The Future Accelerates as EAA AirVenture Celebrates the Past

Airbus is showcasing its growing expertise in the area of urban air mobility with its Vahana multi-rotor, battery-powered research vehicle. Intended to be the first certified electric, self-piloted, vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) passenger aircraft, Vahana flew in the U.S. in January 2018, and has made more than 80 flights. The aircraft, which has eight propellers mounted on fore and aft wings, takes off vertically then tilts its wings down to accelerate into forward flight. After entering fully wing-borne flight, the Vahana begins tilting its wings back up to decelerate then tilts to a hover. The fly-by-wire Vahana flies autonomously, with one button each to take off, tell it to come home and land, land it where it is if there is a problem, or to deploy the parachute. Airbus will not put Vahana into production but is applying its experience to developing practical urban air mobility.

As each year passes so we all move from today to classic to vintage, clubs we don’t necessarily want to join. Our history includes more and more anniversaries: EAA AirVenture is celebrating its 50^th year at Oshkosh, the Boing 747 can now point to its first half-century, and man first set foot on the Moon 50 years ago. Other milestones here include the Baby Ace and Pietenpol, 90 years; Van’s RV-4 and the Rutan Long-EZ, 40 years; and the Kitfox, 35 years. Louis Bleriot flew the English Channel 110 years ago in his Bleriot monoplane (see the EAA’s replica at the show), winning a 1,000 UK pounds sterling prize offered by the Daily Mail newspaper – an incentive that prompted him to attempt the journey and beat rival French aviator Hubert Latham.

Aerospace engineer Burt Rutan is a legend among EAA members, having challenged the status quo during his long career to develop unusual-looking aircraft made out of then-revolutionary materials: early designs including the two-seat VariViggen, Varieze and Long-EZ have become homebuilt classics. Then, in 2004, Rutan’s design team (funded by Paul G. Allen) won the $10 million Ansari X prize with SpaceShipOne to privately build, launch, and finance a vehicle capable of carrying three passengers to 100 km (approximately 62.5 miles), safely return to Earth, and do it again two weeks later. That victory has spawned a whole new commercial space industry. Many of Rutan’s 40 designs can be seen here at AirVenture, 76-year-old Rutan will be celebrated here on Thursday.

The USAF and U.S. Navy will both bring F-35 Lightning IIs to lead the military line-up for this year’s AirVenture, and the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter and A-10 Thunderbolt II will also feature in the flying display. Today’s fighters will  occasionally be accompanied in Heritage Formations by World War II’s famous P-51 Mustang and F-4U Corsair aircraft. The Navy’s carrier-equipped F-35C, operated by VFA-125 "Rough Raiders," will be piloted by Lt. J.D. Davis, whose dad was a Blue Angels pilot. Another Navy F-35C pilot, Lt. Tyler Shaver, is here at AirVenture to chat with show attendees about the F-35C and naval aviation. As a kid he was a member of the  EAA Young Eagles program.

UPS is bringing one of its new Boeing 747-8F cargo aircraft to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh to celebrate the airplane model’s 50th year in flight. The 747-8F will be flying in to AirVenture on Tuesday, July 23 and will remain on the grounds through Thursday, July 25. UPS took delivery of the 12^th of 28 747-8Fs in June; it will become the world’s largest operator of the type when it receives its final aircraft before the end of 2022.

Maybe not so crazy after all. Oshkosh-based Sonex Aircraft is now offering its SubSonex single-seat personal jet in a two-seat variant, the JSX-2T. Billed as the world’s lowest-cost two-seat jet trainer, it might find other uses besides training pilots to fly the single-seat SubSonex; mankind’s ingenuity knows no bounds. The 21.8 ft-wingspan two-seater will utilize the same Czech-supplied 292-pounds-thrust PBS TJ-100 turbojet, and will be available in kit form including engine for under $140,000. A more powerful TJ-150 engine of up to 337 pounds thrust will also be available.

Last but not least. GE Aviation on Tuesday will announce the first application for a hybrid-electric power system based on its brand-new 850 to 1,600 shp Catalyst turboprop engine. The Catalyst, the first clean-sheet turboprop design to hit the general aviation market in 50 years, is 30% made of 3D-printed parts and the first to bring simple, single-lever power control to turboprop aircraft with a ground-breaking for-its-size Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC). Costing $400 million to develop, it will first power the Cessna Denali in a conventional way but will be ideally suited to hybrid electric power for future longer-range aircraft because of its digital management and power at altitude, GE believes. Other engine manufacturers to explore hybrid electric power include Rolls-Royce (it is acquiring Siemens’ electric motor activities), Pratt & Whitney/UTC on its Project 804 Bombardier Dash 8 Q100 demonstrator, and Safran, which is providing the turboshaft and hybrid power system for the Bell Nexus Urban Mobility vehicle. The latest Catalyst mockup is on show at the GE exhibit, along with 3D-printing of logos for the company’s 100^th-year anniversary.

The undoubted star of the Warbird scene this year is the newly-restored XP-82, one of only five Twin Mustangs left and the only one in the world currently flying (a second is slowly being brought back to the skies).  Aircraft restorer Tom Reilly of Douglas, Georgia, spent many years rebuilding the airframe and scrounging parts before the aircraft flew again last New Year’s Eve during what was expected to be a high-speed taxi test. The XP-82 gave rise after 1945 to the F-82 Twin Mustang long-range fighter but the ending of the Korean war rendered it surplus and the U.S. Air Force retired the 272 aircraft it had ordered.

While there is talk today of spending nearly $4 billion to replace the two Boeing 747s used by President Trump as Air Force One, most readers will be surprised to hear a far more modest aircraft filled that role in 1955 – a piston-engine Aero Commander 560A. The twin was used by President Dwight Eisenhower to fly from Washington, DC, to a grass strip on his farm near Gettysburg, PA. Any aircraft that carries the president is dubbed Air Force One during that flight, but the honor sticks. The humble Aero Commander was discovered by Florida-based airline captain Scot Main in 1997; he restored it and recently sold it to the Commemorative Air Force. Ike’s Bird is being shown here at AirVenture; on hand to tell its history is Miracle on the Hudson First Officer Jeff Skiles.