Oshkosh.

OSHKOSH!

 

There will come a day when the period of time a person has been aware in the Aviation and the Homebuilding World will be measured by how they refer to the annual gathering in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Is it Oshkosh?

Or is it “Air Venture”?

As Tigger would say, “Pooh”.

 

I think the name “Air Venture” was dreamed up by slick advertising people who get paid by the letter and who have probably never been up in an aircraft smaller than a Gulfstream V.

Oshkosh will forever BE “Oshkosh”, no matter what they print on the brochures.

IMHO.

 

Once a year people from around the country, indeed from around the world, gather by their hundreds of thousands at a small town by the shores of a small lake in central United States to celebrate flight.

 

It is said that for a week, this location is the busiest airport in the world, with operations (take offs and landings) numbering in the thousands.

 

Having been there now, I believe it.

 

Nothing prepares you for Oshkosh. Not Regional fly-ins, not even Sun and Fun.

I’ve read that one does not visit Oshkosh – one experiences it.

Having been there now, I fully agree.

 

The keel was laid, so to speak, for our RV-6 on Memorial Day weekend in 1998. First flight was 30 December, 2003. To date we’ve accumulated a mere 240 hours, and no, we’ve never been to Oshkosh. But this year we changed that.

 

Our plan was to make a dawn run North on Wednesday, to see our grad student daughter in Chamapign, IL, then on the following day, run on up to Oshkosh. But the weather had other ideas. Or rather, the weather GUESSERS had other ideas, filling our heads with the notion that we’d better get out of town by Tuesday evening or we’d be stuck here until Thursday in rain and solid overcast. Fortunately I had spent Monday evening packing the plane with all of our camping gear and topped the tanks. A couple of clothes bags and our tooth brushes and we would be ready!

 

So plans were changed and we launched from T74 - not on a nice, cool, smooth summer morning but in the middle of a hot, bumpy summer afternoon. We mitigated that little problem by climbing to smoother, cooler air above the scattered cumulus. 

The mighty RV got us there in short order and without complaint.

 

With aplomb Tigger the RV(C)-6 lifted us and our Oshkosh load of tent, sleeping bags, air mattresses, pillows, canopy cover, tie downs, chocks, tools, oil, food, clothes, hats, cameras and computer, folding chairs, chair shades (double as umbrellas), spare radio and GPS, camp stove and folding table.

 

I had used the Airnav web site to find an airport a few hours along our route that had a nearby motel with shuttle service. Found said airport in the form of Orzark Regional Airport near Mountain Home, Arkansas. Nice airport. Expensive gas.
  

The Comfort Inn manager, Rick, picked us up at the airport and drove us into town. On the way we learned that Mountain Home is an island in a sea of lakes (we had noticed that on the descent) and that the majority of residents are transplanted Chicagoans!

Spent a comfortable evening walking to dinner (Chinese buffet) and the supermarket, by way of the local coffee house. We arranged for Rick to take us back out to the airport the next morning, used their wireless Internet to check the weather forecast and thus reassured, hit the sack.

 

We greeted the morning sun from 7,500 feet and 170 KTAS, Northeast bound. Ground speed, 195 KTS riding a hellacious southern wind! YeHaawww! Times like this you just savor, cause they’re few and far between.

 

The destination on this Wednesday was to be Frasca Field (C16) in Champaign, Illinois. Our route up was a little different this year from last. Hey – we follow the cheep gas! Generally we meandered Northeast above a green carpet of Summer America, with clear blue sky outside, jazzy ambiance inside, and arrived Frasca in time for brunch. The weather had deteriorated close in, and we landed in light rain and low ceilings.

 

Love that RV!

 

We enjoyed a lazy afternoon with Chris, and the girls made a terrific dinner to top off the day. On-line again for more weather checking, reviewed the NOTAM again and checked email, then off to bed. 

 

Sleep? What sleep? Oshkosh tomorrow! While my co-pilot/navigator slept, my mind was reeling with what tomorrow would bring. ATIS 125.9, Approach 120.7, monitor landing freqs as assigned. Pattern 2,300 feet, 135 knots. Hold if necessary at Green Lake at altitude, on speed. On and on and on...

Finally Thursday dawned clear and we waited for the sun to make the 1.5 hour run North to Oshkosh.

 

 Ripon! Fisk!

 

Now there’s a secret handshake if ever there was one. 

“Ever been to Ripon? Fisk? No?” 

Uninitiated.

 

Since we arrived early in the day, the traffic was light. Perversly, holding at Green Lake was in effect as they “shot” the morning departures. Even so it was only three circuits and “Green Lake traffic, come on in”.

 

Ripon, follow the railroad tracks to Fisk. “Blue and White RV make your turn now” and stick over in our best three-gee corner. “Nice turn, RV”.

 

After following the arrival procedure and with a little radio trouble on the part of OSH control we were cleared for landing on 36R.

Now I’m used to formation flying – but we usually brief before the flight. Sliding down final I felt like a member of the Blue Angels. Well, maybe the Thunderbirds, since our landing “formation” was so loose.

 

But land safely we all did. No put-it-down-anywhere-between-the-numbers wheelies here. They say land THERE, and so you perform your best spot landing and plonk it down, full flaps and full stall.

Off the runway and sign on the glareshield, we followed the flaggers to

HomeBuilt Camping and were directed to what was to be our home for the next few days.

 

Parked and tied down, and not yet midday, we decided to see the sights before unloading… and what sights there were to see!

 

Kit left us to catch a shuttle to the Oshkosh Quilt Show. My brother had flown up to Appleton and got the shuttle to Oshkosh, and after a cell call we linked up.

 

Now I could write pages and pages and still not convey Oshkosh! You’ll just have to go and experience it for yourself.

 

Among the highlights were the F-22 demonstrations, rows upon rows of Mustangs, vendor booths in hangars A, B, C and D. There were Very Light Jets and the B-1. The Oshkosh EAA museum and a screening of One Six Right (highly recommended) at the museum. Dick Rutan talking about the Voyager mission, and all the while the air was never still. Something was flying from dawn to dusk, and beyond.

 

It was a kaleidoscope of aviation and the days passed swiftly until Saturday arrived and our time was up. We were out of quarters.

 

The plan had been to pack and be ready to launch back to Champaign after the air show - but I had been keeping track of when the shows ended and traffic began to depart, and it became clear that we didn’t want to wait that long lest we have a night time recovery. So plans changed to leave just before the air show started.

 

By 9AM Saturday the announcer was chasing everyone back to their planes to verify tie downs as we had a big thunderstorm heading our way with high winds and hail! 

The weather, as they say, was threatening.

 

The FAA Flight Service Station was doing a brisk business when I arrived. It seemed that we would have window of 30 minutes or so after the first storm passed, before the even bigger thunderstorm following it would hit. But you only have to get 50 miles or so South to be clear of it all.

So plans changed yet again, and it was to strike camp and load up!

 

Afterwards, back out to the main drag. The winds did come up but not near what we expected. At the FSS I learned the first cell dissipated and we got only the remnants of wind. But radar showed another cell on the way, bigger and badder.

Time to go!

 

With a bye to brother, pull Tigger into the taxi lane and wait for a flagger. Engine fired, taxi as directed. End of the taxi way, we hear the controller send the RV-8 in front of us onto the runway, left side. “Next RV, position and hold on the right”.

 

While holding, a quick run up. Everything in the green. “RV, cleared for takeoff”.

 

That’s us! 

 

Power up, brakes off - tail up, mains off. Say Good bye, Oshkosh! Right turn to 150 degrees before the crossing runway and maintain 500 feet AGL until clear of Class D airspace. 

 

We’re outta here!

 

 Clear of Class D we climbed to 4,500 as it was pretty smooth there, and chatted our way South to Champaign.

On the ground, a call to Chris (forgotten before we launched from OSH) and rendezvous.

Another scrumptious meal and check the weather again. Forecast clear to home!

 

Sunday AM. “Good Morning Champaign Approach. Experimental One Four Zero Romeo Victor is off Frasca with India, squawking VFR and passing through one thousand five hundred for eight thousand five direct St. Louis, would like to transit your airspace on course in the climb”.

 

“Experimental Zero Romeo Victor, squawk 1234.”

 

Set

 

“Experimental Zero Romeo Victor radar contact. Continue on course”

 

And so we did... Until...

 

“Taylor traffic, RV One Four Zero Romeo Victor is 4 miles North, inbound for the overhead, 17, Taylor.”

 

“One Four Zero Romeo Victor, the winds are 220 at 10. Welcome back.”

 

And so with a final squeek! and squeek! we were home again.

 

 

If you’re still banging on those rivets, keep it up!

 

 

This truly is,

 

La Dolce Vita!

 

Kit and Mike and Tigger, the RV(C)-6

 

 

 And you know what? It never did rain in Austin!