Classic Airshows

Flight Journal Mag – Chippy’s Cloverleafs, by Jan Tegler

Mark Meredith — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 15:55:46 +0000

Flight Journal Magazine published a great article about Chippy in the March/April 2023 issue. Jan Tegler is the author; he clearly spent quite a bit of time researching it and getting the details, capturing not just the 71 year life story of N7DW but a bit about the history of Super Chipmunks starting with Harold Krier and Art Scholl. Jan knows his aviation history! It’s a beautiful layout too.

Chippy has a many chapter story that spans the globe, from the UK, to Tasmania, to Australia and the US. Jan shapes the story around the cloverleaf – an aerobatic figure involving a half loop with a graceful 90 degree roll to change directions. One of my favorite figures to fly in Chippy! Fly four of them and you complete a 4-leaf clover, representing the four major cycles in Chippy’s hard-working life.

I’m blessed to be the current pilot and caretaker of this gem! Many thanks to Jan and to the skilled and artful aviation photographers who are credited in this story.

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Waldo Pepper Outside Loop Schenigans

Mark Meredith — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 15:43:01 +0000

Chippy and I had some fun. Some new stuff in the sequence for 2023. More slo-mo tumbles, and maybe some Waldo Pepper shenanigans.

Thanks to all the great Chipmunk airshow pilots of the past who continue to inspire me! Especially Art Scholl, and Jim “Fang” Maroney.

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Fun Flight!

Mark Meredith — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 15:18:23 +0000

My sister Vickie Meredith Lord had a great time flying in Chippy’s front seat. We flew my entire airshow sequence and then some and she loved it!

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Beautiful Super Chippy Art Quilt!

Mark Meredith — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 15:12:40 +0000

My talented sister Vickie Meredith Lord created this terrific hanging art quilt inspired by Chippy, and in the spirit of classic airshows past and present. I love it! Thank you so much, Vickie!

My wife Martha and I are blessed to have quite a few of Vickie’s beautiful art quilts hanging in our home (or covering our beds). She has been creating and winning awards for her colorful, intricate and surprising quilts for decades. This one is over the top fun and has special meaning for me of course!

Vickie got to make a front seat flight in Chippy last October. We flew my entire air show sequence and then some. She laughed all the way through. Some of her flight is captured in a separate video on this page, to the tune of Uptown Funk. Enjoy! https://youtu.be/supFotV7W2k

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Meeting the Kids at Leesburg Airshow

Mark Meredith — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 14:46:05 +0000

One of my favorite parts of any airshow is talking with the kids and their parents after an airshow! We are all out there to inspire the next generation.

https://www.facebook.com/maura.lankenau/posts/10159879373869235

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A Tail of 3 Chipmunks!

Mark Meredith — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 17:13:07 +0000

Thanks to David Eckert for shooting these awesome photos! And to Nathan K. Hammond and Ross Harwell for bringing their Chips. special thanks to Richard, Sandy and Dan Landis for hosting us at Flying Horseman Ranch. It was a lovely weekend – cold, crisp and blue…perfect weather for fall flying among the Blue Ridge mountains.

A great adventure among good friends.

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Chippy Can Now Fly in the Clouds!

Mark Meredith — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 15:51:02 +0000

Yes, friends, Chippy is now an IFR capable airplane. Not many open cockpit airshow airplanes that can (legally!) fly in the clouds!

The photos in the scuzzy weather are past experiences of flying under low cloud layers. It’s all good until there’s mountains about! Don’t want to do this anymore.

So now we’ve done two practice flights (in bright blue skies) with a new Garmin avionics upgrade, just completed and tested this week. Chippy and I shot a variety of GPS approaches into local airports. Yesterday we flew 3 LPV or LNAV precision approaches (yes, while keeping a traffic lookout!). Today we shot a practice glide slope approach (LNAV+V) into Easton MD for a touch and go landing on 15, then flew up to the practice box 7 miles north to fly aerobatics, then we flew another instrument approach back into home base at Lee Annapolis.

Turns out Chippy flies approaches nicely at 120 kts, but if it’s really scuzzy weather and I want to slow the action, it’ll fly like a Piper Arrow at 80 and full flaps. Same power settings and almost as stable.

What we learned: the GPS loses the satellites when you go inverted! It takes a long time to come back. So we won’t be flying any inverted instrument approaches, dang it.

Thanks to Gulf Coast Avionics for making me a wiring harness which is just a thing of beauty, to connect it all together as part of an OshKosh deal! Then sticking with me through lots of phone calls and emails while I figured out the configuration settings so all the boxes talk to each other. Thanks for all the help, Levi Vickers, Robert Locke and Sarah Smith!

https://www.gulfcoastavionics.com

Gulf Coast Avionics

Garmin has come out with some amazing stuff recently, for a fraction of the price and panel space once required. Equipment I installed: GNX 375 combined GPS and transponder (WAAS and ADSB in/out), GAD 29C network box, GAD 13 OAT sensor, and GMU 11 magnetometer. I already had a Garmin G5 that now provides a PFD or HSI with lots of new info feeding it.

I figure I’ll shoot an approach on the way to and from the aerobatics area every time, to practice with it. It takes a minute to mentally shift gears from instrument flying (smooth and gentle) to pulling to a vertical roll then into a flat spin!

Here’s the new equipment in action!

And WHY I want this capability. Chippy and I would rather climb through the goo under instrument conditions than scud run underneath it, especially with mountains around!

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Fun with 360 Video Editing

Mark Meredith — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 20:43:07 +0000

Here’s a little video I put together using a wingtip mounted GoPro Max 360 camera plus some video shot from the ground.

Edited using Wondershare Filmora. Hope you enjoy!

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Pocono Raceway Airshow

Mark Meredith — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 01:51:54 +0000

https://classicairshows.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2021-Pocono-Raceway-Airshow-Mark-Meredith.mp4

Chippy and I flew in The Great Pocono Raceway Airshow last Saturday, 21 August 2021. It was a terrific event with tens of thousands of airshow fans in the stands! The venue was fun for flying aerobatics, and my wife Martha was in the stands which made it even better.

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Video Intro to Mark and Chippy

Mark Meredith — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 21:38:33 +0000

Rebuilding and flying airshows in this classic aircraft has been an adventure! I’m happy to share it with people at shows, media flights, or just to introduce kids and adults to aviation and aerobatics. Raising the next generation! You can check out more details about me and this globe trotting airplane.

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