Bill built this plane back in the 80's; He flies it all over the place and runs the Pietenpol forum at Oshkosh. A really nice guy.

I got a chance to sit in his plane, he showed me how to maneuver my way in to the cockpit:

1. Stand facing the left side of the airplane.
2. Grab rear cabane strut with left hand.
3. Swing right leg up and over on to the seat.
4. Grab far side of cockpit with right hand.
5. Bend your head way over underneath the wing on the other side of plane, which will pick your left leg off the ground.
6. Rotate your body until you are facing forward.
7. Bring in right leg.
8. Sit down.

I would assume the front cockpit is similar, except it's higher up, and there's a step on the landing gear (at least on Bill's plane). Still seams vaguely impossible, but people get in there all the time.

Very pretty Piet, looks like the villain's plane from a 30's serial. Gorgeous.

When I first arrived on Thursday night, The Last Original was flying overhead. It just doesn't get much better than that really. The corvair has a very nice growl to it.

This is of course the last Pietenpol that Bernhard Pietenpol built himself. Legend has it took him about 6 weeks to build an Aircamper. By the time he built this one, he was past his 80th birthday and had slown down a bit -- it took him 12 weeks.

"Flying is a Gamble", Indeed.

I really like the joke instruments that are in the front cockpit. Nice sense of humor -- If you ever meet Ken Perkins, ask to see the documentation for the Navibird.

There are two planes that I inexplicably did not take pictures of.

Dick Navratil's Continental A65 powered plane was there -- a pretty example, and he's building a 2nd plane with a Rotec radial which should be really cool when it's finished.

And there was Lowell Franks' radial powered plane (you can see it in the panorama I took, it's blue...)

Many apologies for not taking pictures, I don't know what I was thinking.. :)

These two planes are pretty close to identical.

Both planes are very clean and well put together. The sheet metal work looked totally professional; like they came out of a production airplane. I think I might go with the aluminum panel myself.

Owner/Builders: Tim Mickel & Bill Emo

This plane has some very interesting and inventive touches. Most of which you can't really see in my photographs.

• There's little wood buttons to prevent the cables from rubbing.

• Lots of pretty veneer (flame maple, etc..).

• Caned seats (totally hand made caning!)

• The front of the cowl is made from the lid of a deep fat frier

• Engine turned cowl.

• Small baggage compartment behind pilot's seat.

• access panels, hidden storage everywhere.

Here's a panorama picture I took of the fly in on Friday. More planes showed up on Saturday, so things look a little spare, but you can get an idea of what the Brodhead fly-in is like.

The thumbnail looks terrible, but if you click on it, the full size version will come up which looks fine.

There are many very interesting airplanes based at Brodhead. The little yellow lincoln sport with the 3 cylinder radial was awesome, but never quite got in to the air (not sure of the story on that one).

The WACO with the inline engine was positively gorgeous.

There was an Aeronca C-3 that gave several rides, it was fascinating to watch such an old, slow airplane tool around. Slower even than the Pietenpols (at least that's the impression I got). Not sure why I don't have a picture of it.. damn.

Oh, and the Bleriot replica with the Anzani engine, and the Nieuport replica with a Le Rhone rotary... I missed the time when the owner fired up the engines.. snif.