Shuttle Launch

We were in for a special treat with a sunset shuttle launch. So we geared up and headed for the beach.

We are about 10 miles from the launch platform.

The rocket contrail was spectacular in the setting sun's rays.

We could even see the seperation of the solid rocket boosters.

This high altitude ice crystal cirrus cloud formed by the shuttle lingered in the evening sky.

Urban Air USA and Evektor USA Join Forces

Urban Air and Evektor have been sharing the hangar and offices for half a year now. So we decided to make it official and join forces under our Bostik Industries LLC banner. Since Josef Bostik is the driving force behind both companies, we decided he could be president.

From left: New SportStar owner Paul Hissey, Barry Pruitt, Jim Lee, Josef Bostik, Georgia Bostik, John Sepulveda.

The hangar keeps filling up, and then we watch as the birds we unloaded from their containers and assembled fly the coop to their new owners.

Paul Hissey and Barry saddle up for their coast to coast flight to LA. Paul graciously allowed us to show his plane at the Sebring Expo before taking it back home.

January 22 through 25 found us at the Sebring, Florida Light Sport Aircraft Expo. We met many new pilots and talked with folks interested in the Urban Air and Evektor aircraft. We had two booths, one for each company. The Samba and Lambada were displayed at the Urban Air booth, and we had a second Lambada out on the flight line for demo flights. We flew about 10 flights with interested customers. The weather was great, and we will end up with some customers from the show.

Paul is an ex P-38 Lightning pilot and a proud SportStar SL Max owner. Nice graphics on the plane don't you think? Actually we are ordering all white SportStars, and then applying a new space-age graphic which doesn't fade or peel. So we can have aircraft in stock, and then give the customer his choice of several graphics and colors. This should work better than saying "Well, we can get you a red and brown one in about 4 months".

Josef looks over the Samba checklist with an interested pilot at the expo.

Urban Air booth. OK, it doesn't look like much is going on, but do you think we can step away for photos when we have people to talk to?

As usual, Lambada owner and company friend Jeff Shingleton arrived from New York to lend a hand at the show. These events are a lot of fun, but we stand on our feet all day long, and it gets hard at the end of the day. Kathy and Rachel Lee also showed up to give us some much needed back-up on the weekend.