Sebring LSA Expo update

[ftcaruso]

Just thought that you might like to see some of the activity around the Just Aircraft booth at the Sebring LSA Expo this weekend.  Weather for all 3 days was as seen in this photo with temperatures warming into the mid 70’s by Sunday.  While these 3 colorful Highlanders, replete with bush tires were at the JA booth, 2 others were also in attendance on the ramp in front of the GA terminal building.  They included Lynn Gardner’s (who gave demo rides) as well as my own red and white Highlander.  I think that the JA booth was one of the busiest with regard to overall interest and stop-by activity.  Hopefully additional sales for the company will ensue.

[Neighbor Pete]

Thanks for the picture Frank! Do you have any more detail photo's of those Highlanders that you could post?

[jak]

I have a lot of pictures of these planes as thet were preped and left toccoa airport but i'm not sure I know how to put them on here I will try.
OK I tried to upload a picture and it said the file was to big. I took the pictures with a 10meg camera and had it turned all the way up to get the best res.  don't know how to manulipate them to go on here.  Sorry  Jak

[Neighbor Pete]

Howdy Jak, we'll get you going with them.... what kind of photo editing software do you have? In most, there is an option to open the photo and choose "save for web" or something similar to that. If you open and then save in that format it will often shrink them down automatically for you. Otherwise, open the photo in your program and then resize to 1024 pixel width and save as a jpeg formatted file with 30% compression or so. Alternatively, you can certainly PM me for my e-mail address and send the larger files to me to format and post for you, or talk on the phone or whatever. I'm sure everyone here would love to see these new birds. They look sharp as hell in Franks photo. Anything I can do to help just let me know.

[jak]

Ok I tried resizing them picasa and me arn't gehaaing send me your email address and I can send you 3 or 4 at a time thats all I can fit into an email   jak

[ftcaruso]

Don't know why these came in so large, since my earlier photo was only a thumbnail.  Must'ive done something wrong.  Sorry about the excessive size.  Hopefully the movie will come out better.

Frank

[Neighbor Pete]

Thanks Frank.... Glad to see that you are able to type after the deadstick off airport landing!!! I bet that was a little exciting.

[jak]

I'm not seeing any pictures eather mine or franks   Jak

[ftcaruso]

I also am not seeing any of the recently posted photos.  Perhaps there is a problem with the site and it may correct itself.  

I have received a couple of PM's about my off airport landing, so decided to "share" the experience.  However, if the FAA  gets involved, I will deny it all.

To summerize...yes it was an adventurous ending to a fantastic weekend at the Sebring Expo.  While Miriam drove back with her new 3 month old Yorkie puppy, I took the older (6 year old) "sister" (Ms. Scarlet) in the plane for the hour flight back to West Palm. (see attached photos).  I fully realized that I was getting low on fuel, but on my decent out of 3,000 down to pattern altitude, while I was still 8 miles from North Palm Beach airport, the engine suddenly died.  I knew from prior experience of running the aux tanks dry on my twin Comanche, that it was fuel starvation, and tried an air restart.  When it didn't kick over on the second attempt, I decided to look for a place to set down.  The private Pratt & Whitney 7,000 foot long runway was 2 1/2 miles away, but by then I was down to about 1700 feet.  Just below me on my left was something that looked suspiciously like an airstrip with about 2,000 feet of asphalt dead ending into a bank of very large dish like antennas.  Other than for a 10 or so foot high post on the opposite end, it was clear and had some very smooth grass on both sides of the pavement.  I set up for a landing on the pavement, which was uneventful.  Once on the ground, the engine started right up, and I could still see fuel in both tanks...but not a whole lot.  The "strip" was bordered by a high (20') fence at the dish antenna end and there were some trucks on the other side of that fence, as well as a "control building" of some sort.  Since it was Sunday, no one was there, and I just took off again (after a thorough run up) and continued the last 8 miles to the North County airport...where  I took on 20 gals of avgas (and still had room for a bit more).  When I spoke to Troy this morning, he said that the pick-up ports for the tanks are located aft, and on a long decent when the fuel is low, it will not feed into the header tank sufficiently fast enough to replenish what the engine is using.  The result is fuel starvation and, as they say, "the rest is history".  I was lucky in that there was a "strip" beneath me at the time (went to church that AM, and even threw some bills into the second collection plate), as Troy didn't think that I would have had the altitude to make the bigger airport 2 1/2 miles away.  All in all it was a good learning experience since I had a chance  to practice a real "engine out" emergency, and gain the realization that when you can no longer see fuel without having to dip a wing, it is time to stop for gas. (Troy said to consider 20 gals as the absolute useful limit), and, I guess that "all's well that ends well" applied in this instance.

Frank




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[scubarider2]

The posts of pictures that were posted earlier were removed due to size restrictions.
D

[Neighbor Pete]

Here are some of the pictures that Jak sent to me for posting.

[ftcaruso]

OK, then I will re-post them with the thumbnail method.  That seemed to work OK the first time, and I should have used that format instead of trying to attach them as full sized photos.

[Neighbor Pete]

A few more pictures from Jak.

[jak]

The pictures are looking really good I"m glad somebody knows how to use a computer better than me   Jak

[scubarider2]

The pictures are fantastic....just wondering where all the "Escapades" are?  You know, the ones with the funny little wheel up front!  
Dennis