AirVenture - Day Four

Saturday morning we managed to get back into the Blue Lot. We didn't have a lot to do at the show today. We had already seen most of it. We got parked early though about 9:30. Greg and Jean finally got their bluetooth/GPS unit working with laptop and Larry ran around parking lot with GPS on his head so we could see it interact with the moving map and charts on the computer. We could not figure out why he kept putting it on his head but he kept doing it.

We hit the Continental Engines display, Cirrus airplane, Cessna area again, Flying magazine's tent, and into Hangar A to let the chart people know we had everything working. I don't think they really cared since they had already sold the software but they acted happy. We wandered over to look at the Zulu headsets at Lightspeed. M has really been checking them out even though he has a very good Lightspeed set. The Zulus are $850 but he can trade his in and buy them for $350. My headsets are much older Lightspeeds but I can trade them in and buy Zulu for $650.

We just decided to meander south down the flight line looking at people's planes. We saw a lot of very very nice aircraft. This area has all the past champions that have won any awards at Oshkosh in the past and also the vintage area with planes from the 40s or older. I really like the Cessna 120, 140, 180, 195, etc. Very nice. Saw a nice polished aluminum 180.

We walked quickly back up from the ultralight area. There was not much to see of the ultralights. The first year M and I came to EAA the ultralights were very busy. I wonder if the Light sport new regulations have weakened the ultralights appeal. We grabbed some lunch and stopped by the FSS booth to check weather for tomorrow's flight. Then we went back and bought me a new pair of Zulu headsets. I am excited. My headsets are not noise-cancelling and now suddenly I am going to have a great brand-new set. Unfortunately, they were all out of them but they are going to ship them. I am excited.

We made it back to the car about 4:30 and watched the rest of the air show and left about 6:15.

It was another great EAA show. There are tens of thousands of people through this show and it is so well organized and clean. There is no trash or messes around. Toilets are kept clean all the time. There is plenty of free drinking water available. Trams you can take between areas even though we usually walk. Another great event. We didn't make it to the museum or seaplane base this year but there is always next year.

Tonight we went out to eat at Olive Garden for our last night. It was good. I had planned to try to buy since all the guys had already taken a turn but Dave got to the check before me. I will have to try again another time. M went to bed about 45 minutes ago. I have been packing up and getting ready to leave in the morning. It is always sad to end a vacation but I am ready to go home too. After about 5 days I am usually ready to get back to the house.