Oshkosh 2013

X-150 - A Micro Turbojet Engine

Watch me build my engine from scratch !

My Trip to EAA 2013 Airventure Oshkosh

Picture	Description
	It was a long planning, since last year we have decided to attend the 2013 Oshkosh Airventure, and finally the Airventure is coming. 26Jul 2013 I took the Flight from Taipei to Tokyo for transit, then flew north across Alaska, then Canada to Detroit USA, then flew to O'hare Chicago, my destination. Countless hours of flying, just from Tokyo to Detroit the flight time is more than 15hours. Fortunately Delta airline has personal TV so you can watch the programs they provided to kill the time. Though the flight was exhausted but when the airline is over the Canadian rocky mountain range, it was a breath taking moment. My last time visiting USA was 1994, 19 years ago. Expecting to see a different USA.
	26Jul 2013 After arriving at Chicago, I spent one night at the hotel, waiting for Justin my American partner to pick me up. He's coming from Baltimore, all the way driving his truck with a trailer. Nice hotel, very close to the O'hare airport, has free coffee and free shuttle bus.
	28 Jul 2013 One day before Oshkosh Airventure 2013 opens, we've already got our little booth (Hangar B, booth 2083) ready. We even bought the carpet from the home depot. Two engines (H90, H160) and our newest ECU for exhibition. H160 is an upgraded H150R with higher thrust. click to see bigger one.
	28 Jul 2013 After we've got the booth ready, we have time to walk around and enjoy the Airventure. The EAA main gate is quite unique, it has two big propellers at each side of the gate. Click to see bigger picture. This place is huge, walking around and you'll get very sore foot, and that's what really happened to my foot. Better get on the free trams (provided by EAA) and let the trams to bring you to somewhere to see.
	28 Jul 2013 Justin and I were enjoying the free buffet for exhibitors, provided by the EAA, it was nice but one day only.
	29 Jul 2013 The first day of Airventure, It is very obvious that our little booth attracted many visitors. Business cards and brochures were simply not enough. My spoken English is not fluent enough so Justin did most of the explanation to the visitors. Sometimes we demo the starter motor running and made some noises but fortunately our neighboring booths were so kind to tolerate with us. The smooth bearings were very impressive to the visitors as the rotor kept on spinning like zero friction, until the air took away all the energy. Jetbeetle even gets media exposure.
	I have a chance to go to HondaJet's hangar and take a look at that amazing jet plane. The most unique feature of this aircraft is the over-the-wing engine mount. After some basic calculations I do think that's a good idea in terms of wings vertical loading. World's most advanced light jet, costs $4.5 million, 6 seats, has lavatory. Hmmm nice, I want one.
	Sonex's jet-powered aircraft exhibited at the outdoors. One of their aricraft is powered by a turbojet called TJ-100. We will have 250lbs turbofan engine very soon, I wonder if they are interested ? Lower fuel consumption, almost cut in half, why still insist on using turbojet engine ?
	The Oshkosh Airventure lasts 7 days, 29th Jul - 4th Aug, a whole week. Each day in the day time we stayed at our booth helping people to understand our products, every night we go back to the hotel, we did a lot of works including preparing for next day, testing ECU, upgrading the firmware, testing engine, all for a better products to the users. Each day was very busy, and very tight in schedule, and each day we had a little improvements on our exhibition. The input and output wires of the ECU may look complex but they are well organized, can't make a mistake.
	We use laptop as data terminal. Virtually any laptops, PCs, and even small Android netbooks can be used. A very nicely built piece of ECU, that's two years of hard works, countless scraped PCBs, 10,000 lines of source code, more than 2,000 emails between me and Justin, and it finally has became a reality.
	The warm little hotel at Kaukauna we stay for the nights during the Airventure week. Guess what ? we didn't even have a chance to touch the TV during our stay in the hotel, you can imagine how busy we were. And our room look like a garage because all the equipment for the exhibition.
	Gyrocopters that attracted my eyes, very beautifully built aircraft, costs more than $80K each, definitely more affordable than helicopters. When people came to our booth, the most frequently asked questions : 1. Is this the engine Jetman used ? 2. How do you convert pound thrust to horse power ? 3. How much is the fuel burn ? Me and Justin had answered these like a thousand times.
	And look, a flying car is crossing the street ! Amazing. If I have a house near by the airport, then this is pretty good idea to have one.
	Pratt and Whitney's PT6 turboprop engine. Cut-away and show the inside of the engine. A beautiful piece of turbo machinery. This is a very reliable engine, with a TBO above 5000 hours.
	Glider with solar panels on the back. The wings can be retracted. to save some space in the hangar.
	The first time ever, a real harrier fighter jet in front of me. that's an amazing aircraft. As a mechanical engineer I was pretty busy trying to figure out how this aircraft could perform vertical take off and landing.
	An unique aircraft called Velocity, good looking. Here is a brief statistics of 2013 Airventure : half a million people, and ten thousand aircrafts attended the event, and most of all, a safe one. If there has been 1% visitors came to our booth, that's 5,000 people. I roughly calculated, that's the number of people we had talked to or contacted.
	Good bye Kaukauna, Farewell Oshkosh ! Finally, 4th Aug Sunday, the last day of 2013 Oshkosh Airventure has come, with fruitful results, exhausted but happy team, in the afternoon we package everything and started heading home, Can't believe the Airventure is over. I said to Justin, this is a milestone. Justin drove me to o'hare Chicago, it was also on his way home. On the road we went to a Chinese restaurant, and had a dinner for celebration. After about 20hours of flying, I got back to Taipei on 9pm, 6th Aug 2013, and fortunately the last HSR (High Speed Rail) to kaohsiung was still available, when arriving Kaohsiung, my hometown, it was already 1am 7th Aug. My trip to Oshkosh, this will be the most unique piece of memory in my life. And we are already planning the sun and fun exhibition ! Yes, next April, we will demo something new to the visitors !