Ep 137: AirVenture Wrap-Up

[00:00:00] Hello everyone. Welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I'm Ron. I'm Dave. And I'm Reggie. Turn Dave down a little bit. I startled myself. Sorry about that. There we go. Hopefully that works better. Ah, so poor Dave, once again, has to listen to us talk about something fun that we did. sorry, Dave. It is what it is, man. It is what it is. No, you'll be coming eventually

[00:00:38] Soon here. I've been trying to do this since the early 80s. I don't think it's ever going

[00:00:42] To happen. I don't know. I think next year has a different, different lay on it. What's,

[00:00:46] What stopped you from the early 80s when, I was like born? Really? Yep. Yep.

[00:00:54] Sorry. Anyway, I was all set up to go, as we've discussed. And, yeah, there was a, financial issue that came up. namely my dad was out of work all of a sudden. So

[00:01:07] Now, but for the last 35 years, 42 years, I don't, well, I just put them on the spot like that. I'm sorry. No, I get it. Like, honestly, I, this is something I've known about like air venture, obviously. but never really gave a lot of thought to going, but this has been like the year for me doing more stuff than we hardly, well, we ever have done really. Yeah. You've been on the go constantly. It's been kind of nice. Actually, there's been a lot of stuff going on, a lot of RC stuff going on. This was more of a, a full scale

[00:01:39] Event, which I'm not much into full scale airplanes, but they did have RC flying there too, which was kind of cool, but we'll, we'll get into all that before too long. Let's start off with, what have you guys been up to since last time we recorded?

[00:01:55] Me, I've just been working a little bit in the shop, not a whole lot.

[00:01:58] Now you're quiet. Now I'm quiet. Now you're quiet. Put that, put that up your mouth. There you go. Is that better? Is that better for everybody? Yeah. I think so. I don't hear

[00:02:06] Anything at all on my headphones. Oh, you don't? Nope. Oh, that's why. Hold on. Let's,

[00:02:11] We'll keep talking there. Is that getting better for you? That's perfect. There we go.

[00:02:16] Okay. All this equipment got moved over the last week. I know. So everything's out of whack.

[00:02:20] Sorry, guys. I completely forgot I didn't have it set up. So you guys got here. I'm like, oh man, hold on. We got to get this done. So how long were you going to say, or wait to say that you didn't hear us talking through your… I literally was like, okay, I can hear

[00:02:32] You guys outside of the headphones, but okay, I'll just go with this for a minute and wouldn't

[00:02:37] Get no better. Amateurs. I swear, we just don't know what's going on. But it works. It works.

[00:02:42] Does it? It's been working. It's working enough. We're on what episode? What now? I have

[00:02:47] No idea. I didn't forget. It's, I don't know. I need, I'll, I'll know when I post it because I put the number on, but it's sub 140. This might be 139 by now. I don't remember. Wow. Don't quote me on that. Still a lot. Yeah, I know. So what have you been up? Cause Dave, you said you, oh no, wait. Yeah. I just worked a little bit in

[00:03:08] The shop and, I had a little bit of a sad week around the house. So not much got done. I'm sorry to hear that. Do you want to? I had to put my old dog down. She'd

[00:03:17] Been with me for 14 and a half years. I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah.

[00:03:22] That's always tough. That is family. Yep. So, I mean, two episodes in a row, we've talked about death, so we need to quit doing that. Yeah, I know. Hopefully

[00:03:31] Everything by next episode will be all hunky dory. But that reminds me, I do want to give a, just say thank you to everybody that's reached out to me, email form or on Facebook or however, sending condolences about my dad. Greatly appreciated. And I don't want to get into it any more than that, but thank you. There we go. Thanks.

[00:03:51] Thanks. I was on vacation. I took vacation the whole week and did a lot of flying. Did you? Did a little bit of crashing, but a lot more flying than crashing. Okay. Nothing showed up at my house yet, so it couldn't be too bad. No, no. Actually, it was after landing and then rolling over into a curve. So all this stuff I think I can fix. Rolling over into

[00:04:15] A curve. I don't know what you mean. As in landing and wind or just not having enough

[00:04:21] Turn. Curb. Curb. C-U-R-B. Yeah, curb. Didn't I say curb? You said curve. Yeah, you said curve. I'm sorry. I was like, I don't understand how that won't. Curb with a B. I rolled over into cutting. Clip the landing gear off. And I'm actually going to dabble now into fixing foam

[00:04:41] If I can, as far as like with spatula. Spatula. Spatula. You mean spackle or spatula? Spackle.

[00:04:50] Not a spatula. Spackle. I could not get the word out. Anyway, dabble with that and do a little

[00:04:56] Painting. I don't know what you're showing me, Dave. I don't have my glasses on. Hold on. 127. 127. Episode. Oh, okay. 120. Why did I think we were 130 something? Yeah, because

[00:05:07] My crashing was 126. Okay. Well, that's fine. With spackle and standing it down. Then you put it on with a spatula. That could be done. A spatula. Anyway, trying to dabble with some

[00:05:22] Of that and actually painting something for a change to see if I can't get it back to look

[00:05:27] Half-ass close. So, did you glue it together first or are you just putting a spatula on?

[00:05:33] I haven't done anything as of yet. Oh. I'm just getting everything together before I do anything. You're just thinking about it. Oh, I'm not thinking about it. I'm going to do.

[00:05:40] Okay. I do. Just haven't got to it yet. So, what airplane and what happened when you hit the curve? B-17. Oh. Coming in for landing. what's weird, though? I don't remember curbs that are flying field. How does that? Where are you going, Ron? I feel there's something coming with it. No, I'm just trying to figure out how you hit a curve at the flying field, flying in an appropriate place. I never once said I was at the flying field, did I? Oh, you didn't. I just assumed if you're flying, like, the B-17, which is a decent-sized airplane. 78 inches, I think it was. Yeah, that you would fly that

[00:06:13] In an approved AMA-sanctioned field. I flew at an approved church field that was given permission to, to fly at. Oh. And from the little big guy upstairs? Him, too. Nonetheless,

[00:06:28] There's an actual strip and asphalt right along the grass line, which is where I probably should have been. But I was flying from out of the center of the parking lot and came in probably two car spots over, two rows over. And with the wind, it just was not wanting to turn. And sure enough, rolled right over into a curve. Burb. Curb. A curve burb. Curb. Curb. Curb. It's a curved curb. It, yeah, it's a curve. It had a curve in it, yes. Is

[00:06:56] That what it, okay. That's what it was. So, oh, man. So, that knocked the gear out, huh?

[00:07:02] It, it broke the foam around the gear. And the gear was still hanging, but it's just going to take a little bit of epoxy and get that back together, no problem. It's the bottom of the airplane, who cares? Yeah. Yep. Once the wheels go back up, I'm happy with that.

[00:07:15] What gear came out? right main gear. Oh, okay. I don't know why in my mind I was

[00:07:23] Thinking left side for some reason, but. That was the Viper Jet. That one got that one. That was a different time. That was a different time, different church, different

[00:07:33] Curb. Different curb. So, it wasn't, like, that was the only issue you had this time? Yeah. Okay. So, thanks. No, I was just asking, like, I. That was the only issue on

[00:07:44] The 17, the Viper Jet. Same thing, opposite side. I had safe on, then I can't. No, hold

[00:07:50] On. Sorry. So, I'm talking about for this week. For this week, yes. So, the Viper was this week also? I believe it was. I think it was the beginning of the week. At least he's flown. Yes. I, I mean, I haven't flown much, but yes. So, anyway, so the Viper did

[00:08:04] The same thing? I had it on safe, and there was just no turning it. It was, I had it in the low setting of safe, and sure enough, she was not turning, and I couldn't get it slowed up enough. I was reaching for reverse thrust, but it was already too late. I didn't know there was multiple settings of safe. You can actually set safe, again, low rates, low, medium, and high rate. You can still have safe on in there. It's in one toggle position where you can allow that, versus the other toggle position. It's just all whatever it's

[00:08:38] Preset for. I didn't know that. See, I don't fly with safe, so I didn't know. I mean, I've used it before just for, like, takeoffs, or, like, when Viper is flying or something like that, I'll throw it on, but I've never really experimented much with it. Tight places

[00:08:52] Or wind, I'll throw it on coming in, trying to get a little bit more control of it. Really?

[00:08:59] Yeah, just once in a while. Less control was safe. I know. That's why I was thinking, like, I'd want more throws. I'd want more control. Sure you aren't just changing rates on your

[00:09:07] AS3X. No, I hadn't done that. It literally, for me, coming in, if the wind's tossing, I'll put safe on it. It'll help level it out, keep it together. Once I'm on the ground, though, I need to kick it off, so now I can have better turning with it, and that's where

[00:09:21] I failed. Okay. That just doesn't seem right to me, but… It works when you're not near curves. Maybe I just need to go fly a couple full… You did it again, seriously. I keep doing it. I can't help it. Maybe I just need to go make a few flights just in nothing but safe and see beginning to end what it's like. So you don't play with safe at all?

[00:09:42] I turn it off. Yeah, I do, too. I don't see what it's going to do. A lot of times, I'll even bind it up to where it doesn't have safe enabled. Yeah, that's what I do. I just bind

[00:09:51] It without the safe. Yeah. I think I have two airplanes with safe in it that I use for hand launch. It does make the hand launch. If you get a bad hand launch, it does help bring it back to straight and level pretty quick, but you immediately turn it off as soon as it's

[00:10:04] Stabilized. Yeah. It's fun to play with, but it's also, if you're in the wrong position at the wrong time, it can be a pain in the ass. I can imagine. Like, I think I have it

[00:10:13] Enabled on the small Alteryx. Yeah, on the small Alteryx, because there are times it'll get way, like, upside down, getting too low, and it's nice just to be able to push a quick button. Your Radix? No, the Alteryx. You have it on your Radix, though? I do have it on the Arteryx. Okay. And that was only to kind of test how that flew with it. Like, I don't think I've ever really flown it in safe. Right. Other than just to try and see. It

[00:10:44] Can kind of get away from you pretty quick. With the Arteryx? Yeah. You just let go of everything, and it goes back to normal. In safe, yes, but I guess you're right. It has high roll rates. If you have all that set up, then it does roll very fast. It does. So does that mean you've flown that one now? Yeah, I've flown that one. I've flown both on now. Both the Alteryx and the Radix? Yes, sir. Nice. So what do you think? Because

[00:11:05] You hadn't flown those last time you were on. I enjoyed them. The problem was with the Alteryx was I didn't have the plugs to charge the battery from off my smart charger. So I charged them off my normal charger. And I didn't like the way it charged. It just seemed like it was too quick for what I thought it would be. What are you

[00:11:26] Using? The 500 1S? 850. Wait, 850? Yeah. Wait, for which one are you talking about? The Alteryx?

[00:11:33] The Alteryx. Really? I just used 500s on those. Yeah, put an 850 in that one. Okay. So it just

[00:11:40] Seems stout. Yeah. I didn't even know they made 1S 850s. Well, that's what they recommended to me. So that's what I bought. The Alteryx recommends 500. Horizon Hobby, when I was on

[00:11:51] The phone with them, said you can use an 850. I didn't. Okay. So I said, okay. Well,

[00:11:56] Like I said, I know it's an 850 that's in the Erratix. I just want to make sure you're not backwards. You're talking about the little pancake guy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, now that you didn't say this. See, that's why I just want to make sure we're not giving bad information

[00:12:12] If you're saying you're flying something. I have a hard time figuring you can get an 850

[00:12:18] In the Alteryx. I know, because the 500 fits in there just perfect. But anyway, so you're

[00:12:24] Having a problem charging it because of what now? Because they sent me the wrong plug as

[00:12:29] Far as when I got the smaller battery. Oh, I remember you sending me the pictures of that.

[00:12:33] I had plugged it in on my multi-charger plugs. I was able to get it charged, but the way it charged, I wasn't that happy with it. It kind of made me a little nervous. So I didn't fly it very much. Larry, maybe two minutes and I was done. So, but I had the plugs now. I've been waiting to charge up a battery and go after it. That's weird.

[00:12:51] I just have my small 1S chargers that I charge that on. The six port. Yep. Those are worth it for 50, 60 bucks, whatever it is, I think. I've got one, but for some reason

[00:13:00] The actual DC side does not want to charge the battery. I can plug in with a set of batteries

[00:13:05] In it and be fine. What I like about the one I have is it charges off of like a cell phone charger. So if you have any of those battery banks that you can power things with, you can just throw it on the seat next to you when you're going to the field or whatnot and charge your 1S batteries. Show me yours before I leave. Okay. Remind me, it's up in the other

[00:13:28] Room. Gotcha. I've just been doing some flying and enjoying the day and I had to renew my CDL hazmat and fingerprint crap from a job. I got all that knocked out and after that was done, went back to flying. But finally flew that three meter FMX glider, the Fox, I believe it is. Okay. Both my extras went up. F-16 went up. All three bombers, 25, 4, and what was that one? 17. 17. Those went up. There was something else I was flying, but I can't remember

[00:14:02] What the heck it was. And of course I flew the Cloud Dancer last night. So.

[00:14:06] Trim flight in the dark. I know, right? He took a picture to put on Discord and he had to have his headlights on so you could see the airplane. That was after the flight. Well, obviously, but still, you didn't dilly-dally for an hour. I wasn't actually going to fly

[00:14:21] It. I went out and just kind of, everything was in the truck. I was just going to taxi it around, mess around. And one of the taxis that got me left at the tail end, I was like,

[00:14:30] Okay, well, here we go. And sure enough, left it. And it flew right. Likely story. It flew.

[00:14:36] It flew. It came back in one piece. Everything was good. I was happy with it. That's good. So just a little bit of trimming, I think will be good. That plane here, I almost wouldn't

[00:14:45] Mind throwing safe in it, but there's no need. No, there's no need. That's a good size airplane that's made to fly well. I mean, it's not, I'm trying to think how I wanted to say that. It's, it's just a good low wing airplane. Like it's not going to give you any bad tendencies.

[00:15:00] It just seemed a little underpowered to me, but I don't know. Could just because of the wind. I don't know. It was like about 11, 12 mile an air wind. Well, you're also used to airplanes

[00:15:08] That are overpowered. True. I mean, like that is pretty much everything you get today is overpowered. Every airplane should not be able to hover. No. So you're probably thinking

[00:15:19] Of it that way. Well, when I flew that Pilatus over there that you now currently own, that was probably a plan I should have waited on too. Both two or three flights I had was in

[00:15:29] Some pretty good wind. Yes. You notice I, well, it's, I need to fly it. Like I want to, I just never think about it because it's hanging up and it's more like art than anything. It is. But I've heard too many people say don't fly it in wind. So I'm waiting.

[00:15:44] I did not know. I went out and flew. I just figured, okay, it was under 15.

[00:15:48] That's so, that's so light though. I mean, that is a light, just picking it up. That is a light airplane. So that's going to have very low wing loading. Pretty floaty. Yeah. So those are the kind of airplanes you don't want to fly in the wind. Well, that's heavier, faster airplanes

[00:16:04] Or better. Well, I stumbled across another one though. I'm thinking I'm going to pick it up.

[00:16:08] Yeah. Yep. Good luck. Yeah. You just don't see them. No. That's the only one I've ever seen in

[00:16:15] Person. Lucked out on that deal. Of this one. I looked out. I was surprised you stayed there as long

[00:16:20] As they did. I lucked out on that deal. What are you talking about? You did. You're welcome. You gave it to me and I fixed it. You're welcome. So that's even better. Yeah.

[00:16:29] I just flew up until it was time to leave to go to see Oshkosh. Go to Oshkosh. I think

[00:16:38] That was nice. I think we can go over to that now. Anything else you guys want to bring up before we move to Oshkosh? I got nothing. Poor Dave. Why am I here? Oh, he just wanted to hear it in live, in real time.. I watched it YouTube for a week. On Oshkosh stuff? Yeah. Yeah. And what did you think then, Dave, with your first virtual trip to Oshkosh?

[00:17:11] Looked pretty good to me. Some interesting stuff. The Constellation was interesting. Nice to see it was back in the air again. I actually got to see that fly. Like, it was leaving,

[00:17:25] So I never actually got to go up to see where it was, but I think that was, I don't know what day it was, because the days, even though it was just two kind of go together, but I got to see it take off and leave, and that's a cool looking airplane. It was neat because that was also the airplane they had at Joe and All. There was a Constellation there that the couple German guys had. Pretty good size one, wasn't it? Yeah. All electric. And it, I mean, it flew well. It looked awesome, just like the big one did. Yeah. Very nice.

[00:17:54] Very pretty. Got those last of the classic lines. Yeah. Wow, we're so exciting about this, aren't we? This is amazing. Gosh. Of course, it looked like the F-22 dominated, as it always does. No. F-35 was better. I've got nothing. All I know is it's both noisy as heck. So that

[00:18:17] Was my takeaway. Like, it was weird. So I'm not used to being around full-size airplanes. Like, we don't have jets here in Springfield anymore. We don't have, I don't have access to that kind of stuff often. what I mean? I do. Don't go to air shows. There's not anyone close here anymore. So you don't see it. So this was probably in 25 years, my first real chance to be around these kind of airplanes. And you forget. My dad was a Navy aircraft mechanic.

[00:18:52] I didn't know that, really. So we were always near on a base, when I was younger.

[00:18:57] So this was going on all the time. We got used to that. You go to Blue Angel shows and stuff like that. And just, it was just noisy, noisy. But it was always, ooh, ah, oh, looking up. Absolutely. So, it's not too much of an excitement, excitement anymore. But, if I get to stop and get to do something, I'm all ears. I'm all right there. when to cover your ears, too, when they come in. But you get to enjoy it. Yeah. So,

[00:19:27] The first plane I saw fly when we were there was the F-35. And, Dave, I know you seem to have issues with that plane. And I know there's a lot of whatever behind it. But hearing that

[00:19:41] And watching that. I have a close personal connection with the F-22. So. What's that? My brother-in-law worked for Lockheed. He was. I don't think. He worked with the F-22s.

[00:19:52] Oh, really? At Tyndall Air Force Base and then at Nellis. Well, there was one of those there, too. So, sure, I'll give you that they were both cool. But there's, there's just something about the sound to me. It sounded like the F-35 was louder. And that is what got me. I mean, just the, the percussions in your chest that you can't feel from any other airplane. And like, honestly, after seeing that, after hearing that and watching that fly, because those are impressive. Those are very impressive airplanes to watch. When

[00:20:22] They got the old prop planes out and all the other stuff, it's like, eh. I mean, that's kind of how I felt. Like, eh, whatever.

[00:20:28] Yeah. I don't know. I, I was enjoying watching them fly side by side with them as far as the props and the jets. Yeah. Yeah. the Su-35, I think Dave was telling me, and then the two MiGs that was following it, quiet.

[00:20:41] There was a 17 and a 50, no.

[00:20:45] I know there was a 17. I don't know if there was anything in addition. 29. 29 is the one that looks like the F-15, right? They had a MiG-29. And then, of course there's L-39s everywhere.

[00:20:57] Well, yeah. Either way, they were quiet.

[00:21:00] See, that's the thing. Like, I'm so bad with full-size airplanes knowing, or airplanes in general, knowing what was what. If I had somebody walking around with me, like Dave, if you would have been there to know more of the history of stuff and explain things, I think that would have made it a lot better trip for me.

[00:21:16] Yeah, it is. You get overwhelmed. And I don't know my civilian aircraft all that well.

[00:21:20] Yeah.

[00:21:22] But hearing a nice big radial engine, droom, droom, droom, droom, droom.

[00:21:26] Oh, yeah. Yeah. There was a few of them sitting down there running. It was, because where were they, was that down there, where the Warbirds were sitting at? That's where their main cross runway would come across there, and they'd sit there waiting to taxi onto the main runway. And they would sit there just, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

[00:21:44] That's, so, still though, for some reason, after seeing all the, because there was multiple Mustangs, full-size B-51 Mustangs. Why? Still don't do anything for me. Like, I, I don't get it.

[00:21:55] I was happy to see all the Corsairs coming back.

[00:21:58] The Corsairs sound cool. They do. I don't know enough about what the difference is in motors and stuff in them. I don't either. Inline versus a radial. So the Mustang's inline? Inline engine, yeah. Oh, okay. Water-cold.

[00:22:11] The radial, or radial sounds really good flying. which makes sense, because in RC, the same thing, radials sound a lot better, I think, than regular inlines or even whatever you can get. But, I kinda like that airplane more now, after seeing one fly in real life. But, still, the Mustangs did nothing for me. It was weird.

[00:22:32] They're all good. Yeah, maybe because you see too many of them. I mean, though they're not as many as it used to be, but that's what you see at most air shows, is at least two or three Mustangs.

[00:22:42] Yeah.

[00:22:42] I think last year, it was only maybe two Corsairs, it seemed like, there. But, this year, it was about five or six, seven, somewhere in there this time.

[00:22:49] Was there? Yep. See, when we, we didn't make it down to the Warbird area, which is all the way down the runway to the North, I think. Yes, I think so. We didn't make it down there until Saturday later. And, I mean, there was a lot of planes gone. Like, there was hardly anything there anymore. So, there must be a lot of people that leave earlier in the week.

[00:23:13] Wasn't there a F-7 Bearcat down there? Or Tigercat, one or the other?

[00:23:18] I think so. Tigercat's a twin. There was a Bearcat.

[00:23:23] Okay. That was actually pretty cool for me. I liked the big twin motors like that.

[00:23:28] Yeah. Well, the Bearcat was the single motor. Are you talking about the Tigercat? Tigercat's the twin. There was one of those there, too. Tigercat. Okay. The twin is what I like.

[00:23:40] Mm-hmm. Of course, there's always T-28s down there. And that older MiG that flows around that way as well with it.

[00:23:47] That was a 17, right? Is that the one you're talking about?

[00:23:49] Silver. I always had the flames coming at the ass end of it.

[00:23:52] Yep. I think he's there about a rear end of it. It's okay. We try and keep it nice.

[00:23:58] I thought I was keeping it PG.

[00:24:01] God, I'd hate to see R.

[00:24:02] I know, right? Oh, no, you don't.

[00:24:04] But, no, so I, when we went up on Friday, like, we got a late start. Like, my plan was to be out of here by, like, 7. And, I mean, we didn't leave here till it was going on 830 or 9. So, of course, I had time to stop by Brian's on the way up because we were right there. He had a couple things that I needed to pick up. Got to do that. That took us off kilter. We didn't get up to Oshkosh until, oh, it was late in the afternoon. Like, a lot later than I planned because we ran into road construction and all that stuff. It was

[00:24:37] Kind of a pain. So, Friday was just almost just kind of a preview to see what was going on. what I mean? I do. Like, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know where we were walking. I didn't know what trams were running. I didn't know how to get anywhere or what to even look for.

[00:24:53] I still have yet to ride a tram yet. I have not been on it yet. It's always just

[00:24:57] Walking. Well, it's it's kind of funny because so when we the first day when we parked on Friday, we parked in like the main lot that's right across the street from the EAA Museum. So we literally got I mean, we lucked out front row parking because people were leaving by the time we got there. So there was a lot of open spaces. Walked in, got our tickets, did all that kind of stuff. And then they have a bus behind there that we were able to get on to take us wherever we were going. So that

[00:25:29] Was, I think, my second or third time in my life riding a bus, which was kind of cool for me. Like, I got a sheltered life.

[00:25:38] I think the first time was when I went on a field trip with Cody back when he was in grade school. But whatever. So got to go on a bus, got to kind of go over where we were. And then you were there by that time, Reggie. So I called you and you're like, we'll just go in the main gates. I'm like, I don't know where anything is. So I luckily you were kind of trying to walk me around. And well, what do you see? Where are you? Where are you trying to go? We did make it into the main gates after a little bit of walking around. We just

[00:26:08] Kind of followed the crowds.

[00:26:10] That's pretty much about the best bet right there. So everybody's normally going toward the back to begin with. Yeah. outside of the, did you walk around the museum at all? No. Oh, you missed out.

[00:26:22] Well, I thought we were going to have more time that I think that's the biggest takeaway is I always thought we were going to have more time than you actually have. Because so we were walking in, went through the museum just a little bit, you have to go downstairs in order to get your tickets and all that taken care of. And I thought, well, when we leave tonight, we'll have time to kind of come back through here and look.

[00:26:44] They close.

[00:26:44] Yeah. I didn't realize that either. So always, if there's something you want to do when you're there and you see it, do it then, because it's probably not going to be there when you're ready to go back to it.

[00:26:52] First two years we went, that's exactly what we did. As soon as we came in the building, we just went straight to the museum and looked around.

[00:26:59] Yeah.

[00:26:59] And that's why I sent you guys all those pictures and whatnot. You would get a massive kick out of it. You would.

[00:27:03] Oh, I know. Dave.

[00:27:06] Well, you can't just say you and there's two of you because nobody knows. Okay. How about both of you?

[00:27:09] You both would get a massive kick out of it because there's RC planes in there alongside of some of the real stuff in there. So, yeah, but it's, it's gorgeous in there. They got it pretty well set up and there's a couple of different theaters and you can also find a few hangers or like they kept the mosquito at a couple of Corsairs and shoot, there was two or three others that was back there that I can't think of what they were now, but it's actually pretty well laid out. It's a nice, nice place. Definitely go back to see that for sure.

[00:27:38] Yeah, it would be worth it. I think, like I said, there's just so much to take in. You don't know what to actually take in.

[00:27:45] Get there early. That's a must or you'll be spending an hour and a half trying to find a parking spot, especially on the weekend.

[00:27:53] So, we learned that too. So, we were there a little bit later, like I said, on Friday. Saturday, okay. So, we bought one of those little folding carts, the, what is it called? That's a good idea. For Piper because we knew we were going to be hauling her around. That's a great idea.

[00:28:09] The folding wagons. And the first night we decided not to take it in because we knew we weren't going to be there very long. We didn't know what was going on. we just had no clue anything about it. So, we thought, well, she'll be able to walk around. We'll be able to do some stuff and it'll be all right. So, we, the first night, like we, first off, if you've not been there before, just the view when you walk through the gates and you look down that first, the main, I don't want to call it a runway, the main

[00:28:43] Aisle that goes back to have the vendors kind of shops on both sides. And then you see the big C5 galaxy, the super galaxy sitting back there. That to me was like, all right, beeline for that because that's huge. I want to see it. So, we kind of walked back that way at first. So, have you, once again, I'm not around full-size airplanes. That airplane is huge. That's a monster.

[00:29:08] You don't realize watching videos or seeing pictures how big it actually is until you are standing underneath of it.

[00:29:15] About 100, 150 people wandering through it at one time?

[00:29:18] Yeah, pretty much. They had it open to where you could make a trip in, like a little U through it. The whole nose is up and open. And so was the back. And you were able to walk up. Like, they were letting kids crawl up into the actual cockpit. I didn't know that. I saw that, yeah.

[00:29:33] Oh, nice.

[00:29:33] I saw a couple people going up there that were eight or ten years old, something like that.

[00:29:39] It dwarfed everything else that sat there.

[00:29:41] And that was kind of nice because if you weren't sure where you were, all you had to do is look around and you could see the tail. Like, from everywhere we were, you could see the tail and kind of get your bearings on where you were in that place. Exactly. I am so bad with directions anyway. It's not even funny. So, having that one little stick, sticking up to where you're like, oh, now I know where I am. It worked that way.

[00:30:01] It didn't take too much for you to find me or for me to find you on either Saturday or Friday. So, of course, that's where we were.

[00:30:09] I was going to say, I think it was easier on Saturday once we kind of had a little bit of knowledge of what was going around, but.

[00:30:16] He was at the main EAA building as far as sales and stuff, merchandise and whatnot. Do

[00:30:22] I remember right? Was that Friday? That was Saturday. Saturday.

[00:30:26] Friday, you met me over in Vintage Village.

[00:30:28] That's right. Which I had no clue where that was either. And you're like, oh, that's no problem. Just go look at the big stand thing that says Vintage. And I'm like, what are

[00:30:35] You talking about? Right by, or you was at the Galaxy at that time or somewhere near it.

[00:30:39] Yeah.

[00:30:40] And I told you it was just off to the side of it. And you could see there was an actual flowing flag or whatever. It's Advantage on it. And of course, there was a crossover that's Advantage on it. So, I figured you'd find me pretty quick.

[00:30:50] Yeah. Once I realized that there were actual different areas for different types of airplanes, it kind of made it easier to. First timer, I probably should have looked into how AirVenture is set up. I never did. Like, that week leading up to it was just a blurb.

[00:31:06] There was so much going on that I didn't do what I planned on doing. And like, honestly, it got to Friday morning where it was time to leave and we were still packing, getting stuff together, which is not like us. Like, usually the night before, everything's loaded. So, all you got to do is get up, get in the car and go. But I felt unprepared a little bit for this trip because of that. But having been there Friday made Saturday a lot easier.

[00:31:31] Once, like I said, you kind of realized the layout.

[00:31:33] I was up at 4, out of the door by 5. In Champaign, about 6, 10 or so. Picked everybody up. And I think by 7.30, I had to pull over. I had less miles drive because I was falling asleep. I couldn't keep up no more. I can't imagine. I mean, that's a lot.

[00:31:53] It was a lot. Early. So, he drove all week to Wisconsin and I finally jumped back in and drove us in. And we had planned on stopping at some of the local hobby shops there in Appleton and Oshkosh. And that's the only reason why we wasn't there first thing Saturday morning.

[00:32:14] And when we got there, that was one thing we was kind of noticing. It was like, where's everything at? There's nothing flying around here at all. I don't see anything. So, I didn't know what was going on at this time. A buddy of his had called, one of the guys that I was with, and said that there had been a crash. He'd been waiting for three hours to get on an airplane. And sure enough, they gave him his money back and told him what had happened.

[00:32:40] And that's when I told you about it. Yeah. And that's when everything kind of came about.

[00:32:44] I didn't realize there was two, though. Yeah. So. There was a, was it a Texan that went into the lake? Was it a Texan? I had no idea what it was. Yeah, it was a Texan. 30-year-old pilot and 20-year-old passenger, which is too bad. Yeah, it's extremely bad. But the, that one didn't close down anything at AirVenture. No, was it? Because that was far enough away.

[00:33:06] Gyrocopter and a regular helicopter. A regular helicopter.

[00:33:09] Our bell, one of the bell helicopters? No, right away. Yeah. But it was one that they had a midair. And that was over the actual grounds of AirVenture. So that's what stopped

[00:33:19] That one for several hours. So that morning was kind of a quiet morning for the longest until about noon, one o'clock or so. The thing's kind of sort of picking back up.

[00:33:28] Well, so we're, yeah, we're kind of getting out of chronological order. So, and then that's okay. I'm just, I'm trying to get my mind back into it. So that was the day that we went to, what was the hobby shop? You went to do a hobby town, hobby town. I'd never been to a hobby town before. So there was one up in Ash. No, there was one up in Green Bay.

[00:33:55] I'm surprised you was that far, that far north. But I remember you saying you stayed up that

[00:33:59] Way. Well, so quick shout out. I want to say thanks to Terry Dunn. He invited us up to stay with him. So we stayed with him Friday night and Saturday night. and he's up towards that area. So we were closer to Green Bay for hobby shop purposes. And that is why we went to that one. So I'd never been to a hobby town or a, one of those shops before. So we went in, Crystal and Piper didn't even want to come in with me. So I told him, I said, that's fine. It'll be quick. They had a couple other things they were trying to do in the car and

[00:34:32] Stuff before we got, or for them to get ready. So I stopped there and went in and I'm going to be honest with you. That was my first experience with them. I was displeased. I remember you saying that. And it was only because for, if you were a car guy, that place would be awesome. If you liked Legos, that place would be awesome. If you liked any of the STEM stuff, like Piper probably would have fallen in love with a few things that were in there.

[00:34:57] Puzzles, games, and stuff like that. Right. But for actual airplanes, I think there were 11 total RC airplanes in there. They're all different for whatever reason. Well, and that makes sense because they're not like, they're all still privately owned. They're just a franchise.

[00:35:13] Yeah. And what's ever more suited in that area, I guess. Right. And I was expecting

[00:35:18] Airplanes. I wanted airplanes. So it's understandable if they don't have a lot of airplane traffic for that store, but they had tons of cars. If you wanted anything for your RC car, rock

[00:35:31] Crawler car, I mean, they had it. Appleton and Oshkosh were the same way, but they did have a decent selection of plane stuff. Okay. Oshkosh, I believe it was. I actually had an upstairs racetrack along with a crawler course. And I think on the main floor, there might have been what looked like prior dirt track. They kind of scooped up and was getting ready to reset it up again. That's kind of cool. It's pretty nice. Yeah. It's pretty nice. I think

[00:36:01] Like I said, the one we stopped at was just like a Walmart looking store. Not obviously not as big, but the, the nice shelves, all that kind of stuff and a good hobby shop,

[00:36:13] But just not what I like. It was definitely high dollar on everything in the ground. They had quite a few cars, crawlers, trucks, military stuff, boats, sailboats, everything. They had quite a few things. Yeah. I wish the selection would have been just as equal as far as the

[00:36:30] Airplane stuff. That would have been awesome. I get it, but I wasn't buying anything. So I had no room to bring anything home. So it was not that big of a deal. Just parts. Yeah. Stuff that I

[00:36:41] Can't find anywhere else. I actually found some foam tech, which I haven't seen in quite a while. So I know I can order it online, but I actually seen foam tech. Brian's got it. Does he really? Yeah. I haven't been to Brian's in a minute. Well, that's on you. It

[00:36:54] Is. It is. I don't know. I've almost completely switched over to Fabri-Tac. I can buy that at Walmart and it's almost the same stuff. I still have a bottle of that. If

[00:37:05] It works as well. Yeah. I haven't tried it yet. It's a couple bucks cheaper, more readily

[00:37:09] Available. And it's not as, it's not the same, but it's close enough. And it's made

[00:37:14] By Beacon. It's very similar. Yeah. I have a reason to try it out now. A couple. Not

[00:37:23] A reason. Well, a reason, opportunity. Yeah. You usually have lots of those. So. Thanks, Ron. You're welcome. So going back to getting into Oshkosh, we made the mistake. Like I didn't want to be there super early because our original plan was to stay super late and watch the fireworks.

[00:37:46] So we ended up kind of killing some time in the morning. That was really why we went to the hobby shop too, was just to kill a little bit of time. So we weren't outside all day with Piper. Cause it was going to be a long day. I mean, admittedly, but anyway, so we got there. What I thought was plenty of time to see the two 15 air show. Yeah. I made a mistake. We were from the time we hit traffic, like after you got off the exit and you got

[00:38:17] On that front of the road from the time I hit traffic to the time we were inside the gate was almost two and a half hours. Yep. It was an hour and a half Saturday. It was parked. It was terrible. Like almost enough to make me not want to go Saturday next year and kind of start a little bit early. Like if I'm going two days next year, go Thursday,

[00:38:39] Friday. If we go back next year, it would probably be a little bit easier, quieter, less crowd.

[00:38:45] Yeah. I made the mistake of when we came in from the North end, instead of turning into the very first lot, hoping that I can go into the second lot, the Brown lot, which is directly across from EA, they had it closed off saying lot was full. Even though I'm looking as we're driving past it, there's spots throughout just where people have already left. Yeah. How tempted I was to kick a cone and just drive in there anyway. I was watching people drive across the lawn off the road and just hitting the parking spots and just leaving the cars. They actually

[00:39:17] Started having people, trying to flatten them saying, you can't do that. They just said to heck with it, left the car, kept going. Wow. Well, and see the first night when

[00:39:27] We got there too, I didn't know where we were going. I had no clue where to park, no clue what spots were good, where to stay away from. We, we actually missed the turn that we needed to take and went all the way. We had to go all the way around and then come back in again.

[00:39:42] And after that, it's like, all right, well, now I kind of know I should have gone left instead of going right. And we were fine parking, but we still went all the way around, got out and came back in in much less time than it took us on Saturday to get it parked.

[00:39:56] Yeah. It was a nightmare. I literally went down to about where you were at, turned around and then came back and had to make that immediate right that you had no choice. And like you said, you can go all the way around the whole freaking thing. Yeah. Yeah. Won't happen again.

[00:40:13] Well, on Saturday, we didn't have a choice on where we parked. Like they were just throwing everybody into overflow lots to where we were. I honestly couldn't even tell you where we parked. We were so far away. You could barely see like airplanes flying. I mean, like, I'm not joking. Like they were, we were just so far away that we parked. And after we got parked, we still probably had to walk. Oh, I'd say a good quarter mile, if not more, which I, that's not terrible, but to where the tram stop was. And I couldn't tell you how far the

[00:40:45] Tram took us. Cause it just seemed like it went on forever. And then that took us over

[00:40:49] The ultra lights, which was on the South end. What? Oh, you were by the, by the campground,

[00:40:54] Wouldn't you? I'm pretty close to it. Yeah. So we had to drive by the campground. So that was on our left as we were going. And then we had to make a right. And we were still stuck in traffic for I don't know how long that we had to go down farther away from the campground. So farther away from EA or from the, the, the runway. You hit the $25 lot? We prepaid for parking, but.

[00:41:20] Oh. Okay.

[00:41:22] I don't know. Like I said, I don't even know where we were. It won't happen again next year. No.

[00:41:29] Get there early and be done with it. Just stay, enjoy, relax, eat, sit around.

[00:41:36] You did that a lot. Like. Yes. We walked. Like that's all we tended to do was walk. Like we walked. So our goal, which didn't happen, unfortunately, Piper was on the fence about wanting to ride the trimotor. Like she wanted to, and then she didn't want to. And I told her we're not going to. And then she's like, well, when are we going to ride or fly in an airplane? I said, well, you said you didn't want to. Oh, I think I get those tickets early. Don't you?

[00:42:00] Well, you can get them there. Apparently you can get them early or at the gate. but so we finally made our way over to where all that was and it was closed up. So we couldn't get tickets. We couldn't fly. I didn't even, or didn't even actually see or hear the trimotor fly that whole time I was there. It was there Friday for sure. I didn't see it.

[00:42:19] There was actually two of them there.

[00:42:20] There was one of them I think got stuck. I don't know if you saw that or not.

[00:42:24] No, I did not. Went off the runway and got stuck. I did not see that. I seen a couple of smaller ones do that, but I didn't see that.

[00:42:31] Yeah. I saw a picture. I think it was from earlier in the week, but I saw a picture on Facebook. Might've been Friday, might've been Thursday. I don't remember, but yeah. I don't know if it just lost its track or what and went off the runway, but yeah.

[00:42:46] Was it after the rain came through?

[00:42:48] I don't remember. It rained both nights. I was going to say, there seemed to have been rain like all the time.

[00:42:53] It just rained both nights. The Friday night was the heaviest. That's when they didn't have the fireworks. Saturday was just kind of something light, kind of passed through. It kind of clipped us and it was done.

[00:43:01] I didn't think they were supposed to have Friday night fireworks.

[00:43:04] Was there? I thought there was supposed to have fireworks.

[00:43:05] I thought it was only, I, gosh, I could be wrong. I thought it was Wednesday and Saturday was all for fireworks. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I'm so glad we're talking about this and have no clue what we're talking about. Thank you everybody for listening. This has been fun. And if anybody is still listening, I just feel like we're just going on and on and not actually knowing what we're talking about on this one.

[00:43:26] Is Dave still here or is he gone now?

[00:43:28] Dave, wake up. Dave. Bye, bye, bye. Hope you enjoyed your nap.

[00:43:34] It was nice. So I can't say nothing bad about it other than trying to get a dang parking spot.

[00:43:39] Yeah. What I found funny, though, is so it started raining Saturday and we were towards the south end of the runway. And this is when we were trying to make our way all the way up to the north end of the runway. And so we got caught in a little bit of rain. Crystal went into one of the shops and bought the ponchos and stuff. And then I heard somebody say on the over the radio system, they actually have a decent radio system there where you can hear what they're talking about all down the runway. But anyway, he said that it's raining on the

[00:44:11] South end of the runway. It's sunny pretty much on the north end side of the runway. So we just kind of walked it out. And while people were still getting rain on the south end of the runway, we were out of it.

[00:44:22] I actually had gotten an umbrella for some stupid reason. And sure enough, it was no longer a stupid reason. I sat right where I was at, umbrella in hand.

[00:44:30] Well, here's the best part. We already had ponchos, like the garbage can or garbage bag looking things that we brought with us in case it rained. But guess where they were? In the car. In the car. So… Works really well. No, not at all. So we bought new ones. And now we have those for if we ever need them to leave in the car or somewhere else. I don't know where. They're in a closet here now. So whatever.

[00:44:53] You didn't get one of those layout maps at all? As far as the whole ground?

[00:44:59] Mm-hmm. When you first go in, we had them. Yeah. I don't read maps very well. I'm going to be honest. I'm pretty dumb. But there was a lot. Like, I didn't realize. And once again, this is on me for not having, for not looking into it before we went. But did you make it into any, like, the Hangar ABCD or whatever it was to go through them?

[00:45:18] They had apparently 838 vendors or 836 vendors on hand. We didn't see any of them. I went over and found Horizon. I did go to see what they had there. They had their new Sky ID module out. I don't know if you went and looked at that. That's small. Yep. Whatever. But that was about all, vendor-wise, I went and looked at.

[00:45:41] I think it was up against Hangar C, I think it was.

[00:45:45] Yeah, they were.

[00:45:46] There were some quadcopter-related items in there. There was actually a quad that was in there. It was about as big as this table, if not bigger. That was pretty interesting. There was also, it looked like, an old bomber. Some guy had put 10 different little electric motors on, converted you into some type of drone or whatnot. It was actually pretty neat in there. I wouldn't complain. I missed all that. Everything else was just basic avionic stuff for most planes.

[00:46:12] For full-size stuff.

[00:46:14] For full-size. Yeah. So, it was nice. It was, I mean, it was nice if you was interested in a lot of that. There was a couple of radio motors sitting in there to look at. Kind of broke down for you to kind of gander at.

[00:46:23] Yeah.

[00:46:24] It was, it was, it was okay. It was okay.

[00:46:28] Things you learn for next time.

[00:46:31] Venture to everything if you can.

[00:46:33] Yeah. Well, like I said, we'll just have to see how it goes. I don't know. We walked most of the day, but it didn't feel like we really went anywhere since we were making a beeline and tried to get down to that airplane, to the tri-motor. And then after that, like it just, so they had the RC flying there too.

[00:46:48] That I didn't do. I want to do.

[00:46:50] So, I went over Friday for that. Terry and the RC round table guys were helping get introductory flights into people, which I'm going to say, I still don't understand how they were doing it without buddy boxes. They were just handing people controllers and letting people fly. That is just nuts.

[00:47:07] They didn't have nothing Bluetooth over to another radio?

[00:47:09] No, they just had the one. That's a lot of trust. That's what I was thinking too. Like these kids, like I know you're like still kind of holding onto the radio, but we have modern things now to where you can do buddy box. Let's, let's modern it up guys. No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, so I went over there. it was cool watching RC airplanes fly. And that's probably one of behind the F-35 and 22, probably my favorite thing that we did.

[00:47:35] What did you think about them flying so close to where the helicopters were landing at?

[00:47:40] They had like Lee was the one that was in charge with the air boss or whatever you want to call it for that area. And he was doing a very good job. Every time you would see a helicopter telling people, Hey, stay low, stay out of their way. And people were listening pretty good. It's one of those things where you can get RC and full size together as long as you're watching and paying attention to what's going on.

[00:48:03] I went to go over there so bad. I know they were there. They were there last year. And I think the year before that, I don't recall the year before that, but I've been wanting to go over there and I forget about it because I'm, I'm into everything else.

[00:48:14] Exactly. That's the, you, once again, you should set alarms to make you remember things because I don't do that either. But like the, so Saturday I wanted to get back over and watch them.

[00:48:27] And I, I think it went from 630 to 830 ish is what the, what the timing is supposed to be for the RC flying stuff. And so seven o'clock I realized, Oh, we should probably get over there to see what's going on. And so we started walking and I kid you not. So this is the day by the way that we have, Piper's, cart, cart. Thank you. I kept wanting to say stroller and I knew that wasn't right. We were using it like one, but anyway, so we had that. So I knew I wasn't going to get on any, bus to take me over there. So I

[00:49:02] Knew it was going to be a long walk. So we started walking and literally 10 minutes into the walk. I turned around and I could still see the galaxy behind me close. And I was like, it's been 10 minutes already. There is no way I'm going to make it over where I'm going before eight. And then we have to walk all the way back here. So it was just like, I gave up, like I gave up on going on Saturday.

[00:49:27] You're at the very front of the whole thing.

[00:49:30] Exactly.

[00:49:30] From back there. No, you need a bus.

[00:49:33] Yeah. That saves you about a half hour right there. Right. There was so much walking that I just kind of gave out. And that's bad planning on my part. Like I knew I wanted to get over there, but like you said, time gets away from you. You should have left for that about five. I probably should have, to be honest with you. And so I ended up talking to Terry and they were going to stay for the night show, which apparently everybody says is awesome.

[00:49:55] It's, it's good to see and all that fireworks. And I don't know what time it was, but he ended up saying, Hey, they're all tired. They're going back to his house. And I thought, what? That's cool. I'm tired too. The only thing I wanted to see for sure was the F-22 fly at twilight.

[00:50:15] So as we're going back to the car, the F-22 takes off. So I actually got to see everything that I wanted to see, but we had to go once again, walking everywhere. We had to go from where the air show was to our car.

[00:50:32] Long travels.

[00:50:34] We lucked out so much because by the way, that's the other thing that's kind of sucks. That's right. You did.

[00:50:39] I did. We did. They felt bad for us. But anyway, that's the other thing that kind of sucks is I don't know what time, but trams stop. Like they have no trams available. So we had a good, probably two mile walk ahead of us. And these two very, very nice guys from aircraft spruce, which I didn't realize that's where they were from at first. I thought it was just like the courtesy shuttle kind of thing. Cause they're just kind of driving by us on the golf cart stopped and asked Crystal, Hey, do you need a ride somewhere? Cause she's pulling the cart

[00:51:09] And I'm hobbling. My foot's kind of hurting and all this kind of stuff I then do. And she looks back at me and starts to say, no, I think we're okay. And I was like, yeah, yes, we will. We will. Absolutely. He's like, well, we're only going up here to the end of the runway. I was like, that's, that's perfectly fine.

[00:51:27] Any little bit is less walking and we appreciate it, but they were nice enough. So if you guys have any, anything you can buy from aircraft spruce support them just because these two guys made our night, they literally took us from in front of vintage. So where that is all the way down to the end of the runway. And then instead of just dropping us off to let us walk, they took us to our car, literally to the car. Awesome. That's awesome. I know. Like I cannot thank them enough.

[00:51:59] It took, it probably saved us easily an hour, if not more of walking.

[00:52:03] Oh, so, well, where vintage was, go further south. So then go up toward the runway. Let's say maybe, maybe 10th of a mile farther south and then toward the runway. That's where we were at. Where you were watching it. You mean watching the show at night? Where did you park by the way?

[00:52:24] Oh, Jesus. Oh, we was all the way to the North end of the runway. Okay. Up there by where the interstate can, runs into that. That's where we were parked at. See, we were parked far

[00:52:34] South. So start calling this is how bad was the parking at Oshkosh episode? Yeah, I'm sorry. That's

[00:52:39] The biggest takeaway is that it, the parking was terrible. Well, we started walking and of course

[00:52:43] Eventually made it back halfway to where the buses were and got back to the museum and then had to walk clear to the North end of the parking lot. Ouch. To get to the truck. It was an hour and a half.

[00:52:57] See, like I said, I'm so thankful for those guys that it was just, it was amazing. And that was the other reason, like, we were thinking about staying for the air show. And then it hit me that if we do, everybody that's sitting here is going to be leaving in a vehicle after they get to it.

[00:53:15] We left before the show was over. Literally about 15, 20 minutes before the show was going to completely end and started walking and still got swamped by all this. Yeah. I don't feel like I missed anything by not seeing the whole air show. Honestly. The fireworks display along with the few planes that were flying during the fireworks was actually pretty good. I can give it that. But the pyro across the highway was lame. It was terrible. They were completely off timing. Yeah. So I

[00:53:46] Heard they had problems with that too. They did. They did. I mean, I can't really knock them. If you're at problems, you get problems. But we were pretty much almost up to the front when the first or that last set of explosions went off. And it had been dead silent for a moment. It's like it caught

[00:54:05] Everybody off guard. That's funny. Like, oh, that's supposed to happen, but just not now. Yeah. Yep. Pretty much. So what's your, what was your most fun, most rated top thing that you saw

[00:54:17] Or did there? The F-35 passing, doing its display was nice. Seeing that cream colored and maroon Stinson sitting over in vintage, which I'm kind of wondering, is that the same one that came to our

[00:54:36] Field? Oh, I doubt it. But you never know. It's possible. It looked like it. I swore now it's the same one. But, well, the guy that came to our field was for the, EAA thing out there. So it's possible. Although there's probably more than one airplane that looks like that in the world.

[00:54:51] Probably. Probably. But, seeing that and a couple other vintage ones was probably the best part of it. Along with, Ray Parker or Joe Parker's, whoever it is, barbecue joint. That was

[00:55:02] Pretty good. So we never made it to there. Oh, wow. Really? No. We, yeah. Well, you get next year. Maybe next year. Who knows? We'll see what happens. So for me, F-35 was up there. The other cool thing though, that I saw the F-22, Dave, you'll appreciate this. If you're, Dave, hello? Hello. Okay. Dave, that you'll appreciate that the F-35 didn't do was I actually got to see the F-22 hover and then fly down backwards. I remember that. That was pretty awesome.

[00:55:36] That was. It does that well. Yes. I never knew that was a thing. And I was like, wait, that's, is that, it's not moving. Oh, it's going down. That's so cool. It was. It was.

[00:55:47] You have to come next year. Yeah. You have to come. This, if you want to grab a room, there's

[00:55:54] Always an extra bed. The walking at this point is actually a holdback for me. They got rental,

[00:56:00] Rental scooters there. They do actually. And it's not very expensive. I thought about doing it just because I'm lazy and fat. I'm just kind of wondering, can you rent a golf cart

[00:56:06] Though? No. Yeah. Not that I saw. They've got plenty of rental scooters. I don't know what the pricing is on it, but there's quite a few. 75 bucks for four hours, I think. That's a steal, by the way. Yeah. Just get $150 worth and you got it good. You can go see everything.

[00:56:25] Yeah. I mean, you have a reason. So yeah, we'll get there. Ah, and by the way, did you hear they broke an attendance record this year? No, I did not. 677,000 were in attendance over the week. Up from last year, 650,000. Didn't like that extra 20,000 was on Saturday

[00:56:46] Alone. Probably was. Jeez. If we tell just by parking. Yeah. I don't recall seeing it make it net far north with the extra parking. Yeah, I don't know. But then they had, well,

[00:56:56] That's the other thing. Like where we parked, I was a little concerned about driving in these fields that we were driving in, like bottoming out on my car. Spots. I mean. And they were mush. Not only that, but there was just, I mean, like there were just so many bumps and then there was just like a random amount of rocks here and a couple big rocks just sitting here. It's like, I was a little concerned. Get halfway home, one door and a half, you're battery power. I know. Like, what is that that's hanging down underneath my car? Why

[00:57:27] Are there all these little triple A batteries everywhere? Double A. They're bigger than

[00:57:31] Triples. Okay. But anyway. He's got the upgrade. But, and then they said they had over 10,000 airplanes that were there. So I think a lot of those must have left before

[00:57:41] We came. Well, did you notice when you were around the outskirts of that, that whole magnificent drive trying to find parking, all the planes that were sitting out in that one field just sitting there? Like the overflow field? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Are those all the fly-ins as far as just people coming to see the show? And they just park them there? I would

[00:57:58] Assume so. There was a couple of them that had tents and stuff set up next to them, too. There was quite a bit. Did you make it down to the ultralight area at the very end of the runway? I did not. I did not. We would not have if it wasn't for us parking past that.

[00:58:10] But that was pretty interesting, too. There was a lot of ultralights down there. Wow. Really? A lot of home-aids, yeah. That was kind of cool there, too. That's another thing. You don't, I mean, you just don't know to see until you see what's there. Just stumble across, basically. Accidentally,

[00:58:24] Yeah. My biggest suggestion is hit the museum next year. Yeah. Hit the museum. There's so much stuff in there. It's unbelievable. They're talking about flying cars now. Of course, there were flying cars back then that nobody seemed to know about. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's been

[00:58:40] Going on for a long time. It's just never gone mainstream. There's a few there in there

[00:58:44] I was actually really impressed with. I'd like to actually see fly. Yeah. There was that there, some kind of rotary multiblade quad that you can fly in and was in there. It's called a black something or some black fly. That looks neat, but doesn't seem to be very impressive at all. It doesn't seem like it'd be up very long. I don't even know what you're talking about. It's a, it's a single seat. Is it Dave? yeah, I don't know that much

[00:59:12] About it. It, it's kind of scary, but they have one in there. Did you see the, the

[00:59:19] Guy in the jet suit? I did. Yeah. That was kind of cool. That was, that was. Apparently that's just a bunch of RC jet motors in those or engines in it. Really? Yeah. Like six of them or whatever, eight, whatever. Doing his best Iron Man in imitation. Pretty

[00:59:36] Much. He wasn't that very long. I think a whole two minutes maybe. If that. Yeah, it

[00:59:41] Wasn't long at all, but enough to burn some fuel. Yeah. He didn't set nothing on

[00:59:46] Fire. So. No, he did not. But it was pretty good. I'm looking forward to next year, but next year has quite a few things going on. So I think next year I'll be actually using vacation time for something other than just staying around the

[01:00:00] House. Yeah. Me too. All right. Anything else? No, I'm good. Oh, the jet event's coming up in Monticello, by the way, next weekend. Was it? Okay.. The 12th. 11th, 12th. Well, I mean, it's more days than that, but Saturday is the day I'm probably, maybe going to try and go. I don't know. We got to, I got to work at the fairgrounds this weekend coming up, so I'm going to miss that one. Well, you suck. I got

[01:00:28] To drive a 38-foot trailer in my truck during the state fair on the

[01:00:32] Fairgrounds, so yay. That'll be fun. Yeah. I had a woman actually walk into my truck. I forgot the fair's coming up. Gosh, darn it. So that's, we, we, we have been remiss in doing a bunch of stuff with Piper over the summer, unfortunately. We haven't made it down to St. Louis Zoo yet, and that is something that we have to somehow, sometime, sneak in. When it's not 300 degrees out, yes. I know.

[01:00:56] That's the other problem. But anyway, so yeah, the jet event's coming up. I'll be there. Okay. I'll be there for that. All right. Anything else? That is it. That's all I've got. Me too. Dave? Like I've had anything in our episode. All right. Well, then, until next time, thank you for listening to us ramble. I'm Ron. I'm Dave. And I'm Reggie in order. In order. Oh, because you went out of order last time. I did. I did. You cut Dave off. I apologized. Mm-hmm. All right. Goodbye. Goodbye. Good night.

[01:01:30] We hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Plane Lab podcast. For topic suggestions, to ask questions, or to give any feedback, connect with us at rcplanelab.com, or email us direct at either ron at rcplanelab.com or tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, may your landings be gentle.