Today's Airventure At Oshkosh

Its opening day and the salute to Van's Aircraft's 40th is among the highlights today, activities include Cubs of a Different Yellow. The special Cubs parking section in the Vintage area quickly came to life as the Cubs began arriving at Wittman Regional Airport around 6:30 a.m. Sunday. The "field of yellow" is in the Vintage area where bright yellow Piper J-3 Cubs from all over will gather into a massive display of yellow airplanes in celebration of the 75th anniversary of William Piper's most famous design.

SubSonex Jet Prototype in AirVenture Showcase, the SubSonex JSX-1 is a proof-of-concept prototype scheduled to fly five-minute demonstrations in three of the week's showcases: Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. The JSX-1 will be piloted Bob Carlton who has flown much of the JSX-1's flight-test program for Sonex Aircraft LLC and is known for his Super Salto jet-powered glider act, appearing as well in the air shows this week.

The JSX-1 proof-of-concept prototype is being used to explore the viability of the design for a possible aircraft kit product, look over the JSX-1 up close at the Sonex Aircraft display in the North Aircraft Display area, booth 622.

New Aviation Products are a real attraction for visitors and often find their way into the Simulation world , the new Dynon Backup PFD is one such item. The D1 is a small electronic display measuring about 3.5 inches square and weighs in at just 7.1 ounces. Yet it can show attitude based on its own internal non-moving electronic gyros. It uses GPS to show ground track, ground speed, and altitude, along with rate of climb. And it can operate for at least four hours on its own internal battery power or can be connected to aircraft power for indefinite operation.

Dynon configured the D1 like a conventional PFD with the blue-brown attitude display, a compass arc at the bottom with digital track presentation, and speed on the left and altitude on the right.

Dynon ships the D1 with a suction cup mounting arm that can be attached to any smooth, flat surface in the cockpit. Or, if you have an empty 3-inch instrument hole in the panel a clever mounting pad uses little "fingers" to grasp the edges of the instrument cutout and hold the unit firmly in place. Those "temporary" mounting systems are important only for standard airplanes because you can't "install" the D1. If you have an experimental, however, you can mount the D1 any way you wish.

Dual Electronics known for high-end audio is rolling out its XGPS170 ADS-B Receiver For Tablets at EAA AirVenture 2012.

The unit receives ADS-B weather and traffic data from the Flight Information Services-Broadcast and Traffic Information Services-Broadcast for display through electronic flight bag (EFB) applications running on iPad and Android tablets, the XGPS170 delivers the data wirelessly through Bluetooth technology and provides GPS data simultaneously to up to two tablets or smartphones.

Hombuilts are always a feature of Oshkosh , this year Canadian manufacturer SAM Aircraft (formerly Haim Aviation) has built a modern interpretation of an old airplane on view in the North Aircraft Display, the "SAM" is a Modern-Retro LSA making its world premier this week. SAM was designed to be compliant with LSA ASTM standards and the Canadian AULA standards. It is a classic-looking tandem, low-wing standard or tricycle gear monoplane that can accommodate-according to the manufacturer-two 6-foot, 6-inch pilots in a 26-inch wide cabin. SAM has a semi-monocoque structure using a 4130 steel protection cage, covered with aluminum skins.

AirVenture Live has the days events and links to the photos and videos as they are posted throughout the week , give yourself a few moments to see whats going on today.