, and remembers the run time of the system so we know how
much
oil is left after each flight. A float switch in the tank controls automatic
filling and a
thermocouple interface provides a fire warning system for the L-39 APU. The
PIC
processor has eeprom on it so settings, times and max temp are retained even
after power off.
Intermittent System
After resting for a few minutes when the controller was done we started with
the "Wouldn't
it be cool if..." game again. The next innovation in the Patriots smoke
system is a custom
controller that produces synchronized intermittent smoke.
This is
the original prototype.
Here it is mounted in the plane.
It is capable of coordinating between the 3 aircraft and producing a varity
of patterns.
The pilot selects which of the 4 patterns he wants with the red and black buttons.
The
green LEDs indicate which pattern is currently selected. Each board is programmed
with the airplane number it is installed in so it knows where in the sequence
it is.
It was a big hit at the Jacqueline
Cochran Airshow and the Nellis Airshow
in 2005.
There was a webcast
of the Nellis show on tvworldwide.com
and it shows off the
intermittant system better than any photo can. Here is a still picture anyway.
This is, from right to left, One second of white smoke from #1, one second
of red smoke from #2,
one second of blue from #3 and another second of white from lead again.
