I'm not sure what we were thinking when we decided to do this. I believe it went something like this. James: "Some day we should fly the Aircam to Oshkosh." Me: "Well, let's do it now, before I get any older." If we had spent much more time debating it, we probably wouldn't have done it. Tooling along at seventy-five mph at 500 feet above the ground is great for local sight-seeing and photos. But a 530 nautical mile cross-country is a little tough on the behind, especially when one is accustomed to hundred eighty mph plus speeds in the RV.
James checked me out in the Aircam, a twin-engine, tandem-seat machine with open cockpits and fabric-covered wings. I have a multi engine rating and a tailwheel endorsement, so I'm legal to fly the aircraft. The first thing you notice about flying the Aircam is its astonishing climb rate. At full power (just over 5,000 RPM's), a healthy tug on the stick is required to achieve the desired 70 mph for climb. This gives one the feeling of a very rapid ascent in an open-air elevator. I think I left my stomach on the ground on my first takeoff. Cruise flight and turns are simple, albeit the stick forces are heavy, and slow turns are called for. Leveling out often requires the stick to be moved in the opposite direction, and there is a feeling of the wing flexing somewhat during more rapid turns or gusts. The landing pattern calls for a much steeper descent than I am accustomed to, as the Aircam has lots of drag to cancel out all that thrust of the two 100 hp engines. Power is held into the flair, then reduced as it levels off. Wheel-landings require just a nudge forward on the stick at touch-down. Our particular airplane has a bit of a shimmy in the tailwheel which makes three-point landings on a hard surface a bit uncomfortable.
I love flying this thing. Despite my comments above, it was not hard to convince me to take this trip. The front seat is like an out-of-body experience, with nothing on either side except a view of the world above and below. The wind screen is very effective, making for a non-windy, pleasant ride. We both wore helmets with built-in headsets, but the front guy could actually wear a baseball cap and a standard headset. The back seat experience is not quite as much fun, since the GIB (guy in back) gets battered by wind, especially at higher cruise speeds. The roar of the engines for the GIB is deafening without serious hearing protection. James had the ear seals and speakers replaced for the helmet we used in the aft seat, resulting in a marked improvement. Active noise-cancelling would probably make it even better.
So, after establishing my proficiency, I was added to the insurance policy, and we were ready to go. We could not depart until late in the afternoon on Wednesday because of James' work schedule. After a pre-flight and packing, we lifted off at about 4:30 P.M. Pictures of the flight are posted here.
Flying northward along the Mississippi river, we passed over fields of soybeans, cotton and rice. Flying low over rice fields conjures up images of Huey's skimming the surface of fields in a far-off land from another time. Nobody shooting at us here. The only danger exists in power lines strung across fields and the occasional crop duster maneuvering below us. People would occasionally wave at us, but I was amazed at the number of people who didn't look up when we passed right over their heads.
There was a large area of weather strung out over Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. Our plan was to fly as close to it as possible, spend the night and let the weather pass over us as it moved to the southeast. We hoped to make it about two hundred miles before stopping. As we approached Mt Vernon, Illinois we began to pick up some light rain. By the time we entered the pattern at Mt Vernon, the rain had picked up quite a bit. The voice on the unicom frequency welcomed us and directed us to the large hangar on the ramp so that we could get out of the rain. The gentleman at the FBO allowed us to actually taxi into the hangar, a welcome event given our open cockpit situation. He then gave us a courtesy car and directed us to local food and lodging. Mt Vernon is the place to stop if you're in that area!
Departure the following morning was delayed about a half hour by a balky left engine. Cold starts were a problem during the remainder of the trip, as the Rotax 912 seemed to suffer from some carburetor issue, possibly a sticky float valve. There was a broken ceiling beginning just north of Mt Vernon, and we ended up on top of a cloud deck, cruising VFR at 2,500 feet. This, according to James, was a record altitude for the Aircam. The Garmin 396 with XM weather which I had attached to the rear of the front seat showed Decatur, Illinois reporting clear skies, although every other airport within two hundred miles was showing IFR conditions with two hundred foot ceilings. Sure enough, arriving at Decatur we found clear skies in an area confined to the airport and the surrounding three miles. After refueling and one more stop at Watertown, Wisconsin, it was time for the approach into Oshkosh. We had another gremlin to deal with in the failure of the display on the Aircam's GPS-Com, an Apollo GX-65. This meant that we could not use it to navigate, and we could only change radio frequencies by turning the unit off and then back on, since the display would come on for a few seconds - just long enough to enter a new frequency on the com radio. In addition to our radio woes, our backup GPS, the Garmin 396, suffered a broken power cord, so we could no longer charge the battery via the Aircam's twelve volt outlet. The unit would die after about three hours of continuous use, so we had to keep it turned off most of the time.
The approach into Oshkosh during Airventure week usually involves proceeding to a waypoint called "Ripon," then being directed by controllers on the ground to either enter a holding pattern or proceed inbound to Oshkosh. Having done this several times, I consider this one of the scariest events in aviation - right up there with a non-precision approach at night. Flying a rectangular holding pattern with seventy-five or a hundred other airplanes is just no fun for me. Today, however, we were taking a different route into Oshkosh, as we had been approved ahead of time to land on the ultralight strip, a twelve hundred foot strip of grass just west of the south end of runway 36 with three hundred foot displaced thresholds at either end. James' superior short-field skill would be needed for this landing, so he flew the final leg. I tended to the 396, stretching the battery life to the very end and directing James to the runway. Turning a left base for the northwest-facing grass strip, I was sure we were too high and way too fast. I was a bit frightened at this point, but James put the Aircam right on the numbers and braked hard, leaving plenty of runway to spare.
We made our way from the ultralight strip to the large building where our friend, Al Mojzisik has his display set up to sell his Lift Reserve Indicator, a nifty gadget placed on aircraft instrument panels which indicates angle-of-attack, a critical measurement which reveals how far from stall the aircraft wing is. After five P.M., Al ferried us over to the campsite where he has a rectangular tent-like structure erected which is large enough to shelter about four smaller tents within it. We dined at the campsite that evening on Corky's barbeque which James had shipped from Memphis. The best part of the trip is seeing and talking to the guys that camp around Al's little compound. There is always a fire, some beer and plenty of outlandish conversation.
We did the usual tour of Airventure on Friday, checking out all the airplanes and gadgets that caught our fancy. This year, James was fixated on an airplane called a "Chipmunk," a tandem-seat military trainer from decades ago while I concentrated on biplanes such as the Pitts. My purchases included seat cushions for my RV-7 from Oregon Aero and a directional gyro and artificial horizon for James' Cessna 150.
After a second night in the tent, my old body was yearning for its own bed. So we decided to cut our stay short by a day and depart on Saturday afternoon. A new power cord for the 396 made the trip home completely uneventful, even without a functioning radio in the Aircam. I was able to spot deer along the edges of fields in Illinois and Missouri on the way home. Eight hours and five stops after leaving Oshkosh, we touched down back at Dewitt Spain. The sweltering heat welcomed us home. Checking weather on the 396, it was eighty degrees back in Oshkosh.
We both agree that this was a great experience, but we have no intention of repeating it. The Aircam is a wonderful bird, but I would prefer brief flights at tree level. I'll stick to the RV for cross-country excursions.
