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Well, it has been another year and another Oshkosh. Overall it was a pretty
good show despite the grounding of the Concord and the Harrier. Attendance
was down quite a bit which was a surprise given the temperate weather the
entire show. IFR conditions (fog) Friday and Saturday mornings plus Wx to
the east were partly to blame.

Pre departure preparations were the usual mad dash. This year I decided to
add a pair of Sierra Flight Systems EFIS2000 displays to the panel and,
despite my best intentions otherwise, I had managed to run the clock down so
that I had exactly one day (the Sunday before our Tuesday departure) to
complete the installation. I had already designed and fabricated a new pilot
side instrument panel so the installation involved making a bracket for the
AHRS, ripping out the old steam gages, installing the new parts, routing and
connecting connecting up the new harnesses, re-plumbing and testing the
pitot-static system and putting the plane back together. I started at 6:00
and was finished and tested by 21:00. I now have a stack of slightly used
instruments for sale, DG, GPS CDI, LOC GS Indicator, Attitude Gyro, ROC, and
Stormscope, all 28 volt.

Most of the usual suspects were at the show although there seemed to be
fewer aircraft parts and more sunglasses, tee shirts and folding chairs for
sale. Bellanca was conspicuously absent but Eclipse was there, getting the
"Biggest Tent" award. The 500 Hp Williams turboprop engine was on display
with a ring of drool stains around it. Daddy neeeeeds one, pleeeeeeaaaaase!

Marv hosted a Lancair talk on Friday where the "Bent Prop" aware was
presented to Derek Hine for his famous nose gear up landing and the "Brass
Ball" was given Gary Burns for his earth rounding adventure.

The Lancair banquet attendance was down from last year but the food was
great! Amber and Orin's new baby was holding court, what a cutie, obviously
Amber's influence there ;)

Some of you already know that Sierra is a client of Regan Designs and that
we designed the display and processor subsystem, aka IDU or Multi Function
Display (MFD), so you are probably thinking that I am self serving with my
praise of their EFIS products. Fine, assume that I am, but I will warn you,
unless you are able to buy one you shouldn't even look at one. They are
selling today what the GAP participants and others are claiming they will
have in 2 to 5 years. Their stuff is cool, and yes, I did have to buy it.
Those guys know what they have and aren't cutting deals to anyone, so the
answer is "No, I can't get you a discount, sorry." I wasn't alone on the
field, there were 8 planes that flew in to OSH with the SFS hardware, three
of which were IVs.

As it turned out the installation of the SFS hardware was fortuitous as my
steam gage attitude gyro (which was now my backup gyro but had been my
PRIMARY gyro) failed while we were hard IFR going into Billings on the way
home. No flag, just 10 degrees off in pitch and roll, probably a bad
bearing. Right then I learned to love the solid state attitude and heading
reference system that Sierra had provided.

My only complaint is that you tend to fixate on the PFD, because that is
where all the information is, and your scan gets rusty fast. Instrument and
VFR approaches are made so easy that, if you flew one of these systems all
the time, you would need a couple of hours of practice before you could take
a traditionally equipped airplane into the clag. Problems like this I can
live with as I only fly IMC in my airplane. Comparing the Sierra system to a
HSI flight director is like comparing a GPS with moving map to an ADF, no
joke.

Twenty years from now, when I am an old fart, I'll get together with my
hanger rat buddies to tell lies and we'll go and fly a VOR approach for
nostalgia. I feel a tear coming on, sniff.

Regards
Brent Regan

LML website:   http://www.olsusa.com/Users/Mkaye/maillist.html
LML Builders' Bookstore:   http://www.buildersbooks.com/lancair

Please send your photos and drawings to marvkaye@olsusa.com.