It's Thursday night at Camp Scholler, day four of days not mattering, and Kent and I sat down with one goal: be smart-asses about a few things we'd seen at AirVenture.

So we get into it. Textron had us all convinced this was the year the Pipistrel Panthera would finally get certified under MOSAIC — and instead we got another two-seat trainer. The Camp Scholler bathhouse has quietly relocated the towel hooks inside the shower. The night air show is still the best thing in aviation, but somebody counted down "two minutes to hack" and then made us wait ten more for two drones and a flag. Also, everybody please sit down and stop filming it.

Then Bob Bittner wandered into the conversation and blew up our whole gripe session, because the 2026 AirVenture Cup — the one Kent has rechristened the SmokeVenture Cup — turned out to be a much better story than anything we were complaining about.

We tried to be snide. We learned things instead. That's episode 93.

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Links:

Links Mentioned

The AirVenture Cup

• AirVenture Cup Race — official site
• 2026 race course
• 2026 results — EAA Hangar Flying
• Wildfire smoke postpones the race (WSAW)
• The race finally launches from smoky Wausau skies (WSAW)
• Learn Build Fly — Wausau youth aviation program

Bob's airplane

• Cozy Mark IV
• Rutan VariEze — where the canard family started
• Long-EZ (EAA)

Textron, Pipistrel & MOSAIC

• Pipistrel (a Textron eAviation company)
• Pipistrel Panthera
• Textron buys Pipistrel, 2022 (AOPA)
• FAA MOSAIC rule
• MOSAIC explained — FAQ (AOPA)

Other things we talked about

• SubSonex personal jet kit (Sonex Aircraft)
• Camp Scholler (EAA)

Hope you enjoy the episode and thanks for listening! Visit the SPC website at https://studentpilotcast.com. Please keep the feedback coming. You can use the contact form on the website or send email to bill at student pilot cast dot com. The theme song for our episodes is "To Be an Angel" by the band, "Uncle Seth".

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