Canadian Images/Videos for AirVenture

June 2017 - Do you have a video or set of photographs about your experiences flying in Canada? We’d like to keep our projector busy in the Canada Tent at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh when there is not a presentation in progress.

You may still be reading the hard copy of Sport Aviation, rather than the online version. It’s convenient in many ways, but you may not know that there are links to extra resources in the online version, which you can take advantage of whether or not you read the magazine online. Just go to www.EAA.org/extras, and these links can be anything from websites, to photos, to videos. One I particularly liked this month was the Glasair Sportsman two weeks to taxi build. It’s a time-lapse video. Try it. You’ll like it, and it’s very short, but just a note of caution — the links at this site can become addictive. Make sure you leave yourself plenty of time!

Patrick Gilligan, RV-8 pilot, long-time flying instructor, and vice president of operations at the Canadian Owners and Pilot Association (COPA) is retiring. We wish him all the best in his future adventures. He will be visiting the COPA AGM, in his words, “to say goodbye to many awesome folks that were really fun to work with! Then three weeks flying around visiting friends solo!”

He also flew his RV-8 down the Hudson River corridor and created this beautiful video.

It got me interested in doing it, and he said he would fly the Hudson again and asked me to keep him informed. It’s certainly on my flying bucket list.

He also sent me a link to a video with a GoPro under a small bubble window, cut out under his wing. It has gyro-stabilized gimbals with a cockpit remote control. You can watch his first flight test here. If you are interested in high-quality video of your flights, this looks like a great way to go.

My old friend, J Davis (yes, he really goes by J without the period), and his wife, Jaye, are leaving Ontario to be with their family on Vancouver Island. He has written 10 articles for Bits and Pieces over the past five years and has continued to write interesting and informative pieces. Sadly, he sold his grass strip, which will now become a cornfield, but the good news is that he will continue flying and has promised us that he will write about his aviation experiences out West. He’ll be taking his CH750 and his Sonex with him by road, but if anyone is interested in buying the Sonex, he’s open to offers.

Thanks to Jack Dueck for his great article on flying a Spitfire in this month’s issue and to all the other contributors.

Anyway, I hope you are well into the swing of your flying season but that you can take the time to think about sending in some Canadian flying videos, especially if they consist of uniquely Canadian flying scenes. They are likely to be too big for e-mail, but if you send me a Dropbox link or something similar, I’d love to start a modest collection for use at AirVenture. You could drop me a line via e-mail or message me on the EAA Canada Facebook page.