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Sandpoint Airpark: Live in luxury with your airplane

We recently profiled the Mallards Landing Airpark in Henry County just south of Atlanta, but General Aviation News has brought our attention to the SilverWing at Sandpoint Airpark located in Sandpoint, Idaho.

The project was conceived by pilot owner John McKeown who wanted to build a residential airpark, but finding the right spot wasn’t easy because the right location had to be:

Adjacent to a public airport with a runway long enough for larger aircraft.
Close to a vibrant town where people could walk or take a short drive to restaurants, shopping and other activities.
Be in a beautiful location that offers year-round recreational activities and of course, flying.

A flight over Long Bridge, Lake Pend Oreille and downtown Sandpoint that culminated with a landing at the Sandpoint Airport (SZT) on its 5,501 foot or 1,677 meter runway convinced him he’d found the right spot.

John was quoted by General Aviation News as saying that:

“The Sandpoint Airport is one of a few mountain resort airports located in the center of town, just minutes from skiing, boating, shopping and restaurants. USA Today named Sandpoint one of the best five small towns in America and we couldn’t agree more. In the winter, Schweitzer Ski Mountain is the place to be. Just a 15-minute drive from the SilverWing, Schweitzer was named the ‘best kept secret’ by Ski Magazine. From the top of mountain, at 6,400 feet, the stunning views include Canada’s Selkirks, Montana’s Cabinet and Bitterroot Mountain Ranges, as well as Lake Pend Oreille. Downtown Sandpoint is picturesque with holiday lights, earning Travel + Leisure’s accolade as one of ‘America’s Prettiest Winter Towns.’ When the weather heats up, activities on Lake Pend Oreille are boundless. At 65 miles long and 1,150 feet deep, Lake Pend Oreille is Idaho’s largest and the fifth deepest lake in the United States, making it great for boating, kayaking, fishing and more.”

SilverWing purchased 18 acres adjacent to the airport in late 2006 with the first model home being completed in 2011. Today, there are 44 residential lots ranging in size from 6,000 to 27,000 square feet (557 to 2,508 sqms) and these lots can be individually built on or combined for larger hangar-home units.

Mike Mileski, one of the developers, noted:

“There are five designs to choose from, ranging from a 50 x 42 foot hangar with an equal size residence above to a 60 x 70 foot hangar with over 4,200 square feet of residence above. The average cost of building a hangar and a residential shell starts at $75 per square foot and can increase depending on finishes and other items an owner wants to do. All of our lots are on fee simple land and ready for immediate build out.”

In addition, there are plans to build a common area with an exercise center, swimming pool, spa and a BBQ area while a full service SilverWing FBO is already at the airport.

Click here to see the latest information about pricing and availability and do note that each owner must pays an annual fee of $150 to Bonner County for airport access rights plus additional fees of $75 per year will be required for any additional aircraft that is hangared for longer than 30 days a year.

Interested? You can find out more information and see plenty of pictures (including floor plans) of SilverWing at Sandpoint Airpark on the development’s website here while a quick search on YouTube revealed this really cool flying video over the area which gives you a good idea of just how beautiful the location and region around the Airpark is:

The Martin jetpack comes closer to reality

We have mentioned the Martin Jetpack in the past (see The Martin jetpack is coming to a garage near you), but Yahoo! News recently ran an update and it sounds like the jetpack is coming closer to reality.

Apparently, the Martin Jetpack’s latest prototype, which can fly for 30 minutes, reach heights of 5,000 feet/1,500 meters and speeds of 60 mph/96.6 kph, has been cleared for manned testing by New Zealand’s aviation authority.

When asked how safe it was, inventor Glen Martin said:

“In comparison with a light helicopter or something like that we believe this is going to be significantly safer.”

Moreover, there are redundant operational systems, an impact-absorbing undercarriage and a ballistic parachute that opens in .2 seconds (if needed).

It also took twenty years of tinkering for Martin and his team to come up with an engine that is 90% efficient in converting horse power to thrust and uses a giant ducted fan fired by a piston internal combustion engine – similar to what a personal watercraft or snowmobile uses.

Once airborne, an onboard computer controls the Martin Jetpack while the “pilot” uses the computer’s two joysticks with the left one controlling height and the right one controlling direction. If the pilot removes his or her hands, the jetpack simply hovers in place.

According to Martin, various governments and military units are already interested in using the Martin Jetpack for border patrols and search and rescue missions. He is also planning to deliver a recreational model for approximately $150,000 and there are already more than 2,000 buyers on a waiting list.

A quick look on YouTube reveals a Martin Jetpack channel with the following video uploaded in early August showing the latest prototype (it already has over 100,000 views):

A De Havilland Hornet Moth returns home to St Athan

The St Athan military base in the Vale of Glamorgan celebrated its 75th anniversary earlier in the week when it welcomed back a De Havilland Hornet Moth – one of the first planes which took off from there when the old air base opened in 1938.

The history of St Athan and the Hornet Moth are somewhat intertwined because originally the base was intended to be a maintenance base because it was thought to be beyond the reach of the Luftwaffe. However, the fall of France put an end to that belief while the development of rapid monoplane fighters meant that the Hornet Moth was far too slow and vulnerable for combat duties.

Nevertheless, the Hornet Moth found new roles at St Athan as submarine spotters, air taxis and for helping to calibrate early radar installations. All told, around 160 Hornet Moths were built and between 25 and 30 are thought to still be in airworthy condition 75 years later.

One of those airworthy Horner Moths returned to St Athan as part of its 75th anniversay celebration with current owner David Weston telling the BBC:

“People say the design was outdated even then but it was always intended to be an easy-to-fly, easy-to-maintain workhorse, and it does it brilliantly. I bought her from the Shuttleworth Collection in Bedfordshire in 1996 and, apart from a slight crash in 1971, she’s been flying continuously all her life and could easily go for another 75 years if she’s looked after properly.”

The BBC also has the following video showing Weston coming in for a landing and then he talks a bit about the history of the aircraft:

Escaping from a coffin while being dropped from a plane

Church deacon and escape artist Anthony Martin’s latest stunt was to free himself from shackles while locked in a casket that was dropped from an airplane at 14,500 feet (4460 meters). The following Fox News segment before the stunt has some details about what was being planned:

Following the stunt, WGN Chicago aired a segment with footage of the jump which you can view by clicking here (as embedding it into this post will have it start automatically!)

Apparently, Anthony did the stunt one other time 25 years ago. This time around, it took him thirty second to pick the locks (something he started learning to do when he was only six years old) and escape, but it wasn’t easy because the plywood casket whipped wildly from side-to-side and he also struggled to open the door.

Everyone involved in the stunt did land safely with no serious injuries. However, one of the skydivers ended up with a fat lip and a scraped arm after being slammed into the door of the plane as they exited while trying to steady the box.

So what was the point of Anthony’s stunt? To sell his new book entitled, “Escape or Die: An escape artist unlocks the secret to cheating death,” which chronicles his four-decade long career as an escape artist.

Videos: Skydiving cats and dogs

Pet owners will do just about everything with their pets, with some going so far as to take their pets skydiving – which should come as a surprise because not too long ago, the fur was flying over this Swedish ad for pet insurance showing skydiving cats:

Of course and as the following CNN segment from Jeanne Moos about the “controversial” ad reveals, the cats were not actually skydiving as some viewers had thought as everything was filmed in a studio (e.g. the cats were blown by fans to give them their slightly grumpy windblown look):

But before you think that nobody in their right mind would actually try skydiving with their pet cat, think again as Jeanne mentioned someone did try it and there is a video on YouTube to prove it:

That video seems to be an exception to the rule (as well as commonsense given how cats usually don’t like noisy places, like inside of airplanes!) that skydiving and cats do not mix. Nevertheless, a quick search of YouTube reveals several skydiving dogs, including Crasha, Big Arnold, Mindy (this video noted the world record holding skydiving dog has 73 jumps and counting) and a Pug named Bugsy.

It should be noted that dogs have been parachuted into war zones and for Artic rescue missions since at least the World War II era as this final video reveals (although their lands do appear rather hard):

With the above videos in mind, we would love to hear your thoughts about skydiving with a pet e.g. Would you ever consider doing it and more importantly, should it even be allowed?

Video: What an old Soviet Antonov An-2 Colt is capable of

Hat tip to the Aviationist blog for finding and posting this old video of an Antonov An-2 Colt’s appearance in a 2006 Krakow air show showing just what the aircraft is capable of. The Antonov An-2 was a Soviet-era workhorse airplane designed by Oleg Antonov that was intended as an all purpose aircraft for just about everything from crop dusting to training parachutists. They even saw combat action in the Korean War, clandestine action over Laos during the Vietnam War and were last used in the Croatian War of Independence against Serbia/Yugoslavia back in the early 1990s.

According to the Antonov An-2’s Wikipedia Page, the aircraft’s high noise levels, increasing maintenance costs, high fuel consumption and unsophisticated nature (as the pre-flight checks take between 30 and 40 minutes) mean they are obsolete for commercial service in Europe and huge numbers are available for very low prices (for as little as $30,000). This of course makes them an ideal aircraft for the developing world where they are used to carry large loads into short airstrips.

The video shows the types of maneuvers an Antonov An-2 is capable of, from aerobatics and low speed passes to loops and extremely short landings: