2006 Fly-in Pictures



2006 Rough River Canard Fly-In
Central States Association
September 29th to October 1st



There are a lot of images on this page, and it may load slowly if you have a dial-up internet connection.



There were simply too many great canard aircraft to include pictures of each.





Bruce Vinnola's E-Racer made its Rough River debut this year.  After many years of building, the effort was definitely worth it.










There were a lot more people camping this year, possibly because the lodge and cabins were full.  We rented out the entire park for the weekend.  There are always plenty of rooms within walking distance of the airport at a couple of local motels, but many people prefer the convenience of camping at the airport.









Rob Martinson flies in from Colorado every year in his fast Varieze.  Rob races a lot.



Last year, Rough River organizers Sam Chambers and Dave Russell lamented about people flying from California and England to attend, and they were local but not flying their EZs.  They swore that wouldn't happen in 2006.  Well, here's Dave's Varieze.  Anybody seen Sam's Long-EZ?

To be fair, Sam has been flying his very nice Long-EZ, but had a bit of engine issues this summer and is reworking the instrument panel... again.






Steve Wright's Stagger-EZ is a beautiful and unique canard creation, and it flies as good as it looks.  People flock around the Stagger-EZ and Steve answers a lot of questions.  Steve flew a lot of demo rides this year, and a few others did as well.




Chris Esselstyn's Cozy Mk IV has a 540 cubic inch engine.  Everyone was anxious to see how the front hatch worked.  The baby is under the wing, protected from the light rain, and is checking out the clever Velocity retract landing gear retrofitted to this Cozy.





James and Sandy Redmon flew up from Texas again this year in their Berkut.  For a lot more info, check out http://www.berkut13.com.





Two people can see a lot of the world if they have a Cozy and a couple of folding bikes, and they're a great way to get around the Rough River State Park.





At Rough River, you can always see clusters of builders and builder wannabes gathered around planes, getting a lot of great ideas and motivation.





We had a Q2 and a Dragonfly at Rough River last year, but they must have their own fly-ins because even though there are many flying, we don't see too many at Rough River.  This year, we had the most beautiful Quickie imaginable.  The attention to detail was obvious and very impressive.




Camping under the wing of your Long-EZ is a lot of fun, although it was a bit soggy Saturday night.



Harry Manvel is a Rough River regular.  He flies his very nice Defiant down from Michigan every year.



Chris was flying a lot on Saturday, including some low passes.  That is one FAST Cozy!







Bill Allen (standing) flew up from Dallas in his Long-EZ.  He flew it over from the UK last year and left it in California.  Fellow brit, Graham Shevlin, flew up from Dallas as Bill's wingman, although Bill says he made him do all the radio work while Graham listened to CDs.  Bill is saying bye to Graham, who departed on Saturday.




Graham Shevlin, taking off Saturday late afternoon in his Long-EZ on a flight to Birmingham.



There were a lot of EZs flying overhead throughout the day.







The Saturday evening get together has traditionally been at Terry Schubert's cabin.  For the past two years, we all met at the airport building.

There were a lot of great prizes again this year, and The Sam & Dave Show was funnier than ever.

We seemed to have another record crowd, to which Chrissi said, "There may be something to this canard thing."

The official canard aircraft count was 70, which is about the same as last year even though the weather all day Saturday was much worse than last year.  Several builders flew to Rough River in non-canard aircraft.

Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun despite the weather, and it was another safe canard fly-in.  It's time for you to start planning for Rough River 2007.

As always, thanks to Terry Schubert, Sam Chambers and Dave Russell for making it happen, and thanks to all the canard enthusiasts who show up and make this such a wonderful event that just keeps getting better every year.




Sunset over the canards


If you have any spectacular photos you think others would enjoy, please email them to:

webmaster at roughriver dot org

Previous years, I received CDs full of great pictures and sorting through them was overwhelming, so I'll leave it to you to select your best images.

If you have factual corrections or additional information, please let me know.

Finally, and I'll probably regret this, if you'd like a free CD with 218 full size JPG images from the 2006 Rough River Canard Fly-In that can be viewed on your computer or most modern DVD players connected to a TV, please email me your mailing address.  Offer valid in the US and Canada only.

The next batch of images were taken by Dave Philipsen on Friday.





























The next batch of pictures were taken by Bruce Vinnola on Sunday morning.