Airventure is an annual event hosted by the Experimental Aircraft Association. The week-long event includes over 10,000 aircraft and over 800 exhibitors.
We camped in Camp Scholler and had a great time as usual. During the week, I had an opportunity to hear many interesting forums, including presentations by Burt Rutan, Dick Rutan, Chuck Yeager, Sergei Sikorsky, Gene Cernan, Jim Lovell and Joe Engle. George Lucas presented the trailer for his upcoming movie "Red Tails", set for release next year.
I have updated the Aviation Galleries - Modern Military page with several new photosets. Included are photos of a Lockheed P-3 Orion, a Sikorsky CH-53 Super Stallion, a Grumman E-2C Hawkeye, and a McDonnell Douglas C-9B Skytrain II.
Attractions this year included a Zeppelin NT operated by Airship Ventures. The airship carries a crew of two and up to twelve passengers.
The Honda exhibit featured ASIMO this year. ASIMO, a humanoid robot, performed two shows per day. The bipedal robot demonstrated some impressive feats, including running, and climbing up and down stairs.
On Thursday, an F-16 overran the end of runway 36 (left photo). I'm not sure if the plane had a mechanical problem, or was going to fast. We did hear that the pilot got out OK and was taken to a hospital for observation.
The next day, the wrecked F-16 was still in the grass (2nd image). Ironically, another aircraft, an FJ-4, had also ran off the end of the runway and was being worked on (right two photos).
During Airventure, the EAA offers rides in Bell-47 helicopters. Originating at Pioneer Airport, near the EAA Museum, the rides cost 45$ and follow a circuit over the Airventure grounds. During previous years I considered buying a ride, but the wait was always over an hour and I didn't want to spend that long away from the other events. This year I arrived around eight a.m. and was able to board a chopper without waiting.
The ride was a lot of fun. The following photos were taken during the flight.
Posted August 10, 2011
I thought I'd post several of my recent illustrations. Some of the work is historical in nature, but most would be better described as fantasy or alternate history.
Eventually I will move this content to its own page and include additional art and expanded descriptions.
The HMS Beagle anchored off an island in the Pacific Ocean. The Sun is about to set and the last of the survey boats are being recovered.
This work was inspired by a recent reading of Charles Darwin's "The Voyage of the Beagle". A great book if you're interested in natural history.
I thought the ship model turned out OK, but I wasn't happy with the sunset. I will revisit this work as my skills improve.
A squadron of British warships emerging from a fog bank. A first-rate leads the way, with a few 74's trailing. A barque, in the foreground, might be serving as a scout or courier ship.
The barque is a modified version of my HMS Beagle model.
A Viking long boat, riding out a storm, presses westward across the north Atlantic.
This piece was inspired by a line from one of my favorite songs. "On we sweep with threshing oar, our only goal will be the western shore." - Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song."
This alternate history piece centers on a towering, pyramid shaped complex. The imposing structure is surrounded by a thriving port city.
I wanted to create a design that is fantastic and stirs the imagination, and, at the same time, is structurally and historically plausible. A structure that we could have built in our distant past.
This illustration was created in Lightwave 9.6 and includes around 655,000 polygons. Textures were created in CorelDraw X4.
A mining vehicle on Mars. The idea is that this thing would dig up mineral deposits, in this case an ice layer, crush the material and separate out useful chemicals. Things like water, iron, carbon, and other elements would be separated, refined, and stored. The machine would periodically return to base and offload containers of refined material.
The look was inspired by a variety of current technologies, including excavating equipment, crawler transporters used for the space program, offshore oil and gas production facilities, and chemical refineries.
This one makes a great wallpaper, the colors are dark and most icons stand out very well. I'll upload a larger version in the coming days.
A fictional ship, from a hypothetical war between the United States and England during the 1860's.
I've wanted to do a cut-a-way view for a while now. I thought for my first cut-a-way design a fictional ship might be the way to go. I could concentrate on technical aspects of creating the view, without the need to accurately depict an actual ship.
I had a lot of fun creating this illustration and have several other cut-a-way designs in progress.
Posted August 3, 2011
Going through my stack of stuff, I realized I've yet to post any photos from AirVenture 2010. As usual, I visited the event last July and was able to take a large number of photos.
Approximately 40 DC-3s and C-47 aircraft visited AirVenture in 2010. I have added around a dozen new DC-3 photosets to the airliners page. Also found on that page are new photos of a DC-2, DC-4, and a DC-7.
Photos of two F-4 Phantoms, a CV-22 Osprey, a P-3 AEW, and a Huey have been added to the Modern Military gallery page
The World War II gallery now includes some photos of a TBM Avenger and British Lancaster Bomber.
Posted March 7, 2011
Over the weekend, I volunteered at the Gem and Mineral Show. Having joined the MGMS last year, this is the second show I've helped at.
Over 20 dealers and demonstrators were at the show. Attendance was higher then last year.
Posted March 25, 2010
The Locomotives page has been updated. I was in Chicago the other day and visited the Museum of Science and Industry. I've added some photos of the Empire State Express No. 999, as well as several early steam locomotives. Also find images of several new railfan t-shirts at the bottom of the page.
Posted October 7, 2009
The Quotes page has been updated. I have now provided links for those quotes available at Explore Store Gifts. I have also added some new quotes.
Posted September 20, 2009
My railroad photos page is now up and running. Highlights include photos of the newly constructed Leviathan 4-4-0. The Leviathan, along with a number of other operating steam locomotives, was displayed at Train Festival 2009 in Owosso, Michigan. I have also included photos taken at the National Museum of American History in Washington DC, as well as some shots taken in Jackson, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois. I plan on adding many more photos in the future.
Posted September 14, 2009
I visited EAA Airventure on Monday and Tuesday of last week. Organized by the Experimental Aircraft Association, EAA Airventure is a week long aviation event held annually in Oshkosh Wisconsin.
As with past visits, we were witness to an impressive display of aerial demonstrations, forums, and aircraft static displays.
A highlight of the event was the arrival of WhiteKnightTwo. Build by Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites, the twin fuselage, four engine, all carbon composite aircraft was designed to lift SpaceShipTwo to its launch altitude. SpaceShipTwo, scheduled to start flight testing later this year, will conduct passenger flights into space.
WhiteKnightTwo, along with SpaceShipTwo, will be operated by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space tourism company.
Also appearing was an Airbus A380. Truly an impressive aircraft, the imposing A380 conducted a series of flybys before landing.
Other highlights included a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Predator-B drone and an Erickson Aircrane S-64F Helitanker known as ‘Elvis.’ As usual, some impressive formation flying was witnessed each day. One of the formations included 37 aircraft!
Check out the Oshkosh 2009 page for photos from the event.
Posted August 3, 2009
 
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North Carolina Mining TripIn May, I participated in a mining trip with the Michigan Gem and Mineral Society of Jackson. Over the course of five days, our group visited half a dozen mines. Most of the mines were near Franklin, NC. We looked for sapphires, rubies and other minerals. The mines provided a supply of dirt, either already in buckets or visitors could dig from nearby piles. Equipment, such as buckets, screens and a flume were also provided. The screens were wooden frames with a wire mesh bottom. The flume is a wooden trough with water flowing through it. The idea was to put some dirt in the screen and place it in the running water. Miners would rub the dirt on the bottom screen to wash the gravel. After a short time, any gravel would be clean enough to evaluate. Examining the clean gravel would reveal gems and minerals such as sapphires, rubies, emeralds, kyanite, garnet and a variety of other specimens. On the last day of our trip, we visited the Brushy Creek Aquamarine Mine, located near Spruce Pine, NC. Our party, along with several others, boarded a van for transport to the remote quarry site. Upon arrival, we were provided with buckets and rock hammers. For several hours, we were able to look for specimens in the quarry. Tours to the mine are conducted several times per week. Operators of the mine periodically conduct blasting to expose new material. Our tour was the first to visit the site since the last blasting. As a result, we were able to find a variety of nice specimens, including pieces of aquamarine, tourmaline, garnet, mica, feldspar, and other minerals. A great time was had by all! Visit the Mining Photo Gallery to see more photos. I’ve started a Rocks and Minerals page showing photos of specimens from my collection.. I’ll be adding more content as my collection grows and as I learn more about rocks and minerals. Posted July 7, 2009 |
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Washington DC VisitIn December, I traveled to Washington DC for a couple of days. Primarily to visit the museums on the Mall and the Udvar Hazy aerospace museum at Dulles Airport. At the museums, I took several hundred photos of space exploration hardware. Many of these can now be viewed on my space history website - Historic Spacecraft. I also shot photos of the monuments and sites around D.C.. Some of the photos can be viewed here. This was my first long-distance ride on Amtrak. (In the past, I've always traveled via commercial airliner or by driving). I rode the Wolverine from Jackson to Chicago. Then, after a 2 hour layover in Chicago, I boarded the Capital Limited for the 18 hour ride to Washington DC. I found the ride to be very comfortable and quite. The crew was courteous and helpful. Being six foot tall, I’m often unable to get comfortable in a cramped airline seat. (And I’m too cheap to upgrade to 1st class.) On the train, I had all the room I needed. Even when riding in coach. The many hours on the train went by fast. Not having to drive meant I could relax and work on some of my writing projects. I actually accomplished a lot on the train. I didn’t try the dining car on this trip, but I did make use of the Café car on several occasions. The Café car offers cheeseburgers, pizza, soft drinks, and other fast food items. I found Amtrak to be a good alternative to air travel. The major downside, and it’s a biggie, is the travel time. A person can fly to DC in only a few hours. Even driving that distance can be accomplished in less time than taking the train. All in all, this was a great trip. And, if you can afford the time, I can recommend Amtrak as a method of travel. Posted March 4, 2009 |
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New Racing Site Now OnlineMy friend Kevin recently started Chase-This.net, a website devoted to racing. Thus far he has added printable schedules for various racing leagues, including Sprint Cup, Nationwide, Camping World Truck, ARCA, NHRA, IRL, and F1. The schedules can be viewed on the website. He also has versions of the schedules formatted for printing. A racing links page, as well as a photo gallery from past events is offered on the site.Posted February 28, 2009 |
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Visit to EAA Airventure 2008In July, I taveled to Oshkosh, Wisconsin and visited the EAA Airventure 2008 event. Here are several of the photos I took.Posted August 9, 2008 |
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Photos of Space Exploration HardwareI have now added a link to HistoricSpacecraft.com . Historic Spacecraft is a project I’ve been working on for several years. At its core is a collection of several hundred space exploration hardware photos I've taken over the years. Included are photosets of historic space capsules, spacesuits, rockets, and launch facilities. I plan on adding many more photos in the future.Additional content of interest to space buffs includes a list of upcoming missions to the International Space Station, a list of upcoming robotic space exploration missions, a list of space related quotes, an extensive list of acronyms, and a timeline giving the year of launch for hundreds of space missions. Posted July 28, 2008 |
 
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Visit to the Michigan Steam Engine and Threshers Club Annual ReunionOn July 25th, I visited the Michigan Steam Engine and Threshers Club Annual Reunion. This event is held each July near Mason, Michigan. The event draws over 200 antique tractors and includes plowing demonstrations, threshing demonstrations, tractor pulling, a flea market and much more.Visit the Photo Gallery to see more photos. Posted July 26, 2008 |
LSM-275 Webpage UpdatesI have recently been contacted by two LSM-275 crewmembers, Bobbie Gene Smith and Ronald B Garrigan. Mr. Smith has provided some additional photos and Mr. Garrigan has provided a short written history of his time on the ship. Expect more photos and information to be added in the coming months.Visit the LSM-275 webpage to see the updates. Posted July 18, 2008 |
 
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Mineral Hunting TripIn June, a friend and I went on a rock and mineral hunting trip in the Upper Peninsula. We visited the Caledonia Mine near Mass city, Michigan. Visitors can purchase a two yard ‘pile’ of ore for $50. We had around four hours to dig through the piles. Minerals such as copper, calcite, epidote, feldspar and datolite can be found. Anything you find in the pile is yours to keep. As you can see from the photos, I found some nice pieces of native copper.We also visited the Quincy Mine in Hancock, Michigan. The tour included both an underground portion and a tour of the hoist house. The massive, reinforced concrete, hoist house enclosed the worlds largest steam hoist. This was actually a good time. I might visit them again in the future. Visit the Photo Gallery to see more photos. Posted July 17, 2008 |