Standard Pilot Blog: aero expo

Monday, May 6, 2013

Helicopters at Aero Expo / Friedrichshafen

Konner Gas turbine helicopter.

See more helicopter pics by clicking through:

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Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Sailplanes at Aero Expo Friedrichshafen

Please note: James' blog has moved to a Wordpress site. To access it, please visit http://jameswiebe.wordpress.com/. All posts have been transferred to the new site, and all new posts will only be accessible via Wordpress. Thank you for your interest!

For my sailplane friends. Aero was flooded with gliders of all types. Seriously, many, many gliders. Here's some of the antique ones. I didn't bother to take pics of the modern ones. (Except for an electric glider, below.)

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

From Aero-Expo in Friedrichshafen, before going to the show

I'm attending Aero Expo in Friedrichshafen, Germany. I just arrived at my hotel late last night. The show has already been running for a day. My plan is to visit it today and tomorrow, then perhaps an hour or two on Saturday morning, then head home. More here on Aero: http://www.aero-expo.com/.

Jet lag is always an issue. After a fitful short night of rest on the plane from Chicago to London, I flew on to Munich, then rented a car for the drive down to the Friedrichshafen area. The joy of the Autobahn. Yes, yes, yes, it's a thrill. Please don't tell my wife, but I didn't go much faster than 200 in my clean Skoda with a manual six speed; and it's thrilling to be passed by Über fast cars who clearly want to get somewhere very, very quickly. You're reading this so I survived. :-) That's a speed even Larry K. could appreciate.

Even with jet lag, I got a near solid 8 hours of sleep (thanks to a Tiny Little Sleeping Pill my Doc prescribed before I left Wichita). Here in Germany, it's already a new day, and the weather is perfect again, the sun is shining, so it's my first day full day on the ground.

I had quite an adventure trying to figure out how to set an alarm last night. The hotel room has no clock. So I had to get an alarm from either my new phone, my Kindle, or my computer. Well..... the phone wouldn't download an alarm app, due to the poor connectivity. The computer could get one by download from the internet, which I did, but it would also run out of battery power overnight, because my wall socket adapter wasn't the correct size. Same problem for the kindle. (I had brought the wrong euro adapter!)

So last night, before I went to bed, I cut the end off a U.S. power cord, stuffed the raw ends in the Euro wall socket, and *voila*, the computer started to charge. Attached the kindle to the computer, and it started to charge too. Set a newly downloaded alarm on both, popped my Tiny Little Sleeping Pill, and went to sleep (very quickly). Reminds of my days with HotPlug at WiebeTech. (For which I have a patent.)

And it worked. Computer's battery didn't die. Neither did the Kindle. Alarm woke me up. Otherwise, who knows how many years I would have slept in my coma-like sleeping pill induced haze.

Just had breakfast which they provide in a dining room upstairs. Basic european fare - rolls, coffee, breakfast meats, boiled eggs, cereal, fruit, juice. I just had some rolls with butter, very good, then with several cups of their great coffee. This is one part of Euro travel I really enjoy. I sat in the dining room, listening to the languages flow through the room like cream mixing in a cup, enjoying three cups of that coffee.

I'll be off to the show in 45 minutes or so.

My email in basket has copies of recent patent filings which were done on my behalf. In order to expedite the claims, they were done with what is called a provisional patent application. Two new sets of claims filed back in the states. Awesome. I'm looking forward to explaining that.

Finally, I really like the little hotel I selected. I am staying at the Garni Eden in Meersburg.