Marc's Public Blog - Flying

I almost made it to the runway, but since it was on the Playa, landing anywhere was fine, and I was able to steer towards the runway for smoother ground while decelerating on the ground, and get closer to the airport taxi area although in the end the plane did stop short and had to be towed there. While having an engine failure sucks, this was just about the safest place possible to have one, and the landing was uneventful.

As a first for this year, I also was able to bring and fly my motor glider RC plane I had spent loads of time preparing and testing. I have a separate page for these RC flights, and pictures/videos of Burning Man from the sky.

You can see most of the flight, airport, and BRC from the sky.

And do not miss my Main Burning Man 2015 report.

Pictures of the flight:

this is the smallest line at the entrance I've ever seen...

nicely marked runway

The landing was of course a bit unusual:

this is as far as we got with the rolling speed after landing. close but not quite :)

we got a bit of oil, but enough had been lost in flight that it didn't cover the windshield

The airport volunteers nicely helped to tow and secure the plane, and gave us a ride

The hole next to the yellow wires is obviously not supposed to be there

The customs department is still doing a good job :)

The airport has definitely grown steadily and is getting a lot of charter traffic, and even private jets. I also see that more people have been using my patented method of ceram wrap and painters tape I introduced in 2006 :)

nice taping job, but not enough tape to hold it

better job on this one, although it's missing the prop where playa dust will get to the grease

nice

Obviously, I wasn't able to fly home, and the charters were both full and wanting some $700-$1000 for a flight home, but thankfully I was able to find a pilot who was flying a few people back to San Carlos and had an extra seat in his plane:

room for 5, nice :)

exodus

Now that you've seen the flight, have a look at the real meat: Main Burning Man 2015 report.

We started with the private tour of the space shuttle trainer, the cabin crews actually aren't that big, but they only have to spend about 2 weeks in it, so I guess it's not so bad. This is the actual trainer that was used at Houston Space Center and I guess it was donated to Seattle after Houston got a real space shuttle for their museum :)

We then took a tour of the main floor:

Of course, their SR71 prototype with an A21 drone is a highlight since it's the only one left in existence:

engine starter block with 2 v8 chevy motors

There were many more planes to see:

or cruise missiles

The couple of sections about space were good too:

They had a 787 on display, explaining the new avionics:

the pilot has a nice HUD like a fighter pilot would

the beluga plane was used to move the space shuttle trainer

Then, they had the room dedicated to old planes from the WW1 and WW2 era:

lots of ammunition stored in the wings

The museum also moved the red barn where Boeing used to build its planes 100 years ago, and put it in the museum:

More vintage posters:

And just like that, it was 17:00 again, and I had to rush a few places again, bummer :)
Needless to say that this museum has plenty to see and is definitely worth a whole day. We almost needed more...

EMP in the bottom right, and science museum just up and left of the space needle

very nice houses with their own boat and seaplane

did I say overcast?

smith tower

cars line up for the ferry, with overflow lines

many boats...

and that was it after our water landing