Monday, May 3, 2010

Aviation Trade Show - Anchorage, Alaska May 1-2, 2010

Organizers believe about 30,000 people attended this year's event, held in the FedEx hangar at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. What a fun day! I spent the afternoon on Saturday helping Alpine Air Alaska. We had a static display of one of our R44s set up next to Alpine Air's booth. It was my job to stand out by the helicopter and answer questions and keep the kids from playing on it. I answered so many questions my voice went horse.
Merit Apparel, who sells helicopter flight helmets from Vero Beach, Florida was also in attendance. I jumped on the opportunity to get fitted for a MSA Gallet flight helmet. It's not that I need a flight helmet right now, but in the future if I do, Merit Apparel will have my measurements if the need ever comes up.

Wearing the MSA Gallet flight helmet LH 250

Alpine Air Alaska R44 Static Display 

The Bell 407 


Mosquito XEL Kit Helicopter that was on display at the trade show

They also had the display of the little kit helicopter known as the "Mosquito". Chester Godin sells the kits out of Big Lake, Alaska; Alaska Helicopter Sales. I gave this little thing a test run about 7 months ago in Palmer, Alaska. Here's what I said back then (September 18, 2009) As we were heading home I noticed a Mosquito, not on the windshield, on the ground! I just learned about them, so we pulled over to talk with the guy. A week later we went back and I flew her. My objective was to feel it hover;  first I had to get used to the throttle and keep the rotor RPM's in the green. Second was to get the machine light on the skids... slowly I pulled into a hover, this took some practice and several pick-ups and set-downs. After a few of these I started to get a feel for this tiny helicopter. The nose wanted to pop up when picking up and setting down. The throttle is the opposite of an R-22, there is no correlator or governor, it’s not what I’m used to and that made it tuff to keep it coordinated. 10 minutes was enough for my first flight in the XEL kit helicopter.
Here's the video...

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