L-39 Driver Tim Brutsche

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Many of us go to airshows and love the prop-driven warbirds and the military jet team performances. But there’s a space in there that’s inhabited by a special breed of airplane and pilot. That’s the civilian-owned and operated jet warbird.

One such jet warbird is the L-39 Albatross. It’s a high-performance jet trainer developed in Czechoslovakia during the 1960s to replace the L-29. It was the first of the second-generation jet trainers, and the first turbofan-powered trainer produced.

And the pilot of one such jet warbird is Tim Brutsche, callsign “Dawg.” He has been flying for 34 years, 12 years in jets, and holds an ATP certificate and instrument rating. He has 5,800 hours flying, including 800 hours in jets ,and he is also a certified instructor pilot and a qualified lead formation pilot. He’s also a Lt Col and check airman the Kellogg Senior Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol.

I met Tim several years ago and had the opportunity to talk to him briefly on the ramp at Battle Creek over Independence Day weekend last summer after he gave C/Lt Col Melanie Davis her incentive flight for the Civil Air Patrol’s Spaatz Award. Shortly after ICAS this year, I called Tim to see if I could talk him into sharing some of his experiences flying the L-39 with the Airspeed audience and he generously obliged.

Let’s go to the interview!

[Brutsche Interview]

More information about The Hoppers, the L-39, and other people and organizations we discussed:

The Hoppers

Wikipedia Entry on the L-39

Civil Air Patrol

North American Pride Aviation

ICAS Convention - Day 3

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These are the show notes to an audio episode. If you want to listen online, please use the direct link below. http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedICAS03.mp3.

Another installment from Firebase Airspeed – ICAS 2009 style. Rico and I talk about yesterday’s events before backing up and heading out.

ICAS Convention - Day 2 - Part 2

Day 2 of ICAS successfully completed!

This is the first day upon which the exhibit hall was open and I spent most of the day making my way around the hall with Rico Sharqawi of Wilco Films. It can get to the point where it takes an hour to go 50 feet. In a good way. It’s running into people you know and people you’re meeting for the first time. And really connecting about their particular take on aviation and how to convey the excitement to audiences.

Rico and I are planning to do another debrief tomorrow morning. We’re finding that it’s a great idea to just empty our pockets of business cards from the day before and go over the people we met and talk about some of the synergies that we have with these folks. Or just the amazing stuff that they do. Looking forward to that.

Aaron Tippin gave a performance after the exhibit hall closed down for the day. Good performance with footage of him flying his Stearman on the big screen. Even though it was in the big ballroom, that makes for a cozy venue here at ICAS. Probably 200 people gathered around the stage in front with others hanging ou tat the tables in back.

I guess that’s just another thing about ICAS. I wandered right up to the stage several times after changing cameras and never had a problem getting there. Nobody throwing elbows. Nobody being a jerk. Everyone giving room to the guy shooting video for the big screens. Jut a great crowd.

The sessions kept going today when the exhibit hall was closed. I pretty much hung out in the halls to soak in more of the vibe of the event and to meet additional people. I’m actually in danger of running out of business cards if you can believe that.

I find that, in talking to people, they want to know about the show and about what I do as much as I want to know about them. ICAS seems to level out the interactions. Outside of ICAS, it’s the hero-fanboy relationship at the airshow fence. Here, I get the feeling that if you’ve come to the effort to come to ICAS, you must be serious. No posers here. Or at least not many. And you can stand around and have a beer with Greg Koontz or Gene Soucy or Theresa Stokes or the Misty Blues (all-woman skydiving team), or Scott Lane and the list goes on.

Jay, one of the pilots from Speed and Angels bought be a Leinie’s. Just out of the blue. It’s that kind of community. If you’re there, you’re serious about aviation and airshows. It’s just assumed.

I’m still finding that I have to explain what a podcast is, but people are interested and actually want to know. It’s really had the effect of refining my elevator pitch, if nothing else. I need to get across what I do and the audience for whom I do it. All in about 60 seconds in a crowded and exceedingly noisy room. It’s a challenge, but I think the message gets across. And it’ll ultimately benefit the whole new media community if we get the word out about the depth of the coverage that we can do.

I neglected yesterday to go over the presentation that came immediately after the new media panel. Announcer extraordinaire Rob Reider moderated and Roger Bishop served on the panel. They covered how to leverage video for the airshow experience, both for big screens on site and for distribution to remote audiences. These guys can wire and aircraft for video and sound in about an hour and set up the ground stations and production trucks to assemble the programking in a really immediate way.

It might seem simple, right? Sure, if the aircraft is only going to fly straight and level. But straight and level isn’t very exciting. If the aircraft is going to yank and bank, you need to have antennas with a line of sight to the ground systems at all times and that means antennas that aren’t blocked by the airframe itself. Suddenly, you’re talking whole new levels of complexity.

I saw the video production for the on-site presentation at the Indy Airshow this summer and it was great. You really have to involve the performers, the announcer, and everyone else to bring it off. It adds a whole new level of complexity because everyone’s now thinking about not just the pure acro visible along the crowd line, but the added elements of the video. Now the audience gets to see inside the cockpit and outside from the perspective of the performer and the aircraft. And you have to think about how to make that compelling – not just to an aviation fanboy like me, but to the average airshow attendee.

The mixing and getting to know people continued after the Aaron Tippin show. Mainly down at the bar near the elevators in the lobby, but in other places as well.

The above shot is not intended to be great art. It’s not. It’s just to give you an idea of how crowded and great things get.

I spent an hour or so up in the Air Show Aces hospitality suite. The Air Show Aces are Kent Pietsch, Gene Soucy, and Warren Pietsch with announcer Danny Clisham and wingwalker Theresa Stokes. These folks can put on a almost two hours’ worth of airshow all by themselves by combining their skills and resources to form 12 discreet acts. Unreal. You guys know how much I love Gene’s Show Cat and the noises it makes. And the rest of the acts are great, too.

The picture above gives you a good indication of what it’s like. Wall-to-wall people, most of them pilots to one extent or another, and everyone talking or shouting across the room. I saw that John Mohr had brought up two guitars (my kind of scene!) but the party was too thick to really break them out and I didn’t have enough energy left to wait until things dissipated. So I retreated to the room to edit some audio and get stuff ready for recording the show tomorrow.

Hard to believe that I have to leave at noon tomorrow to head home. Wednesday is going to be ugly. I’ll review a few deals tomorrow on the plane and try to be ready to return to normalcy, but it’s not going to be easy.

More soon from ICAS 2009!

ICAS Convention - Day 2

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These are the show notes to an audio episode. If you want to listen online, please use the direct link below. http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedICAS02.mp3.

(Thanks to Clark Cook (www.airshowpix.net) for shooting this picture of Rico, Tiffany Wolf, and me!)

A conversation with Rico Sharqawi recounding the adventures of the first day of the ICAS convention in Las Vegas.

The panel presentation on new media and social media for airshows is available for download at http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedICASNewMedia.mp3. The audio quality wasn’t great, so I didn’t make an episode out of it, but wanted to make it available to you here on the website.

Now it’s down to the convention floor to go meet the magic again!

Airspeed Releases White Paper at ICAS - Flying New Media and Social Media Riders

Download a free copy of the white paper by clicking HERE .

In connection with my appearance on the new-media panel at the ICAS convention, I launched a white paper.

As you know, I’m all about new-media types getting media ride seats at airshows and otherwise. If you’re an Airspeed listener/viewer, you know what new media and social media can do with audio, video, and other content generated from these rides. You know how this medium can go places and achieve depth of storytelling that traditional media hasn’t even heard of. For you and me, it’s a no-brainer to put a new-media rider up in the aircraft. But it doesn’t help to preach to the choir.

There are airshow performers, organizers, and sponsors who need good info about what new media and social media are in the first place. And then they need a concise statement of the benefit of flying new-media personalities. What it can and can’t do. And how to vet a potential new-media rider.

So I wrote up this little white paper. I brought 35 copies of the white paper to the presentation (all I could put together in the time I had) and they went like hotcakes. I’m very pleased about that.

For those who wanted a copy but didn’t get one, please click on the link above and download the document.

And for those who find it helpful, stay subscribed. It’s probably going to go through several more iterations as I come up with new or better thoughts and revise it. And, if you have suggestions or want specific topics covered that aren’t in the document now, please leave comments on this post and I’ll take them into consideration as I update the document.

ICAS Convention - Day 1

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These are the show notes to an audio episode. If you want to listen online, please use the direct link below. http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedICAS01.

I’m in Las Vegas covering the annual meeting of the International Council of Airshows and its 2009 annual convention.

ICAS’s own description says it best.

“ICAS is a not-for-profit trade association composed of professionals working in the air show community. Approximately 40 percent of the organization’s members are air show event organizers from the United States, Canada and the rest of the world. Another 40 percent of the organization’s members are individuals or organizations that perform at air shows. And the remaining 20 percent are support service providers who offer ancillary services (concessions, insurance, photography, etc.) to the air show community.

“The primary missions of the organization are: 1) to maintain safety; 2) serve as an information resource on air show issues for those within and outside the industry; 3) provide for the training and continuing education needs of ICAS members and air show professionals generally; and 4) promote the air show industry to the media, corporate North America, and the general public.”

I started out coverage today by hitting Airshows 101 – Air-Ground Operations Training, an intense day-long session that lays the groundwork for anyone who wants to organize an airshow. Topics include how to lay-out your air show site; mitigating air show hazards; timelines for initiating different aspects of your air show planning; what to consider when hiring performers; how to apply for an air show waiver and your responsibilities once it’s approved; the importance of establishing strong communications; how to establish early control of ground operations and support; what you should include in your emergency plan; and how to work with your assigned safety inspector.

Want to talk about drinking from a fire hose? This is it. But it’s presented very clearly by a group of experienced airbosses and similar personnel. I'm including some audio from the session. listen to a few outtakes. No particular rhyme or reason to these. They're what was happening when I had the recorder out and handy. But I knows that you guys like to be flies on the wall for the deep background, so the lack of editing won't bother the afterage Airspeed fanboy.

[Seminar audio]

Long-time listeners to the show will know that I try to have an experienced airshow director on every spring to talk about what goes on behind the scenes. I think we’ve gotten some pretty good insights through three years of doing that. But this takes it to a whole new level.

It’s Sunday. The exhibit hall is being put together as I record this and seminars are going on down the hall. Later on today, I sit down on a four-person panel to talk about new media and social media and how to make it work for airshow performers, organizers, and sponsors. Roger Bishop of Indy Transponder and the Indianapolis Airshow will also be on the panel and it’ll be a good hour of content for the attendees. I’m pretty excited about it and I’m planning to record it and put it out on the feed.

I’m planning to release a rapid-fire series of episodes over the course of the next few days. If you have your podcatcher set to download only the most recent episode, please make sure that you go back and verify that you haven’t missed an episode or two.

More information about ICAS is available at http://www.airshows.aero/.

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